Yankees fans confused as to whether Keith Law's Dax Kilby take is praise or a diss

The New York Yankees' selection of Dax Kilby with their top pick in last year's MLB draft drew some criticism. Various draft experts liked the player, but not enough to see the Yankees take a gamble on a high school shortstop with the 39th pick.

It only took 18 pro games for the youngster to make the talking heads eat crow. Kilby racked up just 81 plate appearances in Single-A Tampa, but his best trait  — contact  — was on full display, as he posted a .353/.457/.441 line. So much for being disappointed about missing out on Riley Quick.

Now, with prospect lists updating as we hurdle towards spring, the 19-year-old has taken the baseball world by storm. MLB Pipeline pegged him at No. 94 on their updated list. Baseball America, which had Kilby as the 75th-best prospect in his draft class, now calls him the 61st-best prospect in the sport.

The Athletic's prospect guru, Keith Law, also dropped his updated Top-100, but the hotshot Baby Bomber was conspicuously absent.

Keith Law's analysis of Yankees prospect Dax Kilby sure sounds like a top-100 player, even though the youngster didn't make his list

Law has sometimes drawn the ire of fans, thanks to his contrarian takes. While there's no universal agreement between evaluators, top outlets like MLB Pipeline and Baseball America usually see things similarly. Law, at times, can have wildly different evaluations.

So when Law published a piece about the prospects that just missed the cut for his top-100 group, his write-up on Kilby was eye-catching. With most of the prospects, Law praised their strengths while highlighting the weaknesses that caused him to exclude them from the very top. That wasn't the case with the young Yankee shortstop, however.

Law gushed over Kilby's skills and put what could be easily dismissed as small-sample-size noise into the appropriate context.

"The Georgia high school shortstop went to Low A for 18 games and hit .353/.457/.441 in his pro debut, walking more than he struck out. That’s high school to full-season ball in about 90 days, going from metal bats to wood, Georgia prep pitchers to professionals, and Kilby didn’t miss a beat," Law wrote.

That should give you some idea of just how impressive Kilby's debut was. It was a massive leap in competition. But not only that, the underlying tools were on display. Law noted Kilby's performance was no fluke due to stellar exit velocities, coming in at 91.9 miles per hour on average, and reaching a maximum of 108.9.

It wasn't just the hit tool that turned heads, either. Kilby also displayed some exceptional plate discipline. He walked 16% of the time in Tampa against just a 13.6% strikeout rate. This wasn't a case of a guy swinging at everything and just happening to put the ball in play. Now, this was a mature approach that allowed the youngster to spit on tough pitches, drive the mistakes hard, and take walks when necessary.

That led Law to come up with an out-of-this-world comparison, "...while his chase rate of 11.1 percent was … well, Juan Soto had the lowest chase rate in the majors last year, and his was 18.1 percent. Kilby saw 106 pitches that were well out of the zone, meaning they were more than one baseball width away from the strike zone, and swung at seven."

A Juan Soto comp for a guy with 18 pro games under his belt is something. Why isn't he a top-100 guy in Law's mind, then?

He'd also note that he might have been wrong in his initial analysis of Kilby's power, commenting that his short, quick stroke appeared to generate more pop than he thought it would at this point.

The only two nits he really picked were Kilby's average-ish speed and questionable arm strength. Law ended his analysis with the following nugget:

"If this small pro sample is any indication, he can play any position he likes and still be an above-average big leaguer. (He’s prospect No. 101 this year, by the way.)"

Pretty great way to smooth out those little criticisms, huh? Tough to tell if leaving him off the top-100 was truly a diss. Law seems in love with the player (as is everyone else) and from the looks of it, Kilby juuuust missed the cut. Expect him to find his way in there by mid-season.