With CWS shutout, Kade Anderson looks too big-league to pass up

The LSU Tigers took Game 1 of the Men's College World Series in thrilling fashion, beating red-hot Coastal Carolina 1-0 behind a three-hit, 130-pitch shutout from No. 1 starter Kade Anderson. The lefty was is complete command of his stuff all afternoon.

This was a statement game for Anderson, whose MLB Draft stock has risen steadily throughout the tournament. He is what every pro team wants in a starting pitcher — a durable, hard-throwing lefty with a robust arsenal and impeccable command. At 20 years old, Anderson feels like a guy who could be pitching in the majors in the not so distant future.

Anderson was already considered the best pitcher in college baseball prior to the CWS. Now he's doubling and tripling down on those assertions with a strong performance under the brightest lights.

For a while, it has felt like Ethan Holliday, a shortstop from Stillwater High School in Oklahoma, was a set-and-forget No. 1 pick. His dad, Matt Holliday, is an MLB legend. His older brother, Jackson, was pick 1.1 a few short years ago. It runs in the family.

Anderson is threatening to wreck those projections, however.

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A dominant CWS shutout has LSU's Kade Anderson in the No. 1 pick conversation

The Washington Nationals currently own the No. 1 overall pick. The Los Angeles Angels sit at No. 2. It does not feel like Anderson will drop any further.

While he will never come close to 130 pitches in a big-league game (one can hope), Anderson's ability to stack innings and maintain elite command through a long outing is utterly impressive. Coastal Carolina's offense has blitzed teams all tournament long, with a projected first-round pick of their own in catcher Caden Bodine.

Several factors influence a team's draft decision. But the escalating importance of quality pitching cannot be ignored. While there is ostensibly more value in a dominant, two-way position player, Ethan Holliday is much further away from his MLB debut — and saddled with far more questions surrounding the development of his skill set. Anderson aligns more closely to fellow LSU product Paul Skenes, a battle-tested college star with the goods to pitch in MLB not long after the draft.

Elite pitchers are consistently generating bigger and bigger paydays in free agency. Even more valuable is a high-level lefty. Anderson can nix left-handed and right-handed hitters alike, but there is a much greater volume of standout righties in the MLB pitching ranks right now. There always is. To balance out a pitching staff with an ace-level southpaw is any GM's dream.

For what it's worth, ESPN's Kiley McDaniel predicted Anderson to Washington with the No. 1 pick on Wednesday. This performance only strengthens his case.

"The conversation around who will go No. 1 continues to be wide open and will be until draft day, but Anderson's strong finish to the season has him looking like the slight favorite over Ethan Holliday as the top pick," McDaniel writes. "Seth Hernandez and Eli Willits are also getting looks here, and I'm sure there are internal conversations about a couple of other options, but Anderson and Holliday are seen as the most likely selections."

Holliday will continue to get looks at the top of draft boards and generate buzz due to his name, but Anderson has made a strong impression on the MLB scouting community. If the Nats, a team looking for long-term rotation depth behind Mackenzie Gore, view him as a franchise-defining ace on a short developmental timeline, then don't be shocked if Anderson hears his name called No. 1 in a few weeks.