Wes Mendes made dramatic strides from his freshman season at Ole Miss to his junior year at FSU.

After he was the ACC’s pitcher of the year in 2026, Mendes was expected to be one of the top players in the MLB draft. The Houston Astros picked him in the second round on Saturday.

“Really exciting combination of strikes, fastball and changeup quality, execution to both sides and he really took a step forward this year,” Astros amateur scouting director Cam Pendino told the team’s beat writers this weekend. “From the left side, we think he’s got a chance to be a rotation piece. We think he’s going to move relatively quickly.”

Mendes has a five-pitch mix — a change-up that is viewed as his best pitch to go with a fastball, curveball, slider and cutter — that helped him turn into a consistently effective starter that pitched deep into games for FSU in 2026.

Mendes went 9-3 with a 2.81 ERA and an impressive 1.02 WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched). Mendes had a 5-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio (125 to 25) in 93 innings. His ERA dropped from 6.82 as a freshman at Ole Miss to 5.54 as a sophomore at FSU before his breakout season.

Myles Bailey was also viewed highly by the Cubs, who selected the FSU first baseman in the compensation round (75th overall).

“It’s hard to find someone with top-of-the-scale power," Cubs vice president of scouting Dan Kantrovitz told beat writers. "Truly, it’s some elite raw power that Myles possesses.”

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