Different people have different definitions of what constitutes a great athlete.

It’s easy to call Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt a great athlete because they are so dominant in what they do—swimming and running fast, respectively. But ask them to catch, throw or hit a baseball, or have Phelps play water polo or Bolt run the mile, and you might find that their athleticism, as incredible as it may seem, is actually very narrow-based.

The NBA likes to label its players as the greatest athletes in any sport. Given the size, strength, speed, balance and grace many of them display, that’s hard to argue with as a generalization. The best players, like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard and Dwyane Wade, do unbelievable things on the basketball court and could probably do similar things in other sports if their relative size allowed him.

Just don’t ask them to hit a baseball . . . talk to Michael Jordan about that.

For baseball purposes, I relate athleticism to either being able to do a lot of different things on the baseball field or being highly-skilled at multiple sports. Albert Pujols is the best hitter in baseball right now, but he does only one thing extremely well—just as Phelps or Bolt do—and outside of that single thing is not especially athletic. The same principle can be applied to San Diego State pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg.

On the other hand, Justin Upton is a great athlete, Josh Hamilton (re-incarnated) is a great athlete. They can hit a baseball 500-plus feet, throw it in the mid-90s, run well-above average, play a premium defensive position, etc.—something most players struggle to do in even one of those area.

This year’s draft class has a great variety of different athletes that stand out. By my definition of an athlete, here are 10 that are a cut above the rest.

1. Donavan Tate, of Cartersville (Ga.) HS
Tate is so athletic that the University of Southern California recruited him for football as an “athlete”, and teams don’t know whether he’s a safety, wide receiver or quarterback. Size, speed, strength, hitting ability, throwing ability—it all seems to be there.

2. Billy Hamilton, ss, Taylorsville (Miss.) HS
Hamilton oozes so much athletic ability that baseball might actually be his third-best sport. He committed to Mississippi State to play football (wide receiver) and his quickness on the basketball court, where he averaged 35 ppg as a senior, has been compared to Allen Iverson’s.

3. David Renfroe, ss-rhp, South Panola HS, Batesville, Miss.
Renfroe is the 2009 version of 2008 Boston Red Sox first-round pick Casey Kelly. He could go and play quarterback at Ole Miss or become no worse than a second-round pick as either a pitcher or shortstop. The indication is he wants to play shortstop—and wants lots of money to pass on college.

4. Jared Mitchell, of, Louisiana State
Scouts have been waiting for Mitchell to concentrate on baseball only for years instead of moonlighting as a ball player during LSU football season. Comparisons to Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Carl Crawford are common, and Crawford may be the best athlete in the big leagues. On the subject of football, if only the University of Washington’s multi-skilled QB Jake Locker would give baseball a shot, his place atop this list would be secure.

5. Eric Arnett, rhp, Indiana University
The 6-foot-5 Arnett, who turned down college-football offers to play tight end out of high school, worked out with the short-handed IU basketball team for 2-½ months this winter.

6. Jiovanni Mier, ss, Bonita HS, Pomona, Calif.
Mier is the best high-school player defensively at the most athletically-demanding position: Shortstop. He was also a D-I level defensive back before giving up that sport, but most impressively, is a very high-level soccer player, a rarity for a baseball prospect.

7. Jacob Stewart, of, Rocky Mountain HS, Fort Collins, Colo.
Stewart might rank higher on this list if he had consistently shown more hitting ability on the baseball field, but then hitting might be the most difficult skill to master in the sporting universe. Stewart is a D-I caliber football and basketball player, and gets bonus points for also being a Stanford-quality student.

8. Brooks Raley, lhp-of, Texas A&M
There are lots of outstanding two-way players in this year’s draft pool, but none have the variety of athletic tools that Raley has. There should be a separate athletic category for “80” speed and command of a 90-plus mph fastball. It would be a very short list.

9. Tanner Poppe, rhp, Girard (Kan.) HS
Poppe’s athletic resume looks like a copy of Eric Arnett’s (No. 5 above) at the same stage: mid D-I football tight end, accomplished basketball player and 6-foot-5 power righthander. He might not get the same basketball opportunity at Kansas, though.

10. Slade Heathcott, of-lhp, Texas HS, Texarkana, Texas
Heathcott’s football mentality on the baseball field (not surprisingly, he’s a high-level football player) endangers his long-term baseball health, but his raw tools flash above-average in all categories—both as an outfielder and pitcher.