The 2007 Major League Baseball (MLB) Draft: The REAL DEAL Why check out MLN's semi-live coverage of the draft, when there are a billlion outlets on the web doing it? Our unique point of view and HONESTY about the real deal on the draft is going to be refreshing, and perhaps a bit shocking.
Welcome back to semi-live coverage of the MLB Draft. Major League Baseball's marketing pushme-pullu, a two headed guy that wants more coverage but wants total control, got a little of both in day one of this draft system that is beginning to change its hide-bound ways.
This is the first draft in history that was televised, albeit breifly. ESPN, which can ooh and aah over the football draft for a week, then give it eight solid hours of coverage, generously gave about four hours of ESPN-2 time to MLB. To their credit, they brought in their one big gun "expert" Peter Gammons, and dragged in enough BA and Scouting Inc guys to make the coverage interesting. The only problem was that no one really explained the mystic nature of the draft and its relationship to baseball well at all, because most of them are so monovisioned on MLB that they fail to see the rather large minor league forest for the few major league trees that it fells.
“The minor leagues are the true beneficiaries of the draft, because 98% of the talent pool selected will play before our audiences, which, by the way ol' Pete, are continuing to grow by the millions.”
The MLB draft finds a few of the people who will make it to the major leagues in rounds one through five, but do not let them fool you! Their claim that most of the players who make it to the majors are rounds 1-5 picks is sheer nonsense. Many picks from those rounds can make it, but just as many come from the lower depth picks that will happen today, or more importantly, from outside the draft.
Many, many players are signed as free agents. If you play outside of Puerto Rico or Canada, you aren't included in the draft. If you played at some school that isn't on the darlings list and got missed by scouts, which happens, you won't show up here either. This is anything but a perfect system.
Had you been around yesterday afternoon watching, another bit of ol' Pete Gammons dead reckoning was also wrong: It doesn't take years to see these deals play out. We see them every day (See: The Minor League Draft, below). The minor leagues are the true beneficiaries of the draft, because 98% of the talent pool selected will play before our audiences, which, by the way ol' Pete, are continuing to grow by the millions.
NO SCHOOL ENDS OLD SCHOOL
Last year the amateur draft came to aan end when the number one pick, Scott Boras client Luke Hochevar, was revealed to not be exactly, well, an an amateur.
When the subject of "School" came up on the list, he was identified as "No School."
MLN had Hochevar data stretching back into the prior season with the Fort Worth Cats of the American Association (I). Luke was a pro player.
Now, you could wonder about how MLB lets a guy who is a paid professional back into the amateur draft.
“We were the first publication to report Hochevar's real background, and give you the full story that MLB and MLB.com didn't for more than a day. MLN Sports Zone was also the only publication in all of sports to call the 2006 player pick what it was: The end of the true amateur draft system launched in 1965.”
Boras, who may be the true owner of Major League Baseball, because he effectively owns the spines of the execs and owners of MLB, was able to get the Commish, who doubles as one of those roadside novelties that flops around on an air compressor in front of liquor store openings, to let Hochevar back in with his "amateur" standing. Apparently the independent professional leagues, which MLB has always hissed at in a muffled way from its head in the hole-in-the-ground, don't really exist.
This year, their solution is easier: Drop the pretense of the "amateur" in the draft. Baseball press releases refer to it only as "the draft." It's a step forward, but not enough.
REALITY TV
While the TV coverage is nice, changing the draft to reflect the realities of acquiring players in baseball might be more interesting, and a bigger draw.
Why not include the international players from Asia, the Domincan Republic, Venezuela, and Australia, usually signed on the side as free agents?
Tradition dictates that they don't exist either, Dice-K, except for the fact that, Ichiro, they stock about 40-60% of the top major league players, Big Papi and many of the, Sammy Sosa, big names in the game.
MLB already has scouts moving all over the globe looking for players and rooms full of guys with computers. ESPN-2 said so. You can't add an extra few chairs for the international guys?
“With a more realistic player pool from the perspective of the major leagues, MLB's day two of the draft might actually still factor a few names with major league career potential, keeping those TV eyeballs on MLB's real future.”
If Yao Ming can cause a big stir holding up a Jersey, what would a Dice-K holding up a $112 million dollar jersey do for the rest of the draft? ESPN respects big money, and the draft would be big money if the big money people were in it. Hochevar proved that there is no longer an amatuer draft, so why not take players who can pump up the game's image and make the draft REAL TV.
With a more realistic player pool from the perspective of the major leagues, MLB's day two of the draft might actually still factor a few names with major league career potential, generating excitement for MLB's real future.
The Minor League Draft
For us, the good news is that day two is the acquisition of players for the minor leagues. These guys will largely be the hometown heroes that fill your ballparks and bring a big, stinkin' smile to your kid's cotton-candy-stained puss.
“If you follow the minors, the draft picks make total sense.”
This was another major moment missed by the ESPN "experts." They poo-pooed the draft, because it is hard to see where some of these picks that are being made will benefit the club. This is true only when you look at the major league roster, and not the depth chart as a whole.
Many of the picks in day one, and a whole bunch more today, are shoring up the entire farm system. The last few years there has been a drought of quality catchers in the system. During day one, they plopped into the draft like rain after a long dry spring.
If you follow the minors, the draft picks make total sense.
The Padres had sixteen picks on day one. They are rebuilding their farm and need lots of new talent to stock it with. That's great news for fans from Lake Elsinore to Portland. Likewise, every other major league club is looking at the totality of their farm system when they make picks, to try to improve overall competition and keep the system operating at a high enough level to push the few picks that will make it through both development and the green cap which blocks their way to the majors.
Final Notes - Who Left, Who You Should Have Seen More Of...
The Toronto Blue Jays were the first to call it a day in the 31st round. Not terribly surprising as their farm system has decent stock at the lower levels. The Padres packed up their frocks in the 36th round, which also makes sense given that heavy, bloated feeling they had from gorging on sandwich picks in the COMP round. The Dodgers and Mets called it quits in the 40th round. The Astros and Tigers left the pack in round 45. The Red Sox were Beantown bound at 47th, and the Brewers made it to the keg near closing time, at the 48th round.
This is still a vastly flawed system. African American picks were there, but not in the numbers that they have been in past decades, when the game held more interest. When you have a bunch of very WHITE guys in suits ranging from about 12 to the Ancient Commentator, Pete G., asking Dave Winfield if he would choose baseball if he had it to do all over again, you know we have reached an embarrassing level of "bleaching" in this game.
There still seems to be a lack of interest in scouting players from heavily populated Asian communities, and a general lack of interest by MLB in bringing many of the newer waves of immigrants from India, Pakistan and Southeast Asia into a love of the Game.
Draft picks also showed a penchant to drop by the same baseball powerhouse schools from year to year, although some organizations, notably the Marlins, Cardinals and Dodgers, showed good evidence that they can take the road less traveled.
The Padres and Rangers reached out to a lot of home grown talent in their markets, which is easy to do since both are in baseball Meccas.
The Devil Rays, who had the cat-bird's seat all day, showed once again that they are great at picking talent. The bigger question for them is what they will do with it. The last few years have been very tough at their farm system, as their player development people have been watching the arms, the radar gun, and the stopwatch, but missing the soul and the character. That has lead to big slow downs in the roll out of a ball club that, with talents like Young and Upton, should have been doing much better at the major league level with them than they have.
On the other side of that coin are the Twins, who continue to find great, often hidden gem prospects with character that fit both their skills and their clubhouse needs, and provide the right mix of dynamic competition to keep producing top talent all the way down the line in the farm system.
Particularly for a system apt to complain that there isn't enough good talent out there, the demographics of the group appearing today suggest that perhaps manpower, preference, custom and a bit of predjudice might have more to do with missing a few faces who will inevitably find their way into the system either as free agents, or when schools with needs pull them into programs where the scouts and their clipboards tread.
While the Civil Rights game was a great idea, baseball could spend a lot more money in parts of California like Compton, metro New Jersey, uptown Manhattan, and St. Louis to get more of the next generation of very talented athletes to rediscover baseball as an option for their future.
