It was Thursday, June 9, 2016. What a great birthday present for me, Day 1 of the MLB Rule 4 (First Year Player) Draft. Everything I was reading indicated that the Dodgers were leaning towards a HS shortstop as their #1 draft pick. They had two other first rounders that they could spend on college picks (and did: Will Smith and Jordan Sheffield). But the thought of grabbing a HS…
Going into the draft it was thought that the Dodgers were going to pick the best player on their board regardless of position. The Dodgers had enough Bonus Pool money that they could have taken a big HS arm and paid to get them out of their commitment. I thought that Daniel Espino would have been the Dodger selection at #25 if he was available, but the Indians took him…
While the Dodgers have two first round picks and 3 picks in the first 78 selections on Monday, the DBacks can go a long way to re-establish themselves with this draft. The DBacks own seven of the first 75 selections this year: their regular picks in the first (No. 16 overall) and second (No. 56) rounds, a compensation first-rounder (No. 26) for failing to sign 2018 first-rounder Matt McLain, two…
Most teams realize that the best and least cost approach to building a perennial winner is through draft and development. With a little more than 3 weeks before the June Amateur Draft, teams are very busy looking at who the next Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, or Aaron Judge may be. If it were an exact science all three would have been the overall #1 pick and yet they were not….