This is an exciting and nervous week for many high school/college ballplayers, their families and also the thirty Major League franchises. The 2008 amateur draft takes place on Thursday and Friday. The decisions made on those two days (especially the first day) can shape the fortunes of individuals and teams for years to come.
As highlighted in BBfB volume 03, the amateur draft is a very different concept to the way in which youngsters become professionals in British sports. While we are used to players being developed by professional teams from a very young age, in North America the franchises effectively get to sit back and then cherry pick the best of the talent when they get to eighteen or older.
The NFL and the NBA have turned their player drafts into massive TV events, helped by the fact that the draftees reach the ‘major league’ team much quicker in those sports than they do in baseball. Up until last year, MLB’s version was a relatively anonymous tele-conference, best depicted in Moneyball. In 2007, MLB decided to get on the bandwagon and turn their draft into an event, with ESPN more than happy to set the hype machine to overdrive. It was a fairly modest start, with an arena that had the atmosphere of an aircraft hanger and more than a few ropey interviews, but it was a promising first attempt and the hopes are that this year’s event will be much improved.
All baseball fans can watch the early rounds of the draft for free, live on MLB.com. The first round is scheduled to start at 19.00 BST on Thursday, with the Rays having the number one pick once again. Last year it was almost a foregone conclusion that they would select Vanderbilt pitcher David Price. This year, the prospect professors are much less certain on the way the Rays will go. Most seem to think it will be a choice between Buster Posey (a college catcher who has an excellent chance of being a good Major Leaguer) or Tim Beckham (a high school shortstop with a possible chance of being a star), but other names may come into contention.
After the first couple of rounds, it’s only the most-dedicated prospect followers who continue to take much of an interest. Still, Mike Piazza’s recent retirement is a good reminder that there may be a gem or two among the players who get drafted a long way down the order: Piazza was drafted in the 62nd round in 1988, with 1,026 players being picked ahead of the future Hall of Famer.
On top of broadcasting the draft for free, MLB.com does an excellent job in providing a whole range of articles about the event, as well as other resources such as their ‘draft tracker’. If you haven’t done so already, I recommend spending some time looking through the content on the MLB 2008 draft section, particularly the half-hour draft preview show.
Thursday will mark a first for BaseballGB as I will be writing about the draft live as it happens (probably just for the first round). I think the best way to approach it will be to start a single post and then to edit it every five minutes or so, rather than create multiple posts or comments. We’ll give it a bash and see how it goes. I’ve been doing a bit of research on possible first round selections, but I can’t claim to have any insider knowledge on the players. What I can offer is some unique, irreverent (or irrelevant, depending on your point of view) observations on the ‘action’ as it unfolds and a willingness to make endless jokes at Bud Selig’s expense. No doubt Mr Charisma will be on hand once again to announce each of the picks, seeing as he made such a great job of it last year.
Whether you have a considerable interest in prospects or you are just bothered about the guys your team picks, there’s plenty of pre and post-draft coverage out there for you to enjoy. The suspense is starting to build and it should be fascinating to see how it pans out.
