Say Hello to the MLB Amateur Draft

Five minutes per pick, thirty first round picks, thirty sandwich picks, and only another forty nine rounds to go.

The MLB Draft is the least popular amateur draft of the four major sports. Now, it is finally getting television coverage. ESPN2 on June 7th will air coverage of the draft from 2 PM EST to 6 PM EST. Each first round pick will be televised, and likely some of the sandwich picks.

In light of this television deal, and considering the lack of knowledge about the rapidly-approaching draft, I feel that most fans should at least be clued in a little as to some of the nuances of the draft itself, and its history. After all, many of us have probably never looked into the draft before due to the fact that so few players make it from each draft, it takes several years for a player to develop, and so many other reasons.

The Early Years
The draft was first held in 1965. The picks went in reverse order of the previous season's standings, and the leagues alternating for each pick. There were three drafts: one for high school graduates and college seniors who finished by June, one in August for summer league players, and one for high school and college graduates in the winter. By 1986, the only draft that remained was the June (and largest) draft. No trading of draft picks is permitted.

High School and "Signability"
High school players would make up the majority of early selections, and would soon develop into the draftees with power. The most notable cases of this were pitchers Todd Van Poppel and Brien Taylor, who demanded large contracts out of high school while threatening to attend college if the teams (Oakland and the New York Yankees, respectively) would not comply. This was a strong contributor to the recent belief that a player has "signability," or a value that represents how much money he is likely to command. The Montreal Expos, when under control of Major League Baseball, would only draft players they could sign cheaply. In this year's draft, North Carolina State University's Andrew Brackman could suffer a fall due to his signability issues.

Eligibility
The current draft eligibility rules state that a player must be:
a) From the United States, Canada, or a U.S. territory
b) Never been signed to a major league or minor league contract
c) Collegiate players are eligible after turning 21, or after their junior year
d) High school players are only eligible after graduation, and can not have attended college

Compensation
While the NFL practices something similar to compensatory picks, they are not done on nearly as high a level as Major League Baseball. As demonstrated by cases such as Alfonso Soriano, Julio Lugo, and Roberto Hernandez in this past off-season, teams are awarded compensatory picks for losing players deemed to be of a certain type (based on performance) to free agency. Additionally, a team who drafts a player in the first or second round but fails to sign him will receive a sandwich pick in the next draft.

The MLB Draft will end when the final selection of the 50th round has been made, or when each team has passed at least once. Passing on a pick - who would ever think that would be a mainstay of a major sport's draft? Due to the short times involved in making a draft selection, which before this year's draft was two minutes, teams are given the option to defer and not select a player that round.

The only mid-season draft, the only draft to have not been televised, and a draft that utilizes video conferencing to make picks. This year, the MLB draft finally gets high publicity and attempts to legitimize itself. I have never paid attention to the draft before, and I probably never will, but finally all of the prospect-junkies gain access to the inner workings of the draft.