The Coronavirus pandemic has thrown professional sports into a state of chaos, with baseball in a particularly uncertain position given that its regular season hasn’t even started. But while much of the focus has been on when the season will start, that’s far from the only issue with which the league and players’ union are wrestling. The June draft, for instance, represents an extremely difficult challenge. High school and college seasons have both been halted, leaving clubs without any opportunities to scout this year’s crop of players.
To that end, Ronald Blum of the Associated Press reports that the league and the union have discussed canceling the draft entirely. Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic also report that possibility is under consideration, adding that a combined 2020-21 draft class has been discussed.
Of course, the myriad logistical problems associated with that scenario are rather apparent. College seniors, in particular, would be left out to dry. College juniors could simply stay for their senior year, but returning for a fourth season would be a double-edged sword; currently projected top picks would face the risk of tanking their stock with an injury or poor showing, while mid- and lower-round picks could have a chance to substantially elevate their stock.
Similarly, high school seniors would be left in a state of limbo. The league and union could alter the draft eligibility guidelines that currently don’t allow college freshmen to be selected, but that creates complications for and pushback from the NCAA. As Baseball America’s Carlos Colazzo points out, the level of competition for playing time among freshmen would skyrocket if the year’s entire prep class were to advance to collegiate ball. That, too, could complicate matters from a scouting perspective.
Collazo spoke with multiple scouting directors throughout the league, with one AL director opining that keeping the draft in place as presently constructed is the best solution. The director noted that “you’re going to have to worry about scouting the PDP League and the 2021 (class). Those are hugely important events while you’re also simultaneously preparing for the draft. Your scouts are going to be pulled in different directions.”
Clubs have been scouting both this year’s high school and college players for years already. And while the lack of a spring season doesn’t give those teams the most recent looks to evaluate the class, it avoids many of the logistical difficulties that come with postponing or canceling the 2020 draft. Certainly, evaluating high school students would be of particular difficulty, given that they’re earlier on in their development (both from a baseball and purely physical standpoint).
Collazo rightly notes that leaving the draft in place only impacts the current draft, whereas pushing back to a combined 2020-21 setting throws a wrench into multiple draft classes. A delay may well happen, though, with one agent telling Collazo it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the draft “moved back a little bit, or moved back as appropriate and they do try and get the college kids back to their campuses in May or June. Kind of ramp back up under those facilities. You do some regional type workouts at the big universities, all the area guys come in.” However, the agent admitted that’s far from a perfect scenario, wondering: “Who pays for it? When is it? What does the NCAA allow? You have all these things kind of stacking up.”
Holding the draft on schedule would seem to be the ideal outcome for baseball. Unfortunately, though, no one knows whether that will prove to be realistic with COVID-19 wreaking havoc across the globe.
It’s all a craps game anyway. Roll the dice and take a chance with 1 year less results in. It’s a lot more than they have been able to see in most cases of most IFA guys, who in some cases get more money and are far younger, as in 16YO kids and spent younger than that years being trained by buscoes
I see nothing wrong with having the Rule 4 draft with no games played in northern schools and few in the south.
Agreed. This year only do away with the draft and make all free agents. Give teams bonus budgets based on last year’ records, adjust for penalties and that’s it. Forget televising a draft as this is not football or basketball. The draft while it’s important to the young trying to make it has to take a back seat in the world we’re in.
Just do a conference call. This virus doesn’t require rocket science..
I hope they don’t do a combined 2020-21 draft. I’d rather just see a delayed draft this year. I know teams won’t get as long of a look at the players, but everyone’s in the same boat. I don’t think any team would be particularly disadvantaged over any other. Oh, and DAMN THE CORONAVIRUS TO HELL!!!
Give players the right to go free agency as mentioned above but also give every player the right to negotiate or return for another year . NCAA does its part by for one year only, give teams the same number of scholarships as they would have lost had the players signed. It will create imbalances between schools but again it’s just for one year.
This break in the sport is a great opportunity for MLBTR to brush up on prospects and incorporate that into the daily articles. Prospect scouting has never been a major facet of this site but perhaps this world event is now an opportunity to make it one.
I second this desire for prospect scouting related content on this site. I think MLBTR has done a good job in shifting their coverage back to an offseason type coverage of the sport
I third this, I like people to know the future of the sport. I actually like looking back at the early 2010’s top 100 prospects and just seeing who worked out and who didn’t. And the prospects who were low in the top 100 and turned out being superstars. It’d be interesting to see an MLBTR series showing promising prospects from all 30 teams that aren’t in the top 100 that people should know.
I’ve been watching a lot of Longhorns baseball this season, and there is a freshman this season named Pete Hanson. He’s a 6’2 lefty and he’s a baller, expect that dude in the top prospect rankings in 3 or 4 years. Remember the name.
BTW I’m wanting to see how fast I’m pitching now, do any of y’all happen to know where you can either get a good radar gun, or where I can get gunned at?
If you’re throwing hard enough, the radar guns will just show up. Trust me
Best answer to that question!
Combining drafts would be a nightmare And screw over kids in multiple draft classes. That’s gotta be worst case scenario
Imo, best idea is move draft to after the mlb season. Hopefully they get to play some ball before next Dec/Jan.
i absolutely abhor this idea. anyone eligible to be drafted this year is disadvantaged by this move. even college players that might want to play another year can still use the extra year of eligibility if they so desire. again, what do guys like Hancock and Torkelson have to gain from something like this? even if they are great next year they will still both be a year older.
I tend to agree. Let’s consider the risks of holding the draft at the normal date.
Obviously everything would have to be done at a distance, online. That seems doable. Shouldn’t be any additional risk of spreading the virus.
The risk is that a team is forced to commit to players that they may not know enough about at this point, relying more on statistics than scouts on the field. Some players may get drafted higher than they would have, had they been scouted thoroughly. Some players who would benefit from the scouting may slip in the draft.
Both you (DarkSide830) and the author of the article did a good job of going over the effect that delaying the draft may have on the players.
IMO the downsides in going through with the draft are far fewer and smaller than those associated with delaying it.
Unbelievable this is the worse decision MLB could make!
…no decision has been made…
Not deciding is a decision.
Junior colleges will have more talent next year than they have had in a long time. All the seniors who rise up 10 rounds in normal years won’t have a chance to rise. Scouts won’t trust a good showcase or tournament to change a tenth round initial grade into a first rounder
Move the draft to August and have a Fall “Rookie” League at Spring Training sites in Arizona and Florida.
Think problem with that would be paying for a supposed group of teams. Wouldn’t be fan supported, FSL Class A teams don’t even draw, many just several hundred per game on non free nights. GCL league games are free and I attend GCL Tigers games here in Lakeland and it’s never more than 5-6 people, sometimes just my wife and myself at those games and they are always freebies, for all GCL sites I know of and have attended.. Tampa, Lakeland, Ft Myers, Sarasota and 1-2 other places.
There is also IMG academy which plays here and they do have tournaments.. Have seen them at Ft Myers before with players from all over.. Forget name of them for HS talent to play in and showcase themselves.
I had not realized the GCL drew so few fans–at times in the single digits–though I suppose that makes sense.
If baseball is back on by late June, MLB could subsidize the basic operating costs of hosting several day games per week at a dozen or more A, AA, and/or AAA ballparks in advance of a Fall 2020 draft.
probably several reasons why attendance at GCL games is so bad.
All games, except Saturday start at 12 noon and those are at 11AM. Games are not played in MLB team’s ST stadium, but rather at the MiLB complex on a back field.
Each GCL team pretty much rotates back and forth within it’s own local area teams. In other words.. Being in Lakeland, will see Tampa, Sarasota etc.. a lot and rarely (unless playoffs) anyone in the south, unless drive down.
Most all the kids are 1st year players only the most hardcore of fans “might” have heard of.
Litany of reasons, most of which to me is you never see anything in local news regarding these kids, or league.
They could, but its an added expense that means little after the First couple rounds. Not worth the overall cost. Just draft and keep life moving.
If one or more of these prospects missed a full year because of injury, the scouts would still rank them and teams would still draft them, even without that most recent year of info.
Just multiply that times every player in the draft.
Hold it on time, as a conference call and scrap the MLB Network studio aspect. Only reasonable solution.
One player is an educated guess. The entire draft class is picking needles in a haystack
Move the draft to mid/late July. Hold regional combines. Focus on summer leagues. If everyone’s in the same boat, those who adjust and adapt will do fine. Those who don’t, won’t. It’s the same thing as every draft.
Let’s worry about the virus and everyone else health 1st…As for the teams and their cheap labor, I say let the entire draft class become free agents and sign with whomever values their talents and is willing to pay accordingly.
I guess throwing the 2019 season for teams like BAL, DET, MIA, KC, PIT is all for naught. Though I wouldn’t disagree with this, seems like it would be another case of the rich getting richer than a fair distribution of wealth. On the other hand, my team (UGA) has one of the #1 overall favorites in Emmerson Hancock and I’d love not to see his talents wasted in BAL, PIT.
@ACK
LOL!!!!!
An interesting silver lining is it finally gives sports leagues a real platform to implement real (or experimental) change to their schedules. I know they were going to have part of it in Omaha this year, but I’ve always felt MLB severely dropped the ball with generating interest in their drafts compared to the multi-day events the NFL and NBA hosts on a yearly basis.
I know some of that has to do with when the college season ends, but there has to be a much more fan-and-media engaging ways than hosting it in their own television studios with a few players and no fans each year.
People who watch College basketball and Football know the names of the players before they are drafted. Not so with Collegiate baseball players, with few exceptions. The games are not broadcast at the same level.
Lack of enough freshman collegiate “playing time” to go around for all is ridiculously overblown. The number of highschool seniors who are drafted and signed is about 200. That number can surely be absorbed over the 1,500+ collegiate baseball programs.
And if MLB really wanted to do so, they could invite whom they believe are the best 200 or so highschool seniors to private team workouts and have a draft based on that rather than what looks to be a canceled highschool season. They’d obviously miss some guys who would have blossomed their senior year of HS, but that’s not the worst thing in the world.
how can they practice social distancing and play in showcases?
I didn’t mean all 200 players at once. I meant one player at a time. A pitching machine, maybe a catcher, a couple of scouts. The few people involved, are tested before hand. Clearly not all 200 players would be seen by all 30 teams in person, though they could if it were videotaped and shared.
I’d be extremely rough grading, but better than blind grading.
Keep in mind this would be a last ditch effort to still hold some kind of draft. I personally would cancel it all together if no HS/College ball is played this year.
To maintain social distancing. ban the shift.
The problem with your theory is, its only 300 schools at the D1 level. and that’s where most of the scouting is. D1 schools can only have 35 players and the NCAA is giving seniors an extra year of eligibility because of the lost season. so there will be maybe 3-4 open roster slots per team and that will lead to players of all classes being pushed out of programs and forced to D2/3 or Jucos
Loads of players will be screwed bad if there is no draft.
and there is not really a need for private workouts or pre draft combines. The kids that will be drafted have already been on the radar of the MLB for at least year to 2 by this point already. Scouts pay attention to the underclassmen when they scout the previous year’s HS seniors.
Isn’t the NCAA expected to award an extra year of eligibility to spring sport athletes? That would allow current seniors to return to college next year (if they choose), so they wouldn’t necessarily be in limbo.
Yes, the NCAA has already announced that all spring sports athletes will be given another year of eligibility. You are correct that they can simply return to college and not be left out in the cold
It still hoses the seniors, though. They’d be drafted at 23 instead of 22, meaning many wouldn’t reach the majors until they’re 25 or 26 and delaying their first foray into FA until their early 30s. For some of the better ones, that loss of a year could be worth millions.
Most of the current seniors will graduate. For them to return for an extra year it would require them to be accepted into a graduate program, which is hardly a given.
Having a bunch of seniors return to college for another year would clog things up for incoming freshman…
Would a draft held as scheduled with a onetime move back to the old draft-and-follow, extended post-draft signing period represent a better or worse solution than canceling the 2020 draft all together?
The draft needs to happen this year. It creates too many bizarre hurdles later.
One solution would be to have a two week combine in Florida or Arizona. Bring in the top 300-500 players and have them showcase and play a few scrimmages. It would be a great way to get a good idea of what’s going on.
Have you been living on another planet? You aren’t getting 300 people together anywhere. Lol
Sorry, I meant to mention doing this sometime from August-November.
I think this years draft should happen, but it should be postponed.
You aren’t putting 300 kids in the same room at the same time. If you’ve seen the NFL combines, the kids work alone. Secondly, not all kids need to show up at the same time. If you invite 300 kids over 4 days, it is 75 per day.
I’d pace it out even more. 300 kids over two weeks. That’s 30/day, less if they work weekends. You could really evaluate kids and still practice social distancing.
Why can’t these kids each hold private workouts and upload videos to a centralized MLB database for teams to use to further scout. They could still hold private interviews online as well. Technology is phenomenal. Get the draft going we need sports content!!!
Because doing it via video gives the opportunity for cheating. You can have radar guns show a couple more mph, shave off a fraction of a second on any dash times, or throw on multiple days and send in only the ones where your curveball really moved and ignoring all the times you couldn’t find the strike zone. Same with sending in videos of only your best dash times or those great plays in the outfield or when you crushed a 420-ft HR. Some kids would be honest, but when there’s millions on the line for being drafted top 10 vs top 30, there’d be motivation to game the system.
Having online interviews would work, though.
The one major problem schools have with everyone returning to play is the influx of next year’s incoming freshman crop. Lots of scholarships passed around and a lot of redshirts.
Perhaps use the scheduled All-Star game days for the 2020 MLB draft and push the ASG to the end of July, with the trade deadline pushed to mid-August?
Uh oh. These guys may have to stay in school or get jobs like the rest of us.
Or just have the darn draft. No one really knows that it’s going on anyway.
What would happen to the tigers 1st overall pick if they delay the draft to next year??? That would be total BS if they lost the 1st pick because they cancelled the draft
12 players per team x 30 teams is 360 players x $1,000 for flights & hotel is $360k or $36,000 per team. Plenty affordable. And that creates a 10 round draft, with 60 kids left over
Create a combine workout for each player. Pitchers throw their usual assortment of pitchers. Batters hit against a machine. Add in various defensive drills.
That creates a semi-educated 10-round draft. Everyone else is a FA, with teams having differing budgets based on record.
It seems like any kind of showcase would be counterproductive. Showcase results would be like trying to rate mlb players after the first day of spring training. These kids haven’t been playing. Their swings will be out of whack and their fastballs will likely be missing a few mph.
Cancelling the draft is a stupid idea. Just the owners trying to be cheap. Hold the draft. Sure, some kids will want to go back to college if they are given an extra year of eligibility, but many will want to cash in, especially the better players. So let them cash in. Truncate the draft maybe, 30 rounds instead of 40. Bump it back a few weeks. But still hold it.
I’d hate canceling the draft. It screws over the college seniors, as well as the high school seniors who’d then have to go to college (and be draft ineligible) or not play for a year. If they do one, though, I hope they mix the picks for 2020 and 2021 draft orders (i.e., the worst record in 2020 picks 1st, the worst record from 2019 picks 2nd, the 2nd-worst from 2020 picks 3rd, and so on). They’d have twice as many prospects, so it would be a very deep draft, but that would also give teams more or less what they deserved this year.
Other option is to give a special pool to teams based on last year’s records and make all the draft-eligible kids free agents. Let teams sign who they can, but the Orioles, Tigers, etc., will have the most money (and probably the easiest path to playing time in the majors).
Would still prefer the draft to happen as usual, though. For college guys, they have prior years’ video; for high schoolers, it’s a crap shoot anyway because so few of them have filled out that it’s all projection. The MLB draft produces tons of busts; this year’s would just produce a few more than average.
MLB just conduct the 2020 draft on video conference call televised.
MLB teams have been scouting these players for years.
There is nothing to be gained by cancelling it or going for a combined 2020-2021 Draft.
Might as well use presently existing, extensive scouting reports on the players to just hold the draft this year….
Move the date up to March or early April or back to December 2020 whichever, but conduct the draft by video conferencing televised this year.
“Showcasing” of players in some kind of scouting combine is really not necessary….All MLB teams have been scouting these players for years (since at least junior high school)…
There is tons of data on every possible draft pick internally with teams and in the scouting services and the media.
Having a tryout camp is a ridiculous idea under the circumstances.
Just run the draft remotely and televise it.
Teams pick their guys.
Negotiate by video conferencing.
Sign your players.
When the quarantine is lifted, then each team can have its new spring training to evaluate and assign their players to the appropriate minor league teams..