Draft Day 2016 - Curious Fan's Draft Guide

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https://theringer.com/the-curious-fans-guide-to-the-2016-mlb-draft-f9562108fc59#.g9o4h14k4

Tomorrow kicks off a process by which more than 1,000 amateur baseball players from across the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico will be allocated to the 30 major league franchises. Far from the monthslong media circuses that promise immediate franchise saviors in the other three major American sports, MLB?s draft flies under the radar. While college football and basketball players are already national superstars ? and able contribute to their new employers quickly ? amateur baseball players are relatively anonymous and take longer to develop. Only college baseball diehards and people with extremely long-term keeper leagues know A.J. Puk or Corey Ray as well as a casual basketball fan knows Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram.

And our Draft forum

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It's draft day!

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http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/2016-mlb-first-year-player-draft-how-to-watch-on-tv-schedule-draft-order/

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/182914428/watch-draft-live-6-et-on-mlb-network-mlbcom

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Thursday: Coverage begins with the Draft preview show on MLB Network and MLB.com at 6 p.m. ET. Live Draft coverage from MLB Network's Studio 42 begins at 7 p.m., with the top 77 picks broadcast on MLB Network and streamed on MLB.com.

2016 Draft

Tonight, 6 ET on MLB Network, MLB.com

Fri., 12:30p ET on MLB.com

Sat., Noon ET on MLB.com

Friday: MLB.com's exclusive coverage of Day 2 begins with a live Draft show at 12:30 p.m. and takes you through Rounds 3-10 with live analysis from Jim Callis, Jonathan Mayo and former Major League general manager Jim Duquette.

Saturday: Exclusive coverage of Day 3 begins at noon on MLB.com and takes you through the end of the Draft.

Each day, MLB.com's coverage includes Draft Central, the Top 200 Draft Prospects list and Draft Tracker, a live interactive application that includes a searchable database of more than 1,500 Draft-eligible players.

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The D-backs (39th overall), Giants (59), and Royals (67) all have to wait until the second round. The Cubs are the only team without a pick on Day 1 of the Draft.

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http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bal-schmuck-as-draft-arrives-trading-wins-later-for-wins-now-has-worked-for-orioles-20160608-story.html

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Two Rounds tonight.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Some rumors to add to this morning's mock - Rutherford in mix at 5, Whitley a dark horse at 11, Lewis still in play at 1.</p>— keithlaw (@keithlaw) <a href="

">June 9, 2016</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

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http://www.baseballamerica.com/news/draft-information-you-cant-get-anywhere-else/#ClVkmUyQHVpFtLTg.97

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Orioles have three picks opening night.

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The 2016 Rule 4 Amateur Draft will begin tonight at 7pm ET, when the Phillies will be on the clock with the first overall pick. For those who haven’t followed the draft in prior seasons or simply would like a refresher on the intricacies of the system, we’ll provide a quick recap in this post followed by a roundup of some of the top draft resources available to fans online.

Each team has an allotted spending pool from which their signing bonuses come. Major League Baseball has assigned a slot value to each pick in rounds one through 10, and a club’s draft pool is the sum of the slot values for each of their selections. Players selected after the 10th round do not count toward the pool, so long as they receive no more than $100K. Anything over $100K would count toward the pools (for instance, if the Mariners were to sign their 12th-round pick for $150K, then $50K would count against their draft pool). If a team does not spend the entirety of its draft pool, there’s no future bonus involved; leftover pool allotments do not carry over to the following draft, so it’s in a club’s best interest to maximize its allotments in each individual draft.

Exceeding the draft pool, however, is an entirely different story and comes with an escalating range of penalties, depending on the level of excess. Should a team exceed its draft pool by five percent, it will pay a 75 percent luxury tax on the overage. A five to 10 percent overage results in a 75 percent tax and the loss of next year’s first-round pick. A 10 to 15 percent overage results in a 100 percent tax and the loss of a first- and second-round pick in 2016. And, exceeding the draft pool by more than 15 percent results in a 100 percent tax and the loss of two future first-round picks.

However, teams are not bound to the individual slot values. They’re free to sign early picks under slot in order to go over slot for later selections (when some players have fallen due to signability concerns), and doing so is a common strategy for clubs with large pools. For instance, the Astros spent $6MM to sign No. 2 overall pick Alex Bregman last season despite a $7.421MM value for that slot, and they saved about $169K in signing No. 5 pick Kyle Tucker for $4MM. A large number of those savings went to their No. 37 overall selection, Daz Cameron, who had been considered a Top 10 caliber talent but slid to the compensation round as teams were wary of his asking price. Cameron’s slot came with a $1.668MM value, but Houston paid him a hefty $4MM with the savings from its top two selections and some additional under-slot value further down the board.

Under these rules, no team has been willing to pay the price of forfeiting a future pick, so no team has exceeded its pool by more than five percent. Excesses of up to five percent are commonplace, however, as the 75 percent luxury tax isn’t much of a deterrent to big league teams.

All that said, here’s a rundown of the draft order, slot values, the top ranked draft prospects (via multiple outlets) as well as mock drafts from some experts who have devoted seemingly endless hours of their time over the past few months to provide the best insight possible.

Draft Order (Slot Values via MLB.com’s Jim Callis)

Phillies — $9.015MM

Reds — $7.763MM

Braves — $6.51MM

Rockies — $5.529MM

Brewers — $4.382MM

Athletics — $4.069MM

Marlins — $3.756MM

Padres — $3.631MM

Tigers — $3.506MM

White Sox — $3.381MM

Mariners — $3.287MM

Red Sox — $3.193MM

Rays — $3.099MM

Indians — $2.974MM

Twins — $2.817MM

Angels — $2.661MM

Astros — $2.504MM

Yankees — $2.442MM

Mets — $2.379MM

Dodgers — $2.316MM

Blue Jays — $2.285MM

Pirates — $2.254MM

Cardinals — $2.223MM

Padres — $2.191MM (Compensation for loss of free agent Justin Upton, who rejected a qualifying offer)

Padres — $2.160MM (Compensation for loss of free agent Ian Kennedy)

White Sox — $2.129MM (Compensation for loss of free agent Jeff Samardzija)

Orioles — $2.098MM (Compensation for loss of free agent Wei-Yin Chen)

Nationals — $2.066MM (Compensation for loss of free agent Jordan Zimmermann)

Nationals — $2.035MM (Compensation for loss of free agent Ian Desmond)

Rangers — $2.003MM (Compensation for loss of free agent Yovani Gallardo)

Mets — $1.972MM (Compensation for loss of free agent Daniel Murphy)

Dodgers — $1.941MM (Compensation for loss of free agent Zack Greinke)

Cardinals — $1.91MM (Compensation for loss of free agent Jason Heyward)

Cardinals — $1.878MM (Compensation for loss of free agent John Lackey)

Clearly, the bonus pools are skewed by compensatory picks awarded to teams that see a pending free agent reject a one-year qualifying offer and sign elsewhere. This year, the Reds, Phillies, Padres and Braves have the largest bonus pools, and you can see a full breakdown of each pool here.

Draft Rankings/Scouting Reports

Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com have ranked the Top 200 players in this year’s draft class and provided free scouting reports on each player for the public. Callis and Mayo have video of each player, where applicable, and they also provide a rating of each prospect’s individual tools on the 20-80 scouting scale.

Keith Law of ESPN.com ranks the Top 100 prospects — headlined by Louisville outfielder Corey Ray — and his colleague, Eric Longenhagen, has a penned a full scouting report on each of the 100 players on the list. Their work requires an ESPN Insider subscription, though that’s a highly recommended purchase for this time of the year.

Baseball America provides the deepest list of draft prospects you’ll find online, as their rankings span to the Top 500 prospects in this year’s class. The rankings themselves, headlined by Florida left-hander A.J. Puk, are free to the public, but the individual scouting reports require a subscription that we also highly recommend with the Draft tonight and the July 2 international signing deadline looming.

Mock Drafts

Callis and Mayo released a side-by-side mock draft today in which they each take a stab at pegging all of the 34 picks listed above. They’re in agreement on the top four picks, believing that the Phillies will select high school outfielder Mickey Moniak, the Reds will select Tennessee third baseman Nick Senzel, the Braves will select Ray and the Rockies will select Puk. As is the case with their rankings and scouting reports, the MLB.com duo’s mock draft is free to the public as well.

Law’s most recent mock draft was published this morning. For the time being, he’s in agreement on Moniak going 1-1 to the Phillies but feels Puk will go second, with Mercer outfielder Kyle Lewis going third overall to Atlanta. Law’s mock drafts require a subscription as well.

While BA’s scouting reports require a subscription, the fifth iteration of John Manuel’s mock draft (and the prior versions) are free for public viewing. Manuel, too, has Moniak as the top pick with Puk and Lewis going second and third overall. Prep righty Riley Pint is his pick at No. 4, and he has Ray going fifth to the Brewers.

It’s also worth noting that top draft prospect Delvin Perez, a high school shortstop out of Puerto Rico, has seen his draft stock slide precipitously since testing positive for an undisclosed performance enhancing substance. Perez’s upside initially had him projected as a Top 5 pick, but many believe that he’ll slide down toward the later first round. He’s something of a wild card in tonight’s draft.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/06/2016-mlb-draft-primer.html