Today begins a 2-day Major League Baseball Draft. The draft this year is very different from past drafts. This year there will only be 5 total rounds instead of 40. Tonight will see round 1 take place, and you can watch it on MLB.com, MLB Network, and ESPN at 7pm ET. Tomorrow will be day two and will have rounds 2-5 beginning at 5pm ET on MLB Network, MLB.com, and ESPN2.
The Cincinnati Reds will have six picks over the five rounds. They will pick 12th, 48th, 65th (competitive balance round B selection), 84th, 113th, and 143rd. Like in past years, each draft pick has an assigned “bonus pool” value. Teams can only spend the total of all of their picks values before facing penalties – but they can spread that money out however they would like. However, they only get credit for that pool money if they sign a player. For example, this year the Reds full draft bonus pool is $8,552,100, but they couldn’t spend all of that on one player – in order to use all of that they would have to draft and sign six players. Here’s the breakdown for the slot values for each of the Reds picks this year:
- 1st round: $4,366,400
- 2nd round: $1,543,600
- 2nd round comp B: $1,025,100
- 3rd round: $721,900
- 4th round: $512,400
- 5th round: $382,700
Players that sign this year, however, will only be paid up to $100,000 of their bonus (they will get their full bonus if they agree to sign for less than that) this year. 50% of whatever is remaining after that will be paid out in July of 2021. The remaining money will then be paid out in July of 2022.
Players that go undrafted this year can sign for up to $20,000 as a free agent. Teams are able to sign as many of these players as they would like. They can not offer the players any benefit for signing, nor can they offer them anything that other players in the organization are not also entitled to as a way to entice them to sign with their organization (for example – they can’t say we’ll pay you $6,000 a month salary in the minors unless they pay every minor leaguer that same salary).
Draft Day Resources
Over at RedsMinorLeagues.com I posted my Top 30 Prospects for the 2020 Major League Baseball Draft on Monday, with links to scouting reports, video, and more on each player.
MLB Pipeline has their Top 200 Draft prospects list available here, and it’s free to read and has scouting reports for the players. Fangraphs has up their Top 255 Draft prospects list available here, and it has at least some scouting information on most guys.
Baseball America’s top prospect list for the draft runs 500 players deep. It’s going to require a subscription for you to check out, though. That said, they are the gold standard in the industry for a reason.
What’s coming
Tomorrow morning we’ll have a full article with a scouting report, video, and more about the player who was selected by the Reds. Tune in, share your thoughts in the comments, and let’s hope that Cincinnati picks the right one.
The Pick Is In
The Reds have selected outfielder Austin Hendrick out of West Allegheny High School in Pennsylvania. You can read a quick report on him right here. We’ll have more on him in the morning.
There will be no further picks by the Cincinnati Reds tonight. They will have five picks on Thursday.
It all depends on who is there and available. But whoever is the highest remaining player on my draft board.
Just as a quick recap, the mock drafts that came out today have the Reds taking a college pitcher, a college outfielder, or two different high school outfielders, while also noting that they like a high school pitcher if he’s there. Basically, no one knows anything.
so that means a catcher? 🙂
YOU HEARD THAT?!
The need to select a pitcher from the University of Georgia, Cole Wilcox.
Hopefully the Reds will have a successful draft picks. GO REDS PICK GREAT!
So Doug, what do you envision the ” new normal” looking like for the minor league and these new draft picks? I predict mlb will follow the nba and create a developemental league with 1 or possibly 2 teams per major league team.