How Not To Handle A MLB Draft Day Slide
6 minute read
By the time I received the call, I’d already lost it. My confidence, my faith in the agency who’d projected a pick more than 10 rounds earlier, my temper. I’d spent the day wedged between my Mom and sister, the unfortunate twosome charged with the fool’s errand of keeping my sanity intact, as round after round sapped my patience. MLB.com’s draft tracker distributed the majority of my pain; each time it spat out yet another name that was certainly not my own, I felt my ego splatter like spring gunk subjected to a summer power-washing. Shit, meet fan.
Not much compares to the hollowness that marks a draft slide, even more so in the later rounds of the MLB draft. Prior to the COVID-19 Pandemic, which shrunk the size of MLB farm systems and reduced the draft from 40 rounds to 20, Day 3 of the MLB draft saw the selection of 900 total players in rounds 11-40. The picks for Day 3 are dispersed to the outside world via a MLB.com draft tracker at a minute/pick clip. For players waiting to be drafted, Day 3 is about as comfortable as Japanese water torture. Picks take years, rounds evaporate in seconds.
In the spring leading up to the MLB draft in 2017, I’d spoked to 26/30 Major League Baseball teams. I’d filled out questionnaire, undergone batteries of emotional and intellectual bubble tests in my college town’s local coffeeshop, had every possible measurement recorded of my height, weight, forearm length, wrist and ankle circumference, etc. In addition to the scouting that took place during my college season, I’d worked out for the Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates, and New York Yankees, have to decline additional workouts with conflicting dates. I’d been assured — by scouts, by my agents, by my college coaches — that I would hear my name in the middle rounds (15-25) of the MLB draft.
For players waiting to be drafted, Day 3 is about as comfortable as Japanese water torture. Picks take years, rounds evaporate in seconds
The middle and later rounds are not a spectator event. There are no signature sneaker deals on the line, no New York City stages, no handshakes with the commissioner. When mothers cry (mine did!), there aren’t any camera crews to capture the moment. MLB recently attempted to turn the draft into a made-for-TV event by moving it from early June to mid-July during the All-Star Weekend.
The first few rounds include much of the same bells and whistles as the drafts in other major American sports: the draft ticker, the “Best Available,” post-pick analysis, interviews with recent draftees, a roundtable mishmash of MLB amateur prospect pundits, former star players and TV analysts. Former popular players, (i.e. Ken Griffey Jr.) for the team “On the Clock” are coaxed away from their standing tee times and junior-high parent carpool rotations to read out the selections. It’s a long way from the behind-closed-doors conference calls used in the early 2000s (see Moneyball).
In all the drafts besides my own, I lose interest after the first few picks. The 2023 draft was the first time MLB used a lottery system to determine picks at the top of the draft, a departure from the previous system of assigning picks in direct reverse order of the previous years’ standings. Even with the changes, the worst teams are the ones selecting at the top of the draft. Once those “blue chip” prospects, touted as generational talents and saviors of organizations in need, the draft loses much of its kinetic energy.
No matter how advance scouting methods become, picking ballplayers is still like gazing into a crystal ball. Roughly 17.6% of all drafted platers will surface on an active MLB roster at any point in their career (even first round picks aren’t a sure thing). The recent changes have increased national media interest in the Draft as a spectacle, but there will always be a ceiling; the uncertain and delayed deployment of players onto a Major League field simply saps the casual fan’s interest. Even souls pushing the limits of fandom will quickly turn their attention to players in AAA or AA who are more immediately positioned to help on a Big-League roster.
the uncertain and delayed deployment of players onto a Major League field simply saps the casual fan’s interest
But to those hoping to be drafted on Day 3, even the latest rounds offer a chance to accomplish a lifelong dream of becoming an MLB draft pick. Sure, we all dreamt of being the first pick in the draft, but being selected anywhere legitimizes aspirations that high school guidance counselors have scoffed at since the dawn of time as not being “realistic.” I saw my assured selection through that lens of validation. For the hard work to build myself up from a Division III player to legitimate professional prospect; for my family, coaches, friends, and teammates who’d feel tangibly recognized for all the support they’d given me over the years; for my late father who woke up early every morning for pitching practice each spring of my childhood.
All the components of a feel-good story were there. The only problem? My name was still missing from the draft tracker.
In the MLB draft, calls between players and front office in late rounds are more speculative than definitive. A scout’s main imperative is to sign the best players as cheap as possible. They call multiple players and agents to discuss potential terms for signing and them weigh them against others. Financial restrictions further complicate the issue: each team has an allowed amount of money that they can spend throughout the draft’s first 10 rounds — called a bonus pool –and then a max contract that they can offer player after the 10th round without incurring a penalty against their bonus pool.
Should the team on the clock take the proven college senior with no leverage to return to school for cheap? Or the junior-college flamethrower that might command a higher signing bonus but offers more long-term upside? It depends. On the round, how much of the bonus pool has been offered, how much the team is willing to spend in the draft’s later rounds, the previous picks they’ve made at the player’s position, what affiliate (Minor League team) they have requisite at-bats or innings available for development that summer.
By the 25th round, I’d agreed to financial terms with several teams. The Chicago Cubs called immediately after the conclusion of the 10th round and informed me they would draft me early in Day 3. The Phillies called around the 20th to ask about bonus size. So did the Dodgers. The Rangers are scout said he was “pulling for” me in their team’s draft room. The Yankees were silent, but they’d been one of my earliest and most persistent suitors in the pre-draft process.
But as those picks march in single file line down the page, round after round without yours making an appearance, your inner dialogue starts to go something like this:
You realize you weren’t special after all, that others were actually worthy of being drafted, that this day was always destined to twist from coronation of your baseball abilities to condemnation about the person you truly are. You’re not worthy. And just when you convince yourself to abandon all hope, that there isn’t any conceivable way for you to feel any lower, you reflexively refresh the page and see another name pop up on MLB.com’s stupid fucking draft tracker and realize that in fact, yes, you were still clinging to a kernel of previously-hidden hope that it would be your name (not some right-handed bullpen pitcher from University of who-cares-where) appearing next to the New York Yankees logo. You sink to a new low and the process repeats ad nauseam.
…this day was always destined to twist from coronation of your baseball abilities to condemnation about the person you truly are. You’re not worthy
Sometime after the 30th round, I regrettably succumbed to my shame and buried myself in the basement away from the rest of my family. After coating the nearest pillow with a thick layer of obscenities, I called my college roommate in defeat to tell him I was coming back to school. The dream was dead. Hello, senior year of college.
And then? The phone rang.
It’s difficult to conjure a worse situation in which to conduct effective financial negotiations. On paper, I still had leverage as a junior: if I didn’t receive a big enough bonus offer, I could threaten to (or actually) go back to school and try again the next year. But, my heart was set on turning professional. So, when the Pittsburgh Pirates asked the emotional, draft-sliding, DIII player “how low are you willing to go?” I bit back the voice in my head screaming, “JUST A PLANE TICKET!” and recited the lowest number my agent and I had agreed upon.
Silence.
“Okay,” the scout finally said. “Get yourself in front of a tracker.”
The phone went silent, my brain fuzzy. Get yourself in front of a tracker. The curtain had been peeled back, the bearer of my destiny finally revealed. The Pittsburgh Pirates. From the rafters.
“Pirates!” I bellow, sprinting up the stairs and fearing my Mom and sister were going to miss it. Surely they’d scattered to disparate corners of the house. “Pirates! Pirates!”
A roar beat me to the living room. My two biggest fans, stubbornly refusing to give up on my dream even when I had, jumped off the couch as I turned the corner. They rushed towards me, my sister holding her laptop precariously and Mom fighting back tears, both excitedly pointing at a familiar name on the screen next to the Pirates logo.
In a few minutes, I’d have to turn off my phone’s ringer. Messages surged in from every crack and crevice in my life: old coaches, teachers, college professors, friends, and family. But in that immediate moment once the initial hysteria wore off, I sank into the living room couch, closed my eyes, and took a long deep breath. I’m going to be a professional baseball player.
On draft day, relief is the sweetest emotion.