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Draft is baseball’s annual guessing game

4 min read

Keep this in mind and you will not be surprised: Baseball’s amateur draft is not an exact science. Never has been. Never will be.

In the NFL draft, coaches, player personnel directors and scouts discuss how their draft picks will look in next season’s lineup.

In the NBA, coaches and scouts discuss how their top pick will look in next season’s lineup.

In baseball, general managers and scouts try to decide how their top draft pick might look in four years.

Or six years.

And if they’re lucky enough, patient enough and the player is good enough to hang onto long enough, then he just might be a mainstay in the lineup long enough for those people who drafted him to reap the benefits.

Baseball’s draft is more a long-range deal than football, basketball or even hockey. It’s a projection of what a young player, maybe just out of high school, might look like when he becomes a grown man with an agent and a per diem.

The guesswork for the baseball people will begin July 11 and last for three days. The Pittsburgh Pirates have the first pick in this year’s first-year player draft, which has triggered more interest in the draft in these parts than ever before. Much of that boost in interest can be attributed to Vanderbilt playing in the College World Series and having two ace pitchers, Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter, expected to be selected among the top-10 picks.

Rocker is the son of former NFL lineman and current Philadelphia Eagles assistant coach Tracy Rocker. Leiter is the son of former major league pitcher Al Leiter. In 2019, Kumar Rocker became the first player to throw a no-hitter in an NCAA Super Regional and was the Most Outstanding Player at the College World Series. Jack Leiter struck out 15 North Carolina State batters in a College World Series game last weekend.

In addition to Rocker and Leiter, the Pirates have been said to have interest in Louisville catcher Henry Davis and a trio of high school shortstops, Marcelo Mayer from California, Jordan Lawless from Dallas and Kahlil Watson from North Carolina.

Who will the Pirates draft with the No. 1 pick? General manager Ben Cherington has been keeping that information a secret, as tightly guarded as his PIN number.

If early social media scuttlebutt is to be taken seriously, then any selection other than Leiter or Rocker will be unpopular with Pirates fans. Some have even predicted that the Pirates will select one of the high school shortstops because they will be cheaper to sign. That, however, is the opposite of the way the draft works. It’s high school players who have the most leverage. They can use the threat of bypassing a pro deal to play in college as a way to pry a larger signing bonus out of a team.

Whoever is selected No. 1 by the Pirates comes with no guarantee of developing into a major league superstar. Heck, first-round picks are rarely the first from a draft class to make a major league debut. None of the top five picks in last year’s draft have made it to the majors. Of the top-5 picks from the 2019 draft, only the Chicago White Sox’s Andrew Vaughn has made it to the big leagues, and he’s hitting an anemic .229.

Just as hitters can become Hall of Famers by being successful one out of every three times at bat, a comparable rate in this draft can make a top-notch scouting department.

Outfielder Rick Monday, who played 19 seasons in the major leagues, was the first player selected in the in the initial baseball draft back in 1965. Hall of Famer Tom Seaver was a 10th-round pick in that same draft. Nolan Ryan was selected in the 12th round. Former Canon-McMillan pitcher Tom Dettore was a 26th-round pick in that same draft.

It has been a guessing game ever since. Only 23 players have gone from the draft to the major leagues in the same year. Many first-round picks never make it to the majors – do you recall former Pirates No. 1 picks Mark Merchant, Charles Peterson, Mark Farris and Mark Appel?

So when the Pirates announce their No. 1 pick, don’t expect to see the guy in Pittsburgh soon. If he ultimately makes it to the majors with the Pirates, then consider both to be fortunate because patience is an important virtue in the baseball draft.

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