Even though it doesn’t receive nearly as much publicly as its NBA or NFL cousins, the MLB draft is set to begin on Monday, and any baseball fan should be excited. After all, the future of your franchise could very well be determined through this mechanism.
That being said, not all baseball fans are excited about the draft. Quite frankly, when I was younger, I barely knew that the draft had any importance whatsoever. For all I knew, players just arrived in the major leagues from the minor leagues. I didn’t understand the process of how you build a successful minor league system.
Beyond my own tangent, there are some definitely important reasons that people are not interested in the MLB draft.
The most obvious first answer to that is the fact that most MLB draft prospects won’t be seen for quite a few years. This isn’t the NBA where Lebron James can jump right from high school and automatically become one of the best players in the game.
Bryce Harper is probably one of the most heralded prospects in recent memory, but he even had to spend some time in the minors before making his debut this season for the Washington Nationals.
That separation between the draft and the actual appearance of the player in the major leagues obviously dampens the excitement around in the event.
However, another reason that the MLB draft might not be quite so exciting for all of the fans is the simple fact that many players are drafted but then end up going to college.
Unlike the NBA draft, you don’t have to declare. If you are eligible to be chosen, you can be chosen, but you are still able to retain your NCAA eligibility if you want to return and play another season.
Finally, there is a simple fact that so many players are drafted every year, yet everyone knows that very few of them are going to make it in Major League Baseball. All of them start out in the minor leagues, but almost all of them will burn out before they make it to the big time.
It is hard to get excited about watching a draft where there are no guarantees. Even the safest draft pick might not make it to the majors. The player that you think might be the future of your beloved franchise might not even put on that uniform. While watching the draft, it is inevitable that some players will be disappointing.
Even with these three things counting against the MLB draft, it is still a great event. Keep your eyes open from Monday, June 4 to Wednesday, June 6. You won’t be able to find it on any major TV network, but it still has major implications for the future of your favorite team, and it is definitely interesting to keep your eye on throughout these few days.
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