An inside look at the Brewers' Draft prep

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The 2022 MLB Draft takes place from July 17-19 in Los Angeles, beginning at 6 p.m. CT on Sunday, July 17, with the first 80 picks. Brewers vice president of domestic scouting Tod Johnson chatted with MLB.com about Milwaukee’s Draft prep.

MLB.com: With the Draft less than a week away, what is happening right now as the group prepares to make its picks?

Johnson: Most of the scouting itself is done. There are still some players who are eligible for this Draft who are playing in summer leagues -- which is a change from prior years, because we used to have the Draft in early June and there were still players in their regular seasons, including the college playoff teams. There’s a lot of discussions with players and advisers and families right now about signability. What are players’ expectations? Where do they think they’re going to go? What would it take to sign them? Obviously, it’s a different conversation for every guy. It’s different between college and high school. Those conversations are all going on right now.

We’ve done our meetings a little differently this year. We’ve spread them out because we’ve had time to. So, we had a set of meetings in early June, then a set of meetings the third week of June, then we started another set of meetings [today] that will run through the Draft, basically. Those are essentially getting the players ordered the way we see them as an organization and have them lined up to be ready for Sunday night.

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First pick and bonus slot: No. 27 ($2.7005 million)
Additional first-day picks: No. 63 ($1.1309 million) and No. 72 ($914,900)
Total bonus pool: $7,070,900 [more]
Last three first picks: Sal Frelick (15th overall, 2021), Garrett Mitchell (No. 20 overall, 2020), Ethan Small (No. 28 overall, 2019)
Best pick of the last 10 years, per MLB Pipeline: Corbin Burnes (fourth round, 2016) [more]

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MLB.com: Can you take fans inside that room? What exactly happens in those meetings?

Johnson: It’s probably a lot like Moneyball, which is 20 years old now. We do a lot of discussion. The different sets of meetings have different groups in them. The first set of meetings is with the area scouts and supervisors -- and primarily it’s the area scouts talking about their players. The next set is more at the supervisor level and there’s more engagement from other parts of the front office, as well. And then, the last set of meetings are kind of the top level of the scouting organization and a decent chunk of the front office. Matt [Arnold, Milwaukee’s GM] and David [Stearns, the president of baseball operations] will be involved and sit in on certain parts of all of the meetings, but this week is probably where they’ll be the most engaged as we’re getting toward what the final order looks like.

I wouldn’t say it’s like somebody’s fantasy baseball draft, but it’s also probably not all that different. You’re talking about what you like about players, what they do well, how they stack up against the others who will be in the same range in the Draft and just [working] through getting the players ordered. We try not to make many or any decisions about value of players once we start the Draft.

MLB.com: All told, how many individual players do you think you spend time talking about in these meetings?

Johnson: Five hundred? That’s probably about right, when you think about all of those sets of meetings and all of the other discussions as we get them ranked the way we want them.

MLB.com: How do you assess the relative strengths of this particular Draft class?

Johnson: You always want to be able to say this when you are picking late in the first round like we are: I think it’s a relatively deep class. I think there are interesting guys all the way down. There certainly is a top set. I don’t know how big that is; maybe it’s five, maybe it’s eight players at the top who are kind of above and beyond and separated from the next group. But once you get into that next group, there are some good players quite a ways down the Draft, so you still have some good expectations that you are pretty excited about at No. 27, No. 63 and No. 72. And then there are big leaguers after that, too. When you pick late [in the first round], it’s because you were good. I’d rather pick late than early.