MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers didn’t know it when they promoted Tod Johnson four years ago, but they were positioning themselves to be prepared for MLB’s first Draft staged during a global pandemic.

Johnson worked in Silicon Valley before joining the Brewers’ front office in 2007, and he rose to director of amateur scouting in '16 in part because of his expertise in blending old-school scouting with new-school tools afforded by digital video and the proliferation of data in baseball. Those tools are now central to every team’s preparation for this year's MLB Draft since high school and college games shut down with the rest of the sport in mid-March.

“I applaud our staff,” Johnson said. “They have done an amazing job of adapting and staying busy and staying productive. We have a huge library of video of players who we are interested in, so we are able to leverage that in this situation and still get evaluations done.

“Maybe you didn’t see a guy in person, but our scouts can still get video reports done. Our staff on the more analytical side has been great about figuring out how to adjust our tools based on the fact we only have 3-4 weeks of a college season. Then there’s the question of how we adapt meeting structures.

“I’m tired of Zoom now, but it’s been a powerful tool.”

Day 1 of the 2020 Draft airs tonight on MLB Network and ESPN at 6 p.m. CT, and includes the first 37 picks. Day 2 begins at 4 p.m. CT on Thursday on MLB Network and ESPN2, and spans the remainder of the 160 picks.

Comprehensive coverage will be available on MLB.com and MLB Pipeline, which will simulcast MLB Network’s broadcast. Go to MLB.com/Draft to see when teams pick, the Top 200 Prospects list, mock drafts from analysts Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo, scouting video and more. And follow @MLBDraft and @MLBDraftTracker on Twitter to see what Draft hopefuls, clubs and experts are saying and to get each pick as it’s made.

Here are some of the changes instituted for this year’s digital draft:

• Instead of 40 rounds, this year’s Draft will span five. That means instead of the 1,217 players who were drafted in 2019, 160 players will be picked in '20. Slot bonuses for the five rounds remain the same as they were last year.

• At the conclusion of the 2020 Draft, there will be a two-day quiet period before teams may sign an unlimited number of undrafted free agents, with one significant caveat: There is a $20,000 limit on bonuses for those players, and Johnson expects MLB to crack down on any side-dealing.

• The signing deadline was pushed back to Aug. 1, in part to allow for more time to safely conduct physical exams. The deadline previously was July 10.

Once upon a time, the Brewers and other teams built literal Draft boards with names on magnets, but that system went digital at Miller Park as far back as 2012. So, more modern tools are already in place as Johnson prepares to make selections in a video-driven, digital format.

There are many unknowns. How will the process unfold for teams without the usual back-and-forth that takes place in packed “war rooms?” (Brewers officials actually reached out to some colleagues in the NFL for advice after that league conducted its draft remotely in April.) How many high school players will go undrafted and attend college or junior college instead, with an eye toward 2021? How many college juniors will opt to return for their senior seasons? For players who are drafted or sign, how and when will their professional playing careers actually begin?

“It’s going to be very different,” Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns said.

Here’s how the Draft is shaping up for the Brewers, whose first selection is the 20th overall pick:

State of the system
The Brewers’ system is widely regarded as one of the weakest in the game, since it has graduated a number of top prospects to the Majors in recent years (Josh Hader, Brandon Woodruff, Keston Hiura, etc.) and lost others to “go-for-it” trades (Brett Phillips and Jorge López to the Royals for Mike Moustakas comes to mind). So, beyond the five-round 2020 Draft, the post-Draft signing period will be critical.

What they’re saying
“Among the 30 teams, I think we’re probably ahead of the pack in the amount of video and accessibility of the video that we have, so we’ve transitioned in the way that we’re evaluating players at this point. We’re doing it largely on video; we’re looking at performance track record and granular data accumulated from past seasons, so that does make the decision process a little bit different, it makes the evaluation process different, but we also know that all 30 clubs are dealing with it, and so there’s no disadvantage on our end. If anything, we think we’re particularly well prepared to handle an environment like this because of some of the measures we’ve taken in the past.” -- Stearns

Who might they take?
MLB.com Draft guru Jim Callis linked the Brewers to a prep outfielder, Pete Crow-Armstrong of Harvard-Westlake School in metro Los Angeles, which has produced a slew of recent big leaguers including Jack Flaherty, Max Fried and Lucas Giolito. Or, Callis wrote, the Brewers could wade into the deep pool of college right-handers that includes Cade Cavalli (Oklahoma), Cole Wilcox (Georgia), Carmen Mlodzinski (South Carolina), Bryce Jarvis (Duke), Bobby Miller (Louisville), Tanner Burns (Auburn), Chris McMahon (Miami), Slade Cecconi (Miami), C.J. Van Eyk (Florida State) and Clayton Beeter (Texas Tech). MLB.com’s co-Draft guru Jonathan Mayo linked the Brewers to some of those same right-handers in his latest mock draft: Wilcox and Mlodzinski. Miami’s Cecconi, another college righty, was next on Mayo’s latest mock.

• MLB Pipeline's Top 200 Draft prospects

Thanks to Zoom, the video conferencing platform, Johnson has been able to interface with many of the Brewers’ potential top picks despite working from home in Elm Glove, Wis. In some cases, it has actually been easier to connect face-to-face with prospects.

“It’s a different dynamic in that normally, college guys are somewhat inaccessible to us, and for good reason,” Johnson said. “They’re in their seasons, in their playoff runs. Conference tournaments would have been starting, then NCAA regionals and the tournament. We’ve actually been able to talk to college guys more than in a normal year.”

Money matters
Each team gets an allotted bonus pool equal to the sum of the values of its selections in the Draft. The more picks a team has, and the earlier it picks, the larger the pool. This year, with a five-round Draft, all signing bonuses of drafted players will apply toward the bonus pool total. Teams that exceed their pools incur penalties.

For 2020, there is a $20,000 limit on bonuses for non-drafted free agents. There is no limit to the number of undrafted players teams may sign, but they cannot go over $20,000 per player. These bonuses do not count toward the pool total.

The Brewers have the ninth-smallest pool, at $6,078,300. That includes $3,242,900 for pick No. 20 overall, $1,370,400 for pick No. 53, $637,600 for pick No. 92, $473,700 for pick No. 121 and $353,700 for pick No. 151. The Brewers previously had the 64th overall pick in Competitive Balance Round B, but they traded that to the Mariners in the Omar Narváez deal.

Shopping list
Teams always insist they don’t draft for need, and that that’s even more true this year with no Minor League rosters to immediately populate, Johnson said. Instead, the Brewers will once again try to land the best player available at each pick, regardless of position, and aim for some diversity of position player vs. pitcher with their five selections, plus undrafted free agents.

“You’re going to try to get the best talents you can that makes most efficient use of your signability pool,” Johnson said. “The biggest difference is you can’t spread that to 10 rounds anymore.”

Trend watch
It’s too small a sample to draw any firm conclusions, but three of the Brewers’ four first-round picks under Johnson have been college players: two hitters (Corey Ray in 2016 and Hiura in ’17) and one pitcher (Ethan Small in ’19). The high school pick, Brice Turang in ’18, is currently Milwaukee’s consensus top prospect.

“Even before all of this happened, I thought it was a very balanced Draft,” Johnson said. “I didn’t feel like any one particular quadrant stood out. There were a decent number of college hitters, a decent number of pitchers. Probably [college pitching] might be the strongest area relative to usual. … I thought it was above average as far as the quality and the depth. We were excited to pick as many rounds as possible, though we certainly understand why that was changed to five rounds. We’ll adapt and do our best to get the best possible five players.”

The recent top picks (with highest level in 2019)
2019: LHP Ethan Small (Class A Wisconsin)
2018: SS/2B Brice Turang (Class A Advanced Carolina)
2017: 2B Keston Hiura (MLB)
2016: CF Corey Ray (Triple-A San Antonio)
2015: OF Trent Grisham (MLB)