Cardinals busy with pre-Draft workouts
ST. LOUIS -- With the First-Year Player Draft sitting two weeks away, the Cardinals' scouting department has begun its series of regional meetings and is holding four area workouts for Draft-eligible players. This year, the organization does not plan to hold one such workout at Busch Stadium, which it did in 2013.
Scouting director Dan Kantrovitz recently returned to St. Louis after a weekend trip to California to meet with the organization's West Coast scouts and hold a workout for players in that area. On Thursday, Kantrovitz will leave for Texas to do the same with his Midwest scouts. He'll then head to meetings and workouts with his scouting teams in the East and Southeast regions.
"This gives me a lot of chances to see guys who I haven't seen this year," Kantrovitz said of the series of pre-Draft workouts. "Or if I have seen those guys, it gives myself and the crosscheckers an opportunity to sit down and talk to them as well."
The number of participants in these workouts ranges from about 10 to 30. The Cardinals' decision not to host one at Busch Stadium was largely due to a lack of standout local talent.
These workouts will be wrapped up by Tuesday, and all the members of the Cardinals' scouting staff will relocate to St. Louis by June 1 to finish final Draft preparations. The various regional groups rank the Draft-eligible players they have seen before putting together the final Draft board in St. Louis.
The 2014 Draft will take place on June 5-7, beginning with the Draft preview show on MLB.com and MLB Network on Thursday, June 5, at 5 p.m. CT. Live Draft coverage from MLB Network's Studio 42 begins at 6 p.m., with the top 74 picks being streamed on MLB.com and broadcast on MLB Network. MLB.com's exclusive coverage of the second and third days will begin with a live Draft show at 1:30 p.m. on June 6.
MLB.com's coverage includes Draft Central, the Top 100 Draft Prospects list and Draft Tracker, a live interactive application that includes a searchable database of Draft-eligible players. Every selection will be tweeted live from @MLBDraftTracker, and you can also keep up to date by following @MLBDraft. And get into the Draft conversation by tagging your tweets with #mlbdraft.