Draft's final day where hidden gems are found
NEW YORK -- After 315 picks over two days, the 2014 First-Year Player Draft is underway today for its third and final day with Rounds 11-40. MLB.com is streaming the remainder of the Draft live.
Draft Central, the Top 200 Draft Prospects list and Draft Tracker, a live interactive application that includes a searchable database of Draft-eligible players. Every selection is being 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.
Even after 10 rounds of selections, there are still 53 players from the Top 200 list who remain available. The group is highlighted by a trio of high school pitchers who are viewed as having strong college commitments. J.B. Bukauskas (No. 38) informed teams last month he intended to attend North Carolina, while Keith Weisenberg (No. 65) and Mac Marshall (No. 66) have been firm in their commitments to Stanford and LSU.
The rest of the remaining players ranked on the Top 100 are:
• No. 73 Bryce Montes de Oca, a right-hander from Lawrence (Kan.) High School
• No. 77 Cobi Johnson, a right-hander from J.W. Mitchell High School in Florida
• No. 89 Keaton McKinney, a right-hander from Ankeny Centennial High School in Iowa
• No. 90 Jeren Kendall, an outfielder from Holmen (Wis.) High School
• No. 97 J.J. Schwarz, a catcher from Palm Beach Gardens High School in Florida
• No. 98 Evan Skoug, a catcher from Libertyville (Ill.) High School
While Bukauskas, Weisenberg and Marshall are the most prominent examples, several other high schoolers have fallen because of their strong college commitments. Some, such as Tate Blackman (ranked No. 108 and a Mississippi signee), have taken to Twitter to reaffirm their plans to attend college.
HOTTY TODDY is all I'm saying! #rebels
- Tate Blackman (@BlackmanTate) June 6, 2014Teams that have been careful with their pool of money allotted to sign their Draft picks could quickly snap up the top remaining players Saturday regardless of their signability.
Each pick in the first 10 rounds is assigned a value and the total of those picks represents a team's budget for the Draft. If a player signs for less than the pick is valued, the savings can be applied to a team's other selections. But if a team exceeds its Draft pool, they are subject to penalties.
While picks that sign for more than $100,000 in Rounds 11-40 still count against a team's allotted pool, the value of that selection is not lost if they do not sign. Since the new Draft rules went into effect in 2012, many teams have targeted players who were perceived to be difficult to sign early on the third day of the Draft.
Unearthing talent late in the Draft isn't a recent phenomenon, however. All-Stars such as Albert Pujols (13th round in 1999), Jake Peavy (15th round in 1999) and Russell Martin (17th round in 2002) were all selected deep in the Draft.