Player's Perspective: The MLB Draft

The MLB draft is unlike any other in professional sports, merging high school and college athletes together, some as many as six years apart in age. And of the more than 1,200 players drafted every June, it is widely known that a mere fraction will ever actually contribute to the major league club. Yet, every year organizations take on 30-40 fresh faces and new names, hoping that some day just a few of them will pan out to be the stars that we see on TV every night.

It’s a double-edged sword in a sense from the player’s prospective. With the potential for 40 newly drafted players entering the organization every year, the minor leagues can seem like a crowded place. But for a large portion of us in minor league baseball, the size of the draft alone afforded us the opportunity to play our sport professionally—a luxury that many athletes in other sports can only dream of.

For me, the draft was an opportunity to continue my baseball career, but it definitely wasn’t something that I was counting on. Coming into my senior year of college, I knew that it was a possibility, but I also had to plan for what to do if it didn’t happen. After graduation in May, with just a few weeks of college baseball remaining, I was applying for jobs just like any other college graduate with the hopes that I could push the real world aside for a few more years.

Generally, professional area scouts give players their space during the course of the college season. You hear very little from them, and because of that, you have very little idea about when or if you might be drafted. At the end of my college season in late May it was much of the same. I had played my last game for UNCW, and potentially the last baseball game of my life, yet here I was, with a group of my teammates, also graduated seniors, throwing and running and preparing for a season that may or may not come.

About a week before the draft, things began to pick up. I was getting a few phone calls a day from scouts asking if I was healthy (yes) and willing to accept the standard bonus of the senior-sign (of course). My family and I began to imagine which team it might be, which minor league town I might be shipped out to. It was one of the best weeks of my life. But at the same time, it could still easily go the other way. With so much talent across the country, most of them at least a couple years younger than me, I could still be passed over.

During the first night of the draft I was glued to the TV, not as a player hopeful to see my name called, but as a fan watching the future of Major League Baseball, interested to see where they went. During the second day, rounds 3-10, I was hearing very little. Not that I expected to be taken that high, but I wanted some assurance from somebody that I would get an opportunity.

Day three was a Saturday and my family had all planned to come meet me at the beach for the weekend. It was going to be either a celebration of the opportunity ahead of me or an enjoyable conclusion to my time in Wilmington before I headed towards the real world. I convinced myself that I was going to be fine with either.

Rounds 11-40 were set to start a noon, with picks coming nearly simultaneously throughout the day. Again, I was hearing very little from the scouts that were in contact the week before. Still, though, I didn’t want to seem nervous.

Finally, towards the end of the 16^th round, my cell phone rang with a call from the local Baltimore Orioles scout. He assured me that I was their next pick, and asked me to stand by for his call once it was official. What a relief. I followed on the twitter tracker for the 17^th round, waiting to see my name pop up, except when it did it was the Minnesota Twins and not the Orioles. The Twins scout called a moment later to let me know that they had indeed selected me with their 17^th round pick.

It was the perfect end to a process where so much uncertainty surrounds every pick and ultimately worked out better than I could have ever hoped.