Everything you need to prep for the MLB Draft

We're less than a week away from the draft now so I wanted to put together a list of relevant information to prepare you for Monday.

Where/when to watch

The first two rounds of the draft (through pick 70) will be televised on MLB Network. The draft itself starts at 6 pm CST but there is a "Draft Preview" show that starts an hour earlier. Rounds 3-10 will be streamed on MLB online next Tuesday starting with a pre-show at 11:30 am CST. The final day of the draft will also be streamed on MLB.com starting at 11:00 am CST and will cover rounds 11-40.

The Brewers picks

I went more in-depth on this topic here. If you want more detailed information you should check that article out. I'll be brief here.

On Day 1 of the MLB Draft the Brewers will have 3 picks: The 15th, 40th, and 55th overall picks. Their second pick (40th overall) was received via the Competitive Balance Lottery. They got the 4th pick (out of 6) in that round.

On Day 2 of the Draft the Brewers will have the 90th, 121st, 151st, 181st, 211th, 241st, 271st, and 301st picks.

On Day 3 of the Draft no one should care where they pick. This is the lottery ticket/org filler portion of the draft and it really doesn't matter where a team picks. Honestly, it probably doesn't matter after the third or fourth rounds where a team picks. Heck, it might not matter after the first round.

If you want to view the complete draft order you can do that here.

Draft Prospect Rankings

The final prospect ranking for some sites are already out. Some others will have one last list come out between now and the start o the draft. I'll link those lists here if I see them and I'll denote that by using "EDIT" so you'll know.

I'm going to link every single ranking I've come across in case anyone is interested to see how they've changed over time. If you're not interested in that then just check out the most recent lists.

If you see ($) that means the list is behind a paywall and you'll be unable to view it without a subscription/membership.

ESPN Top 30 ($)- October 2014
ESPN Top 50 ($)- April 23, 2015
ESPN Top 100 ($)- May 13, 2015
ESPN Top 100 ($)- June 2, 2015

FanGraphs Top 51+ - September 2014
FanGraphs Top 36+ - April 17, 2015
EDIT: Sortable Draft Board - June 3, 2015 (explanation of sortable draft board here)

Baseball America Top 50- April 17, 2015
Baseball America Top 100- May 7, 2015
Baseball America Top 500- June 2, 2015 (NOTE: BA has their list freely available to the public, but individual scouting reports on players are behind a paywall)

Baseball Prospectus Top 100 ($)- May 27, 2015

Minor League Ball Top 400- May 30, 2015

MLB Pipeline Top 50 - Early List
MLB Pipeline Top 200 - Current List

Mock Drafts

Mock drafts are somehow fun, stupid, worthless, and informative all at once. For one thing, mock drafts usually don't go much past the first round of the draft. It gets really hard to project what direction a team is going to go when you're talking about the 40th pick of a draft. It's hard enough to guess accurately who will be available at 26.

Also, a mock draft from a week ago is probably mostly worthless. Sometimes teams don't even know who they're going to draft until literally the day of the draft. But, one can still find useful information if you read between the lines. If a team is being linked to a lot of college pitchers chances are they'll draft a college pitcher.

Mocks a lot more accurate the closer to the top of the draft you are. With the Brewers picking in the middle of the first round they've pretty much been linked to a different player with every new mock. Another reason for this (and this is an informative thing I learned from reading all the different mock drafts) is that Ray Montgomery is known for taking the best player available. So instead of going into the draft looking to adhere to a rigid plan the Brewers are probably going to be willing to pivot at the last minute if a guy falls to them. I find that to be encouraging.

Anyway, here are all the mock drafts I've come across:

Sports Illustrated

Baseball America v.1
Baseball America v.2
Baseball America v.3
Baseball America v.4
EDIT: Baseball America v.5

Baseball Prospectus v.1 ($)
EDIT: Baseball Prospectus v.2 ($)

MLB Pipeline v.1
MLB Pipeline v.2
MLB Pipeline v.3
MLB Pipeline v.4

ESPN v.1 ($)
ESPN v.2 ($)
EDIT: ESPN v.3 ($)

EDIT: FanGraphs v.1
EDIT: FanGraphs v.2

Final Thoughts

So there you have it. That's all the information I have to pass along to you. Have fun with it. Remember though, while we're all allowed to have our favorites be realistic with yourself. We're not scouts. We're not talent evaluators. We don't really know what we're talking about when we say stuff like "The Brewers should've draft Joey Gallo instead of Mitch Haniger."

Yes, that applies even if you've seen them on TV or in person. We don't have the skills to determine what these kids are going to be like when they reach the majors. We don't even know for sure IF they'll reach the majors. Even the experts won't claim to know everything for sure. A lot can happen between now and a major league debut.

There is also a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that we'll never fully be privy too. Teams technically aren't supposed to make deals with draft prospects before the draft, but they all do. With the way the draft is constructed they have to. A team can't risk taking someone in the first round they don't know for sure will sign with them because they then lose the slot value. That can impact later rounds.

This happened last year with the Astros. They ended up not signing Brady Aiken and because they lost the slot value they were unable to sign Jacob Nix to an overslot deal. It was a fiasco.

Sometimes a team will make a deal with a player that they'll draft in a comp round or second/third round. Basically, they'll say if you agree not to sign with anyone else we'll give you late first round money in the second round to sign with us. So that kid agrees to this and tells other teams he won't sign with anyone but Team X.

A different example of something similar was Jose Fernandez in 2011. Brewers fans love to lament the fact that the Brewers passed him up. But supposedly he was telling teams that he would only sign with the Marlins because of his Cuban heritage. He purportedly told teams if anyone but the Marlins drafted him he wouldn't sign and instead would go to college.

All I'm trying to say is if the Brewers don't take your guy, don't freak out. You can be bummed about it of course. I was sad the Brewers didn't take Grant Holmes last year. But maybe if they took him instead of Kodi Medeiros they wouldn't have been able to afford to sign both Jacob Gatewood and Monte Harrison. And it's still possible Medeiros ends up the more talented pitcher. We're not going to know what the right decision was until a couple years into all their MLB careers (if they get that far).

That applies to all drafts in general. We're not going to know how a draft worked out for a good 5 or 6 years after the fact. So again, just try and have fun with it.