It’s remarkable how different the Draft could feel this year, and I don’t mean how different it is already going to feel because it’s only five rounds.
Instead, I mean that the June 10-11 MLB Draft could be coming at the peak of anticipatory hype about baseball returning, with Spring Training Part Two starting sometime shortly after the draft. That’d be a helluva staging event, and a great spotlight for a part of the sport that typically gets no national attention at all.
… or it could come a couple weeks after the sport decided it could not come to financial terms on a season, and shut itself down. I can barely wrap my head around what that would feel like watching the draft. What’s the most extreme version of bittersweet?
Anyway, the draft is now just two weeks away, and the coverage this year – in the absence of sports – will predictably be wider than ever:
#MLB announces that the #MLBDraft will be carried on multiple networks for the first time.
June 10: @MLBNetwork & @ESPN
June 11: @MLBNetwork & ESPN2More details: https://t.co/VZtoJQ8RRf pic.twitter.com/ACLvA03Hi5
— MLB Draft (@MLBDraft) May 29, 2020
The Cubs will have five picks in the draft, in their normal spot (16th in each round), and we’ve been track Mock Drafts this month. By all accounts, it’s an especially good year to have a pick in the middle of the first round (i.e., the difference between the 10th pick and the 16th pick, this year, might be about zero), so that’s cool at least.