Michigan State Yet To Have A 2016 MLB Draft Pick

As of this afternoon we are beginning the 6th round of this years MLB Draft and no Spartans have been selected.

For the casual fan, the MLB Draft can be an interesting and often infuriating process. Unlike Basketball and Football drafts you are hearing the names of high schoolers on draft day. And just because you are drafted does not mean that you are going to be headed to play right away. Often players forgo the deals that teams may lay out for them and choose instead to play in the college ranks one more year. There is none of the pomp and circumstance of the NFL Draft, money is traded around and it feels like the Majors can feel at times; dated, stuffy, and kind of confusing. Lets, try and break it down for you.

Say you are a Senior in High School at Grand Ledge. You just got done with an amazing season, batting .412 with 34 RBIs and 10 home runs and as many triples. You have played on the USA baseball team and scouts are knocking on your door. You have offers from all the major schools and there are pro scouts sitting down with you and your parents. Draft Day comes and you are selected 15th by the Minnesota Twins. At this point you have a few options.

First off you can start negotiating with the Twins on a signing bonus, and what it is going to look like for the prospect. You are not seeing newly drafted players starting in the Spring for any MLB team so most likely they are going to be going to a farm system and building skills there for a few years. The upper picks have the ability to negotiate for higher bonuses (Arizona paid Vanderbilt SS Dansby Swanson $6.5 million in bonuses last year per MLB.com) but teams only have a certain amount to bargain with or they could face penalties that include losing future draft picks.

If you decide the offer is not sweet enough, then you can attend college ball. Once you make that decision you are not able to be drafted again until your Junior year of college. That is a gamble for some as anything could happen in those three years, from injury to regression in skill, that would negatively effect your draft stock. Assuming neither of those happen, you once again could hear your name called on draft day. Once that happens, the club that drafted you retains the right to sign you until August 15th at 11:59pm.

According to MLB:

“A player who is drafted and does not sign with the Club that selected him may be drafted again at a future year's Draft, so long as the player is eligible for that year's Draft. A Club may not select a player again in a subsequent year, unless the player has consented to the re-selection. A player who is eligible to be selected and is passed over by every Club becomes a free agent and may sign with any Club until the player enters, or returns to, a four-year college full-time or enters, or returns to, a junior college.

Basically you just go through the entire process all over again. The players with the most power are players like MSU redshirt junior Cam Vieaux. Cam is expected to be draft at some point before the 10th round (but it is hard to tell, the MLB Draft can be volatile and surprising). Vieaux was selected last year by the Detroit Tigers with the 580th pick by the Detroit Tigers and after negotiating with the team decided the price they offered was not quite sweet enough for the left hander to leave East Lansing. He returned and had a great season for the Spartans, notching 77 K’s in 87.0 innings of work per MSU Athletics. Cam has one more year of eligibility left and he is in a great position today in that he can really make sure he is going to be headed to a good organization because if he is not happy, he can choose one more year in East Lansing on a team that has a great deal of youth and a chance to make some noise in the NCAA tournament next year.

You can follow along with the MLB Draft all weekend on MLB’s Draft Tracker.