Draft Analysis: Nobody Knows Anything (including the KC Royals)

INSTANT REACTIONS TO MLB DRAFT PICKS ARE POINTLESS

With the exception of the NHL Draft—which, aside from your Sidney Crosby’s and the like, is mostly a collection of anonymous Canadian teenagers—no draft among the Big Four has less fanfare than the MLB Draft. Most day-to-day fans know the shortlist for No. 1, and there’s the occasional comet like Bryce Harper, guaranteed to take the league by storm barring gruesome injury or gratuitous drug use. Diehards for each team will usually try to get an idea of who might be available in their range—occasionally, there’s even someone you’ve heard of.

(This year, I was pining for Vanderbilt’s Jeren Kendall, under the tried-and-true premise that being successful at the highest collegiate level is usually a barometer for success at the next level).

There are the truly, deeply mad, like our own Patrick Brennan who I’m fairly certain has a Sherlockian thread of clues posted somewhere in his home and a draft big board that goes 2,700 players deep. But John Q. Public, which can consume the NBA Draft in an evening and seem quite content to stew in their own filth for 72 hours during the NFL Draft, largely ignores MLB’s draft.

There are two reasons for this, and they’re both true to a varying degree.