Frankly, there’s just too many players taken who are too far away from even making an appearance in the big leagues, let alone being an impact player, for the MLB draft to even remotely compare to the hype of the NFL or NBA drafts.

Except Strasburg, who’s probably gonna be in the Washington rotation by September.

People watch college football and college basketball, so when it’s draft time, we know the guys getting drafted. Plus, those guys will enter their league straight away.

I love football and basketball, and I love baseball, too, but I watch college football and college basketball unlike college baseball. I’ve never heard of any of the guys that are getting drafted into Major League Baseball. For me, that’s why I personally care a whole lot the NFL and NBA drafts respectively and not the MLB draft.

It’s not like college football where every Saturday there are games on TV all day long and now they have a game of the week seemingly every weeknight. It’s not like college basketball where Thursdays and Saturdays are their big days for games. Those athletes get the exposure needed for the casual fan to recognize them when their names are called in the draft.

With baseball, the only games you ever really hear anything about are when the college World Series starts up with their regionals and so on. Like you said, a lot of the players taken are high school kids who are relatively unknown and if they sign they’re going to spend multiple years progressing through the minors instead of opening the season on an NFL team’s special teams unit or in an NBA team’s D-League affiliate, for example.

And with so many players taken, it’s hard to even be that interested in it after the first few rounds. Unless you pay very close attention to baseball players in college and high school, 95% or more are going to generate a “Who?” response.

Just the way it is, I guess. It’d be different if college baseball was on TV a lot. At least then there’d be more exposure to build on.

And rather eloquently, I might add.

In the NFL and NBA, the draft night trades are a big intrigue. You can’t trade up or down in the MLB draft, a big part of the reason it’s not as popular. Half the fun of the NFL and NBA drafts is the trades

MLB drafted players take time to develop and there are minor league affiliates oF the big club that ‘house’ them until (or if) they are ready to contribute. That’s what I see as the biggest difference in the attention pay to both. I’d write more about roster sizes, the more individual nature MLB takes over NFL in not noticing the roster turnover as much in football but am using a phone, and not a real keyboard, to reply.

I would guess, without running the numbers, that there are many more players who were drafted really late in baseball who wind up huge impact players than in other sports, showing that it’s much more of a dartboard experiment than the other drafts. Then again, that’s just a guess.

The good drafting (especially non-first round draftees) → good team is much more pronounced in NFL/NBA than it is in MLB. People see the impact almost immediately in NFL and NBA, as you said Blez.

A lot of it has to do with the salary cap. A team like the Yankees, Mets, or Red Sox can buy their way out of bad draft picks, or not having their picks due to FA signings. I mean, the Mets had an awful draft by many means (I don’t think they even took one top 100 talent) but they’re not really going to miss that much. The Yanks had a pretty bad draft as well, even with the picks they did have (they had a pick in the 1st and 2nd rounds due to non-signs from last year).

That’s not really the case in NFL.

They’d have to put a whole hell of a lot of resources towards it. Unlike the NFL, where there are 7 rounds of 32 teams, and the NBA, where there are 2 rounds of 30 teams, baseball has 50ish rounds. That’s around 1,500 players. Even if you wanted to popularize the first 10 rounds, that’s 300 players.

It would be terribly difficult to give all these guys attention like college basketball and football get. I think the main problem is that people just don’t know who is being drafted. The only attention amateur baseball gets is the College World Series, which is just a handful of games towards the end of the year. Nobody would watch high school baseball.

And unless you’re a minor league baseball nut, it’s hard to follow a draftee for the years that he plays in the minors. I love the draft. I love watching scouting videos and reading reports. But there’s no way I can keep track of 1,500 players. Strasburg got a bunch of deserved attention in the days leading up to the draft, and I think if there were a few BBTN (with special guest analysts, not Ravech and Co.) that went over the best draft prospects, then they could probably televise the first few rounds like they did on the MLB Network, but you can’t go much further than that.

Do it the Saturday before the All Star break and don’t have any games scheduled. Make it the feature of the league for that short time period. It’s tough enough that the draft takes place during the season, which is the only professional sport that does that. Or better yet, move it to before or just after the season ends.

This is an absolutely terrible idea, especially for the kids getting drafted, and not just for the reason you mentioned, (then dismissed out of hand,) which was that the players wouldn’t be in professional programs that summer. Missing out on some pretty crucial development time is bad enough, but a lot of these kids have to decide between going pro or going to college. As it is they have a pretty short window in which to make a decision that could affect the rest of their lives. Shortening it by a month by moving the draft to All-Star weekend is a horrible burden to place upon them. Making them put their lives on hold until October or even November is just insane.

Players shouldn’t be allowed to refuse to sign and re enter the draft the following year. Yeah so we drafted so and so, but they won’t sign for whatever reason, and we don’t actually get that player we drafted.

If the player won’t sign with the team, the players rights should be tradeable by the team that drafted them all while knowing they can’t re enter the draft next year.

Cut down the number of rounds.

eliminate high school prospects eligibility.

It’s too broad and massive for anyone but really hardcore baseball people to follow closley.

A combine would help too. I know the NFL combine has it’s flaws, but its’ something for the fans to get excited about and follow and gets you to know the players who are about to be drafted much better.

once again the NFL does it best and the other leagues are slow to adapt.

If you follow your favorite college football QB on your favorite college football team, your more likely to be interested in the draft if he’s in it. However, if you can’t watch your college baseball team on TV all the time, how can you develop affinity towards the players? I mean, you can to some extent, but not as much as the NFL, NBA, etc.

Most NFL and NBA draft picks are playing in the pros from day 1 and a handful of them will be stars within year 1 …

It’ll be 2-3 years before even the best MLB draft picks make it to the show.

They’ll never be comparable.

Over 1000 posts on day one? And at least 400 posts today? Wow. We rock.

I watch them because the Warriors and 49ers are always awful and picking near the top, but both those drafts are incredibly, incredibly tedious. The first round lasts, like, hours. Frankly, I thought the MLB Draft moved along smoothly and nicely and was exactly what a draft should be. Informative and appealing, but not overwhelming and exhausting.

I’d rather they fix the stupid slot system and let teams trade picks before they worry about the glitz and glam of the draft.

The draft is designed to make the distribution of young talent more equal among major league franchises, and to balance that need with the rights of individual players to make a living earning money for professional baseball teams. Decisions about the draft — when it happens, who’s involved, who’s eligible, etc. — should be made to maximize those goals. If the draft ends up being a good t.v. show in addition, then fine. But moving it to the offseason so there’ll be more buzz, or making HS players ineligible, are, IMHO, really, really, really bad ideas, and misguided ones at that.

Oh, one other factor to consider when discussing why the MLB draft isn’t such a big deal — baseball is the only sport in which a huge portion of the players were never eligible for the draft, since no one outside Canada or the US (including PR) gets drafted. Many of the players everyone loves were never even eligible to be drafted in the first place. That’s not how it works in the NFL or NBA, or the NHL I think.

because the players dont have an immediate impact. Most players take 2-3 years to make it to the show

In MLB draft, the quality of the player is usually more dependent on the money they sign for rather than the picks they were drafted at. So richer teams will likely to have higher rated prospects. It’s almost like watching the free agency, you know the Yankees and BoSox will make their play, and the A’s can stick around and pick from the scrap heap.

Link

My favorite line from the article:

Commissioner Bud Selig came out to the lectern every few minutes to make a dramatic reading of a name he clearly had never seen before.

Selig is about as personable as mud on TV, IMO. Other than that astute observation, I have to agree with this article, and many of the comments on this post, that there are countless reasons as to why the MLB draft is just “not like the others.”

i say its that the returns take so much longer…

most NBA and NFL rookies will play in their first year at some point

Huston Street was the fastest callup from being drafted that i can remember, and that was still at least a calender year

What I was able to see and hear and read was fine. Its should not be a faux event like the NBA draft. I am not clear on what an “NFL” is so I cannot comment.

THe draft is the definition of “inside baseball.” I was excited when I heard the A’s first pick because i care about baseball even though I heard it on my drive home from someone who may or may not be called “Mr. T” but was never in a hit TV show. THis “Mr. T” was bagging on the process. Frankly I don’t want “Mr. T” caring because he would more likely than not say something stupid and that would make my head explode, orphaning my kids. I would not like that.

Basketball and football don’t even have minor leagues. They play college and then they play pro. Baseball drafts players at a different stage of their development. To expect it to be comparable to drafts in other sports is just silly. Short of drastically changing the sport, it’s not going to happen.

I don’t know a whole lot about why baseball is how it is. I assume there’s some good reason why players are drafted in the summer rather than the winter, why draft picks are not tradable, and why we have several levels of minor leagues. If you think those reasons really aren’t good reasons, fine; let’s debate that on the merits. But don’t throw out a system that’s working just to make the draft more entertaining, because really, the watchability of the draft is not very important. Certainly not worth mucking up something else for.

I agree with the general consensus that the fact that so many players drafted never even smell a major league field as being one of the primary reasons it’s not. But I really don’t see why it needs to be either.

Baseball America had the names of the first 7 draft picks on their website (free content, I might add) an hour before the draft started! What’s the point in watching when you already know the results.

Allow trading draft picks.

Enforce a slotting system.

Only televise through the 2nd round, max.