Game Day: Thursday, June 25th

It is almost the end of June and that is in someway unbelievable. 

This year has really flown by.  

It's flying faster than a Misiorowski four-seamer.  Before you know it, it will be the middle of July and July is a fast month for MLB.

Trades will start falling into place, teams will declare themselves as buyers and sellers and we’ll have a much better idea of what teams are to be counted on as contenders and what teams are officially on cruise control into 2027.

The MLB Draft will take place over the All-Star break and I am looking forward to seeing how this years' selections fall.  I've followed the mock drafts and the MLB Combine to some degree and it is a very deep draft this season.  Catchers are the story this year as opposed to prep shortstops and pitching prospects but I feel like there is a large pool of top-of-the-rotation talent in this years' draft.  College hitters should see their stock rise this year too with teams looking to put pressure on the upper divisions of their farm systems.

The Brewers are leveraging players into smart deals that some might look at as lowball offers and bad deals for the players.  I'd disagree.  Cooper Pratt and Luis Lara are the direct beneficiaries of expensive free-agent deals and higher arbitration salaries and their deals were priced very well for both the players and the team.  Both are guaranteed a minimum of 30M dollars and that is a significant raise for players in some regard.

The contracts aren't without risk but as we have seen with many high-dollar free agents, neither are proven-veterans.  Anthony Rendon and Anthony Santander.  Stephen Strasburg.  Tyler O'Neill. Ha Seong Kim.  

Having a deep and competitive system at the AA and AAA level gives a team options.  They can offer their A1 prospect at a position a base and standard rookie deal similar to Pratt's or Lara's and if he refuses, if the system is deep, they can game plan and prioritize their A2 prospect.  Having multiple top prospects at a position increases the team's leverage in signing extensions and these extensions, if priced well, carry low AAVs throughout a player's arbitration years and offer a team the low-cost option to retain a player over his first few seasons of Free Agency.   

Collegiate players should be more in demand than ever.  A college player with three years of NCAA seasoning can make an impact at the AA level immediately.  If you can continually mount pressure at the top of your system, you can continually stack leverage on players to sign team-friendly contracts.

You'd think that every MLB team would have intelligent leadership and the staff who recognize the shifting landscapes of payrolls and the potential for creating value in this way but it doesn't seem to be the case.  The Angels drafted nearly 70% prep players in '25.  I don't understand their strategy.

There will be a good number of prep players taken in '26 too and I'm not a scout by any means but I don't see how a prep player can compare to an NCAA player who has had success in the ACC or the SEC.  The level of competition is so much greater.  

Soon, collegiate players may be the only option.  MLB is proposing an age limit of 20 years for affiliated baseball.  I don't disagree with this, it will certainly do a world of good for JUCO baseball.  Independent leagues may also see a boost.  

All interesting and entertaining in some regard.  Boring in another regard.  I'm mostly thinking about the MLB Draft today and I'm looking forward to seeing how it falls out this season.  I don't have a good idea of what each team's needs are or how every prospect grades out.  There are way too many players to keep track of but there are some standouts and it's always interesting to me to see what NCAA players get taken.  These are the players I like to track and follow most as they enter professional baseball.  The preps I don't care for much because, for the most part, they have a much longer path towards viability in a team's system.  Some of the college players will make an impact in AA on day one.  

That's it for Game Day and once again it is late in the afternoon.  If there is a game with an evening post time, I might have a pick.  It's a light schedule today with only nine games on the card.  I'm scheduled to do laundry tonight and that may require a day off from the picks.  Let's see how it goes.

Stay tuned.  

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