2017 MLB First Year Player Draft primer

The MLB Draft will be upon us on the night of June 12th at 7 pm EST. Here’s all you need to prepare and guide yourself through the three day event.

Draft Order

The MLB Draft order does not follow a straight 1-to-30 order in the first two rounds as it does from the third round on. The order is affected by two things: compensation and competitive balance picks.

Traditionally, there are two types of compensation picks. The first is from qualifying offers, which are denoted with a single asterisk below. This year those there are three of those coming from the Edwin Encarnacion, Ian Desmond, and Dexter Fowler signings. They are placed at the end of the first round and the signing teams forfeit their first round pick if they are outside of the top 10 picks.

The second type of compensation pick is for teams that failed to sign any player within the first two rounds. Last year, the only team to do this were the Pirates when courting Nick Lodolo. They will pick one pick behind where they selected Lodolo last year.

The final type is from disciplinary proceedings; this year, that means the Cardinals’ hacking case. The Cardinals were punished for Chris Correa’s hacking effort into the Astros’ systems and were forced to hand over their top two picks to the Astros.

The competitive balance rounds are somewhat self-explanatory. After the first and second rounds, “small market” teams are given additional picks to help them add both monetary value and talent to their draft.

Bonus Pool Rules, Penalties, and Allocations

One of the most essential tasks to understanding the draft is understanding how bonus pools work.

Every pick from rounds 1 to 10 have an assigned slot value, which collectively make up a team’s total allocation of funds for the draft. Teams may spend more on one player and less on another, but that’s essentially their total pot. In addition to that, players after the 10th round are subject to this constraint as well. If they sign for more than $100,000 then the difference is deducted from the pool. The penalties for overages can be stringent. If they are within zero to five percent of their pool, the penalty is limited to a 75 percent tax on their overage. Between 5 and 10 percent results in said tax plus the loss of a first round pick the following year. When you get to between 10 and 15 percent, the tax is bumped to 100 percent and the team must forfeit an additional second round pick from the subsequent year. If they manage to exceed it by more than 15 percent, the team must pay the aforementioned tax and loses their next two first rounders.

Suffice to say the most harsh penalties haven’t been incurred yet, as most teams seek to stay below the cap.

The fine folks at Baseball America took the time to plot out the slot value for every single pick in more extensive fashion than MLB.com. I fully encourage you to use either table as a guide to help you along the draft. The valuations of the slot values in conjunction with the totals are one of the keys to understanding a team’s draft strategy. Their list also includes a brief history of the bonus pool provision in the CBA and how it has worked from its inception.

Top Draft Prospects

This year’s class has a ton of interesting players. From the various two-way stars like Brendan McKay and Hunter Greene, to the injured-but-productive Keston Hiura, to the suspended Seth Romero. You can read about the varying opinions on these players at the many rankings across the baseball blogosphere.

Baseball America’s BA 500

Minor League Ball’s Coverage

MLB Pipeline’s Top 200

Fangraph’s Sortable Draft Board and Rundown

Keith Law’s Big Board

Mock Drafts

Baseball America

Fangraphs

SB Nation

MLB Pipeline

ESPN

I’ll be updating this piece throughout the weekend as the draft approaches, begins, and progresses, so check back for more information.

Anthony Rescan is a Featured Writer at Beyond the Box Score. You can follow him on Twitter at @AnthonyRescan.