Baseball's June Draft

Baseball America has published a nice rundown of most everything you need to know about this week's first-year player draft in Orlando. Some tidbits taken directly from the article:

• The draft will last no more than 50 rounds, but it could theoretically be shorter. Each club is allowed to select for 50 rounds but is not required to do so. In recent years, just a few clubs have dropped out before the end of the 50th round, but more clubs are expected to do so because of changes that eliminate the draft-and-follow process.


• The most significant rule change with this year's draft involves a universal signing date. All draft picks must now sign by Aug. 15, or they go back into the draft pool. In previous years, players who went to junior college or simply did not return to school were eligible to sign with the team that drafted them until a week before the next year's draft.

Baseball-Reference.com has one-upped itself once again by providing every single draft in total on it's website. That's one more book that Baseball America may not be able to sell very much of in the future. Information is becoming freer and freer and freer and.....