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Tomorrow marks the first round of the 2020 Major League Baseball Rule Four Amateur Draft, which will then conclude Thursday with the remaining rounds. Due to Covid-19 and an agreement between ownership and the MLBPA in March, Major League Baseball has opted to shorten this year's draft to just five rounds, down from its typical forty. This will obviously decrease the number of players selected and signed, but that does not necessarily mean that only five rounds worth of talent will begin their professional careers in the next few weeks.

Players that go undrafted can still sign as free agents, but the signing bonus that they can receive is capped at $20,000. This is likely going to lead to more players than usual on college campuses in the fall, as many players who would have signed in the sixth-fifteenth round range will opt to go to school, either as freshmen or returning for junior or senior years. Just for reference, in 2019, a sixth rounder's slot signing value was in the $250,000-$300,000 dollar range and a tenth rounder was slotted to receive around $145,000. Players drafted after the tenth round could still break six figures if a signing team had bonus pool money available, so the $20,000 signing bonus limit is a significant drop in bonus for players that normally would have been drafted.

In 2019, 29 players that graduated from a Virginia or DC high school were drafted, with 26 being taken out of college and three players being drafted directly from high school. It was a large class in general and reflected on the overall strength of the high school Class of 2016, which made up the bulk of the players from VA/DC who were drafted. For what its worth, if there had only been five rounds in 2019, just 8 players from VA/DC would have been selected in 2019.

Moving on to this year's Draft, which will primarily feature recent graduates from the Class of 2020, college players from the Classes of 2017 and 2016, as well as a few draft eligible members of the Class of 2018 or junior college players from any graduating class. Last year, two of the top players from the VA/DC Class of 2017 were drafted and signed, with Tanner Morris (Miller School, UVA) going as a draft-eligible sophomore and Bradley Hanner (Orange County, Patrick Henry CC) being selected out of junior college. With their pro careers already underway, that is two highly-ranked members of the Class of 2017 who will not be in the mix for the draft this week. Morris finished his prep career as the top-ranked player in our Class of 2017 Rankings and Hanner was 14th in the final ranings. Also out of the mix for this spring's draft is recent Potomac Falls alum Nate Savino, who was a projected early first round pick out of high school, but opted to enroll at Virginia in January and begin his college career early. Savino threw 10.2 innings for Virginia in the shortened 2020 season, striking out 10 batters with a 3.38 ERA.

While we expect the volume of players from Virginia and DC that are drafted to be down due to the shortened nature of the 2020 Draft, there are still a few players who we expect to go, and few others who could sneak into the conversation depending on signing bonus discussions. Major League teams are very careful to be sure that their top ten round picks will sign a contract before they actually select them, and that will be an even bigger factor this year as teams only have five rounds worth of picks to add to their organizations. Watch for a team that is looking to save some additional bonus pool money for a compensation pick or second rounder who slid out of the first round because of bonus demands by snagging a player who would have gone in the round 7-10 range with their third, fourth, or fifth round picks and giving them a smaller bonus than the slot value. This will potentially open the door up for some players to sneak into the draft that might be just outside the PBR/D1 Baseball Draft 250. 

Check back tomorrow as we spotlight the players from VA/DC who are in the Draft 250, as well as throw a spotlight on a few other players who kind wind up getting drafted or signed as a free agent after the draft.