Hello from somewhere north of Stockholm where I've been jumping into my texts and emails the past day during connecting trains and such to configure some final fine tuning for Mock Draft 2.0 from The Sporting Tribune, roughly 24 hours before the first selection.
Time to write hasn't come at a luxury, so sorry for the month-plus gap between Mock 1.0 and Mock 2.0, and that it comes just a day ahead of the draft itself.
While some of the waters have cleared, it's still pretty muddy at the top and throughout the first round.
Most players who will have their name called in the first 50-100 picks have already had their parties express their bonus demands, and the real wheeling and dealing started right after the MLB Draft Combine where most (not all, or close to it) turned in their medicals and there has been some financial maneuvering on all fronts to turn the draft into a more "open market" to some degree.
Add in finances with peak data, performance across all forms of amateur ball, age relevance, development windows, makeup, variance and private workout data; and suddenly, everyone has an internal model to lean on. While you can never say it's an end all item, models have taken over the draft heavier than in-house opinions which means some players have made serious leaps and bounds no matter what the previous feeling or connection was from club-player-agent.
Time to write hasn't come at a luxury, so sorry for the month-plus gap between Mock 1.0 and Mock 2.0, and that it comes just a day ahead of the draft itself.
While some of the waters have cleared, it's still pretty muddy at the top and throughout the first round.
Most players who will have their name called in the first 50-100 picks have already had their parties express their bonus demands, and the real wheeling and dealing started right after the MLB Draft Combine where most (not all, or close to it) turned in their medicals and there has been some financial maneuvering on all fronts to turn the draft into a more "open market" to some degree.
Add in finances with peak data, performance across all forms of amateur ball, age relevance, development windows, makeup, variance and private workout data; and suddenly, everyone has an internal model to lean on. While you can never say it's an end all item, models have taken over the draft heavier than in-house opinions which means some players have made serious leaps and bounds no matter what the previous feeling or connection was from club-player-agent.
22 days ago
