Listen, we know it’s tough to catch up on everything happening in the baseball world each morning. There are all kinds of stories, rumors, game coverage, and Vines of dudes getting hit in the beans every day. Trying to find all of it while on your way to work or sitting at your desk just isn’t easy. It’s okay, though, we’re going to do the heavy lifting for you each morning, and find the things you need to see from within the SB Nation baseball network as well as from elsewhere. Please hold your applause until the end, or at least until after you subscribe to the newsletter.
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What, you thought the MLB Draft was over? No such luck — that was just the first two rounds and their compensation companions. On Tuesday, starting at 1 p.m. at MLB.com, rounds three through 10 will take place. Don’t worry, it might sound unexciting since you don’t know all these draft prospects — after all, no one was preparing mock drafts for picks 76 onward — but high-quality players still exist late into the draft. Some of them just need a little monetary convincing to ditch that college commitment for a pro baseball career, some are potential gems that fewer teams believe in, and some will just end up a bigger deal than anyone ever expected.
There are still 36 players from MLB.com’s top 100 left on the board. The intriguing players will go deeper than the top-100, though, as history reminds: stars of today like Jose Bautista (20th round), Matt Carpenter (13th), Ian Kinsler (17th), and Russell Martin (17th) all came to their teams even later on in the draft than where we’ll get today. It’s a little harder to follow along than it was on Monday, but hey, you can do that instead of fully investing yourself in work today, so it can’t all be bad, yeah?
If you missed yesterday’s draft action, we’ve got a pick-by-pick list of the first two rounds, and MLB Daily Dish has a write-up for all 35 of the first-round selections. You can also refer to Christopher Crawford’s look at the first 75 picks over at Baseball Prospectus.
- Speaking of high school picks, what if Mark McGwire had signed with the Expos — as a pitcher? What if Barry Bonds never went to the Pirates, and skipped straight to the Giants? We’ve got these and a few other draft what-ifs to consider from the last 30 years.
- The Royals might get every one of their starting nine voted into the MLB All-Star Game lineup. Please, people, at least vote for Mike Trout so he doesn’t get displaced by Alex Rios.
- Twitter is not pleased with Royals’ fans and their voting habits.
- Apple will pay the Indians’ bullpen’s ransom for Brandon Moss’ 100th career homer. Well, at least the Apple products part: they’re pretending the 50-gallon drum of lube wasn’t part of the demands. Can’t you just like, fill a bucket and slap an “iLube” sticker on there and pretend it’s the next big thing? It’d sell without the people buying it giving it a second (or first) thought.
- An annual reminder that those great defensive players are probably still great, even if early season advanced metric leaderboards say otherwise.
- Vanderbilt’s college baseball team mobbed teammate Dansby Swanson after he was selected No. 1 in the MLB Draft. The timing was right, as Vandy had just won their super regional against Illinois.
- That win got them College World Series bound, along with a number of other teams.
- The Marlins drafted high schooler Josh Naylor out of Canada with the 12th pick, which looks surprising given he was ranked much lower on the draft boards, but there were other teams considering the potential first base slugger even sooner than that.
- Is Xander Bogaerts an all-star this year? You know, assuming someone besides Royals players get to head to Cincinnati.
- Are you sure “amphibious” is the word you wanted to describe Pat Venditte, newspaper?
