Such to the extent that most baseball fans contemplate the June draft at all, it’s often about the first few rounds. The players at the top are (rightly) thought to be the most likely to dent a MLB roster. Since the parent club is almost the exclusive interest of fans, those are the primary concerns. Players down the ticket, though, can provide specific value to an organization. This piece looks at two positive trends along those lines from last June’s Cubs draft.
Many of the selections between Albert Almora Jr. (Theo Epstein’s first selection for the Cubs) and Edmond Americaan (35th round, 2018) have been to refurbish a Cubs pipeline that had been badly misused.