Draft Day

Umm. Yeah.  It's draft day today.  Have a look at Kevin Goldstein's (baseball prospectus) final mock draft. Also at BP, Daniel Rathman tells us what to expect out of this year's draft.

The Astros will be on the clock at about 7:10ET tonight, and are expected to take Mark Appel, a pitcher from Stanford, though I've also heard that the Astros hadn't made a decision yet when that link was posted, so maybe we're just rumor-mongering for now.

You can find coverage of the draft on Sportsnet 1, and probably elsewhere as well (MLB Network, maybe MLB.com?), though I can't be bothered to confirm such items.

Stuff
Just a few draft related links here today.

First, River Ave Blues has a draft order listed out, complete with an explanation of where supplemental picks came from.  The Jays will pick 17th, for being the 17th worst team in baseball last year, 22nd, for their inability to sign Tyler Beede (who sucks now, btw) last year, 50th for the loss of Jose Molina, 58th for the loss of Jon Rauch, and 60th for the loss of Frank Frank.  Following that, they'll have the 17th pick of each round, which kind of equates to once every 30, except there are a few supplemental picks after the third round.

Some Red Sox thing talks about some of the little quirks of the new CBA, if you still aren't up to speed on that.  He talks about the slotting system, and the penalties accrued for paying said slotting system.

I'm hearing rumblings of Stetson Allie giving up pitching, and trying to become a position player.  Allie was drafted by the Pirates in the 2nd round of the 2010 draft, but only went that late due to concerns about signability.  He eventually signed for $2.2MM (which, this year, is the value of a 15th overall pick).  He was ranked by Baseball America as being the 79th best prospect in baseball before the 2011 season, but was fucking wild as shit last year over 26 innings in A-ball.  He probably would have been drafted as a position player in 2010, but obviously wouldn't have gotten the $2.2MM signing bonus.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports wants the televised draft to be more entertaining.

Completely unrelated, but MLB Network analyst Jim Duquette is undergoing surgery today to give his 10-year old daughter one of his kidneys.  Infinite karma.  Hope all goes well there.

It's an off-day for the Jays today.  Jose Bautista gets the Zaunhead for yesterday's game.  Robert Coello will probably be sent back down to Las Vegas, since the bullpen should finally be rested enough after Drew Hutchison's performance yesterday, and the offday today.  X-rays on Edwin Encarnacion's wrist/hand came back negative, and he is listed as day-to-day.  This makes it more likely that Coello goes down and a bat comes up, in my view, though nothing has been announced yet.  I think Yan Gomes is eligible to come back up today, though David Cooper is still here, so it doesn't necessarily have to be a 1B, and Mike Mccoy could go down too if it becomes an issue of bodies and people who can actually be serviceable with the bat.