Who Will Win at this Year’s MLB Draft?

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Scott Paulus

Manny Pina July 2017 at Miller Park in Milwaukee. Scott Paulus/Brewers

In a year of unlikely cancellations, one this week likely slipped many fans’ notice. Monday would have been the first day of Major League Baseball’s Winter Meetings, an event held annually since 1901. The event would have drawn thousands of attendees for a variety of reasons: in addition to bringing executives together to conduct league business and negotiate potential transactions, the event also traditionally features a baseball trade show and job fair.

While job seekers and trade show vendors won’t be able to replace the value of in-person contact, major league teams mostly can and have. Long gone are the days where White Sox owner Bill Veeck sat in the hotel lobby behind a sign reading “Open for Business” and negotiated transactions. Even before the pandemic, many or most of the recent deals worked out started via text message. In 2014 then-Brewers general manager Doug Melvin made headlines when, nursing a broken ankle, he didn’t leave his hotel suite during the meetings.

As such, it’s unclear how a lack of in-person meetings will impact the league-wide activity level this week. The only thing that will definitely happen is one of the gathering’s final events, the Rule 5 Draft. On Thursday morning all 30 teams will have an opportunity to claim any player who has reached a service time threshold in another organization but is not currently on their team’s 40-man roster. Taking a player in the draft costs $100,000, and if the player doesn’t stick in the majors with their new club then they have to be offered back to their original team for $50,000.

A few weeks ago the Brewers added three would-be eligible players to their roster to protect them from this draft: Catcher Mario Feliciano and pitchers Alec Bettinger and Dylan File. They chose to leave a few notable names unprotected, however, and one or more of them might be selected on Thursday.

Top Prospects

Two of the top Brewers prospects available in the draft have been through this process before: Pitcher Zack Brown and third baseman Lucas Erceg were left unprotected last winter. Brown, who MLB Pipeline rates as the #14 prospect in the Brewers organization, was the organization’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2018 and an invitee to the team’s Summer Camp in 2020. Erceg, who MLB Pipeline ranks 28^th, was swinging a hot bat early in his career but has seen his numbers cool at the upper levels of the minors.

One newcomer on the list of eligible players, however, may attract more attention. Catcher Payton Henry was the Brewers’ sixth round pick in the 2016 draft and has drawn high praise for both his offensive and defensive work while climbing the Brewers’ organizational ladder. He was a minor league Gold Glove Award winner in 2018 and played in 121 games for High-A Carolina in 2019, batting .242 with a .315 on-base and .395 slugging. He would have been a near-lock to play regularly for one of the Brewers’ upper-level affiliates if the 2020 minor league season hadn’t been canceled.

Henry’s chances of joining the Brewers’ roster are likely complicated by circumstance: With Feliciano added to the roster this fall, Omar Narvaez and Manny Pina both reaching deals to return and the reported but as-yet unconfirmed signing of Luke Maile, the Brewers have six catchers on their current MLB roster. With that said, Henry is good enough to play in the majors defensively right now and teams may be attracted by a player who can fill a bench role while they wait and see if his bat continues to develop.

A variety of factors make it increasingly possible for teams to select a player like Henry this week. Expanded rosters and the possible extension of the universal DH mean teams won’t need to rely as heavily on their bench players and may have an extra spot to stash a Rule 5 pick. Additionally, with many teams expected to lay low during free agency, there are more clubs than usual with roster spots available and an opportunity to take a chance on (nearly) freely available talent. That could lead to an opportunity for Henry to get a shot in the majors soon.