MLB Daily: Mike Trout, Kevin Pillar Flash the Leather; Baseball Draft Musings

Welcome to MLB Daily where you’ve got to have fun or something on Friday …

DRAFT TIME: Drafts are ingrained in American sports culture right next to paying $11 for a 12 ounce beer at the stadium and TV timeouts after an NFL kickoff. Some fans love drafts, others loathe them. If ESPN decided to make up a random draft — candy bars, TV sitcom wacky neighbors, etc. — and threw it on a weeknight in the summer, people would watch. I’m not saying this would be all that interesting or compelling, but there would be drama over the first pick. In the hypotheticals I’ve outlined the choices would be Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Steve Urkel. (Note: I took 1.2 seconds to come up with those answers and didn’t put much thought into either.)

The NFL Draft began last night and it’s a big deal, even if this year’s first round was mostly ho-hum. What matters with the NFL Draft and to a lesser extent the NBA Draft and even the NHL Draft (Connor McDavid’s mustache needs its own 30 For 30), is that they are events. They’re dates on the calendar fans of those sports circle and look ahead to all year.

Baseball, well, baseball is trying to make its draft more relevant in a buzzy, 140-character sense, but it’s taking some time. Thanks to the creation of MLB Network the first rounds of the draft is now actually on television and teams are allowed, in earnest, to trade picks. Even with these strides, it’s going to be difficult for the baseball draft to ever come within sniffing distance of the other drafts — and that’s perfectly okay.

For one, we know ESPN is built off college sports programming — namely college football and basketball. These countless hours provide, if nothing else, name recognition and familiarity when the draft rolls in — there’s a difference when NFL fans have seen Marcus Mariota in action for countless hours vs. reading a blurb. Baseball’s draft is a combination of high school and college kids, although there are NCAA diehards like our Michael Shamburger, it’s still mostly a niche sport in terms of popularity. In essence, unless you’re reading Baseball America every day and somehow tracking down high school baseball clips, the MLB draft is a lot like if the NFL draft consisted of Division III players or the NBA Draft was mostly unknown-to-American foreign-based players. This isn’t meant to compare the quality, simply the familiarity sports fans have when they walk on stage after their name is called. 

True, a couple years ago, Bryce Harper drew loads and loads of pre-draft hype but he’s the exception to the rule. I’d guess if you polled 100 baseball fans, most wouldn’t even know who the No. 1 pick overall was last year, let alone their own team’s first pick. (Last year’s top pick, Brady Aiken, failed to sign with the Astros and recently underwent Tommy John surgery.) There’s no sense getting into how long a process it often becomes for drafted players, often 18 years old, to reach the Major League level — 2008 No. 1 overall pick Tim Beckham didn’t debut with the Rays until 2013.

And there’s still something to be said for the unknown aspect of baseball prospects and the feelings of hope fans get when these players are rated and or hyped on a Top 100 scouting list. Look no further than the 2015 Cubs.

Teams are getting smarter with the draft, realizing that internal development and team-friendly contracts (i.e. the Kris Bryant situation) are a more reasonable way to build than with mega-money at free agents — and fewer of those are going to the open market each year. Put the draft on television, get more and more mock drafts online to help build buzz and who knows what could happen? I’m, if nothing else, curious to see where this goes in the next couple years.

Leatherman Part I: Mike Trout is pretty good at baseball Vol. 879

This time his catch at the wall with two outs in the ninth and the bases loaded saved an Angels win over the A’s. A small fist pump is certainly allowable under the rules of baseball decorum. Since we’re talking about the draft, it’s worth remembering Trout was the 25th overall pick in 2009, sandwiched around Randall Grichuk and Nick Arnett, the latter of whom doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.

Leatherman Pat II: Kevin Pillar made a fantastic grab, crashing into the outfield fence at Progressive Field.

This video features baseball’s new “Statcast,” which is cool enough. Telling us Pillar’s grab used 96 percent route efficiency is useful, otherwise it would have been hard to tell just how good of a catch it was, right?

Flashback Friday: You could probably spend a good 5-10 minutes parsing through Rickey Henderson’s Baseball-Reference page. Everyone touts his stolen bases record, which is an amazing achievement, but scoring the most runs in baseball history is much more significant.

That’s One: The Royals took the first of four in Kauffman last night vs. the Tigers. Detroit is my team and I know many readers of this site (and editor Jason Lisk) are KC fans, so I will acknowledge the game. Everybody in the Royals lineup had at least one base hit and the team is batting .306 collectively. Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer, Kendrys Morales and Salvador Perez are each over the .300 mark. Odds are that doesn’t last, but when you’re in a groove at the plate and Alfredo Simon is on the mound, good things can happen. (Yes, Simon entered the game 4-0 but it was a matter of time before he regressed to the mean.) Tonight’s pitching matchup is Kyle Lobstein vs. Chris Young — the AL Central at it’s finest, I reckon.

This & That: The Red Sox don’t plan to do anything special to mark the occasion if A-Rod hits homer No. 660 at Fenway this weekend. … The Twins tagged Chris Sale for nine runs (eight earned) in three innings last night. Perhaps Sale should focus less on fighting other starters and more on his pitching. Just a thought. Despite their early-season stats, the Twins offense is better than people think, or at least it has the tendency to be pesky. … Jose Altuve hit a walk-off single and the Astros won their seventh straight to tie the Royals for the best record in baseball at 15-7. … Tigers great Willie Horton reflecting on the summer of 1967 and the current unrest in Baltimore is worth a read. … Matt Wieters may not return to the Orioles until June. Off the top of my head it’s hard to think of a more hyped player in the last decade who fizzled this much, even if injuries are a part of it. This isn’t to say Wieters is a bad Major League player and he did hit 20+ homers three straight seasons as a catcher, but he’s a lifetime 100 OPS+ — exactly the league average. Granted, he wouldn’t be the first player who failed to live up to the promises touted on a Sports Illustrated cover.

Weekend Series to Watch, Nationals at Mets: Let’s agree almost everyone in America is completely bored by Yankees/Red Sox, especially in the Sunday Night ESPN spot. Nats-Mets, which began last night with a 8-2 Washington victory (New York’s first loss at Citi this year), is a semi-important early-season tilt in the NL East. The Nats are now on a three-game winning streak, while the Mets have dropped three straight. Tonight it’s Max Scherzer vs. Matt Harvey. Not much more needs to be said.

[Work Work, Hard Work Work, photo via USAT]