MLB Daily: Cleveland Takes Brady Aiken No. 17 in Draft; Carlos Correa's First Hit

Welcome to MLB Daily on a Tuesday. Do you feel a draft in here or is it just me …?

Drafty: The last couple years, baseball has taken strides to makes its first-year player draft more of an “event.” Monday night, the first rounds were on television via MLB Network. Draft picks trended on Twitter. Dansby Swanson’s reaction after going No. 1 overall to the Diamondbacks, watching with his Vanderbilt teammates, received nearly 4,000 re-tweets from the SportsCenter account.

See…

Even so, the MLB Draft is going to be an odd outlier in comparison to the more rabidly-followed NFL and NBA drafts. For one it’s exceedingly long and you’re dealing with mostly unknown players who are only familiar through scouting reports — unless you’re a college baseball aficionado like Shamburger. Beyond that, you’re normally going to wait a few years while the draft pick works his way up from the minors before he lands on the big club. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the hype and intrigue which builds up can turn out to be a lot of fun for fans.

Oh yes, almost forget, there’s the whole slotting system, compensation picks and the international free agent pool, too, as teams have other options aside from the draft to build their systems unlike other North American professional sports.

Last night the draft ran up against both the U.S. Women’s National Team first 2015 World Cup game and Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals — so even on a otherwise quiet night in June, baseball couldn’t get the evening all to itself. (This really isn’t a big deal, but worth noting.)

Here are the three talking points I pulled out …

• Shortstops went 1-2-3, with Swanson going to Arizona, the Astros taking LSU’s Alex Bregman and then Colorado taking high-schooler Brenden Rodgers.
• Cleveland took last year’s No. 1 overall pick Brady Aiken at No. 17 after he and Houston couldn’t come to terms last year. Since then Aiken, who pitched for the IMG Academy in Florida which allowed him to go right back into the draft, had Tommy John surgery. Cleveland scouts say they aren’t concerned with Aiken’s elbow going forward.
• Three sons of former Major League players were selected on Monday. Ke’Bryan Hayes, son of Charlie Hayes, went No. 32 to the Pirates. Houston took Daz Cameron, son of Mike Cameron, in the Competitive Balance Round A — No. 37 overall. A pick later the Rockies took Tyler Nevin, son of Phil Nevin, a former No. 1 overall pick in 1992 who went ahead of some guy named Derek Jeter.

My other takeaway is this is going to be the last time Houston picks this high, given they’re in playoff position right now in 2015. Jeff Luhow came from the Cardinals and is building a farm system that is well stocked with homegrown players, a la St. Louis. Let’s see if three straight years of 100-losses and all those easy punchline blog headlines will yield what really matters in the end: a World Series title.

The draft continues throughout the week.

First hit: Fittingly, on the day of the draft Houston called up Carlos Correa, the No. 1 overall pick. He legged out an infield single — which needed to be reviewed — for his first hit in the Majors.

The night belonged to Chris Sale and the White Sox. Once again Sale proved he’s a better pitcher than a fighter, ending the night with 14 strikeouts in eight innings, much to the delight of blog friend Butters.

Remember Us?: The San Diego Padres were the darlings of the offseason, making trade after trade to rebuild the team. So far A.J. Preller’s moves have yielded a lot of mediocrity. Last night the Padres won 5-3  in 11 against the Braves, with former Atlanta closer Craig Kimbrel notching is 200th career save. Melvin Upton Jr. and Justin Upton also returned to Atlanta for the first time. The win moved San Diego to 30-29.

Kimbrel is worth mentioning since he was the last major addition by San Diego on the eve of the season. I’ll be honest, until this morning I’d forgotten he got traded. That could be an East Coast/West Coast thing, but it does go to show that the Padres haven’t exactly been as exciting in actuality as they were in the winter on paper.

The good news for San Diego, is the Padres are only two games out of a Wild Card spot and 3.5 behind the Dodgers in the West. Also good? James Shields is 7-0 with 92 strikeouts in 75+ innings. Justin Upton will make the All-Star team with 12 home runs and a 145 OPS+. Brandon Maurer and Joaquin Benoit are putting up good numbers in the pen behind Kimbrel, granted San Diego always has a good relievers with great numbers.

Less good? Matt Kemp’s OPS is under .700, Wil Myers is on the disabled list and San Diego still has a negative run differential.

Nobody is really that great in either league and the Padres pitching is probably solid enough to keep them in the race. Let’s see if Preller has another move up his sleeve to acquire a middle infielder who can hit…

This & That: The Blue Jays won again, clubbing the Marlins for their sixth straight win. Toronto leads baseball with 314 runs — 47 more than Arizona. If this team could ever figure out its pitching situation… … Kansas City pulled into a tie with Minnesota atop the AL Central via a 3-1 win that saw Salvador Perez draw his fourth walk of the season. … Matt Holiday left Monday night’s Cardinals loss in Colorado with a quad strain. The extent of the injury is unknown, but if it’s serious the Cardinals might need to do something with Matt Adams likely done for the season. … I liked this countdown of the biggest MLB No. 1 overall draft pick busts.

[Draftwork]