2023 Amateur Draft - Part 8 - Factoids About 2021 and 2022 Drafts To Think About

• In 2021 and 2022, using MLB Pipeline's Top 250 Draft Prospect Rankings, here are the teams who went outside of this prospect list in rounds 1-6.  Remember in 2021 that the last pick in round 6 was the 192th overall pick in this draft and in 2022 it was the 196th pick.
• 2021
• Round 1 - 0
• Round 2 - 0
• Round 3 - 3
• Round 4 - 9
• Round 5 - 16
• Round 6 - 23
• 2022
• Round 1  - no teams selected a player not listed in the top 250
• Round 2 - 0
• Round 3 - 2
• Round 4 - 9
• Round 5 - 14
• Round 6 - 18

Bottom line: Teams pick highly ranked prospects almost exclusively through round 3, 70% of teams are still picking ranked prospects in round 4, 50% in round 5 and around 35% in round 6.

• Here is the breakdown of players selected in 2021 and 2022 who were selected in the first 5 rounds (about the top 165 picks) who were not ranked:
• 2021
• Round 3 - I college junior, 1 college senior and one HS 
• Round 4 - 1 college junior, 5 college seniors and 3 HS
• Round 5 - 1 junior college player, 4 college juniors, 8 college seniors, 3 HS 
• 2022
• Round 3 - 1 college junior, 1 HS
• Round 4 - 2 college sophomores, 4 college juniors, 4 college seniors 1 HS
• Round 5 - 1 junior college, 1 college sophomore, 6 college JRs, 4 college SRs

In 2021 14 of 28 unranked players drafted in the first 5 rounds of the draft were college seniors.  In 2022 that number dropped to 8 of 25.  Teams draft college seniors because they have no leverage and will sign for lower than slot bonuses.  It is a way, in the first 10 rounds, to save money that a team can spend signing players to overslot bonuses during the draft.  All but 2 of the unranked players in the first few rounds of 2021 + 2022 signed for above slot bonuses and 80% signed for bonuses lower than slot.  This bears out the idea that teams are looking to save money with those picks.

So, from these stats we can see that teams almost never draft a player ranked out of the top 250 draft prospects in the first 3 rounds, seldom draft them in round 4, about half the teams don't draft unranked players in round 5 and 65% of teams draft unranked players by the time round 6 rolls around.

These two drafts are too early in their development life cycle to determine how effective teams were in drafting unranked players in the top 6 rounds of the draft.  But this shows that it is not common, in the first 5 rounds of the drat to draft unranked players and not close to a certainty in round 6, with this strategy being used a lot with college seniors and other unranked draft prospects (juco, college juniors and sophomores and HS players) who are willing to sign for underslot bonuses.