Major League Baseball to make the 2020 Draft as short as five rounds

With Major League baseball and the players union unable to come up with an agreement on the length of the draft, the MLB office has decided to shrink the 2020 draft to just five rounds. Earlier this year MLB and the union agreed to a proposal that had the draft going either five or ten rounds, but the two sides could not make a ten-round draft possible. Having more picks in the draft was the preferred stance for the baseball operations departments, as that gives them more darts to try to find talent from the amateur ranks.

The most recent proposal from MLB included slashing the bonus values in Rounds 6-10 in half, which led to the union rejecting the proposal. I don’t know if that was a serious proposal or if it was just posturing to try to paint the union as the “bad guys”, but a deal didn’t get struck either way. As a result, MLB teams will end up saving just under a million each ($29.578MM total) although the draft and player development typically creates the most surplus value.

With a five-round draft, that means the Diamondbacks will hold five selections. These are the selections and their respective bonus amounts, since bonuses are frozen at 2019 levels.

18 (1st)/$3,481,300
33 (CBA)/$2,202,200
90 (3rd)/$657,600
119 (4th)/$483,000
149 (5th)/$360,800

The 2020 Draft will start on June 10th. As we get closer to the deadline, there will be more on the players who could be selected early in the draft here on the Snake Pit.