MLB Draft: Day 2 Open Thread

Here’s the place to discuss Day 2 of the MLB Draft. Today the picks will comprise rounds 3 through 10 and I can promise you that they will go a lot faster than the first round did.

You can follow along with Day 2 of the draft on MLB.com. Be aware that this is mostly just a conference call although in years past, they have had some people in studio showing highlights and briefly discussing the picks.

Cubs VP Jason McLeod said that the choice of Fresno State RHP Ryan Jensen represents a shift in philosophy for the Cubs. But anyone who has actually seen him pitch (and McLeod and the rest of the front office have) can’t deny that he can be absolutely dominating at times with an upper-90s fastball that has good movement. Chase Stumpf, the second-round pick out of UCLA, is more in the vein of players taken in recent years like Nico Hoerner.

Jensen’s Fresno State lost their regional finals game, so their season is over. Stumpf and UCLA won, so he’s advancing to the Super Regional this upcoming weekend. Here’s what Stumpf did just a minute after being drafted by the Cubs.

The best players available today are almost all high school players who are tough signs. One of them, Florida HS RHP Matt Allan was announced by ESPN’s Jeff Passan to be the Cubs’ pick in the first round. Passan later reported that the Cubs weren’t firm on Allan because they weren’t sure they could sign him and he shouldn’t have reported that it was a done deal. Everyone makes mistakes.

In any case, a lot of those tough signs will remained undrafted until Day 3 when the draft pool penalty for not signing goes away. But if a team like the Diamondbacks who had several Day 1 picks thinks they’ve saved enough money on those picks to sign some of them, then they may take a chance on them today.

Here’s a list of the top players available today. Please note that Baseball America thinks the top 3 names on the list (including Allan, LHP Hunter Barco and RHP Jack Leiter — son of the MLB Network’s Al Leiter) are unsignable.

The draft will start at noon Central today and go on until they get through round 10, probably some time in the late afternoon.

Discuss amongst yourselves.