MLB Draft: What can MLB do to improve draft buzz?

MLB Draft: What can MLB do to improve buzz?

What happens if you ask a New York Knicks or Brooklyn Nets fan prospects their respective teams are scouting out for the draft?

You’ll get an answer and opinion. Even if it’s about the player the fan has never seen before.

Ereck Flowers and Leonard Williams are household names all New York Giants and Jets fans have opinions on.

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The NFL and NBA drafts are primetime events. Speculation runs rampant for weeks.

Who will go number 1? What teams will trade up, down, and make surprise picks.

What about the names James Kaprielian, Kyle Holder, and Desmond Lindsay? To the average New York Mets or Yankees fans, do these names arouse the type of excitement, chatter, or buzz that Flowers or Williams received.

Hardly.

Who are these players? The Yankees and Mets first selections in he first two rounds of the MLB draft; a an event that passed with almost no fanfare.

Why?

All intelligent sports fans know a team is built from the ground up. The Yankees “core four” of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and Andy Pettitte, and Jorge Posada, were all from their farm system.

The Mets drafted ace Matt Harvery in the first-round, traded for Zach Wheeler, a top ten pick by the SF Giants, and picked last year’s ROY Jacob Degrom in the 9^th round.

They are just as important in building a contending baseball team as they are in building any successful professional sports team.

So if they are equally important for a teams’ success, why don’t they garner the same enthusiasm? Can anything be done about it?

One reason the draft isn’t as popular is because it could take years before these players make it to the majors. Many of them don’t make it to the majors at all. NFL and NBA draftees make an immediate impact. Hardcore fans know who the hot prospects in a team’s farm system are. In this regards, teams can only try to generate buzz about young prospects until they become household names for the average fan, which is already done.

The real change that can make the MLB draft more popular is for MLB to the at least broadcast the first round as primetime event.

There are 40 rounds in the draft. For those of us who remember when the NFL draft was held on Saturday and Sunday, even the most enthused fan was exhausted by the end of the day. And that was three rounds on Saturday, and four rounds on Sunday.

The NFL draft’s popularity has increased as a result of their Thursday night 1^st round broadcast. Maybe MLB’s would too.

After all it’s just as important.

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