MLB Draft

On a cold and windy late-April morning, Barnegat High School pitcher Jason Groome made his first start in nearly three weeks. Behind home plate, officials placed orange cones to reserve room for more than 25 major league scouts and executives. Those men held radar guns and took notes.

The 2016 MLB draft has been without a consensus top prospect throughout the evaluation process, but with the hours dwindling down until things get underway Thursday in Secaucus, New Jersey, the guessing games will soon be over.   

In an era of instant gratification, the MLB amateur draft takes a hit.

Few, if any, top prospects selected Thursday night will ascend to the majors over the next year. The top high school standouts—some of whom will forgo signing for college—will take years of seasoning before realizing their big league aspirations.

NOTRE DAME, Ind. — After digging in the left-handed batter's box, a teenage Cavan Biggio stared over his shoulder at a familiar face.

Roger Clemens gazed back with his trademarked, surly, uber-competitive look any wannabe baseball player would recognize. But Cavan had a unique relationship with the 354-game winner, who was a teammate of his father, Craig Biggio, with the Houston Astros.

Mock drafts are tricky business regardless of what sport we're talking about, but that's especially true when it comes to the MLB draft.

A staggering 1,216 total players will be taken over the course of the three-day event that begins Thursday, June 9.

When you couple that vast pool of amateur talent with the fact that teams have bonus pool restrictions to take into account, it's fair to assume that all 30 teams have distinctly different strategies and draft boards.

While the Major League Baseball season is in full swing, all 30 teams are also focusing on the future this week with the 2016 MLB draft starting Thursday in Secaucus, New Jersey.  

Few events in sports feature as much mystery as the MLB draft, and that won't change in 2016.

The 2016 class has plenty of quality players from both college and high school, but none of them have separated themselves above the rest of the prospects. This could lead to plenty of surprises throughout the 40 rounds—and especially in the first round on Thursday.

There is often a consensus No. 1 overall pick ahead of the MLB draft, but since that isn't the case entering the 2016 edition, teams near the top of the first round will have difficult and potentially franchise-altering decisions to make.

Much like the NBA draft, the Major League Baseball first-year player draft held on June 9 will feature a team from Philadelphia with the first overall selection. 

On Saturday, ESPN Insider Keith Law released his third mock draft just days before the real thing gets going, as he tried to decipher which player goes where:

The 2016 MLB draft is now just one week away, with the first round set to begin on June 9.

The Philadelphia Phillies will be picking No. 1 overall, just the second time in franchise history they've held the top selection. It turned out pretty well last time, in 1998, when they grabbed University of Miami outfielder Pat Burrell.

This time around, there's no clear-cut player atop draft boards. Instead, there's a handful of guys who are all in the mix to go 1-1.