Preview/Prediction

The process of stocking and building in Major League Baseball is a never-ending process. As the 2016 MLB Draft comes to a conclusion Saturday, the 2017 Draft is already in the works and scouts already have a solid handle on the star players who will make headlines next June.

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.

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.

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.

The Chicago White Sox (29-25) are fighting to get back to the top of the division, winning two in a row heading into Friday’s road matchup with the Detroit Tigers (25-28) following a season-high seven-game losing streak.

Following a high-scoring four-game home-and-home series against the San Diego Padres, the Seattle Mariners (31-22) will travel to Arlington for the first of three games against the Texas Rangers (31-22) on Friday.

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.

The Toronto Blue Jays (28-26) can even their home record and complete a three-game sweep of the New York Yankees (24-27) with a victory in the series finale Wednesday at the Rogers Centre.

It's official: Baseball's rumor mill is back in business.

We've seen a slew of rumors and speculation make the rounds over the past week, some of it driven by untimely injuries and some by a lack of production. Regardless of the reason, teams are realizing that they may not have the answers in-house and have begun scouring the market for reinforcements.

The players involved in this week's chatter run the gamut from those still in their prime to top prospects and veterans some of us may have forgotten were still playing.