2017 MLB Draft Day Background and Open Thread

The day is finally here: The 2017 MLB draft starts tonight at 7 PM EDT with the first two rounds and 75 picks streamed live on MLB.com, followed by rounds 3-10 Tuesday. and rounds 11-40 on Wednesday. With the Blue Jays off tonight, it's not like there anything better on.

The Blue Jays have three picks today: 22nd overall in the 1st round, 28th overall (Edwin Encarnacion compensation pick), and 61st overall in the 2nd round. For the first round, there are four minutes between each pick, so the Jays should pick about 90 minutes after things get underway, or around 8:30 assuming the schedule mostly holds. The second pick should happen about a half hour later around 9:00. Things accelerate to a rapidfire format with one minute in between picks for the second half, so the Jays last pick should come in around 9:30-9:45.

Over the last month, Bluebird Banter has been previewing the draft, which is all available in the Draft Stream here. Here is a quick overview of what we've looked at:

• Organizational depth: LHP, RHP, catcher, outfield, infield
• Past draft reviews: 2012-13, 2014-15, 2016, tendencies, ones that got away, alternative 2016 draft
• Mock draft surveys: Part 1, Part 2
• 2017 player summaries: college pitchers (1st round, 2nd); college hitters (1st, 2nd); high school pitchers (1st, 2nd; high school hitters (1st, 2nd)

There is one piece to come this afternoon, looking at some of the Canadian players available.

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In the meantime,  let's take a look at some of the mock drafts choices that have come out in the come out since we surveyed the mock drafts at the end of May (see above links), with an emphasis on those from the last couple days.

Baseball America 4.0 (June 9th) and 4.5 (today)

Blue Jays picks: SS Logan Warmoth (22nd), 1B Gavin Sheets (28th)

Warmoth has been plenty discussed and connected to the Jays, so there's no need to rehash that. The more significant question is whether he even makes it to 22nd overall, since the entire first round beyond a handful of picks at the top is so in flux and college position players tend to rise up teams draft boards late.

Gavin Sheets has drifted up draft boards after a power breakout in his junior season, including hitting a three run home run yesterday in yesterday's super regional game against Florida's Jackson Kowar. The Jays have also been connected to teammate Stuart Fairchild. The question on Sheets is how his power translates outside of Wake's home ballpark, which plays very small, in addition to the fact he's a first baseman...the track of which in the first round are pretty dismal.

MLB.com Pipeline (today)

Jim Callis: Warmoth (22nd), RHP Sam Carlson (28th)

This is unchanged from Friday. Carlson is an interesting HS arm from Minnesota who had some major helium, going from outside the first round thee months ago, to speculation in the mid-1st round, and now dropping to the late-1st round or maybe sandwich round (which feels about right). It doesn't sound like pick based on any specific intel, and given the speculation tying the Jays to college players early, I'm personally skeptical they'd go in this direction.

Jonathan Mayo: 1B/OF Evan White (22nd), Sheets

Evan White has previously been connected to the Jays, one of the best pure hitters in the draft with gap-type power. He should be fine in a corner outfield spot, but he's still going to have to hit a lot to make that work. It's an atypical profile to say the least.

MLB.com/Mayo (June 2nd)

Picks: Warmoth (22nd), RHP Matt Sauer (28th)

Another high school arm in the sandwich round mix. Again, mostly just speculating on balancing things among the top two picks rather than anything particularly tangible.