Tampa's Prospects to be Tried as Minors

Some of you may be wondering how it is that the Tampa Bay Rays got 12 picks out of the first 90 in the Major League Baseball Draft.  The short answer is that the MLB Draft is complicated. 

Free agents are divided into three types- Type A, Type B, and all others.  When a team loses a Type A free agent, who they had attempted to sign, to another club, they get the signees first round pick, plus a pick in the compensation round.  The compensation round immediately follows the first round; in the this manner, the Rays received the first round picks of the Yankees, Red Sox, and A's, for losing Raphael Soriano, Carl Crawford, and Grant Balfour. 

In addition they received compensation picks for losing Brad Hawpe, Joaquin Benoit, Randy Choate, and Chad Qualls.   

There's a lot of excitement over Tampa's domination of this draft, and how deep it is.  The Rays may have set themselves up for the future in a big way.  Three things though- one, they have to sign these guys- that's not guaranteed.  Two, some of these picks have to turn out to be good.  There's a lot of unpredictability in the Major League draft.  For every Ken Griffey, Jr. (first overall pick 1987) there's a few Andy Benes' (first pick 1988) and a Brien Taylor (first pick 1991.)   

And finally, they have to hold on to them.  Remember, the Rays are set up in this draft, because they couldn't afford to hold onto seven free agents.  If some of their picks in this draft turn out to be stars, the Rays will have to be in a better financial situation to re-sign them, than they're in now.  Or we may be talking about how the 2018 MLB Draft has set up the Rays for the future.