The 2024 MLB draft is a little more than a week away. This year’s draft will take place July 14-16 in Fort Worth, Texas, as part of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game festivities hosted by the Texas Rangers.
As we approach the start of Round 1, here is one big question facing each of the 30 teams.
Teams are listed in draft order.
One big question: Will best value trump best player at No. 1?
The Guardians haven’t picked this high since 2013, when they took Clint Frazier fifth overall, so we don’t have a recent example of how they’ll handle a high pick in the hard-capped draft era. They are perceived as possibly the most model-reliant, process-oriented team in terms of drafting, with clear preferences for medium stuff/strong control college pitchers in later rounds, but at higher picks leaning toward more stuff-oriented pitchers and up-the-middle types with a strong hit tool. The top 10 picks and the whole Guardians draft will hinge on whether they take one of the consensus talents — Georgia’s Charlie Condon or Oregon State’s Travis Bazzana — for what will likely be the highest bonus in the draft, or choose a route that spreads out their risk.
One big question: Will the Reds hand out the biggest bonus in the 2024 draft?
Meanwhile, the Reds are seen to be a landing spot for Condon if he isn’t the top pick, and would be the odds-on favorite to hand out the highest bonus in the draft. That would still yield them savings for later picks, though. The biggest bonus under these draft rules was given to Paul Skenes last year: $9.2 million. Cincinnati’s pick has a slot value of $9.785 million, so they could save half a million and still set a new record. They also have a 5% overage for their pool, if they choose to spend it, which is another nearly $800,000. Those two figures would give the Reds more than $3 million (a value between the 29th and 30th overall picks) to spend at their second pick, 51st overall, and still have slot amounts to spend at each later pick.
