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PHOENIX When Major League Baseballs annual amateur draft kicks off on Saturday, there will be fans in the crowd and representatives of every organization at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Commissioner Rob Manfred will be on hand to introduce the event and call out the names of the top picks.
But one group of people will be conspicuously absent the draft picks themselves.
Advertisement Potential top pick Roch Cholowsky wont be there.
Ditto for Grady Emerson, the top high school position player in the class, as well as Jacob Lombard, Landon Thome, Gio Rojas and Logan Reddemann, all prospects expected to be selected on Day 1.
For the second year in a row, no draft-eligible players will be in attendance, a league source briefed on MLBs plans who was not authorized to speak publicly told The Athletic.
Instead, when the names are called, the broadcast which will air nationally on NBC/Peacock and MLB Network will cut to a live feed of the player selected from a draft party or air prepackaged player highlight interspersed with commentary.
Around 30 players are expected to participate in interviews or live reactions, the source said.
At the NFL and NBA version of these events, many of the top prospects are in attendance, dressed to the nines, waiting to go on stage when their names are called.
Though some top picks have gone to the MLB Draft in the past, the league has had a more spotty history of players attending.
The reasons for the no-shows are varied.
Some players want to be with large groups of friends and family for their big day.
Others believe it hurts their negotiating leverage to be at the event itself.
Cholowsky falls in the former camp.
I just want everyone there big family guy, big social guy, everyone that got me where Im at, Cholowsky said.
Id rather have them there than be on TV.
I just kind of told my parents (and) my agent what I wanted, who I wanted there, how many people and the best thing for that was staying home.
MLB has continually invited players to the live event.
However, its not a requirement and many choose to watch elsewhere.
You hear (about) some great opportunities thrown at you with attending the draft, but at the end of the day, I want to make sure that Im with the people who saw me throughout the journey.
I want them there for that day, Emerson said.
Advertisement In 2007, after years as a non-televised event, MLB began broadcasting its draft on ESPN, with Disneys Wide World of Sports Complex playing host.
At the time, then-commissioner Bud Selig said the broadcast would give fans access to see this critical function of an organizations development.
This is an idea whose time has come.
In 2009, the draft moved to MLB Networks headquarters in Secaucus, N.J., when the network was in its inaugural year.
That year, only one player attended Mike Trout, who was selected by the Los Angeles Angels with the 25th overall pick.
This is your draft, this is your opportunity, Harold Reynolds said on the broadcast.
You should be standing here with the commissioner holding your jersey.
Thats just how I see it.
In the decade-plus that followed, player attendance vacillated.
In 2012, No.
1 pick Carlos Correa attended, while in 2013, Aaron Judge, the No.
32 pick, was also on hand.
When youre a college baseball player, you say I want to go to Omaha, Reynolds said in a promotional video.
When youre a Little Leaguer, I want to go to Williamsport.
But when youre a draft-eligible kid, you want to go to Secaucus.
Cause if you come to Secaucus, that means youre going in the first round of the major-league draft.
Rojas, who is projected by The Athletics Keith Law to be a top 10 pick, sees the value in being at the event, but his decision not to attend was driven by how large of a party he plans on hosting.
I would like to go to Philadelphia, Rojas said.
It would be an awesome experience to go up the stage and hold my jersey and pose up there.
A number of players, however, see attendance at the draft differently.
At the end of the day, Id rather spend it with (family) than a random crowd in Philadelphia, said Kaden Waechter, a top high school pitching prospect and son of former big-leaguer Doug Waechter.
Advertisement In 2021, MLB changed the timing of the draft from mid-June to coincide with All-Star weekend, in part because they wanted to make it more of a TV event.
The venue changed from the MLB Network studios to the All-Star host city.
Those shifts havent led to a surge in players attending, however.
In the five All-Star week-related draft broadcasts, Henry Davis (2021, Pittsburgh) is the only top pick to have appeared at the draft in person.
I feel like you cant say no to that, said Justin Crawford, who attended the 2022 draft in Los Angeles when he was selected No.
22 by the Phillies.
At least thats how I looked at it.
I know certain guys like to do their own thing, but I was like, Shoot.
Thats a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Los Angeles Angels shortstop Zach Neto, who was taken No.
13 in 2022, also wanted to be on site.
For me, it was always a childhood dream to be able to hear my name called at the draft, Neto said.
So when I got the opportunity to go, it was like, Alright, Im going.
But I just need my whole family to go, and it was five tickets.
(MLB) only gave us two or three.
So MLB was nice enough to give me some extra tickets to bring my whole family.
It was a childhood dream come true.
For some draft picks, the decision not to attend has more to do with perceived negotiation leverage than anything else.
Unlike in the NBA and NFL, where all picks are expected to sign, MLB draft picks especially those coming out of high school have the option to go to college if they dont like the offer they get from teams.
Some agents prefer their clients not to attend because they feel being at the event signals a strong desire to sign.
The players themselves sometimes believe being at the draft is disrespectful to the colleges theyre committed to attending.
Definitely part of it is being there with the college commitment, Thome said.
You dont want to do that to the coaches.
Advertisement Theres also the element of star power.
The NFL Draft takes over the city center of one of the leagues 32 teams, with fans flooding plazas.
On the NBA side, the draft is part-fashion show, with the league incorporating a red-carpet element.
Both drafts take place at night in primetime.
By contrast, Day 1 of this years MLB Draft will begin at 1 p.m.
ET on the Saturday ahead of the All-Star break, right in the middle of a full slate of MLB games.
This is a shift from the past few years, when the draft kicked off in primetime on Sunday evening right before the All-Star break.
Tickets to attend on Saturday were limited to a giveaway and no such red-carpet show exists, making the event less like its counterparts.
The broadcast will also have a different home.
In past years, ESPN and MLB Network aired live coverage of the first round, with MLB Network continuing their broadcast after the first round.
This year, NBC/Peacock will have exclusive rights to air the first 10 picks, and then MLB Network will air picks 11-40 before the rest of the draft is offered streaming only on MLB.com and MLB TV.
Players arent likely to increase their attendance at the draft as it is currently constructed.
That could change, however, if MLBs controversial proposal to limit the draft to college players is incorporated into the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, players The Athletic spoke to said.
Under the leagues proposal, high school players would not be eligible for the draft, a concept that the Major League Baseball Players Association in a statement called flat out bad for baseball and one that would cripple the next generation of players and damage the future of our game.
In its proposal, the draft would go 12 rounds, and each draft would come with its own $200 million signing-bonus pool, as well as hard slots, where an inflexible amount of money is tied to each pick.
The current draft is 20 rounds and does not have hard slots, allowing players to negotiate above or below the assigned value to their pick.
Advertisement By creating a draft system centered around college-aged players and making most college players eligible one year earlier, more players will benefit from both a college education and an elite development environment while reaching professional baseball and ultimately the major leagues more quickly, MLB said in a statement.
In that scenario, players believe the draft as an experience would be more appealing, if only because of the lack of options on the table for the players.
Youre going to see more guys who are going to show up because its almost like guaranteed, youre either in college for two years and now youre getting drafted or (youre going to go back), Emerson said.
I think youll see more guys show up, especially the guys who are juniors and seniors.
Until then, the league will have to make do with highlight packages, live feeds and talking heads and not the actual prospects themselves.