MLB Draft eligibility

You can’t accurately predict anything about the draft once you get past the first few rounds. The level of interest shown to any particular player may or may not mean anything. Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed.

My son didn't show up anywhere until he was rated in the top 300 (end of his college sophomore year). We knew it was a real possibility when the MLB scout (not team affiliated) came to watch and ask questions.  

I believe you have to be registered in the MLB Draft Prospect Link (portal) in order to be draft eligible.  Are you sure your son is correctly registered? You gain entry by receiving at least one invite from a MLB team.

Once you are in the portal other teams can send questionnaires (without an invite to the portal) although many teams must just send an invite w/o first checking to see if the player is already in the portal. Meaning the ratio of portal invites to questionnaires doesn't have to be 1:1.

Another thing to check is did the player complete the necessary MLB "tasks"? The portal prevents completion of individual MLB team questionnaires before first completing the basic forms (required by MLB) to which all teams have access.

I know of players that have attended workouts (my son told me of players he knows who said they attended an individual workout) that ended up not being in the portal--which of course means they are not draft eligible.  So did they not receive an invite after the workout? Or did they not complete something?

Maybe someone else on this forum can answer these questions. If you son is in the portal and you think he completed the necessary forms then perhaps there are other factors. Perhaps teams have to express which players they are interested in--and if there is at least one team interested the player then that player shows up in the draft tracker?

Decent article regarding MLB Draft League:

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-d...t=mlb-draft-coverage

But there is something else I noticed when the 2023 MLB Draft Tracker was released late last week--many players from the 2023 Draft League rosters were not in the MLB Draft Tracker--meaning they have no chance being selected.

I think going forward the MLB Draft League should at least recruit (or attempt to recruit) players that are already in the MLB Draft Prospect Link. While the league is run by PBR there IS cooperation with MLB Baseball. So shouldn't it be easy to gather an initial list of players to start recruiting from? I know that there are players who pop up on the radar all the time so I don't think a player should be excluded just because they aren't in the portal (which represents that at least one MLB team has expressed interest in that player) but there are many cases (upon examining this year's first-half rosters) where I was mildly surprised to see a player on the roster--only to have my "amateur scout" suspicions confirmed once the 2023 Draft Tracker was released...

Thank you for the help.  He is in the Prospect Link and has had several teams link themselves to his profile before sending him requests that have been completed.   There doesn't appear to be anything pending but I guess it could be that there is just too many prospects.   We tried searching a few other players that we also know who are in the Prospect Link database and they weren't showing up as well.   

@4arms posted:

Thank you for the help.  He is in the Prospect Link and has had several teams link themselves to his profile before sending him requests that have been completed.   There doesn't appear to be anything pending but I guess it could be that there is just too many prospects.   We tried searching a few other players that we also know who are in the Prospect Link database and they weren't showing up as well.   

Forgot to ask the obvious question. Is he draft eligible?

HS? Juco? Completed his junior year of college? Age 21?

High School grad.

I am not an expert on this at all, but have experience with it. When my son was draft eligible as a college junior, at the request of a scout he registered in the MLB Prospect Link portal and filled out a couple of teams' questionnaires, but on draft day his name did not appear on the MLB Draft Tracker list. Not even in the Undrafted category. During his senior year he talked with a number of scouts and prior to the draft his name was in the MLB Draft Tracker list. He was a third day prospect (not first 10 rounds). Similar to the way a high school player 'knows' when he is being recruited by a college coach, my son knew with a high degree of certainty that some MLB organizations were interested after his senior year.

On the other hand, I have heard of others getting drafted by teams they have never spoken to. Those are probably the higher-end prospects. But I'm guessing they were on the MLB tracker list when the draft started.

@Texas posted:

I am not an expert on this at all, but have experience with it. When my son was draft eligible as a college junior, at the request of a scout he registered in the MLB Prospect Link portal and filled out a couple of teams' questionnaires, but on draft day his name did not appear on the MLB Draft Tracker list. Not even in the Undrafted category. During his senior year he talked with a number of scouts and prior to the draft his name was in the MLB Draft Tracker list. He was a third day prospect (not first 10 rounds). Similar to the way a high school player 'knows' when he is being recruited by a college coach, my son knew with a high degree of certainty that some MLB organizations were interested after his senior year.

On the other hand, I have heard of others getting drafted by teams they have never spoken to. Those are probably the higher-end prospects. But I'm guessing they were on the MLB tracker list when the draft started.

Just a little clarification: a player cannot register himself in the MLB Prospect Link portal, he must be invited by at least one of the 30 teams. Then they must complete some basic tasks (basic forms and questionnaires specific to MLB) which any team can see. What I don't know is whether a team can see if a player is already in the portal without first inviting that player to join the portal. I'm pretty sure the answer is yes because I know players receive questionnaires from teams that never send them invites to join the portal  (once they are in the portal by accepting at least one invite from a team). But I also know that some teams send invites even though the player has been in the portal for several years--which to me is an indication that a team can just click an "invite player" link without bothering to check whether they can already send a questionnaire without the invite.

https://www.mlb.com/news/facts...m-the-2023-mlb-draft

This is very interesting. A study in teams philosophy.

Congratulations to the Pro Scouts. Now the Player Development "takes over".

Bob

@adbono posted:

You can’t accurately predict anything about the draft once you get past the first few rounds. The level of interest shown to any particular player may or may not mean anything. Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed.

Truer words could not be said. LOL. We just went through the highs and lows of this the past two weeks. We are friends with several other families who would also agree. At the end of the day, have to remember it is a business. Sometimes that gets lost in the process.

I agree.  We expected nothing then got contact on Monday and hope snuck in then nothing.  We are ok with nothing but the hope hurt a little.

@adbono posted:

You can’t accurately predict anything about the draft once you get past the first few rounds. The level of interest shown to any particular player may or may not mean anything. Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed.

When my son got drafted in the 18th round last year, the team called him and son literally said "what team are you with?" He'd never heard a peep from them. Teams who his advisor confidently said were interested? Crickets.

It's a weird way to get a job.

My 2024 received a Prospectlink invite yesterday.  I got home from work and he said, "Oh, I got an email invite to join Prospectlink from a team."  Then he proceeded to tell me how he signed up, blah, blah, blah.

I was trying to find out how many players are in the platform each year?  Do you re enroll each year that you're draft eligible, etc.

@Master P posted:

My 2024 received a Prospectlink invite yesterday.  I got home from work and he said, "Oh, I got an email invite to join Prospectlink from a team."  Then he proceeded to tell me how he signed up, blah, blah, blah.

I was trying to find out how many players are in the platform each year?  Do you re enroll each year that you're draft eligible, etc.

1. Just look at the 2023 MLB Draft Tracker. There were at least that many players in the portal. After some of the recent comments on this thread I have learned that there may be more than what you see--although I still believe some players may not have completed the necessary tasks to be considered eligible. But who knows? Maybe it's based on some other factor(s)?

2. The answer is no and yes. No, you don't have to re-enroll, but yes there will be new tasks if a team sends you a questionnaire. What I don't know is what if a team doesn't? Will you get the basic MLB tasks to complete for that year? Or do those basic tasks trigger as soon as a team makes an attempt to send you a questionnaire or a new team sends you an invite?

Players receive questionnaires even during years they aren't draft eligible so there's that too...

Someone has to send in your name to MLB to get the invite.  The invite always comes with at least one questionnaire.  You do not have resign up and you can/will get tasks every year that you are eligible.  Son even got one this year on day 2 of the draft but no calls.

@Master P posted:

My 2024 received a Prospectlink invite yesterday.  I got home from work and he said, "Oh, I got an email invite to join Prospectlink from a team."  Then he proceeded to tell me how he signed up, blah, blah, blah.

I was trying to find out how many players are in the platform each year?  Do you re enroll each year that you're draft eligible, etc.

My 2022 got the same invite Going into his senior year of HS. He started to fill it out, and it's still not completed. He wasn't a draft prospect out of HS. He still gets the emails saying he has "Unfinished tasks in Prospect Link". He'll revisit it going into his junior year if he has any interest.

Not sure what you consider interest but one way of determining interest is when a MLB team sends you an invite and/or a questionnaire on the MLB Draft Prospect Link portal.

The only lack of interest here is what those MLB teams see from your son and his incomplete tasks!

Some of the questionnaires the teams send are mind boggling how long they are and the questions they ask. My son showed me a few of the ones he received over the past year. Some of them were pretty simple and straight forward. Some took several hours to complete and asked some funky questions. Some even required him to pretty much write an autobiography. There was a couple of times a team would send the same questionnaire again after my son had already filled it out. Then he would get the dreaded "unfinished tasks" email. Also, if you get any requests for records, make sure the request is accurate. Right before heading out to the draft combine, my son got a request from one of the teams asking for his images of his UCL surgery. My son has never had UCL surgery. He talked to his advisor about it and his advisory said it is not uncommon for a team to send a request to the wrong player. So he replied back to the request saying he never had UCL surgery. It never changed from an unfinished status. So my son would constantly get the "unfinished tasks" email.