OP,
Please don't take this as any kind of promotion because we really don't care who attends our predraft event or chooses not to. There is no single player that changes the event a whole lot and it is not something we do in order to profit.
I can only speak about the predraft we are most familiar with and it’s history is absolutely loaded with interesting stories. (To us anyway)
The PG National Predraft was actually the idea of Jeff Cornell a Brewers crosschecker who at that time in the early 90s was a ML Scouting Bureau guy.
I will give you a couple of the better stories…
Carl Crawford was an outstanding athlete who had signed with Nebraska to play QB. Nebraska had never lost a football recruit to the baseball draft at that time and scouting directors were leery of this in Carl’s case. Crawford attended the predraft and stunk up the place. He couldn’t hit a ball out of the infield even in BP. He threw poorly and the only good thing he did was run a 6.35 60. Anyway, Dan Jennings, the D’Rays scouting director at the time, was there. Then the D’Rays drafted Carl and paid him something like 1.5 million to sign. Dan later said, that they knew they were selecting Carl as soon as he showed up at that event because Carl had no reason to be there if he wasn't interested in signing to play baseball.
One year we had four draftable catchers at the event. The highest ranked was Jeff Clement. The next highest ranked was Brian McCann. This was definitely the event that caused McCann to get drafted ahead of Clements. It’s also an example of how these type events can not only really help a player, but also how they can hurt a player in the draft.
McCann, obviously was very good that day, he moved up in the draft significantly. Everyone knows he now has been the starting catcher for the Atlanta Braves for the past couple years and has already been named to the all star game.
Jeff Clement, on the other hand, had the worst day of his life in front of a large number of highest level national scouts including many scouting directors. He really couldn’t do anything that day and looked terrible. I even had a crosschecker tell me after the event was over that he didn’t think Clement would ever hit. I of course disagreed with him and told him so.
Anyway, there's a happy ending, Jeff went on to set records at Southern Cal and ended up being one of the first picks of the first round after his junior year at USC. He signed for something like 3.5 million and made his debut in the Big Leagues last year. He would have signed for a fraction of that out of high school.
BTW, that same year there was a not so well known pitcher by the name of Zach Hammes who ended up getting drafted in the 2nd round by the Dodgers after a good performance at that same event.
The history of the event is full of stories that have boosted players draft status. And to be honest there are some stories where it actually lowered some players draft status. It’s definitely not an event that works out well for everyone! But it is an important event for scouting people! It’s almost always their very last look at a player before the draft.
I’ve actually said that if a player is an absolute 1st round pick without any doubt (Justin Upton type) he’s probably better off not taking any chance by attending this event. However there have been some of those 1st round types that chose to attend in the past.
IMO unless someone is an absolute first rounder, the difference in money between 1st and all other rounds makes this event a worthwhile thing to attend. A player can boost himself into the first round or at least move up a ways in the draft with a good showing in front of a lot of real important decision makers.
It is heavily covered by MLB Scouting Departments and there have been many front office administrators including GMs attend.
There is a reason for every player that gets invited. Often it is because a MLB club has requested it.
BTW, this year’s event is shaping up as one of the better ones.
