Perrotto: Increased Draft Coverage Adds Some Pressure (+)
Ben Cherington can remember going to the newsstand – remember those? – every two weeks while growing up in New Hampshire so he could buy the latest issue of Baseball America.
Perhaps that was a sign Cherington was a general manager in the making. He now holds that position with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
One of Cherington’s favorite issues each year was the one previewing Major League Baseball’s amateur draft. It was information that couldn’t be found in any other publication.
Now, the draft has gone mainstream with seemingly endless media outlets devoting coverage to the event.
“Maybe the last few years, being so close to it, I don’t notice kind of how that’s ramped up,” Cherington said. “I definitely remember as a kid, falling into the degree where I felt weird because no one else in my class was – (I was) probably getting made fun of for bringing Baseball America to school and stuff.
But good, if that’s true. I think it’s good, hopefully good for the game. There’s also just way more avenues to get that information. You don’t have to wait for Baseball America to show up on the newsstand. It’s available to everyone all the time and different outlets and allows for even entrepreneurial pursuit of that. The more interest the better as far as I’m concerned.”
I am 10 years younger than Cherington, so I go back even further and remember when Baseball America and the internet didn’t exist. Yes, readers under 35, that’s true.
There was almost no coverage of the draft, certainly not the extensive previews and rankings and mock drafts that can be found today.
Usually, there was a story about the hometown team’s first-round pick in the local newspapers and that would be the sum of the draft coverage. Nobody graded teams’ drafts because nobody – outside of teams’ scouting departments – knew much about the players.
I remember my first season covering the Pirates for the Beaver County Times in 1988, I asked my editor if I could write a draft preview in the days leading up to the event. The idea was to provide scouting reports and background on some of the players that the Pirates might select in the first round.
My editor originally looked at me as if I had just touched down in the sports department on an alien spacecraft. However, he bought the idea and I’m pretty sure we were the first newspaper in the Pittsburgh area to publish a draft preview.
If you’re a regular reader of our site, you realize how much draft coverage has changed. We have been previewing the top players all week and written plenty of other stories in advance of the Pirates making the first overall selection Sunday night at Lumen Field in Seattle. Danny Demilio will publish his mock draft Sunday morning.
One thing the preponderance of draft coverage has done is put a little more pressure on front offices to get their picks right. If not, general managers and scouting directors run the risk of being roasted by the traditional media and on social media.
“I don’t think, all the mocks, none of it bothers me,” Cherington said. “It’s a fun part of the game. It’s because it’s an exciting time and we all love to follow it, so if people are interested in that, that’s probably good for baseball and none of it bothers me.”
The Pirates have provided plenty of material leading up to the draft as they have been linked to four different players at No. 1, including right-hander Paul Skenes and center fielder Dylan Crews of LSU, University of Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford and Franklin, Ind., prep outfielder Max Clark.
Once the pick is revealed on Sunday night, it will be cause for both praise and criticism for Cherington and his staff. But as Cherington said, it adds some fun to a once-ignored event.
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