This year, the Rookie Draft will be 8 rounds in length. The natural draft pool has been enhanced with a handful of top 1000 career and single season performers by WAR, as well as a few entries from i9s.
Each team may make 2 “free” picks, meaning they can select anyone in the draft. For the rest of their selections, they are limited to players historically attached (meaning, a significant amount of their playing time) to their franchises. Once they’ve made 8 picks (2 free and 6 franchise), these restrictions are lifted, although preference is still given to franchise appropriate selections.
Here are the teams, listed in the draft order, and their number of picks per round in the draft:
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Tot |
| POR | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 10 |
| MEM | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 | |
| CAG | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 | ||
| LAA | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 | |
| BBB | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 8 | ||
| NYG | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 | ||
| OTT | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 | |
| HOM | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | ||
| BAL | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | |
| HOD | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 10 | |
| KCM | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 | |
| MCG | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 8 | |||
| IND | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | |
| DET | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | ||
| HOU | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 11 |
| PHI | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 | |
| CLE | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | |
| NYY | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | ||
| BRK | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | ||
| SFS | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
A few things jump out from that:
- There’s a little bit of the rich getting richer with San Francisco’s 2 1st rounders and Houston’s draft-leading 11 total picks.
- The House of David are in probably the best position, with 6 picks in the first 3 rounds.
- Brooklyn, Detroit, and Homestead need to draft well to maximize challenging positions, either in total number of picks or their distribution.
Here’s how the AI sees the top twenty prospects, along with the franchises that are eligible to draft them without expending one of their “free” picks.
| # | Name | Pos | Age | Franchises |
| 1 | Rod Carew | 2B | 19 | LAA, POR |
| 2 | Ed Morris | LHP | 20 | HOM |
| 3 | Jim Rice | CF | 18 | MEM |
| 4 | Amos Rusie | RHP | 18 | NYG |
| 5 | Darryl Strawberry | CF | 18 | LAA |
| 6 | Jim McCormick | RHP | 21 | CLE, HOD |
| 7 | Jack Glasscock | SS | 20 | CLE, IND, KCM, NYG |
| 8 | Tommy Harper | 2B | 20 | IND, OTT, MEM |
| 9 | Ben Tincup | RHP | 20 | PHI |
| 10 | Bingo DeMoss | 2B | 21 | CAG, HOD, IND |
| 11 | Joe Hornung | OF | 20 | MEM |
| 12 | Brett Butler | RF | 22 | BRK, CLE, NYG |
| 13 | Jimmy Ripple | CF | 25 | NYG |
| 14 | John Healy | RHP | 23 | |
| 15 | Pedro Martínez | RHP | 19 | MEM, OTT, LAA |
| 16 | Bob Groom | RHP | 23 | POR, BAL |
| 17 | Steve Henderson | LF | 23 | LAA |
| 18 | Otto Schomberg | 1B | 21 | |
| 19 | Giancarlo Stanton | OF | 18 | MCG, NYY |
| 20 | George Zettlein | RHP | 27 | CAG, PHI |
That is, of course, a really odd list in places (Jimmy Ripple, anyone?). So here are the next 15, in no particular order and according to me.
| # | Name | Pos | Age | Franchises |
| 1 | Jack Fournier | 1B | 16 | CAG, BRK, KCM |
| 2 | Todd Helton | 1B | 22 | HOU |
| 3 | John Smoltz | RHP | 19 | BBB |
| 4 | Juan Soto | RF | 18 | POR, HOU, NYY, LAA |
| 5 | Chris Carpenter | RHP | 19 | KCM, OTT |
| 6 | Ron Gant | SS | 18 | BBB, KCM |
| 7 | Zack Greinke | RHP | 20 | HOU, BRK |
| 8 | Charlie Leibrandt | LHP | 21 | HOU, BBB |
| 9 | David Cone | RHP | 19 | LAA, NYY, HOU, OTT |
| 10 | Josh Johnson | RHP | 18 | MCG |
| 11 | Robbie Ray | LHP | 20 | HOU, OTT |
| 12 | Garry Templeton | SS | 19 | HOU, KCM |
| 13 | Josh Hader | LHP | 19 | MCG |
| 14 | Jimmie Lyons | LF | 20 | CAG, HOD, IND, KCM |
| 15 | Johnny Allen | RHP | 24 | CLE, NYY |