Fantasy Baseball: What the June amateur draft could feature

We are roughly one-third of the way into the season. You know what that means, right? Yes, the MLB amateur draft is next week!

The MLB draft is unique as there are players from high school, junior college and college all available to be drafted. Some organizations value players and positions differently in regards to high school players vs. college players. Signability also comes into play as every team gets a allotted amount of money they can use to sign draft picks and can go over or under slot value to sign each draft pick. If a drafted player doesn’t want to sign for the amount the MLB club is offering, then in some cases they could decline to sign and go back to school.

But for the purposes of fantasy baseball, the June draft is interesting. Occasionally, there are prospects who are going to be fast-tracked to the majors, such as a Mark Teixeira when he was coming out of Georgia Tech. Some are high-ceiling prospects you may want stash on a reserve roster depending on how your league is structured. Bryce Harper was a great example of that when he essentially skipped his senior year of high school.

Many of these players can have a rapid rise in the prospect rankings. Before his elbow injury, Hunter Greene of Cincinnati went straight from high school to being one of the top 30 prospects in baseball, making him a commodity worth stashing or trading. Regardless, it’s best to take a look at some of the top prospects to know whether any of them are worth grabbing before the price goes up too high. Let’s take a look at some of the players that should be drafted early next week.

As you’ll see, this draft is hitter heavy, as there could be only one pitcher come off the board in the top 10 picks. The 2019 Major League Baseball First Year Player Draft starts Monday, June 3.