The Major League Baseball Draft long represented a low key conversion for aspiring professional ballplayers. The rapid succession of picks over 40-odd rounds made it impossible to track in a pre-social media era, and its placement during the end of college and high school baseball seasons found it buried amidst a crowded sports calendar.
It was an event for the most dedicated baseball minds, but it was effectively lost in the shuffle. The potential for something greater existed, but MLB didn't capitalize on it until this year when it reconfigured its minor league system and moved its entry draft from a buried weekend in June to the kickoff of its All-Star Week.