According to a report by Baseball America, Major League Baseball teams have been officially informed that the 2021 Rule 4 Amateur Draft will be limited to only 20 rounds.
The shortened draft will be significantly longer than the 2020 draft, which was limited to only five rounds due to the myriad changes brought about by the pandemic. However, it was largely expected that MLB would use the opportunity to limit this year’s draft to 20 rounds, as it was agreed upon last summer by the MLB Players Association.
The Mets, who have been using an aggressive draft strategy the last few years to sign multiple premium talents, were able to employ that strategy well, even in last year’s five-round draft. By making well-underslot picks in the last three rounds, the Mets were able to land right-handed pitcher J.T. Ginn in the second round, signing him to a well-overslot $2.9 million bonus.
With a 20 round draft slated to be held this July 11-13, look for the Mets to possibly deploy a similar strategy. Armed with the 10th and 46th overall picks in the draft, the latter of which they retained by not signing a free agent who received a qualifying offer such as Trevor Bauer, George Springer or J.T. Realmuto, there are even more rounds and picks this year with which to manipulate the allotted bonus pool, compared to last year’s draft.
Indeed, the newly-formatted 2021 draft represents an important opportunity for the Mets to build upon both the high-end talent and depth in their farm system.
