Baseball America’s JJ Cooper reported late Thursday night that MLB has informed teams that the 2021 MLB Draft will be 20 rounds.
MLB has informed MLB's teams that the 2021 draft will be limited to 20 rounds.https://t.co/DldQh8MmWa
— JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) April 2, 2021
This is the fewest number of rounds that the draft could have been this year under the draft agreement reached between MLB and the MLBPA last year. This is the last draft under the current CBA.
20 rounds is still only half of the number of rounds in a normal draft, so this will leave a lot of undrafted prospects with a tough decision. Since last year’s class was only five rounds, a lot of the talent that would have been drafted in rounds 6-40 returned to college, or took other routes, so some of that excess talent could spill over this year with no option but to take the best offer in undrafted free agency.
The draft is currently expected to take place from July 11th-13th. Our prospect team will be rolling out a lot of high quality draft content leading up to and following the draft.