There's nothing inherently interesting about the second day of the baseball draft. Unlike the first couple of rounds, which have people announcing picks at a podium and talking heads sounding off from behind desks about each pick, with sleek pre-produced video packages, day two of the draft is really just a conference call.
Starting at 12:30, teams will start picking at about one per minute. MLB's people will scramble to say a little about each pick, some of whom they've even heard of, and the reality is that most of the names read off today will never make it to the big leagues. Some will, though - and others could turn out to be trade pieces before their stars fall from the sky.
The Orioles have had a number of contributors they picked up in rounds 3-10 in recent years. Two-fifths of their current rotation is from the later rounds of the 2011 draft - Mike Wright (third) and Tyler Wilson (tenth). Two of their key relievers are from the single digit rounds - Zach Britton (third round, 2006) and Mychal Givens (second round, 2009). Nolan Reimold was a second round pick in 2009, and Caleb Joseph was a seventh round pick in 2008.
As well, on the farm right now are some more day two players who the O's are hoping can contribute. That includes the likes of Christian Walker (second round, 2012) and Trey Mancini (eighth round, 2013). Stephen Tarpley (third round, 2013) was part of the Travis Snider trade. Not that it was a good trade, but the fact that the Orioles drafted a third rounder who interested another MLB team is a positive for the drafting staff.
Maybe the draft tracker will actually keep working all day today. And if you're really dedicated, the draft stream is here.
The Orioles picks today
The Orioles first pick today is #91 overall, their third round pick. They will then be picking every 30 spots thereafter, as there are no more special rounds or forfeited picks this far down in the draft. Today's part of the draft goes until the tenth round is over, meaning the Orioles will make eight picks today.
Possible Orioles picks
Don't look at me like that. I don't know anything. Given that they took three college pitchers yesterday, you can probably guess they'll take some non-pitchers and some high schoolers today.
They probably will NOT be getting any of the well-regarded high school draft prospects who have fallen this far due to signing bonus demands. Those include players like California righty Jared Horn and a shortstop/third baseman from Florida, Drew Mendoza.
The Orioles aren't going to have the bonus pool money to go way, way overslot, although they could go modestly overslot for a prospect a bit further down the pile, as they did with last year's seventh rounder, Gray Fenter.
Local(ish) players who may be drafted
Two University of Virginia players were drafted yesterday - Matt Thaiss (#16 to the Angels) and Connor Jones (#70 to the Cardinals).
No one from a Maryland high school or college has been drafted yet. Some names that could pop up at some point today are University of Maryland pitcher Mike Shawaryn (Baseball America's #77 prospect), UMBC shortstop Kevin LaChance (#218 prospect) and Harford CC OF/1B Joseph Burton (#370).
Players with cool names
The draft takes on a bit of a feel of throwing names at a dart board at this point. So while you want the Orioles to get the best prospect they can, it'd also be cool if they draft some guys with interesting names. Alliterative names are automatically interesting, like California high school shortstop Ben Baird (#141 on BA500), as are names you just don't see every day, like Texas high school third base/catcher Ulysses Cantu (#254).
For somewhat obvious personal reasons, I'll be rooting for the Orioles to grab a player with the last name of Brown so he can be my new favorite prospect. There are a host of these: Zach Brown, a Kentucky RHP (#125), Kep Brown, a JuCo outfielder from SC (#171), Cassidy Brown, a Loyola Marymount catcher (#216), and Daniel Brown, a lefty pitcher from Buck's favorite school, Mississippi State (#287).
The Big Boards
If you're curious about where various prospects are ranked, you'll still find some on these big boards:
MLB.com's top 200 (everything is free)
Baseball America's 500 (sub. req. for scouting reports, videos free)
Let's talk about it
It's OK if you don't really care about this stuff. After all, even if any of today's drafted players make it, they're years away. But if you do care, we can have a party in the comments and all of those other people who stopped reading before now aren't invited.