Following the MLB Draft on Twitter

OK I admit it. I have always wanted the MLB Draft to be larger than it was. Being a huge Royals fan (where are you 1985?), it is that moment where I can sit back and dream about what we could become.

The MLB Draft just always seemed WAY behind the times compared to the NBA and NFL Drafts. Sure, the odds of making it to the show in baseball are nowhere near the odds Blake Griffin will make an impact in a few weeks (no offense, Stephen Strasburg!). But the emotion and the energy of fans seemed lost.

This year, the MLB did a couple things differently. First, they moved the draft back to 6 pm EST (rather than noon EST). Second, they introduced a webcast integrated with Twitter. (See image below).  Here's a link to the release.

What is most interesting here is not simply the integration of fan tweets alongside a draft cast (though that is cool), but rather the integration of two other components:  1) MLB scout/expert opinions and 2) a select number of players who would be drafted.  I thought this was pretty cool -- give us both expert takes on these picks and the emotion of the kids who were facing their new futures!  

In case you are interested, here are Twitter feeds for those players:

Drew Storen - Closer from Stanford

Jacob Marisnick - High School Outfielder from California

Eric Arnett - High School Pitcher from Indiana

I am interested to see if/how the NBA Draft is impacted by this one...  Please give us a new version of the Green Room!