MLB Draft 2017: Colorado Rockies will pick 11th overall

The Colorado Rockies will pick 11th overall in the first round of June 2017’s MLB Draft. Though the Rockies lost last night to keep the possibility of drafting 10th overall alive, the Los Angeles Angels lost later in the night to lock the Rockies into the 11th worst record in MLB this year (or 19th best, if you prefer).

It will be the lowest the Rockies have picked in the first round since the 2011 draft, when the Rockies chose 20th overall after finishing the season 83-79. Last year, they picked fourth overall in the first round and selected Riley Pint, who pitched fairly well while lighting up the radar gun for the Grand Junction Rockies this past summer.

Only the top 10 picks of the draft are protected from being forfeited if a team signs a free agent that has declined a team’s qualifying offer, so the Rockies will lose their first round pick if they choose to sign such a player this offseason. That would be the only way the Rockies first-round pick would be altered, as they won’t be able to move up in the draft because none of the ten teams ahead of them can forfeit that pick.

The Rockies have selected 11th overall once before in the history of their franchise. In 2009, the Rockies chose Tyler Matzek out of high school 11th overall. One other connection the Rockies have to the 11th pick is that the Rockies current manager, Walt Weiss, was drafted by the Athletics 11th overall in 1985.

With the collective bargaining agreement being renegotiated this offseason, there may be some changes to the slotting system in the draft. However, if the system stays the same, the slot value would be slightly higher than this year’s $3,286,700, which is what the Seattle Mariners had to work with when they had the 11th pick in the 2016 draft. The slot value for the 11th pick in the 2015 draft was $3,141,600.

The two most successful 11th overall picks are both still active players. The Washington Nationals’ Max Scherzer was originally drafted by the Diamondbacks with the 11th pick of the 2006 draft. The Pittsburgh Pirates picked Andrew McCutchen 11th overall in 2005.

The entire history of 11th overall picks can be found here on Baseball Reference.