On Friday, Major League Baseball announced that this year’s Draft will be held on June 10-11. Here’s everything you need to know:

Broadcast and logistics details

The five-round Draft will begin on Wednesday, June 10 at 7 p.m. ET, with both MLB Network and ESPN producing live coverage — the first time more than one network will provide live primetime coverage of the event. The first night of coverage will span the first 37 picks, covering the first round and Competitive Balance Round A.

Coverage continues on Thursday, June 11 on MLB Network and ESPN2 at 5 p.m. ET and will pick up with the start of the second round (pick No. 38) and run through the end of the fifth and final round of this year’s Draft. There will be a total of 160 picks in the 2020 Draft.The Draft usually runs 40 rounds but was shortened this year in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Draft order

The Detroit Tigers have the No. 1 pick in this year’s Draft by virtue of having the worst record in baseball in 2019. The top 10 is as follows:

1) Tigers
2) Orioles
3) Marlins
4) Royals
5) Blue Jays
6) Mariners
7) Pirates
8) Padres
9) Rockies
10) Angels

The Giants and the Cardinals have the most selections of any team in this year’s Draft, with seven. San Francisco’s extra picks come courtesy of compensation for losing Madison Bumgarner and Will Smith to free agency, while the Cardinals have a Competitive Balance Round B pick and a compensation pick for free agent Marcell Ozuna. A total of 14 teams have six selections in the five-round event.

On the other side of the ledger, the Yankees have the fewest picks, with three, having given up their second- and fifth-round selections for signing free agent Gerrit Cole. Six teams have four selections, including the Astros, who forfeited their first- and second-round selections as part of the penalties for illegally stealing signs (They added a pick as compensation for losing Cole.). The Red Sox also are among the clubs with four picks, having forfeited their second-round pick as part of their sign-stealing penalties.

Bonus pools & slot values

Had this been a normal year, the slot value assigned to each pick in the top 10 rounds would have gone up 3.5 percent compared to 2019, the same amount MLB’s annual revenues increased. But as part of the reaction to the pandemic, an agreement was struck that slot values would remain the same as 2019, both for this year’s Draft and the 2021 edition.

The Tigers’ top pick comes with an assigned value of $8,415,300, compared to $7,789,900 for the Orioles’ No. 2 overall pick. Because Baltimore’s Competitive Balance Round pick is much higher than Detroit’s (No. 30 versus No. 62), its overall bonus pool is slightly higher ($13,894,300 vs. $13,325,700)

The Royals ($12,521,300), Marlins ($12,016,900), Pirates ($11,154,500), Padres ($10,674,000), Rockies ($10,339,700) and Mariners ($10,265,500) also have eight-figure bonus pools. The Astros, having lost their first- and second-round choices, have the smallest pool at $2,202,600.

Top prospects

The top of MLB Pipeline’s Draft Top 200 list is very college-heavy, with the top six all hailing from big four-year programs. It starts with Arizona State first baseman Spencer Torkelson, the player most project as the frontrunner to be the Tigers’ selection at No. 1. Vanderbilt’s Austin Martin is at No. 2, and the two college bats are followed by arms: Texas A&M lefty Asa Lacy and Georgia right-hander Emerson Hancock. There’s only one high school player in the top 10:

1) Spencer Torkelson, 1B, Arizona St.
2) Austin Martin, OF/3B, Vanderbilt
3) Asa Lacy, LHP, Texas A&M
4) Emerson Hancock, RHP, Georgia
5) Nick Gonzales, SS/2B, New Mexico St.
6) Garett Mitchell, OF, UCLA
7) Zac Veen, OF, Spruce Creek HS (Fla.)
8) Reid Detmers, LHP, Louisville
9) Max Meyer, RHP, Minnesota
10) Heston Kjerstad, OF, Arkansas

Impact of five-round Draft

The first, and most obvious, ramification of the Draft being reduced to five rounds is that teams are simply going to be signing a lot fewer players than in most years. But with no Minor League baseball being played, there is nowhere for those players to go out and play. The flip side of that coin could be that the 2021 Draft might be incredibly deep. Typically, the best college players sign after their junior year, but many could choose to head back to college if they aren’t drafted and re-enter the Draft next year, rather than signing for the $20,000 maximum.

In addition to more college players staying for their senior years, we could also see more high school players head to college for the same reasons. Players who go to junior college can re-enter the Draft next year, and players who head to four-year schools will be draft-eligible again in 2023.

And because of a lack of a full spring season, teams will, more than ever, be relying on evaluations from the past summer, when scouts got good looks at top players in college leagues and the high school showcase circuit. It provided less chance for a player to “pop up” with a strong spring performance.

But even with all the uncertainty, it’s still about lining up players and taking the best player on the board at the time.

“We have prepared with the same principles that we always have,” a National League scouting director said. “We’ve had more meetings, we’re using more data. There’s more influence put on the past for obvious reasons.

“Zoom and Microsoft Team are our new normal. We will line up the board the same way, though. The $20,000 rule after the fifth will be interesting. We have no idea how that will play out.”

Teams will now have until August 1, pushed back from July 10, to sign drafted players.

The Titans have agreed to terms with two of their picks from the 2020 NFL Draft — defensive lineman Larrell Murchison and defensive back Chris Jackson.

Murchison, the team’s fifth-round pick (174th overall), earned second-team All-ACC honors as a senior at North Carolina State, where he was in on 48 tackles, 12 tackles for a loss, and seven quarterback sacks. He was named the ACC defensive lineman of the week for the second time in his career when he had 3.5 sacks at Florida State.

In two seasons at N.C. State, Murchison recorded 11 sacks while starting all 25 games he played in.

During his junior season, Murchison earned the team’s Cary Brewbaker Award for Defensive Lineman of the Year, as well as the Alpha Wolf Rising Award, which is given to the Most Improved Player.

“I feel like rushing the passer, I can cause penetration,” Murchison said after being drafted. “And I feel like stopping the run, I can be an anchor down there if you need me to take on double-teams. Anywhere on the defensive front they need me to play, I feel I can play it.”

Jackson, selected in the seventh round (243rd overall) of the draft, played mainly at cornerback at Marshall, but he could compete in a number of positions with the Titans, including nickel and safety.

Jackson (6-0, 186) ended his four-year career at Marshall as one of the school’s most decorated defensive backs. He finished his career with 48 career starts, No. 14 all-time at Marshall.

He also ranks No. 1 in Marshall history in passes broken up with 45, and he ranks No.2 in program history in most passes defended (interceptions and passes broken up combined) with 52.

“Today, I was overfilled with joy,” Jackson said after being picked. “I am just happy to be a Titan. I am just truly happy to be a Titan.”

Murchison and Jackson became the first two members of the team’s six-man draft class to agree on contracts.

Dan Lambert was still in elementary school in Manitoba when his television showed him teenage hockey players parading the Memorial Cup around the ice.

A decade later, he was the one celebrating with the trophy in his hands.

Today, he’s in his first season as an assistant coach with the Nashville Predators. Lambert has experienced plenty during his time as a hockey lifer, on the ice first, before stepping behind the bench.

Just like seemingly every kid growing up in Canada, hockey played an important role in Lambert’s upbringing, and he’s been lucky enough to make a career in the sport. A couple of stops to the Memorial Cup tournament – first as a player, and later as a head coach – are two of the pinnacles of that journey, experiences that have helped shape who he is today.

Behind the Stanley Cup Final and the World Junior Championship, the Memorial Cup is just about as big as it gets when it comes to hockey in Canada. The annual tournament pits the champion of each of the top three junior leagues in the country – the Ontario Hockey League, Western Hockey League and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League – against one another. The fourth club in the tournament represents the host city within the Canadian Hockey League, the entity that oversees the OHL, WHL and QMJHL.

Essentially, the Memorial Cup decides the best junior hockey team in all of Canada, and it’s a grueling task. Imagine an NHL team winning the Stanley Cup, only to then face three of the other top teams from across the globe.

So, when a 19-year-old Lambert and his Broncos beat the Saskatoon Blades in overtime of the final game back in 1989, it was quite an accomplishment. A defenseman, Lambert was named MVP of the tournament, a bonus to cap off a magical run.

“It was an incredible season,” Lambert recalled. “We had a great team, and ironically, the team we ended up beating in the final [the hosting Blades] was a team that we dismantled in the WHL playoffs. We beat them four [times]…but when it came to the tournament…they beat us in the round robin which made us have to play in the semifinal of the tournament. But, for us it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, like this isn’t the same team that we had success against a few weeks ago.’ That was a different challenge, a new challenge.”

Swift Current eventually prevailed, and while the win brought jubilation to a small Saskatchewan town, there was also a sense of community pride heightened by tragedy just three years earlier.

In December of 1986, the Broncos’ bus crashed on a road trip, taking the lives of four players. Lambert wasn’t on the bus, but he was a member of the team, and the event was always on the minds of all who called Swift Current home.

In that way, the victory meant so much more.

“Somehow, someway, we found a way to overcome all of those challenges, and we put Swift Current back on the map,” Lambert said. “Everybody remembered Swift Current from the accident and everything else, but I think we were able to put them on the map in a positive light. I know a lot of us took a lot of pride in that.”

As every teenager with NHL aspirations does, Lambert moved on from Swift Current following his junior days. He was drafted by the Quebec Nordiques in the 1989 NHL Draft, and he played 29 games with the team over two seasons to begin the 90s decade.

From there, the blueliner had stops in the American Hockey League and the International Hockey League before playing his final 10 seasons in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga in Germany. Following his last campaign with the Hanover Scorpions, it was back to Canada, this time behind the bench as an assistant coach with the Kelowna Rockets.

When the 2014-15 season arrived, Lambert took over as head coach of the club, and already a WHL champion as a player, he did it as a bench boss too. Lambert guided his rockets to the 2015 Memorial Cup tournament, a mere 26 years after he did so as a wide-eyed teenager.

In fact, that year’s tournament was being held at the Colisee in Quebec City, the same rink Lambert skated in as an NHLer with the Nordiques all those years ago.

“It was a very special moment for me, personally,” Lambert said of his return as a coach. “I was able to enjoy it with my wife, and my three daughters were there as well as in Quebec City, and ironically… the final game of the Memorial Cup was going to be the final game in the Colisee, which was really special as well. There were a lot of moments that I was like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I’m this fortunate – that I get to coach these young men in the biggest stage in junior hockey.'”

The Rockets ultimately fell in the final of that year’s tournament, and while the loss stung, Lambert was still able to appreciate the experience in a different manner – one that allowed him to look back on his life to that point and how he got back to that revered stage.

“As a player, when we were in the moment of playing and even right before overtime [of the Memorial Cup in 1989], there wasn’t a second that I thought we were going to lose that game,” Lambert said. “Now, fast forward to when I was the coach, and all of the pressures that we had gone through, by the time we got to the Memorial Cup, I felt zero pressure. I was like, ‘OK, we know how to win now. We’ve got this figured out.’ Now, I don’t want to say I was satisfied, because I certainly was not satisfied. Our goal was to win that last game as well.

“But I felt going into the tournament… ‘I’m going to enjoy this moment.’ I truly tried to do that, and I believe I did. I was probably more relaxed in the tournament, way more relaxed than I was throughout the playoffs. Which is weird. But that’s just the way it was… I just feel like every time you’re put in those types of situations, the high-pressure situations, whether you’re a player or a coach, it doesn’t matter. You learn from them, you grow from them and it prepares you for your next challenge in life or in sports, whatever it may be.”

Those Memorial Cup experiences helped Lambert get to where he is today – with an NHL franchise in a city he and his wife were already particularly fond of thanks to their love for country music.

Lambert thinks back to those days often recalling not only what it was like to make it to the Memorial Cup, but to compete for – and on one occasion, win – a championship of that magnitude. The memories help drive him to this day, making him a better coach – and person – who wants the Predators to experience the same.

“When you end up winning at the end of the season, there’s so many lessons and so many challenges along the way,” Lambert said. “We faced a lot of adversity, and every team that wins does. I think in the end, it really does make you aware and understand that winning doesn’t happen easily, and no team that wins ever goes through zero adversity… There were a lot of times throughout my career that you think back to those moments, and you learn a lot from those types of situations.

“But it’s a tournament that I feel is a huge part of Canada and a huge part of my past, as a coach and a player. There are great memories, and it’s something that I’ll never forget being a part of.”

Coffee County Central High School senior basketball player Jaylon Wooten made it official on Wednesday; he will continue his basketball career at the college level at Cleveland State.  Wooten, surrounded by family and coaches, signed a national letter of intent to continue his basketball career at the Cleveland, Tennessee junior college.   Wooten announced his verbal commitment in early April but held off on the signing ceremony due to the Governor’s Stay at Home orders in effect.  

When asked about choosing Cleveland State, Wooten had this to say: “They gave me a good offer and I think they are really gonna help me” said Wooten.  Jaylon wanted to thank his family, teammates and coaches for giving him the opportunity to play college ball.  When asked about where he expects to help the team, Jaylon had this to say:

Raider head coach Micah Williams was effusive for his praise of Wooten.  “He brought a lot of leadership to the team.  Coming in as a senior is not always the easiest thing to do, but him being originally from here and knowing some of the players helped.”   When asked about what would make him successful at the college level, Williams had this to say:

Wooten led the Red Raiders to a regular season District 8AAA title and a region tournament berth in the 2019-20 season. For the season, Jaylon averaged 15 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists per game on the year.  Wooten was named the regular season District 8AAA Most Valuable Player.  

If the environment surrounding the current COVID-19 pandemic allows it, the Nashville Predators and the rest of the world know exactly what the NHL’s return to play format entails.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman officially announced a Return To Play Plan on Tuesday afternoon, as the League looks to return to the ice in the months to come.

It should be noted these plans are not a confirmation there will be NHL hockey games this summer, as the League attempts to award the Stanley Cup at some point in 2020. However, this announcement is a positive sign the NHL is on the right track, and should conditions allow for the plan to be executed, the Predators, as well as 23 other teams, will have a chance at the sport’s ultimate prize.

“At the pause, we committed to resuming play only when appropriate and prudent,” Bettman said via release. “We are hopeful the Return To Play Plan will allow us to complete the season and award the Stanley Cup in a manner in which the health and safety of our players, on-ice officials, team staff and associated individuals involved are paramount. Accordingly, an essential component of the Plan is a rigorous, regular schedule of testing.

“On the hockey side, the return-to-play format reflects the League’s extraordinary competitive balance, while honoring the tradition and integrity of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

“The Return To Play Plan is the result of weeks of constructive dialogue with the National Hockey League Players’ Association and we are grateful for their cooperation. We also thank our consulting health experts and the local, regional and national authorities who are helping steer us through a complex set of issues.”

The Return To Play Plan comes one day after the NHL released details for Phase 2 of the journey, which would allow players to begin voluntary, on-ice workouts in small groups in team facilities in the coming weeks. The League is hopeful to begin Phase 2 of the Return To Play Plan in early June.

Phase 3 would begin no sooner than the first half of July and would consist of training camps that would begin after guidance from medical and civil authorities.

Finally, Phase 4 would come later in the summer, with 24 teams in two hub cities competing in Seeding Round Robins, a Qualifying Round and Conference-based Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The 24-team format would see the Predators receive the sixth seed in the Western Conference – a ranking determined on the basis of point percentage at the pause of the NHL season on March 12 – and face the Arizona Coyotes in a best-of-5 series in the Qualifying Round of the plan.

The winner of that series would then move on to face one of the top four seeds in the Western Conference – St. Louis, Colorado, Vegas or Dallas – in Round 1 of the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs in either a best-of-5 or best-of-7 series (series length still to be determined).

Timing of the Return To Play format has not been announced and will be determined by a number of different factors in the weeks and months to come with the safety of all participants taking precedence, although the League is hopeful games could begin taking place by late July or early August.

The Return To Play Plan would take place in two hub cities, which would be determined at a later date, but the hope is to make a decision within the next three to four weeks. The League listed 10 NHL cities that are being considered as a hub. Nashville is not one of those sites.

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said players, coaches and other team personnel will continue to be tested for COVID-19 throughout the progression of phases, and those tests would be conducted every night during Phase 4 (resumption of games). Daly also stated if a single player were to test positive once games resume, he doesn’t envision the playoffs coming to a halt. However, the League does not want to start an outbreak, and if there were multiple positive tests at any point, plans would be re-evaluated.

The NHL does not anticipate having fans attend games in the Return To Play Plan, with Bettman adding things would have to change dramatically for those views to be reconsidered.

As for the 2020-21 NHL season, the commissioner said he believes the season will be played in its entirety, no matter when it starts. The focus is on completing games this summer, while realizing the next season could begin as late as December or January, if necessary. The commissioner is also hopeful fans would be able to attend games in 2020-21, but those factors will be determined by the virus and advice from medical authorities, as well as government entities.

Also worth noting from Tuesday’s announcement, the 2019-20 NHL regular season has been deemed complete, and the 189 games that remained on the schedule will not be played. Therefore, the regular season statistics are final, meaning Preds Captain Roman Josi owns the final team lead in scoring with 65 points.

Josi, who is also in contention for the Norris Trophy as the League’s top defenseman, has finished second among all NHL blueliners in points, tied for second in goals (16), second in assists (49) and third in time-on-ice per game (25:47)

Filip Forsberg led the Preds with 21 goals, and netminders Pekka Rinne and Juuse Saros finished with 18 and 17 wins, respectively. And, of course, Rinne also recorded his first-career goal.

Again, there are many more details that need to be worked out in the coming weeks and months, but the NHL is optimistic they will be able to follow through and enact the Return To Play Plan, which would culminate with the awarding of the Stanley Cup in 2020 – and the Predators would get a chance to win it all.