On Thursday night, David Stearns will make his first Major League Baseball draft pick as the Brewers’ general manager, a milestone event in the early stages of the club’s rebuild and an opportunity for Stearns to directly acquire the kinds of players he wants to advance through the organizational system.
Milwaukee will have three selections on Day One, beginning with the fifth overall choice. It also owns the No. 46 (second round) and No. 75 (Competitive Balance Round B) picks in Thursday’s First-Year Player Draft, which starts at 6 p.m. CT.
The Brewers have held the fifth pick four other times in franchise history, most recently taking future MVP Ryan Braun in 2005. At that spot, they also selected Rick O’Keefe in 1975, Ken Henderson in 1991 and Mark Rogers in 2004.
Since being named general manager after last season, Stearns has spoken often about his aim of obtaining young, controllable talent, as Milwaukee changes its focus from playoff contention to roster reconstruction. The last two Brewers teams to reach the playoffs, the 2008 and 2011 squads, had a core of homegrown players they drafted with high picks and developed at their minor-league affiliates, including Braun, Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, J.J. Hardy, Corey Hart and Yovani Gallardo.
The draft spans three days, from Thursday until Saturday, and takes place at the MLB Network Studio 42 in Secaucus, New Jersey. According to the team, the Brewers’ first pick (No. 5) will take place at approximately 6:27 p.m., with selection No. 46 at approximately 9:28 p.m. and No. 75 slated to be around 10:15 p.m.
Former Brewers All-Star pitcher Ben Sheets, a first-round pick in 1999 (10th overall), and Vice President of Baseball Projects Gord Ash will represent the club at the MLB Network Studio.
The selection rotation is determined by the teams' reverse order of finish at the close of the previous season. The 40-round draft is scheduled to continue on Friday at noon for rounds 3-10, resuming again on Saturday for rounds 11-40 at 11 a.m. through its conclusion.
Born in Milwaukee but a product of Shorewood High School (go ‘Hounds!) and Northwestern University (go ‘Cats!), Jimmy never knew the schoolboy bliss of cheering for a winning football, basketball or baseball team. So he ditched being a fan in order to cover sports professionally - occasionally objectively, always passionately. He's lived in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but now resides again in his beloved Brew City and is an ardent attacker of the notorious Milwaukee Inferiority Complex.
After interning at print publications like Birds and Blooms (official motto: "America's #1 backyard birding and gardening magazine!"), Sports Illustrated (unofficial motto: "Subscribe and save up to 90% off the cover price!") and The Dallas Morning News (a newspaper!), Jimmy worked for web outlets like CBSSports.com, where he was a Packers beat reporter, and FOX Sports Wisconsin, where he managed digital content. He's a proponent and frequent user of em dashes, parenthetical asides, descriptive appositives and, really, anything that makes his sentences longer and more needlessly complex.
Jimmy appreciates references to late '90s Brewers and Bucks players and is the curator of the unofficial John Jaha Hall of Fame. He also enjoys running, biking and soccer, but isn't too annoying about them. He writes about sports - both mainstream and unconventional - and non-sports, including history, music, food, art and even golf (just kidding!), and welcomes reader suggestions for off-the-beaten-path story ideas.
