Lower draft picks for our division foes!  The Royals are now a game better than the Diamondbacks, putting them in line for the 5th pick instead of the 4th.  5th instead of 4th?  Why that's the difference between getting Kerry Wood and getting Ariel Prietto! 

Ok, so actually there's usually not that much difference between the 4th and 5th picks (I had to go back to 1995 to find a draft where the 4th pick looked much better than the 5th).  But if that doesn't get you excited, get this:

The Tigers are now 3 games better than the Mets, putting them in line for the 19th pick instead of the 18th.  What's the difference between the 19th and 18th pick?  The 19th pick is the first pick that's not "protected."  So if the Tigers sign a type A free agent--which they are almost sure to do this offseason--they have to give up their 19th overall pick.  If they had the 18th pick or lower, they could keep it and just give up their first 2nd round pick instead.  That would be something like the 67th pick overall due to all the sandwich round picks.

So the Twins may have effectively dropped the Tigers 50 spots in the draft by losing a mostly meaningless series.  Brilliant!

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