Florida Gators Baseball 2024 MLB Draft Preview

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The 2024 Major League Draft is less than two weeks away and there will be several Florida Gators selected this year. The MLB Draft will take place from July 14-16 and hundreds of amateur baseball players will realize their dreams of playing professional baseball.

Below, we’ll take a look at which Florida Gators are draft-eligible, and give our opinion on if they will return to school or if we expect them to sign professional contracts.

This will only cover the players on Florida’s roster. A breakdown of the Gators’ signing class and how the MLB Draft will effect those players will come later today.

A quick MLB Draft explainer

The MLB has a strict value assigned to all 30 clubs that limits the amount of money they can spend on their first 10 draft picks. Each selection in the first 10 rounds comes with an assigned value (slot value) , with the total for a club’s picks equaling what it can spend in those rounds without incurring a penalty. If a player taken in the top 10 rounds doesn’t sign, his choice’s value gets subtracted from his team’s pool. Clubs near the top of the Draft often spend less than the assigned value for those choices and use the savings to offer more money to later selections.

Additionally, you’ll see most draft-eligible juniors from Division I programs elect to leave school early. This is because they retain college eligibility, which gives them a bargaining chip when negotiating a contract with the team that selected them.

An example of why this is comes from the 2019 MLB Draft. The New York Mets selected three high school pitchers, including Florida signee Matthew Allen in the third round. It would be difficult for the Mets to sign all three of those arms without going over their total pool. Allen signed for $2.5 million dollars, far exceeding the slot for his pick of $667,900. How were the Mets able to sign their three picks? They drafted seven straight college seniors, including the reigning SEC Player of the Year, Jake Mangum.

You would expect the SEC Player of the Year — and a fourth-round pick — to be coveted and compensated. Mangum, however, was a college senior. He didn’t have the negotiating power of returning to school and the Mets would retain his MLB rights for at least a year. He could sign with the Mets or would need to play in a different league for a year, waiting for the next MLB Draft. Mangum’s slot value where he was picked was $487,900. He signed for $20,000.

This is an extreme example, but clearly paints the picture as to why most draft-eligible juniors do not return to school for their senior seasons.

Florida Gators eligible for the 2024 MLB Draft

The following players are draft-eligible. Players who have graduated high school but not attended college are eligible for the draft, as are those who have completed at least one year of junior college. Players attending four-year colleges are eligible to be drafted upon completing their junior year or turning 21 years old. That last stipulation makes certain players draft-eligible as sophomores.

1B/P — Jac Caglianone

RHP — Brandon Neely

OF Ty Evans

INF Tyler Shelnut

INF Colby Shelton (draft-eligible sophomore)

C Luke Heyman (draft-eligible sophomore)

RHP Ryan Slater

LHP Pierce Coppola

C Tanner Garrison

RHP Fisher Jameson

RHP Blake Purnell

INF Armando Albert

OF Jaylen Guy

Florida fans should expect Caglianone to be one of the first five names called on July 14. Mike Zunino currently holds the record as the highest-drafted Florida Gator (third overall to the then-Cleveland Indians in the 2012 MLB Draft). Caglianone could break or tie that this year, but should be picked within the first five selections.

Brandon Neely and Ty Evans will also be high draft picks and Ryan Slater could also find his way into the top 10 rounds or near there and all three of these players should go pro after they’re drafted.

The two players to watch are Florida’s draft-eligible sophomores, Luke Heyman and Colby Shelton. Being draft-eligible as a sophomore is a luxury. These players will have two drafts where they hold the power to return to school and maintain that negotiating chip. Anything can happen, as we showed earlier with how the Mets manipulated their 2019 salary pool, but, right now, I think Florida has a great chance to get both Heyman and Shelton back for the 2025 season.

Florida left-hander Pierce Coppola should also return. The MLB Draft is not always about stats, it’s mostly about projection. It’s why, back in 2016 I told fans that AJ Puk would get drafted well before Logan Shore. Puk was never consistent at Florida, while Shore put together one of the best college careers I had seen but Shore was a polished product, while Puk was a 6-8, left-handed fireball thrower. Puk went sixth overall while Shore went 47th.

Coppola has that same high ceiling that Puk does but his injury history will keep teams away. MLB scouts want to see Coppola put together a full season, but when he does that he has the potential to be a first-round pick, which is why I think Florida fans should expect him back in Gainesville.

Getting Shelton, Heyman, and Coppola through the draft would be an excellent result for Florida and set them up well in 2025.

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