AL East Round-up: Intriguing 2014 MLB Draft Picks Edition

Apr 4, 2014; Denver, CO, USA; General view of a pile of baseballs before the opening day baseball game between the Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Coors Field. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

We’re going to take a small break from our normal routine and instead of recapping the weekly performance of the five American League East teams, we thought we’d take a look at the MB Draft instead.

It goes without saying that the American League East has had a mixed history with the MLB Draft. Some teams like the Tampa Bay  Rays have used it to rebuild, others like the New York Yankees have allowed their picks to serve as compensation fodder when signing big ticket free agents away, and still others have had trouble choosing a direction that works for them.  That’s lead to varying success rates in the draft for the Toronto Blue Jays, the Baltimore Orioles, the Boston Red Sox, and the aforementioned Yankees and Rays.

Understandably, each team took different approaches in the 2014 MLB Draft, drafting to different needs and selecting players at different development levels due to the health of their respective systems. The Yankees, for instance, had a more pressing need for players that were less of a project and could be hurried through the system into the upper minors. The Orioles had to figure out how to attack a draft without a pick in either of the first two rounds. And the Red Sox, Rays, and Blue Jays each had their own agendas to adhere to, all of which evolved from previous strategies to fit their current team needs.

So with that in mind, let’s take a look at what each team did in the draft….

*All videos embedded via MLB.com