A shortest draft of the Major League Baseball (MLB) in the league's history will happen on June 10 and 11 in a new format.

Instead of the traditional 40 rounds of selection, the 2020 MLB Draft will contain only five rounds. A total of 37 picks, including eight compensatory ones, will be used on the first day. The other four rounds will happen on the second day before 160 players were selected by the teams.

The top 5 picks went to the five teams with the worst season records last year: the Detroit Tigers (47-114, first pick), the Baltimore Orioles (54-108, second pick), the Miami Marlins (57-105, third pick), the Kansas City Royals (59-103, fourth pick) and the Toronto Blue Jays (67-95, fifth pick).

Both the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals have the most seven picks in the draft. The departures of Madison Bumgarner and Will Smith for the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Atlanta Braves respectively earned the Giants two compensatory picks. The Cardinals received one compensatory pick from Marcell Ozuna's signing with the Braves and a sandwich pick.

The New York Yankees only have three draft picks, the fewest of all teams, as punishment for surpassing the salary cap. In December, 2019, the team signed Gerrit Cole with a nine-year, 324-million-U.S.-dollar contract and that also cost them the second- and fifth-rounders.

The two teams that got involved in the sign-stealing scandal, the Boston Red Sox and the Houston Astros, have four picks each. The Red Sox lost their second-rounder. The Astros lost their first- and second-rounders but were compensated one after Cole signed with the Yankees.

The signing bonuses for this year's drafted players will remain the same as that of last year because the expected raise was taken away by the coronavirus. Eight teams will have over 10 million U.S. dollars of space for that and the Orioles have the highest 13,894,300. The Astros have the lowest number in this area of only 2,202,600.

The signing bonus for an undrafted player this year being only 20,000 U.S. dollars plus the fact that there are only five rounds in the draft mean there should be a lot of undrafted young men going (back) to college. In fact, many already decided to skip the 2020 draft. There is only one high-school player of the top 10 rated ones for the draft. By contrast, all top six are either juniors or seniors.

The MLB also extended the rookie signing deadline from July 10 to August 1, meaning to give more time for both the teams and the players to consider before deciding whether it's time to go professional.