FanHouse

Major League Baseball's annual amateur draft will kick off today at 2 pm, and unlike in years past, this will actually be televised. For those of you stuck in a cubicle and unable to witness the glory of ESPN2's coverage, we'll be live-blogging it this afternoon.

Since baseball's draft is basically the red-headed step child to all other drafts in other sports in terms of media coverage, you might want to brush up on the basics of how this thing goes down. For that, I suggest turning to the always impressive Baseball America, which (literally) answers the who, what, where, when and how of it all.

But first and foremost, the one thing casual fans should realize is that this thing is long. Unlike the wimpy NBA draft, which lasts a paltry two rounds over a few hours, or the NFL draft, which lasts seven rounds and goes two days, the MLB draft has a whopping 50 rounds and lasts until, well, whenever everyone is done making picks, whenever that might be -- no one knows for sure this thing won't drag on until Saturday, but the hope is that it's wrapped up Friday evening.

So who are the names to watch? The consensus is that Tampa Bay will select Vanderbilt southpaw David Price with the first overall pick. After that, Jim Callis's mock draft for Baseball America predicts the Royals will take high school third baseman Josh Vitters with the second pick, the Cubs will take high school pitcher Jarrod Parker with the third, and the Pirates will take Missouri State pitcher Ross Detwiler with the fourth. Kevin Goldstein's mock draft at Baseball Prospectus has the same first three picks, but thinks the Pirates are going with high school catcher Devin Mesoraco.

If you're reading these names for the first time in your life, you'll appreciate Bryan Smith's article on SI.com with features scouting reports and background info on his top 20 prospects. ESPN's Keith Law also talked about the draft during a chat yesterday. Read all of these mocks and articles, and you should be in a good spot ... at least for the first round or so.