Luke Erickson: Who's going to Auburn and West Palm Beach?

Tonight is Day 3 of the First-Year Player Draft and what this means to me is discovering which of the players drafted by the Nationals will be on the rosters of the short-season Single-A Auburn Doubledays and the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League Nationals.

That's it.

I am well aware that this makes me an anomaly among some prospect followers, but consider this: I don't follow college baseball, which to me is like baseball the way 10-pin bowling is like candlepin bowling, nor do I care about the hullaballoo generated by the folks who run (and profit from) the traveling leagues and showcases.

It just doesn't interest me to speculate on who the Nationals might get when I'm kind of, sort of busy following who the Nationals do have. It also doesn't get me going because I know that there's usually a huge gap between when a guy signs and when he makes the major leagues - if he makes the majors.

The overwhelming majority of guys drafted will not make it. Take a look at the drafts for the Nats and it's usually around 10-12 percent, including the guys who didn't sign or were traded away, which has been happening a lot lately.

Finally, there's the more selfish reason: A fair amount of the guys drafted this week, I will never see play anyway. Those that do sign, I won't see for at least two years, maybe three. Sure, there are exceptions, but I've also become accustomed to seeing those guys skipped past Potomac (Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Brian Goodwin) or were only there for a short time (Anthony Rendon).

Luke Erickson blogs about the Nationals' minor league affiliates for NationalsProspects.com. Follow him on Twitter: @nats_prospects. His thoughts on the Nationals' farm system will appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our site. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.