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It’s all been leading up to tonight.

From the moment the Guardians first learned they somehow beat the odds in the Draft Lottery and were awarded the first pick of the 2024 MLB Draft, despite having just a 2 percent chance of doing so, the organization has been preparing, studying and waiting for July 14.

The Guardians will make the first selection of the Draft for the first time in franchise history. Cleveland will also have the third pick (36th overall) in Competitive Balance Round A and the ninth pick (48th overall) in Round 2 on Sunday night.

“We look at this as an extraordinary and exciting opportunity for us,” Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said. “Oftentimes, when you’re thinking about your first pick, you’re trying to guess who’s going to be off the board before you get an opportunity to select. This year we don’t have to guess. We know we have control over that.”

Let’s take a look at everything you need to know heading into the big night.

Who will the Guardians take?
If you think it’d be this simple, you’d be wrong. Although we can make our guesses (which we will in a second), the Guardians have not given any indication of who they may be leading toward selecting with the first overall pick.

“I think one of things we’re excited about within this Draft class is there’s a number of good high-quality players available to us with the first pick,” Antonetti said, “and we think that will be the case with subsequent picks we have after the first pick. That’s probably the best direction I can give you is that there are a group of players we would be excited about bringing into the organization with the first pick.”

It’d be surprising if the Guardians strayed from the four top Draft prospects, as ranked by MLB Pipeline. The top name that’s been linked to the organization is second baseman Travis Bazzana from Oregon State, who has a combination of excellent hitting ability with tremendous raw power.

The other three names who could also be in the mix are outfielder/third baseman Charlie Condon from the University of Georgia (who has 70-grade power), two-way player Jac Caglianone from the University of Florida (who also has 70-grade power) and middle infielder JJ Wetherholt from West Virginia University (who’s been described as the best pure hitter in this Draft class).

What happens after the first pick?
Day 1 coverage will be live on MLB Network, MLB.TV, MLB.com and on the MLB App, with the Draft beginning at 7 p.m. ET. The first round will also be carried by ESPN. Day 2 (Rounds 3-10) and Day 3 (Rounds 11-20) can be seen beginning at 2 p.m. ET each day on MLB.com.

What is the Guardians’ bonus pool total?
The Guardians will have a whopping $18,334,000 bonus pool and their first overall pick has a slot value of $10,570,600.

Here’s a quick refresher on what this means:

There’s an assigned slot value for every pick in Rounds 1-10. The total of those slot values equals a team’s bonus pool total. A team has the freedom, essentially, to allocate that pool of money wherever it best sees fit. Some picks may sign for more than their slot value. Others may sign for less. But a team must make sure that the total that it signs all of its picks for (in the first 10 rounds) is under its total bonus pool allotment in order to avoid facing a penalty.

“That’s why when people have asked, ‘Well, who are you taking with the first pick?’ it’s a combination of factors for us,” Antonetti said. “Because what we’re seeking to do is optimize that total pool. And some of that is based upon the ability and our assessment of the player, but [it's] also how much it would take to sign that player as we think about the totality of the group and how else we might be able to use those resources.”

Is there anything specific the Guardians are looking for?
Aside from the fact that the Guardians have been clear that they’re trying to be smart with their resources when making their first selection, the team is set to follow the same approach it has in recent memory: Take the best player available. We’ve seen that mean mixing in selections of high school prospects. We’ve seen that translate into taking all pitchers except for one pick in 20 rounds. Now, we’ll wait to see what trend develops over the next three days.

“We’re really trying to make the most of the dollars and resources and picks that we have available to us to yield the best talent pool overall,” Antonetti said. “Whether that’s high school players, college players, pitchers, position players, we’re really open-minded.”