From Buster Olney:
The premise that guided the talks is that the draft is the best and easiest manner in which baseball can address the widening financial disparity between The Haves and The Have Nots. And the focus is on some kind of a slotting system, which would enable the worst teams to have access to the best players. In recent years, some of the worst teams have passed on the best amateur players in the draft because they believed they couldn’t sign the player. This is how Rick Porcello slid to the Tigers at the end of the first round in 2007.
And there is a strong belief on the side of management that a slotting system can be completed, because the union will embrace the idea — so long as the Players Association is guaranteed, in some fashion, that more money will be spent on major league players. How this happens remains to be seen, but there are agents convinced that the interests of the draft-eligible traded will be swapped out for the interests of the union veterans.
A slotting system would make sense, in that it would theoretically help eliminate the entire concept of “signability” from the draft. The problem is that with a slotting system, clubs will likely want to be allowed to trade draft picks, so as to be able to extract value from a pick even if they feel that they cannot afford to pay the player slot money. Once picks are tradeable, you may end up with a similar situation to the signability epidemic, where agents like Scott Boras will be directing their players to particular teams. Although there will be slotting rules, agents may attempt to force their players to richer teams that can offer them more money later, during their arbitration years. Essentially, the system would go through an overhaul only to find itself back where it started almost immediately.
There was one other solution proposed:
There is talk about structuring draft budget according to the place of finish. So, for example (and to be clear, these numbers are my own hypothetical), the worst team would have $10 million, the second-worst team would have $975,000, the third-worst $950,000, etc. This way, the big-market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox wouldn’t be in position to overpay middle-round picks, as Boston did to lure Ryan Westmoreland away from Vanderbilt.
Buster’s numbers are clearly mistaken, but the idea does have some merit. If instituted along with a slotting system and the ability to trade draft picks, this might preclude the problem I discussed above. Better teams would have a limited draft budget, so trading for high draft picks would be a difficult decision that would limit their ability to have a deep draft class. Most trades would occur between the bad teams, ensuring that high quality talent went towards competitive balance, but better teams would still have the opportunity to weigh their options and get involved in deals for upper level talent.
As a Yankee fan, I wish they would leave things as they are, or at least institute the trading of picks so that teams can get something of value in signability cases. However, as a fan of the sport, it is fairly clear that the draft is broken, and something needs to be done to fix it. What do you think should be done?
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11 Responses to GM's Trying To Fix The Draft
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TIQ IQ
I understand the concerns, but I still think its in MLB’s interests to permit big-market teams to exercise competitive advantages. You want the Yankees and the Sox and the Cubbies to have competitive teams; everyone makes more money in the aggregate when teams that have substantial fan bases and also people who expressly root against them in the postseason. Now if you restrict that competitive advantage to free agent salaries (by internationalizing the draft and subjecting it to hard-slotting), salaries as a whole are likely to rise. Intuitively starting caliber-talent subject to cost controls for wealthy teams precludes their having to bid on starters for every position.
My suggestion would be to remove leverage for DES’s and juniors by forcing draft entrants to take at least a year off before they can become eligible again. It’s a small measure but a significant one. You could also have hard-slotting for lower rounds, so that the Yanks and Sox couldn’t draft so many of the overslot guys and to, again, limit the leverage of draftees by discouraging the practice of shopping for teams. If Hypothetical Player isn’t picked before, say, the sixth round, he is subject to a hard slot and must take a year off if he declines to sign.
I read somwhere — I can’t remember now if it was RAB, ESPN, Fangraphs or someplace else — that talked about how cost certainty in the form of hard slotting would actually work in favor of teams like the Yanks because it would depress Rule IV draft costs and thus give the Yanks and others like them greater flexibility to allocate finances elsewhere.
Personally, I don’t think the Rule IV draft is broken but I do think the rules for amateur free agency are pretty messed up. How Aroldis Chapman could make nearly twice what Strasburg signed for despite being less polished/tested shows the problem with amateur free agency. I’m not seeing how the Rule IV draft is so broken. If anythying, I’m seeing more teams finally figuring out how to use the Rule IV draft to their advantage such that the $8M they invest in June reaches farther than their previously idiotic $8M expenditures in free agency (for example). The draft is FINALLY working because teams are getting better and now we’re goign to change it?
Also, I hadn’t heard that trading draft picks was on the table but it’s something that should’ve happened ages ago.
I think the fact that the worst teams dont get the best talent in the draft, unlike in any other sport, is a problem. Like you noted, slotting may actually create greater inequity. This is a tough puzzle to solve.
I don’t believe that to be true, especially not in the past two or three drafts that I’ve been following closely.
Players still fall in the early rounds due to signability, and the rich teams load up on good talent in later rounds that poor teams cannot afford. Teams are spending more, but its most definitely still an issue.
And yet we saw teams like the A’s and Pirates sign these so-called signability guys in last year’s draft so, again, I’m not sure that this is happening as much anymore as people think it is.
It obviously was happening as recently as 2005 or 2006 but I’m just not seeing it as much anymore. I think we’re taking a previously-accepted truth and running with it without poking a few holes to see if the theory still stands.
The Pirates picked Sanchez 4th because he agreed to sign at their price, despite most seeing him as a late first rounder. Turner and Matzek were talents pushed out of the Top 5 due to cost concerns. You may be right and teams may be getting smarter (giving the 5 million to draftees rather than a middle reliever), but its still a problem. Maybe trading draft picks, on its own, might solve the issue.
And yet these same Pirates went over slot for their 4th (Zack Dodson/$600K) and 6th rounders (Zack Von Rosenberg/$1.2M).
Furthermore, I’ve always found it a rather subjective argument regarding someone like Sanchez. Yes, some, many or all might’ve felt that Sanchez was the wrong pick but he hit .309/.409/.539 in his pro debut so perhaps we should balance the experts’ mock drafts with other factors as well.
Is it evidence of a broken draft if a team takes a more cost-coscious approach in the first round so as to have the ability to sign more players in the later rounds? To me, that’s smart management, and not necessarily evidence to a defective system.
Fair enough. Either way, we are both using anecdotal evidence, and a larger study would need to be done to see if there has actually been a significant trend in the right direction. I would hope that they would do such a study before undertaking radical changes.
An advantage of the present system too is that wealthier teams can gamble on injuries. Smaller market teams can’t afford to lose the cash or the draft pick, but signing bonuses for guys pre or post-TJ or other surgeries gives the player insurance against his failing to recover.
This proposal sounded better in its original Russian.