Comments on: Time to End the Draft System?

By: Shabbat Shalom: Friday Wrap-Up (7/14/09) – SportsAgentBlog.com | Sports Agent News

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:01:45 +0000

[...] Thoughts? I don’t like the idea [Time to End the Draft System?]. [...]

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:40:17 +0000

Why is that exactly? No one ever mentions the Cardinals in this breadth, but they’re a small-market team as well. The Indians are in a small market but have become a textbook franchise?

Wouldn’t a level system force teams to compete based on the quality of their organization rather than dollars alone?

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:27:19 +0000

The only problem I have with this system is the following:

Who wants to play for the Royals? Not many people. Who wants to play for the Yankees? Everybody. I think SOME players would take less money to join the Yankees system, knowing that in the future they will get the larger contracts. If you let the players pick, the Royals, A’s, Marlins (all the smaller teams) will not be able the get the same quality player as they would at the beginning of the draft because those players would take a little less in this system to play for the higher-end teams.

By: Draft Discussion, Cont’d » NPB Tracker

Draft Discussion, Cont’d » NPB Tracker — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:18:15 +0000

[...] post I wrote yesterday on the discarding the MLB draft certainly generated some lively debate. I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to comment. [...]

By: George

George — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:46:13 +0000

I like the ideas being discussed. My first impression before coming to read this site was that there would have to be a salary cap. The defecting Cuban players would also be part of the system as proposed so no team could benefit from just being able to sign them without their bonus’s being part of the whole picture. Too many bonus’s are getting ridiculous for the top players. At least, Scott Borass will be curbed in the bonus money he can get his client.

Now MLB needs to put their top minds together and come up with a workable model to get approved by all concerned. Good luck and I will be looking forward to seeing the final proposal.

By: obsessivegiantscompulsive

obsessivegiantscompulsive — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:49:06 +0000

Very interesting concept. I agree that the distribution of amateur talent is not ideal, but the current draft at least imposes a penalty on teams that want the best talent: they have to lose significantly (enough to get a Top 5 pick, generally) for a good number of years before getting a good player via their first round draft, unless they luck out. Even the Top 5 picks fail to become a good player over 50% of the time.

What’s to stop a team from spending their whole budget and then the rest of the N-1 prospects they sign to $100 bonuses? Or $1,000? The majority of players obtained via the draft sign for no bonus, so $100 or even $1,000 would be appealing to those players. And when it comes to close money, prospects will chose a top team like the Yankees over the Royals or Pirates, as they have the bigger brand, due to their bigger revenues.

I also think the bigger issue is improper distribution of revenues in the majors. That one team can outspend the average sized team’s budget by a 3 to 1 margin is simply outrageous. That’s why the draft was put in place, to prevent the Yankees from going out and buying Joe Dimaggio from his minor league team. Not every bonus baby works out, but when one team has so much more revenues than another, they win by numbers.

By: Doom Squad

Doom Squad — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:29:32 +0000

The origin of the draft was to spear the talent and avoid one or two teams from collecting the top talent available and I believe it should remain like that I would even for further and establish a limit in the bonus any player receive by rule a cap in the bonus lets say 5.0 MM as a cap to the first overall , that is fear considering MLB proven players have to play for 3 years in the MLB before even thinking about making 2 or 3 MM in arbitration, from among the first rounders let´s say before 2003 how many are in the big leagues? How many have fulfilled their projections? This way the talent available may not be passed due to “signability issues” many first overall picks never make it to the majors, many more never establish themselves as projected, MLB is the most difficult major sport to evaluate talent and make projections for, worst teams should not be under circumstances prevented in any forms to pick top talent in order to maintain the competitive balance in MLB.
On the international free agents basically they go to the highest bidder not the team they want to play for, also they don´t play for any affiliate team before they get signed, they play in programs from mostly ex players , ex scouts, “buscones” baseball instructors that forms “academies” (whom usually take 30 to 40 % of the signing bonuses) they only focus on the basics running 60 yards, throwing, batting practice and fielding. If you have an international draft international players will slowly disappear from the majors. If MLB wants to fix something put a cap in all players draftee or not and work with all these “academies” and programs and organized amateur leagues,universities, with tournaments where players are selecte by age range, so that the scouts can actually see the kids playing on the field and host a sort of a local draft in each country in which the worst teams in the MLB standing choose first from among all the local player. One thing that leads to international players lie about their ages is that if do not sign at age 16 , 99% of the cases you will not sign ever unless an scout is doing you a “favor”, this is unfair US athletes sing at older ages 18 – 22 years old ranges, MLB needs to work with local governments also because these kids leave everything to be able to sign at age 16 and if they don´t ,simply they have no education, no future and stay empty handed. They need to organize a lot in international players market.

By: Ben Fink

Ben Fink — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:00:54 +0000

Why not just say any player between the ages of something and something who enters the league must go through the draft, you don’t need an agreement with a country.
No draft would fail at equalizing anything, for example, Strasburg would never be on a team like the Nats (or a chance to be).

By: caseyB

caseyB — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:38:57 +0000

I don’t see how this would improve the equal distribution of talent throughout the 30 teams.

If you had what is basically a free-for-all, the best talent would still gravitate toward the best or richest teams (with promises of future dividends the payoff). That’s not right.

Seems to me the Rays are a team that has greatly benefited from the current system, being guaranteed a top pick almost every year. Had there been a free-for-all, then the quality of the prospects available to them might have gone down. And with it their ability to compete as well as they have the last two years.

The system is basically fine as it is. Maybe there should be some tweaks with slotting, but otherwise it it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

By: simon

simon — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:48:46 +0000

IBAF would have to become more powerful than MLB or NPB (or any other pro organization) which seems unlikely, for this to come true. Currently, MLB, NPB and other pro leagues are fighting each other about arbitrary rules that they set on their own.