Seniority Rules In The Draft
When Stanford right-hander Mark Appel began his free-fall from the top spot to the eighth-overall selection due to signability concerns, many pointed to the new draft rules agreed upon in the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement as the culprit.
The new draft rules call for each pick in the first ten rounds to have a monetary value. The draft budget for each team is the combined value of their respective draft picks in the first ten rounds. By now, most following the draft are aware that penalties exist for exceeding the draft budget — first a tax, then the loss of future draft picks. The catch is, though, that any unsigned pick in the first ten rounds costs that team the corresponding budget money allotted to that specific pick, and any bonus greater than $100,000 after the tenth round still counts toward the overall draft budget.
Thus, Mark Appel fell to the number eight slot held by the Pittsburgh Pirates because teams felt the Stanford pitcher would demand too much of their budget, and the worst scenario for any team would be that the two sides failed to come to an agreement. Little would happen to Appel. He would simply return to Stanford for his senior year and return for the 2013 Draft. Though for the major league team, they would not only throw away a first-round pick, but also forfeit a huge portion of their draft budget, which would handcuff their options in remaining rounds.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding the new rules, the vast majority of the players taken in the first round aligned with the best available talent. Even Florida State senior James Ramsey, who was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals with the 23rd pick and largely seen as the biggest reach of the first round, was ranked as the 51st-best player available by Baseball America. That’s one slot higher than high school outfielder Lewis Brinson, who went six picks later to the Texas Rangers.
So, in some ways, the new draft rules worked as designed. Signing bonuses should be reduced due to the strict adherence to the overall draft budgets, and talent largely fell where it should in the first few rounds. No player floated out a Josh Bell type bonus demand like last year and dramatically fell to a team willing to meet his demands.
Perhaps more accurately, the new draft rules worked until the later rounds, especially rounds nine through eleven. That is when the true effect of the new budgets became realized. As J.J. Cooper of Baseball America wrote on Tuesday evening:
[T]eams had to know how to stretch their dollars, but just as importantly, how to make absolutely sure they would sign all of their picks in the first 10 rounds. So while talent was important, finding cheaper players after the first few rounds became even more important. And no draft commodity is cheaper than the college senior.
College seniors have no leverage in the negotiation process with teams. No option to return to school looms ominously over contract talks, generally allowing teams to sign college seniors for signing bonuses that fall under the recommended slot value. That money saved can then be allocated to other draft picks, allowing the organization to go over slot, if necessary.
Because of this, a huge influx of college seniors were drafted from rounds seven through ten, much more than in the previous year.
As you can see, the number of college seniors drafted per round after the fifth round in the 2011 Draft remained roughly consistent. Anywhere between four and seven seniors were drafted in rounds six through thirteen.
Compare that with the 2012 Draft, however, and we see a massive jump in college seniors drafted in rounds seven through ten. A whopping twenty-one college seniors were drafted in the tenth round, clearly as a calculated move to save money for other rounds because only one college senior was drafted in the eleventh round — the first round in which a team can fail to sign a player and not have it affect their individual draft budget.
The issue with the massive influx of signable college seniors being drafted in rounds seven through ten is that the ultimate goal of drafting players in the order of talent, not signability, gets thrown out the window.
For example, the Los Angeles Dodgers drafted second baseman Zach Babitt, a college senior from Academy Of the Arts University in San Francisco, California. By all accounts, the 22-year-old seems to be a pleasant young man, but Babitt is not a tenth-round talent. He should not be drafted thirteen slots ahead of prep left-hander Hunter Virant. Babitt is a 5-foot-7 infielder, who played for a 6-44 Division II team and hit one home run in 99 collegiate games. Virant, on the other hand, ranked as the 53rd-best player available in the entire draft.
Virant was the first player drafted in the eleventh round. Teams shied away from drafting him in the first ten rounds because the industry considers the high schooler a difficult sign, and no one was willing to risk a portion of their draft budget. Virant symbolized a run on high school talent after the tenth round.
After just three high school players went in the tenth round, twelve high school players were drafted in both the eleventh and twelfth rounds. Teams felt far more comfortable drafting many of these players after they were no longer risks to their budget, signifying yet again the later rounds became much more about signability than talent.
Much like we saw earlier, the 2011 Draft saw more stability between rounds. From round six to round fifteen, anywhere between seven and eleven high school players went per round. We did not see any major peaks and valleys, as we saw on Tuesday.
The new draft rules were lauded as a way to curb draft spending and to ensure draftees came off the board in the order of talent, not signability. With the premium placed on cheap, signable college seniors in rounds seven through ten — some of them college seniors who would have normally gone in rounds thirty through forty — we see that now, more than ever, the draft has become just as much about signability as it is talent.
Great, more of the Fangraphs agenda on the new CBA rules. We get it, you guys don’t like the new system and you’re going to take every chance to rip it.
First, can we stop with the whole “the Pirates would throw away a first round pick if they can’t sign Appel?” They don’t throw the pick away, they just delay it for a year. Obviously it wouldn’t be their first choice, but if it gives them some chance of landing Appel with the #8 pick on an extremely reasonable deal it is worth the risk.
Second, are we really complaining because guys aren’t getting drafted in order of ability in rounds 7-10? I don’t think anyone in their right mind think that issue compares to having top 5 talents slip to the end of the first round because they’re demanding huge bonuses. Besides, no one said signability would no longer be an issue. The larger point was to force high school players to be realistic with their demands up front or risk falling out of the first 10 rounds and basically forcing themselves to go to school. It’s not like highly thought of high school players didn’t slip way down the draft in the old system because they were thought of as unsignable either. There is a reason that Rendon, for instance, wasn’t drafted until the 820th pick out of high school despite scouts thinking he was much, much better than the 820th best overall player in that draft.
“Second, are we really complaining because guys aren’t getting drafted in order of ability in rounds 7-10? ”
yeah, i personally think this is worth complaining about, especially because it isn’t just rounds 7-10 where this is happening. if teams are more focused on trying to game the financial system than they are on acquiring the best talent with each pick, that seems like a problem with the way the draft is set up to me. now, i’m not suggesting that the old system was great either–really, i think the “fangraphs agenda” you mentioned is mainly due to the fact that all MLB did was replace a flawed system with a similar, differently flawed system that “fixed” some signability/gaming the system issues by adding new, different issues.
i do agree with your point about Appel–certainly not the worst thing in the world if they can’t sign him, since my understanding is that they would essentially receive a replacement pick (and presumably a higher draft budget?) next year.
Yes, there is no perfect answer when it comes the system, but I think it’s pretty clear that getting guy’s drafted in order of their talent in the first round is far, far more important than doing the same in rounds 7 through 10. The new system is a huge improvement IMO. Fangraphs is completely unwilling to admit that possibility.
Nitram – Read this overview of Alex Anthopolous’s strategies and reasoning behind how to best abuse the new draft format, which is very well written: http://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2012/6/6/3067442/draft-day-2-blue-jays-make-a-mockery-out-of-new-draft-rules
From the comments, a tweet by Marc Hulet:
MLB has ruined the draft. Watching players who normally go in the 40th round in the 6-10th is a joke. I get why teams did it #mlbdraft
It’s unfortunate that one poor system is replaced by another. Maybe we’ll get it next time. Until then, we can spend each year laughing at the mockery.
So what’s your suggestion to improve the system that is so much better? I could care less about guys being reached for because they are signable in rounds 7-10. That pales in comparison to keeping top prospects from manipulating the draft and forcing their way out of the top 10.
And you’re assuming that AA’s system is actually a good one. I think they can get away with it because they stocked up last year, but I don’t think punting on that many picks is a good idea for the vast majority of teams. It forces teams to come up with a plan ahead of time and adapt to what everyone else is doing. I don’t think there is a “right” answer anymore where previously the right answer was to spend as much as possible. That’s a step in the right direction IMO.
The bigger point is it actually forces HS prospects to be more honest with teams. No more Josh Bell’s claiming they won’t sign just so that he can get a bigger offer from the team that eventually decides to pop him later on. No more asking for ridiculous amounts upfront to try and retain more leverage and get more money despite falling in the draft. Those things far, far outweigh some college seniors getting drafted much earlier than they would otherwise IMO. YMMV
My main issue is that FG refuses to place any focus on the positives. They continue to just right about the terrible things the new rules have done or will do. If they actually wrote a fair and balanced article I wouldn’t be here.
It’s hard to focus on the positives when the true intent of the rules has nothing to do with competitive balance and everything to do with reducing the leverage children and young adults have to negotiate with billionaires.
My perfect system? Draft the right to match any contract offer a player receives, then let the players negotiate with the market. That’s substantially more rights than any other prospective employer would get.
Any prospective employer except for every other major American professional sports league. What you suggest would completely ruin the competitive balance in baseball and could lead to lower total overall salaries for professional players because the league as we know it fundamentally changes with those rules. It’s standard collective bargaining. It may not be fair, but acting like your system could ever happen isn’t even worth discussing.
@ Nitram
But the issue you’re talking about in regard to elite prospects manipulating, sliding and being selected… You’re talking about a few guys at most per year… significant players, yes, but still… The case laid out in Breen’s article, 2013 shows dozens and dozens and dozens of players being manipulated.
I’m not saying that I liked how the system previously worked, but RADIVEL is correct in what he’s pointing out. It’s turning a poor system into a more convoluted kind of poor.
So the attention shifts from a few of the yearly elite prospects, to a load of low cost players… So let’s wait to see how the “elite” prospect/agent will continue to manipulate, only differently…
But the guys chosen in the top few rounds are the players most likely to be difference makers for a franchise. The guys chosen later on are rarely difference makers that early picks are. It is far more important to have the best players going in the “correct” spots, than the also rans later in the draft (who still weren’t going in the “correct” spots in the old system because of signability).
I think it’s most important to not transfer additional money to billionaires from the kids who’ve eked out the tiniest bit of leverage, but that’s just me.
Where did all my negatives on the posts other than the first one go? I was quite proud of those.
@byron
The total amount of slot money in the first 10 rounds is 50-60 MM less than it was last year (which was one of the best classes ever and teams last chance to take advantage of the old rules, so spending was probably dropping anyway). Do you really think billionaires care all that much about saving less than 2 MM a season? Don’t you think that money might get spent elsewhere? Isn’t it possible that this was done for competitive balance reasons and not so teams could save ~2 MM a year?
no replacement picks anymore. Incentive to sign the player because if you don’t, you don’t have a first round pick that year.
LOL. of course billionaires care about saving $2M per season. How do you think they became billionaires in the first place?
Let’s also not downplay the value of being able to draft and sign for talent’s sake within the 7-12 rounds. It does matter A LOT.
It used to matter a lot. It doesn’t matter as much anymore because there are fewer high upside guys falling to those picks in the first place.
I just don’t think that’s true. After more than 500 picks, there’s still lots of upside left on the BaseballAmerica top 500, and nearly all of the players left in the top 300 are HS prospects. Sure, many of those players are tough to sign because of commitment issues, but they are still there. There’s always value to be found in the 6-12th rounds.
And teams could still possibly sign those guys if they saved money earlier in the draft. They also could have been taken earlier and signed if teams thought they were worth the money they were asking relative to their other options at that draft spot.
Please, just go into baseball-reference.com’s draft database and pull up 7th round picks over the first 40 years, and see how many of them end up with at least 10 WAR in their careers (and I’m being generous, the good players that people want to see on their teams are at least 18 WAR). That alone should show you that you don’t need to look at rounds 8-12 to see that you are wrong.
It’s too bad Josh Bell is on the shelf, was curious to see how he adjusted to pro ball. Small sample size of course but his walk rate was not pretty. Not sure if his injury occurred on a specific incident or if he was gradually worsening and dealing with it for a while?
I agree that there was a run on college seniors, but I don’t think the HS evidence is as strong – there were a bit fewer selected in the middle rounds vs. 2011, but a bit more in the early rounds vs. 2011, so it’s equally plausible that the mid-round drought had more to do with a relative dearth of talent due to the larger number taken early. The rate of HS picks from 11 onward was basically unchanged YoY, so the only evidence for this effect is the jump from 10 to 11, which is really no larger than the jump between rounds 4 and 5 in 2011. So if we can attribute the shape of the 2011 curve to randomness, we can just as plausibly do the same in 2012.
As for the Appel analysis, I said this in the relevant thread, but I believe the analysis is backwards – Pittsburgh has all the leverage over him, not vice versa. There is indeed a considerable cost to him going back to college for his senior year, so in order for it to make sense he has to expect a significantly higher deal in 2013 than he will get in 2012. That is not a probable outcome for him, as the 2013 draft will likely be stronger at the top than 2012 and he has little chance of going much higher than he did this year.
I don’t understand why you seem to downplay the effects of Appel not reaching an agreement. Yes, he can return to school where, if all goes well, will be in the exact same situation he was in this year, with two notable exceptions. He will be a part of what many believe will be a better draft and he will now be the cheap college senior you just wrote about. The draft will be subject to the same rules as this years, so unless he is drafted in the top five, he will likely never get an offer as good as the slot offer the Buccos can now make.
I like your larger point – great research – I just disagree on this point.
Not to mention he will have given up a year of earnings and professional development. You are absolutely correct – the Pirates have all the leverage in this situation, not Appel. The Appel situation seems to be playing out exactly as the new rules were intended to provide – he has little upside and considerable downside to not signing an at-slot deal, and the Pirates could really try playing hardball and offering something even lower if they want to.
I am a little perturbed that everyone keeps looking at this only from the perspective of a college junior (Appel), and no one appreciates that this would be a completely different perspective for a high schooler who has college options that could allow him to improve his draft slot, or a jc student with multiple years of eligibility. I just cant see analyzing the new CBA strictly from the one perspective of this years number eight pick as being the same as the big picture. Look at what it would mean with a hs senior getting drafted late in the first. I mean your talking like 1m bonus on a team with a small 5% cap because of no high picks to boost it. This system is here so that the yanks cant give #4 pick money to a true number 10# talent because no one else was willing to overpay at pick #28. I think a system where teams submit a rough bid for each of the top 200 blind. Toss the highest and lowest two so teams targeting a player cant influence the end result with a bid way outside the norm. You give the teams a minimum on the slots say 35% below current max allowances now, and make it a slot minimum. Each slot would then get a max of the average number given in bids by all the teams plus 10%. You then have a negotiating window of slot minimum to the cap at true talent value as determined by the teams to negotiate in.
My biggest worry with this system we just saw take effect is on a deep draft where most of the top talent is worth over-slot to the point where signability is an issue on a lot of picks. Guys who would on most years be top 5 talent being told to settle for 1/2 or 1/3 of what there “true talent value” is because that particular year the talent spectrum is skewed down the draft by abundance. The big problem is that this system doesn’t change its valuations based on the depth of the draft class so it will effect different years more drastically then others.
Within a stronger draft, It is possible that a guy like Appel could become the draft pick who signs as an under budget top 5 pick to free up money for a team that might find more value in the 2-10 rounds. It can work both ways, just the opposite of what happened this year with Correra. So Appel would still be expensive, but cheaper than the allotted pick budget..
How is that a positive outcome for Appel though. He might get marginally more money, but he’s getting it a full year later so you have to discount it. When you throw in the risk and likely longer ETA to the majors, I think that pretty clearly isn’t what Appel should be hoping for.
I’m not trying to say that it is a positive outcome. And I don’t think anyone is trying to argue that his decision to not sign would be a smart one… Who knows… What I am saying, is that stranger things have happened, and if Boras and the kid don’t like their current situation, they’ll be trying to reason through every kind of scenario to find “their better way”..
I’m missing something. How big a deal is $100,000 when you’re talking about the 53rd best talent in the entire draft (Virant)? Certainly Virant will demand well over that amount as a signing bonus, won’t he?
The point is that if you don’t sign him you don’t lose money to spend on other guys and if you do sign him you can use whatever you can save on your first 10 rounds of picks and add it to what you can offer him.
So if you are $500,000 under your pool cap you could offer him $600,000 bonus and if he says no it doesn’t have any bearing on your total pool.
Indeed he will, and the Astros are going to try to come up with money to sign McCullers, Ruiz and Virant. The Astros had “general ballpark discussions with both Appel and with Correa (and probably Buxton too). When it became clear that Boras wanted OVER SLOT money for Appel, and Correa would sign for more than 2 MILL UNDER the slot, the Astros finalized their pick. They were able to play each of the 3 against each other, and in the end, got the player they wanted and saved 2 mill to pay the later picks OVER slot. That;s why you saw them take a shot at the harder signs. Even Hinojosa, who is presumed to be going to UT, is going to have some serious money offered to him, and he went in the 26th.
If the desire of the new rules was to ensure that the bottom clubs were able to sign the best talent, then the goal was certainly accomplished. No more agents scaring off lower market clubs so the Yanks, or the Tigers could sign a top 10 pick at the 28th spot. Bravo!
Hinojosa has been tweeting with McCullers about being Astros together. He also couldn’t get his HS graduation requirements done to enroll at UT early like he planned, so I’m wondering if he’s discouraged by school altogether. He was previously quoted as saying it’d take “Francisco Lindor money” ($2.9MM) to keep him out of UT, but it seems like his mind may have changed.
A solution could be not allowing Rule 4 draft eligibility until the age of 21. This is hardly ideal and I am not sure I support it, but it would curb drafting based off signability.
That’s like cutting off your nose, gouging out your eyes, and pulling out all your teeth to spite your face.
Why are you assuming that Appel fell ONLY because of the new draft rules? Several teams have stated they passed on him because they just preferred other players over him. Granted, they could just be blowing smoke, but on the other hand outlets like Baseball America are just a guide – their rankings aren’t the 10 Commandments, and it’s not all that surprising that teams may have their own ideas, is it?
As an Astros fan, there isn’t enough space in this comment box to express how elated I am that they took Correa over Appel. Appel was a nice “safe” pick, but he doesn’t project as an MLB ace (at least not in my eyes), and I’d much rather see the Astros gamble on upside over safe with their first pick.
er, make that “because of signability concerns.” my point remains the same.
I think it is cloudy at best, but I imagine the other clubs are saying he wasn’t #1 for the simple fact that if they took a different pitcher it would be a crappy thing to read that your new club liked someone else more.
Just like the Astros would never acknowledge that they had Appel #1 (not claiming they did, just using it as an example) for the simple fact that they wouldn’t want to diminish anything with their decision to take Correa.
To your point, none of the rankings of top talents had Appel #1, he was 3-4 on the ones I saw.
I don’t think Appel slid because of signability concerns, until he made it past the 3rd pick, which put him clearly below his asking price. I think his talent was just way overpriced at that point. Most didn’t have him as the top rated prospect… Only the top pick, for whatever reason.
It was reported afterwards that he turned down an offer for a $6M signing bonus by the Astros. It is possible that this only confirmed the Astros moving in another direction, to free up more cap space down the road. So now it looks like Correa might sign for around $5M, which results in more money to grab the sliding Lance McCullers in the compensation round.
What incentive does Correa have to take one PENNY under slot? Astros will look like idiots if they don’t sign him. Its the first draft with the new management regime. Not signing Correa, will be a bigtime fail for them.
If I can see that, I’m pretty sure his agent will see that too.
It seems to me that this “soft” cap is pretty much a hard cap, with just a smidge of wiggle room. If the teams are treating it that way (and the draft patterns indicate they seem to be doing just that)… I think they should expect the players and their agents to do the same.
Now that I’m seeing it in action, it seems to me that the new system really tilts negotiating advantage to teams over players, so teams can be quite aggressive in offering below-slot deals. In the past, Correa could turn down 5mm and hope for significantly more by reentering the next draft and getting selected by a team with money to spend regardless of draft position. Now, the best he can reasonably hope for by waiting a year is to get an extra 2mm, IF he goes number 1 again. And if he doesn’t go at the very top he may end up being forced to sign for less than the 5mm he can get today, having lost a year of earnings and development.
I have to think this is exactly what MLB was hoping for. I can’t believe I didn’t see it ahead of time.
His incentive is that if he doesn’t sign, then his alternative is to go back into the draft and likely get the same or less 3 years from now or whenever. OTOH, the Astros’ only penalty is that they get the #2 pick in next year’s draft and they have less money to sign McCullers.
If Correa’s agent agreed to a handshake pre-draft deal and reneges his credibility takes a hit. I don’t see how Correa won’t keep to whatever handshake agreement was made if it was at least $5M.
Dave, what you are not taking into account is if the Astros and Correa already had an agreement in place when he was selected. If so, he would have to double-cross the team to worm out of the agreement (and I saw a report that he’s signing soon, which suggests that a deal was pretty much done before he was selected).
Correa, while rising in BA’s top list, was no lock to be selected that early. BA’s final mock had him falling to 7th, $3M bonus, though I did see a few mocks have him picked 3rd, or $5.2M So they could have agreed on somewhere in the low $5M or maybe a specific number in that range, since he was likely to be picked there, but he agrees to the lower slot deal because he could slide to 7th and lose $2M.
I agree, it’s the commissioner basically saying I’ll put forth the soft end of the cap, while you guys (the organizations) make the hard cap happen.
I’m not sure what any player’s motivation would be in taking less than the cap space provided. It’s possible that we’re going to see each of these upper round non-college senior picks holding teams hostage until they receive as much of the cap as possible. That’s the leverage an agent will have now, since you don’t even get the cap space unless you sign the actual player that provides it… Which is why you see so many seniors getting selected in these prime spots, cause they and their agents have almost no leverage. The college seniors are the safety net.
You really don’t see what the motivation would be? Getting into professional baseball a year earlier, getting paid a year earlier, and not taking the risk of getting offered even less the next time around when you will have less leverage.
What people are not realizing is that teams might have worked out deals before selecting the players, that is the motivation, being honest upstanding people who stand behind their word and handshake agreement on the amount or range.
I was exaggerating a bit with the whole motivation thing, but pre-draft deals and during draft deals can’t be very common anymore because so much of the pay day relies on what else takes place during the rest of an organization’s draft selections.
I also don’t think too much of the whole getting your professional career started a year or 3 early idea anymore. I don’t think it has this general positive effect for player development. It might be beneficial to some, but to others it’s a wash, depending on the situation you’re coming from. College ball clubs very are well equipped to develop talent, just as MILB ball clubs are. Sure, you avoid the risk of getting injured with poor timing as you sign, but unless you’re a college senior, those risks are still very slim. Most players, college or high school, make their debut at similar ages regardless of how much time they spend in MILB.
I can see general pre-draft scenarios being made with players, but especially with the new CBA, the draft is too spontaneous to commit to advanced plans. I agree with a commenter from a while ago who mentioned that the Pirates might not have had a realistic scenario where Appel fell to them. Last year, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but now the first ten rounds are so financially connected, it will become a big deal.
So, while the Astros were probably planning/hoping for a top prospect to fall to them in the compensation round after drafting Correra, they probably didn’t know that it would be McCullers until the later part of the first round. In his case, you can’t prepare much in advance, to get to the handshake agreement. With these “harder” cap rules, as a player slides even 1-2 slots within his expectations, you become more and more likely to not know what that agreement will be in advance. For a guy like McCullers, I don’t see any way he handshakes to anything as he sits in a cap slot which provides half the money he was probably expecting, until at least Correra signs and the money becomes more visible.
It’s too easy to view the draft as a start to the player’s future career in baseball, but realistically, since it’s not the case with most of them, digging in for as much money you can get is understandable.
If you’re a ballplayer drafted early, how the heck are you going to guarantee that you’ll be drafted even as high as you were if you go back in to the draft again? Did God tell you that you won’t get injured or that you really are as good or better than the draft projections? Note also that the pool of money doesn’t expand. For 1st round HS players, turning down slot money would _not_ be the economically smart thing to do.
Was it definitive that Appel was going to be hard to sign? I recall hearing Keith Law say he had seen/heard of no evidence of that. Of course that is only one source but pretty reliable just the same.
I’m surprised at how many people consider prospect rankings from a particular source to be a fact about how a particular person profiles as a professional baseball player. There isn’t even agreement between the different rankings. When you also consider that each MLB team has a vested interest in employing the best players they can, it doesn’t make sense that they would intentionally pass on premier talent to select minor league organizational fodder.
That highly ranked high school player had a reason for being picked after a college senior. “Signability” probably has something to do with it, if the HS player has a solid scholarship offer. But if I was a HS player with a scholarship to a top baseball school, would I really accept an 7-10 round draft pick and associated contract offer? Even with the old system, its not like 1st round talent was dropping to the 10th round just because most teams would pass (due to dollars only) while the few big spenders would effectively scoop up 10 first talents while paying all 10 as first round talent.
And if a HS player is really that good, is it unreasonable to think they would turn down 10th round money to go to college and hopefully increase that initial contract? I can’t see many top HS players thinking their first contract offer would also be their last, and jump to sign.
A HS player picked in the 10th round by a team that saved money by drafting college seniors earlier specifically so they could sign the HS player will get far more than 10th round money.
I don’t understand this statement: “Though for the major league team, they would not only throw away a first-round pick, but also forfeit a huge portion of their draft budget, which would handcuff their options in remaining rounds.” First, the team isn’t throwing away the first-round pick, it is delaying it one year. Likewise, the team isn’t forfeiting a huge portion of their draft budget, it is delaying it one year (i.e., their draft budget will be correspondingly higher the next year due to having the compensatory pick). Finally, how does this “handcuff their options in remaining rounds.” The amount deducted for failing to reach an agreement is just the typical slot bonus for the first round pick. It doesn’t affect the team’s ability to also provide typical, slot bonuses to remaining picks. What am I missing?
The more players you sign, the more flexibility you can create by paying some guys under slot and some over. If you don’t sign your first rounder, you’re giving up the biggest piece of that pie.
“handcuff their options in remaining rounds” means the writer is under the assumption that teams going to sign their draft picks to below-slot agreements. This then opens up additional money to be used later in the draft.
It sounds great in theory. In practice, I don’t see why players would feel the need to sign significantly below-slot offers. Even college seniors could go to the independant leagues if the offer was that bad. And I think it makes even less sense to intentionally draft weaker players, who will accept a below-slot offer, for two reasons. First, it means the teams are intentionally passing on superior players, which will bite them in the long run. Second, it means you are overpaying for the players you do select (assuming you intentionally “overdrafted” them) in order to pay a premium for players later in the draft. So not only have you overpaid someone in order to offer a below-slot contract, but you are also hoping that the other teams pass on top talent so you can offer an above-slot contract later in the draft.
“Even college seniors could go to the independant leagues if the offer was that bad.”
Uh, do you know what the talent is of your average college senior drafted in the 7th-10th round is? It’s less than 1 WAR over their entire career. These guys aren’t exactly desired and fought over commodities. Going to the independent leagues is pretty much saying goodbye to whatever small chance they ahve at making it to the bigs.
“First, it means the teams are intentionally passing on superior players, which will bite them in the long run.”
Except that they have the chance to select those players in rounds 11-12 (as plenty of other teams will pursue the same strategy).
“Second, it means you are overpaying for the players you do select (assuming you intentionally “overdrafted” them) in order to pay a premium for players later in the draft”
Er, no. No one has to pay anyone slot. If I select a college senior who would otherwise be a 15 round guy who would otherwise get a 20K signing bonus, just because I selected him in the 10th round doesn’t mean he gets the 100K slot (or whatever it is). I’ll still offer him only the 20K signing bonus. What’s he going to do, take his 15th round expected-0.2 WAR talent to the independent leagues?
I don’t find this argument very well thought out. For one thing, there is nothing new about a high-school player of not-quite-elite talent not getting drafted until well after the lucrative rounds because of signability concerns. It happened in 2010 (which, remember, epitomized the perceived fiscal insanity that the new rules are assumed to be a reaction to) with Austin Wilson, a clear first-round talent [sic] who was college-bound and nearly certain not to sign, with the result that he wasn’t taken until the twelfth round (and did not sign, then going on to relative mediocrity at Stanford — maybe those teams that didn’t gamble on him knew what they were doing after all). With Wilson and others like him in the past, blaming this problem on the new system seems rather contrived.
I’m might be over-simplifying the problem and missing something here but would this work as a solution?:
Set a limit for the first pick of each round. No player in that round can then be signed for more than that cost. This could apply for all rounds except the first, in which each pick would be assigned a slot value. The player can take it or leave it and risk not being picked higher after college. This would also provide the deserved reward to the very best players in the draft who get picked numbers 1,2, 3 etc…
For example, if the first pick in the second round could be signed for no more than $1 million then every player subsequently drawn in that round can receive up to, but not above that amount.
Hopefully this would lead to players being drafted in rounds that their talent suggests and would stop picks falling down the round to teams with more money.
The only issue I can see is some players in the lower rounds not wanting to sign if they think that can get more next year, but that happens at the moment anyway.
Thoughts?
The slotting is fine if they require people to lose eligibility if they stay in the draft like all the other major sports do. But as is it creates a huge mess after the first few rounds. Personally I liked the old way better draft spending I’m MLB wasn’t that bad before and gave. Smart teams an advantage
I simply don’t think there is enough flexibility in the system for all this game play. In the future years, I bet we’ll see less manipulation.
What if instead of punting the 7-10th rounds, teams (specifically with deep pockets) just went over the spending limits egregiously with the knowledge that they’d lose two first-round picks? Perhaps you don’t do that this year because the field is shallow, but next year when the draft is much deeper, this approach makes some sense to me.
The MLB draft is much more of a crapshoot than the NBA or NFL, and first-rounders don’t pan out with the same frequency. Just because a team doesn’t draft in the first round doesn’t mean they can’t get first-round talent in rounds 2–40. A team then can focus on the “unsignable” players that other teams pass on because of the spending limits and have a much stronger draft than any other team if they’re willing to pay the 100% tax. I would love to see an article about WAR by draft position to see if this idea has any viability.
“What if instead of punting the 7-10th rounds, teams (specifically with deep pockets) just went over the spending limits egregiously with the knowledge that they’d lose two first-round picks?”
You clearly don’t know what the expected-WAR is of draftees. Here’s a helpful article: http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/06/the_draft_and_w.php
Can anyone provide evidence that an entirely free market (eg, one more akin to the international FA structure) would be deleterious to the competitive balance in baseball?
Why not just get rid of the draft altogether?
Take a look at soccer leagues outside the US.