The executive director for the Major League Baseball Players Association says he can imagine an improved version of the MLB draft. Michael Weiner says players have accepted the draft and it works – to an extent.
“Everything is relative,” Weiner told MLBTR from Manhattan. “Does it work for the players as opposed to a system where players could be free agents and could freely negotiate with any club as they enter major league baseball? No.”
That’s because players have little leverage once they’re drafted by an MLB team. They can choose not to sign for a year, but that has limited appeal to most ballplayers. The draft isn’t perfect and Weiner, who maintains regular contact with players through e-mail, text messaging and face-to-face contact, notes that the MLBPA was in favor of trading draft picks in 2002 and again in 2006. Weiner says the MLBPA would consider trading picks to further competitive balance when the current collective bargaining agreement between players and owners expires after 2011.
“I’m not sure it gives the player more leverage,” Weiner said, noting that players would only be able to negotiate directly with one club. “But it clearly gives the club that selected the player more leverage.”
Others, including Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, have suggested that trading picks would allow players to refuse to sign unless the team that drafted them dealt them to specific clubs. That could give players more say in their future, though not necessarily more money.
Now, teams can’t trade draft picks and can’t trade the players they sign for a year after their first pro contracts. Weiner points out that clubs would have more options if they could trade draft picks like NBA, NFL and NHL teams.
I would support being able to trade draft picks, but only for other draft picks, not cash or as part of deals for players.
MLB already has enough problems without large market teams buying their way into multiple picks in the first round every year.
Yeah, if picks could be bought with money, the Marlins would never pick in the first round again.
Agreed with the money part. But I think picks should be allowed to be traded for players. It gives re-building teams another avenue to restock their minor leagues.
Allowing teams to trade picks for players opens up too many loopholes. You might as well allow picks to be bought for cash if that’s the case.
For example, “We’ll use our $150MM payroll to take that bad contract off your books, if you give us your first round pick… here, we’ll even throw in [a couple career minor leaguers] so you can sell it to your fans!”
I was thinking more along the lines of teams re-building trading away assets to gain picks. It would be a lot easier for them to do that than just trading for prospects. I think in the end, the system of bonus’s, weather they are fixed or not, screws up the system.
I know that’s what you were thinking but you have to consider all the consequences. I can promise you that if teams were allowed to trade picks for players, the above scenario (and others like it) would happen.
I know that’s what you were thinking but you have to consider all the consequences. I can promise you that if teams were allowed to trade picks for players, the above scenario (and others like it) would happen.
I was thinking more along the lines of teams re-building trading away assets to gain picks. It would be a lot easier for them to do that than just trading for prospects. I think in the end, the system of bonus’s, weather they are fixed or not, screws up the system.
So you want the bad GM to trade the crown jewel prospect for salary relief instead of the first round pick?
I don’t see a need to protect teams from shooting themselves in the foot. If they choose to make poor decisions, let them. I doubt GMs will be making MORE bad decisions, they’ll just be making bad decisions in a new and interesting way.
On the other hand, if my team can flip a third rounder to another team to get bullpen help, maybe this helps them get to the playoffs. The team with the reliever my team covets might not have a desire for prospects in my team’s system. The draft pick is a commodity, much like currency is in the marketplace.
If they allow this, they need to figure out some rules. More importantly they need somekind of scale for picks, otherwise the future Strasburgs and such just demand the selecting team trade them to a team that can afford the highest contracts.
Don’t they do this kind of thing in hockey?
We’d also have more Elway issues too. How many players would be refusing to sign with Pittsburgh and be demanding trades to better teams?
The Elway thing was the first thing that came to my mind too. Everyone should realize that there’s no way to create a method that truly makes everyone happy. But I don’t really see Weiner’s point about leverage though. There was originally a chance the player was drafted by the team that traded for the draft pick that was used to select him. After all, they did trade to get to that spot with a purpose. I’m also not sure there would be draft day trading to the extent that it happens in the NBA or NFL. If the trading isn’t on draft day, it wouldn’t impact the player much.
Draft-day trading in the NBA is such a joke. I understand that much of the trading is attributed to salary cap issues, but when close to half of the players chosen in the first round are dealt immediately after they’re picked, the draft itself just turns into a circus.
I agree. The reasons I don’t expect the same to happen in the MLB are, as you mentioned, the lack of salary cap issues, and also because the players aren’t usually ready to contribute right away like they are in the NBA. Even if an MLB team’s biggest need is a SS, they could draft at a different position because it could likely become a need 4 or 5 years down the road. So a team wouldn’t be extremely eager to trade up (or on draft day, trade for) that SS as much as an NBA team would want to move up (or trade for) a PG.
Yep, exactly what I was thinking. Farm systems make trading up or down for picks almost irrelevant. I could see how a current player could be traded for, say, a team’s 2nd round pick in 2011, but that’s a completely different scenario. Trading up and down on draft day should stay the way it is-out of baseball.
They would have to extend the negotiating window on draftees beyond August. Teams would have to own the rights to these kids for at least a year, much like the NHL; otherwise, the Strasburgs and Harpers of the world could refuse to sign unless traded where they want to go, and the team selecting them would be forced to trade them for pennies on the dollar or risk losing them and getting a replacement pick the following year, who could repeat the process.
I do not want to see this happen. I might be okay with teams trading picks BEFORE a player is selected, but trading players after they’re picked on draft day is going to create even more unnecessary problems with the draft. As already stated, players in the other big three sports get an undeserved right to refuse to play for teams after they are chosen, but that is NOT how a draft is supposed to work. As a drafted player, you should not have a say in who chooses you or be permitted to refuse to play for a team once you’re chosen.
The draft is not perfect, but this would not be a step towards improving it. The players have enough power as it is in frequently having agents acquire over-slot contracts for them; they don’t need this as well.
players in the other big three sports get an undeserved right to refuse to play
lolled
Should have said MLB players do too, but it’s not publicized nearly as much. Whoops.
Trading picks only makes sense if you install a hard slotting system (which Weiner conveniently left out when making comparisons to the NFL and NBA). Teams will then understand what their budget should be before a draft begins based off where they are picking (as opposed to who they are picking).
Teams should be able to trade picks for other players and for other draft picks. MLB should also remove the whole ban on trading players during their first year. The PTBNL system is silly.
However, you would need to rework the FA compensation system. For example, let’s say that the M’s have the 17th pick of the draft in June 2011. The pick is unprotected. Before the FA period begins they could work extra hard to move up in the draft 2 spots. Won’t cost them hardly anything. BUT it would protect their 1st round pick in the event that they want to sign a Type A FA. I would imagine that lots of teams would be looking to move up just to avoid the Type A penalty. This could really be abused, and in the end, violate the entire premise of the draft (bad teams can sign exceptional talent on the cheap).
I like the idea of trading draft picks but it just brings up too many issues. If picks could be drafted teams like the marlins and pirates may just trade away top picks to avoid the suggested slotted signing bonus. I think we need to cap bonuses for newly signed players, implement a hard slotting system, and then let the players “take it or leave it”. That gets rid of the negotiation. If a team wants a player in an upper slot then they can trade for it, giving away minor league depth, or other picks.
I’m in favor of trading draft picks, and I also don’t like the idea of a draftee being able to refuse to play for the team that drafted them (f**k you Eli Manning). I like the idea of having players declare draft eligibility, this way teams would have a list of players that are more signable than others, and teams could then use their late round picks to try to get players that didn’t declare for the draft, but might still sign for the right price. As for players refusing to play for (insert team name), I think the solution would be to not allow players to be traded immediately after being drafted, this way teams could only trade picks and not new, unsigned draftees.
Let’s see how many retarded rules we can come up with to try to mitigate market forces. What’s that you say? The rules we’ve come up so far have created all the problems we’re dealing with now? Well, that may be. But clearly that just means we don’t have enough rules yet! More! Mooore!
Balanceing the market would be easer done by inforceing a NBA style max contract in terms of money and not years. Giving a star player a predetirmend value ($20 mil as a free agent, up to $22 mil to resign) would cause agents to focus on the intangiables of personal prefernce, competitiveness, and marketability. The extra 2-3 mil a player would recieve on a annual salary to be “anouther” face in a larger market might ease the agents concern over indorsement’s in the team market, Think anyone trying to out indorse jeter in New York. By a player adding up to 2 Mil. to stay, plus increased revanue sources from being “the star” in a smaller market would be the equivelant of the of $3-$5 mil. per year of increased income.
Im sure the MLBPA would disaprove because it could potentially reduce the value of second teir FA in certian FA Classes and many small market clubs like the Marlins, Royals and padres still would trade stars away. I think it would increase contract extentions for mid level teams if value of the contract was predetermined.
Balanceing the market would be easer done by inforceing a NBA style max contract in terms of money and not years. Giving a star player a predetirmend value ($20 mil as a free agent, up to $22 mil to resign) would cause agents to focus on the intangiables of personal prefernce, competitiveness, and marketability. The extra 2-3 mil a player would recieve on a annual salary to be “anouther” face in a larger market might ease the agents concern over indorsement’s in the team market, Think anyone trying to out indorse jeter in New York. By a player adding up to 2 Mil. to stay, plus increased revanue sources from being “the star” in a smaller market would be the equivelant of the of $3-$5 mil. per year of increased income.
Im sure the MLBPA would disaprove because it could potentially reduce the value of second teir FA in certian FA Classes and many small market clubs like the Marlins, Royals and padres still would trade stars away. I think it would increase contract extentions for mid level teams if value of the contract was predetermined.