Every offseason, high draft picks change hands as players move between teams as free agents. Players such as Adam Wainwright, David Wright, Nick Swisher, Joe Blanton, Adam Jones, Gio Gonzalez, and Huston Street were drafted with picks originally acquired through free agent compensation.
Let's look through Baseball America's recently released list of the top 100 prospects in baseball and see which of the game's top young players were drafted with picks acquired for losing a free agent…
- Mike Trout, Angels (#2) – Yankees first round pick (2009) for Mark Teixeira
- Mike Montgomery, Royals (#19) – supplemental first round pick (2008) for David Riske
- Kyle Drabek, Blue Jays (#29) – Mets first round pick (2006) for Billy Wagner (originally drafted by the Phillies, part of the Roy Halladay trade)
- Travis d'Arnaud, Blue Jays (#36) – supplemental first round pick (2007) for David Dellucci (originally drafted by the Phillies, part of Halladay trade)
- Jordan Lyles, Astros (#42) – supplemental first round pick (2008) for Trever Miller
- Nick Franklin, Mariners (#53) – Phillies first round pick (2009) for Raul Ibanez
- Anthony Ranaudo, Red Sox (#67) – supplemental first round pick (2010) for Jason Bay
- Jake Odorizzi, Royals (#69) – supplemental first round pick (2008) for Francisco Cordero (originally drafted by the Brewers, part of the Zack Greinke trade)
- Tyler Skaggs, D'backs (#82) – supplemental first round pick (2009) for Teixeira (originally drafted by the Angels, part of the Dan Haren trade)
- Tanner Scheppers, Rangers (#94) – supplemental first round pick (2009) for Milton Bradley
- Matt Davidson, D'Backs (#99) – supplemental first round pick (2009) for Orlando Hudson
That's 11 of the game's 100 best prospects coming from compensation picks, including two of the top 20. A total of nine first and second round picks changed hands this year, and 26 supplmental first round picks were created. It's very possible the free agent compensation will be overhauled (or scrapped all together) when the next Collective Bargain Agreement is put into action, and although the players will get drafted anyway, the clubs losing top players could end up empty handed in the future.
Baseball-Reference.com's draft tool was used in for this post.
I’m pretty sure that Ranaudo’s pick came from losing Billy Wagner to the Braves. I think the Red Sox drafted Brentz and Workman with the compensation for Bay.
I’ve been wondering for months but haven’t asked…. what exactly does “start_wearing_purple” mean?
only one team wears purple.. colorado
**edit
i was way off
But the Rockies are high in the hierarchy of teams I root for, so nice guess.
It’s my favorite song by Gogol Bordello, my favorite group. Find the video, it’s awesome.
It was probably playing when the site asked me to pick a user name.
And all this time I thought you were a Minnesota Vikings fan! Lol!
Nope. Just a fan of gypsy punk music.
We obviously have two completely different tastes in music. Was that his real voice?
Oh, they’re from Russia. I see.
Actually Ukraine. I’m told Ukrainians hate being mistaken for Russian.
My bad haha
They do, I knew a couple and loved taking full advantage of it haha
The lingering effect of the Iron Curtain, which is unfortunate.
Saw them live, absolutely incredible band. Wonderlust King is my favorite though.
B-Ref says they took Brentz with the Wagner pick, Ranaudo with Bay.
soxprospects say differently. Not saying which one is correct, just curious at this point.
39th pick was compensation for billy wagner according to mymlbdraft com
wikipedia confirms! that settles it
#1 confirmed you are correct and #2 how slick was the wagner trade all told? chris carter and eddie lora lol
I have a friend who’s a Mets fan. All I have to do is say “Billy Wagner” to him and he goes into a fit.
there are so many things you can’t say to mets fans
Such as “Omar Minaya”?
“good luck in the playoffs”
Or “Bernie Madoff”!
Are those chains real gold?
“los mets”
Like: Reyes’ bat, Carlos Beltran’s knee, Johan Santana’s winning percentage, John Maine and Oliver Perez still being on the team (effectively anything to do with the rotation), Jason Bay’s contract, Citi Field, and effectively anything else that points out that it’s not 1969 any more.
it’s one of the better joke set ups in recent memory. way to hog them all
All of them? Hardly. Mo Vaughn, Roberto Alomar, Bobby Bonilla, 2006 WS… All of a sudden this feels like picking on a handicapped person.
He’s on the edge for the Mets playing with his emotions in a cruel way for so long.
A+; would read again
No doubt the system needs work, but there should be something in place to compensate a team for losing a good player. Maybe keep the same type of system, but get rid of type B’s and have the losing team of a type A get a pick in the supplemental round based on the free agent ranking. I don’t like the idea of a team losing a first round pick for trying to get better. It is also costing too many type A’s fair market free agent contracts.
What about if the team that lost the player received a low level prospect (A/A+/AA) as compensation rather than a draft pick?
That would get too complicated. Who would they lose? How would that be decided? Draft compensation is much easier because the team losing the FA chooses the draftee by themselves…no conflicts.
I like stl_cards16’s idea of a supplement pick for losing a type A and nothing for type B.
Another idea I had in mind was to remove type B, and split type A into two sections. Essentially, it would be type A and type B again, but the new type A category would consist of the upper 50% of the original type A, and type B would consist of the lower 50% of the original type A. The reason for this is that a team would still get two compensation picks for losing a very good player, while only gaining one compensation pick for losing a good player. With the current system, type B’s are often insignificant…and therefore, the team should not receive a pick for losing a player of that significance. Even some lower end type A’s are not THAT good that the team should receive two picks for losing him. In the new system I proposed, everything would be the same, except type A ranking would truly consist of the very good players, while type B ranking would consist of players significant enough that the team should gain a pick.
the whole type A and type B thing is stupid to begin with. Albert Pujols is worth the same compensation as Jason Bay. Roy Halladay, Chris Carpenter, Justin Verlander, Tim LIncecum and the like are worth the same as Joel Pineiro and Bronson Arroyo. This is flawed beyond logic. There needs to be a greater breakdown that stretches to much deeper than just Type A and B, add in C and D and have them worth different compensations would be what i would do.
You missed #65 Nick Castellanos. Drafted pick #44 2010 Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent Brandon Lyon
Makes the braves trades of Tex that much worse.. I can deal with giving prospects to the Rangers. But losing him and really getting nothing back just makes it all worse. The two picks are now the #2 and #82 prospects.. Smooth move
ex-lax?
Miralax.. Lol
I’d keep the system as it is, with the exception that only free agents that were originally drafted or developed by the team they are leaving can get comp picks. (by ‘developed’, I mean a player whose rookie year was with the same team as their free agent year.) maybe you can also make an exception for players who spent 4+ years with the same team (from pre-arb to free agency) so teams losing those players could get picks too.