I DON'T LIKE MLB's DRAFT PROCESS

I have a friend Chris who's a BYB reader and just all around great guy.  He recently sent me an email about the way MLB handles the draft.  I found it very interesting, and so, I've decided to publish it, with his permission. I wanted to get your thoughts. Thanks Chris... check this out ladies and gentlemen...

The Major League Baseball leadership is always making statements that salaries are getting out of hand for small market teams. I agree that salaries are just too high, and it trickles down to ticket prices for us fans.

The drafting system in its current state is the cause of it. Each player that is drafted is locked in for a minimum of six years before they are available for the free agent market. The problem lies with the fact that the drafting system awards under-performance.

It's the same mentality in Little League across the country... every child gets a trophy for their "effort."

Teams like the Marlins get awarded for being bad, and when they start getting good, they trade away most of the good players.

They will keep one big name like Giancarlo Stanton just to keep the butts in the seats, but everyone else is a target for a trade. They have one of the best minor league systems in the game because they are bad every year. Yet, they get awarded with a top draft pick for being cellar dwellers every year. On the other hand, you have teams like the New York Yankees that have not had a draft pick lower (or higher, however you look at it) than twenty-seven in the first round for more then fifteen years because they are good year after year. They get penalized for being good.  Because of this, they have to go out and pay to get the guys off the free agent market to keep the team going if they want to stay competitive causing higher salaries. This also has a secondary effect that makes the average age of teams like this get higher and higher.

The Phillies are in the same boat now, along with a few other teams because the mediocre or bad teams are always getting drafting priority. A few years ago, Major League Baseball leadership instituted a penalty system for teams with high salaries, but they never compensated for the drafting inequality when they did it.

Do they expect the good teams to accept being bad for a few years just so they can upgrade their minor league system? It sure seems that way to me.

I have an idea that I've been thinking about for awhile.  I know they would never do it, but I just wanted to toss it out to get some thoughts.  The draft should be a rotational set up.  The team with pick #1 this year gets pick #30 the following year. Then, #2 for the year after that would get pick #29.  It would not be too hard to implement, and would keep the farm systems more equal across the board thereby bringing these ridiculous salaries back from orbit.  To make it easier to understand, check out below.  The first year of implementation should be reverse order, best team gets first pick.  This would jump start the balancing process in my opinion.

   Draft Rotation

This Year        Next Year

1                        30

2                        29

3                        28

4                        27

5                        26

6                        25

7                        24

8                        23

9                        22

10                      21

11                      20

12                      19

13                      18

14                      17

15                      16

Questions? Comments? Let us know.

Chris, thanks for your thoughts. I like where your heads at. To my BYB audience, Chris is a good guy with an opinion as a reader and baseball fan.  If you comment, keep it clean.  I found his thoughts interesting, and I wanted to share them.  Check them out, and let us know what you think...

-Casey

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