After the signing deadline spectacle came and went on Monday night I sat back and pondered about previous draft signing deadlines and how much money has been spent on draft picks over the years.
Let’s not forget that these players have yet to step foot on a professional baseball field and throw one pitch or record one at-bat with a professional team but they still obtain million dollar contracts and million dollar signing bonuses right out of high school and/or college. Bud Selig, the game’s commissioner, needs to revamp the draft and how much money can be spent on draft picks.
There have been various ideas tossed around the commissioner’s office and the player’s union office regarding revamping the draft but nothing has come to fruition yet. Some of the ideas tossed into the air for debate include trading picks, a worldwide draft, slotting and a control system for draft picks. No one in baseball knows if any of these ideas will be put into action but the union might vote for one or more of them to take effect within the next couple of years. The draft needs to be changed because players that have yet to throw a pitch or swing a bat in a professional game are getting paid more than some former Cy Young Award winners.
Let’s begin with the first idea; trading draft picks. Teams are not allowed to trade their draft picks under the current CBA. This means that teams cannot trade future draft picks or players that have been drafted and not signed yet. The trading of draft picks takes place in all three of the remaining major sports; basketball, football, and hockey.
Teams in these three sports are allowed to trade their future draft picks or a drafted player during the draft itself. This doesn’t happen in baseball but many people around the game, especially the fans, would like to see this option come to fruition. The ability to trade draft picks will make it easier for teams to build their farm system. Also, if a team doesn’t wish to spend the money needed to sign a top ten pick they can draft a player in their assigned spot and then trade him to another team for a package of players.
The second idea for a revamped draft is to include worldwide players. When you look at some of the best foreign players in the Majors and in the Minors you tend to look at the Yankees and Red Sox. They spend millions of dollars each year when the International signing period takes place, stocking their farm system with talented foreign players. Scouts from across baseball, as well as some GMs, would like to see a worldwide draft instead of the International signing period so that all teams have a fair shot at foreign players.
Idea number three for revamping the draft is a mandatory slotting system. The sport of baseball is the only sport that does not have a mandatory slotting system for draft picks. A slotting system mandates how a draft pick will be paid depending on the slot they are drafted by a team. Teams in the Majors don’t want slotting. Instead, the players want slotting because they want the $15 million deals that are going to kids from high school and college. If a slotting system were to be put into effect then draft picks will either have to sign for the mandatory money, head to college, or play independent baseball for peanuts if they don’t have any college eligibility left.
The fourth and final idea rolling around the brains of baseball’s brass is to create a control system. The sport of hockey has a control system. When a team drafts a high school player in hockey and the player decides to attend college, the team that drafted that player controls their rights all through their college years. The team would be able to try and sign the player after their sophomore, junior, and senior years. If the player doesn’t sign after their senior year they would then re-enter the draft.
All of these ideas are being investigated by a committee of baseball personnel that is being led by John Schuerholz. Not all of these ideas will come to fruition but some of them will because the guaranteed money going to number one pick Stephen Strasburg ($15.1 million) is slightly more than the guaranteed money going to former Cy Young winners Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz combined for the 2009 season. Combined, these three players have nine Cy Young awards between them. Something needs to change when it comes to the Major League Baseball First Year Player Draft or the contracts and signing bonuses will continue to increase with each passing year.
If only one of the above ideas can be put into effect by the commissioner’s office and the player’s union then it should be a slotting system for draft pick payouts. Why this idea over the remaining three? The answer is simple; unproven high school and college players that have yet to step onto a professional field should not be paid $15 million, period.
It doesn’t matter what you accomplished in high school or college; it only matters what you do while climbing the ladder of your organization and your success in the bigs. There are plenty of Major League players not making $15 million over four years that have had more success at the big league level then these green draft picks. The same sentiment can be said for the NFL draft. Draft picks hold out and miss training camp practices because they feel they deserve multi-million dollar deals because of where they were picked and how they performed in college.
One problem that the union might run into when it comes to creating a slotting system is the fact that baseball contracts all over the game have inflated over the past couple of decades. The first really big contract was given to current Yankee Alex Rodriguez when he joined the Texas Rangers as a free agent prior to the 2001 season. At the time, the contract Rodriguez signed was the largest in sports history. It was a ten year deal worth $252 million.
The contract was so lucrative that it was $63 million more than the second richest contract in baseball. Ever since Rodriguez signed that deal, contracts all over baseball began to increase each year. This is a problem that the idea of a slotting system might run into. Some baseball execs will argue that the increasing contracts are now a part of the game. They might claim that since it is happening with players in the Majors there is no reason it shouldn’t happen with players coming out of the draft.
There have been plenty of problems with the game of baseball over the past couple of decades; from brawls to steroids to bean ball wars to players providing tell-all stories of what happens in the clubhouse. But possibly the biggest problem to ever affect the culture of the sport is the increasing size of player contracts. Hopefully there are enough execs across baseball that believe in a draft slotting system so that unproven players will not be awarded enormous contracts coming out of school. Instead, that money can be given to Major League players that have proven their worth to their organization.
Now, a slotting system would be the ideal change to the draft but if I was allowed to pick one more change I would vote for the ability to trade draft picks. The reason the NFL draft is so interesting is because any team can trade from the 15th slot or the 24th slot in the first round to the 1st or 2nd slot in the first round in order to improve their team. This doesn’t happen in baseball but it should. The draft has been televised for the previous two seasons; ESPN aired the draft in 2008 for the first time in the draft’s history and the MLB Network aired the draft in 2009 for the first time in the Network’s history.
f teams were allowed to trade draft picks in baseball, fans would become intimately interested in the draft because having the number 22 pick will never mean the same thing again. That 22nd pick could be traded for an earlier pick or a later pick or an early pick in a future draft. This method is what helps NFL teams get better each year and it could help MLB teams get better, even the Pirates and the Nationals.
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Jim is the creator and editor of At the Dish, Cinn City Sports, Life with Tony and Enzo and owner of JAVFreelancing. He coached baseball for five years, three at his former high school (Holy Cross in Delran, NJ) and two at prominent Division III program Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. He has worked for the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, NJ; Metro Networks in Bala Cynwyd, PA; and was the play-by-play announcer for the Camden Riversharks of the Independent Atlantic League of Professional Baseball for two seasons (2007-2008) on Rowan Radio 89.7 WGLS-FM, the student-run radio station at Rowan University. Jim earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications and minor in Journalism from Rowan University in 2008. While in school he was the Assistant Sports Director at WGLS for two years and the Sports Director for one year. He also covered the football, baseball, softball and both basketball teams for the school newspaper 'The Whit.' Jim lives in New Jersey with his wife Nicole, sons Tony and Enzo and dog Phoebe. He can be reached at jimvassallo@mlbdrafts.com.
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