Jim Breen comes down hard against hard slotting for the draft:
As one big league scout said when asked about the effects of a hard-slotting system, “Kids would go play other sports. Plain and simple. For example, there’s no way in hell Zach Lee is playing baseball right now with a hard-slot system.”
Lee committed to LSU to play quarterback prior to being drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first-round of the 2010 Draft. It was largely assumed that his commitment was ironclad and the Dodgers were merely saving money by drafting a player they couldn’t sign, but the Dodgers shocked the baseball world by shelling out over $5 million to lure Lee away from LSU into professional baseball.
That scenario would not have even been possible in a world of hard-slotting. The recommended slot bonus for the #28 pick in the 2010 Draft was $1,134,000, which would not have even gotten the conversation started with Zach Lee and his agent. The Dodgers would have lost (arguably) the top prospect in their system, and baseball would have lost one of the brightest young right-handers in the minors.
I still don’t know why MLB just doesn’t do the easy thing and let teams trade draft picks.
I can think of one reason: not allowing trades of picks puts a floor, if you will, on how much of its future a team can mortgage when it decides to “go for it.” Thought of this way, it would be something of a parity measure. It lowers the extent to which the KC A’s can serve as a Yankees farm team.
This is just off the top of my head. It feels unsatisfying, sort of like a half-measure. But groups can’t always make perfect decisions.
Scooter, I don’t think that’s it. I mean, the Royals don’t trade their top farm system players to the Yankees. So why would they trade their draft picks if they could?
NFL teams sometimes make very stupid trades involving draft picks (the Vikings most famously, but also the Raiders), but there is no tendency for the poor ones to deal their picks to the rich ones. So I doubt there would be in baseball.
I’m sure the intention is paternalistic and parity-protective in some way, but honestly the rule just seems irrational.
James, it sounds like we agree on a possible reason (protect parity), and you think it’s a bad reason. I have no quibble with that.
If a team doesn’t have 1st round picks, they can’t lose them for signing a top free agent. So teams losing top free agents would get shafted.
What current major league stars would possibly not have gone into MLB if there was a hard slotting system?
Also, parity isn’t the reason for the owners wanting hard slotting. Parity is a by-product of the draft. They want to save money plain and simple.
Ruffster–maybe that should be the counter-balance to being allowed to sell/trade draft picks, then: if you don’t have any first round picks, you can’t draft free agents (or you have to give up a second and a third round pick, say).
The real problem is that a few teams would have the money to buy the #1 pick outright to go after a Strasburg or a Harper in a year when it was blatantly obvious who the best player in the draft was, and *that* would certainly tip competitive balance over time (though the bad teams selling the picks would have a pile of money as a consolation prize that they might be able to use effectively). It might still be the best thing to do in the long run, but it would have a cost.