Baseball Musings: Fixing the Draft

June 20, 2006

Fixing the Draft

I'm not surprised to see bud Selig is upset over the signing of fifth round pick Jeff Samardzija.

Justin Upton, the No. 1 pick in 2005, received a $6.1 million bonus from Arizona, the record for a player signed by the team drafted him. Baseball America, citing unnamed sources, reported Commissioner Bud Selig was upset by the Samardzija bonus and became personally involved in the negotiations because the Cubs have upset the slotting structure for signing bonuses, giving out money no first-round pick has ever received to a player selected in the fifth round.

Why should the commissioner care who signs for what money? Because the draft is one of the many rules passed over the decades to try to prevent the Yankees from winning every year. The whole idea is to give the worst teams access to the best talent. The problem is, the talent figured out how to make money from the system. They declare before hand that they'll demand a big signing bonus, so some of the worst teams pass them over because they don't want to give out that much money. Now with a fifth round pick getting lots of moolah, the first rounders will demand even more.

The answer to this problem, is fairly easy. Allow teams to trade or sell their picks. The team with the #1 pick owns a very valuable asset. Right now, if the person they want is unsignable by them, the asset loses value. But if they could use it to trade for other players, or even cash, they could still come out ahead. The worst teams aren't necessarily getting the best players right now. While allowing trading wouldn't change that, at least the worst teams would be getting something they judge as equal value.

Posted by David Pinto at 11:37 AM | Draft | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Pretty unbelievable. You gotta figure that Samardzija and his agent Mark Rodgers are banking on the fact that two sport marketablility make him a valuable commodity.

I do like the concept of trading picks tho, there's no way a small market team should be left with nothing if they're unable to sign these guys.

Posted by: $doj at June 20, 2006 12:10 PM

I wish Bud would put this much attention into the ridiculous TV contracts that make the Extra Innings/MLB.tv package useless unless you are misplaced fan in another state.

Posted by: Jason at June 20, 2006 12:16 PM

Another solution would be to simply require the signing of a player contract (at a standard wage) as a condition of entering the draft. Sounds like Selig is trying to do this via persuasion/political means rather than taking the legal route.

Posted by: Jason at June 20, 2006 02:20 PM

Amen on the ridiculous TV contracts. And even if you are a misplaced fan in another state, you better have something to do on Saturday afternoon, because your not watching a baseball game unless it's the one Fox pre-picks for you. I payed $80 for that?

Posted by: Vic at June 20, 2006 02:32 PM

Oh yeah, and the draft...

The draft definately needs fixing, there should be some kind of bonus cap (no help from the union here). Otherwise the draft will turn into what the free agent market is now - best talent for the best teams, and all the other teams will have to hope for lucky diamond-in-the-rough types.

Posted by: Vic at June 20, 2006 02:37 PM

I know the union would never go for this, but they could always try assigning a standard bonus amount for each draft slot, like the NBA does.

Posted by: Joe at June 20, 2006 06:34 PM

Come on guys, lets let the government in on this whole mess, i.e., restraint of trade, "MONOPOLY", collusion. Scary words they always throw out at the professional leagues. There are a host of others, but I think you get the idea.

Posted by: Paul at June 21, 2006 12:35 AM

Posted by: Paul at June 21, 2006 12:36 AM