The Problems With The MLB Draft

Today, one of our authors looks at some glaring issues with the MLB draft that were on full display just a few days ago.

Aug 09, 2021

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Pregame Pepper

Did you know…

. . . Brock Holt's 31.1 mph called strike on Saturday is the slowest pitch to be a called strike in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008). Prior to that pitch, the slowest was a 41.3 mph called strike by Willians Astudillo just a couple of months prior on June 4 this season.

. . . On Saturday, San Diego Padres pitcher Yu Darvish notched 12 strikeouts in his start. Yesterday, Blake Snell of the Padres racked up 13. That makes it the first time in Padres history that starting pitchers went back-to-back with 12+ strikeouts in a game.

. . . Mike Trout turned 30 years old on Saturday. An interesting tidbit to consider about the superstar: In his MVP seasons, his stat line is .298/.417/.582 In non-MVP seasons his line is .308/.420/.584 (including 2021).

. . . The last pitcher to lead the National League in strikeouts for four consecutive seasons is also the last pitcher to lead the American League in strikeouts for four consecutive seasons: Randy Johnson (for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Seattle Mariners).

Leading Off

Do We Really Need A Draft?

By Benjamin Chase

The History Of The MLB Draft

Major League Baseball (MLB) has held a draft of domestic amateur players since 1965. Previous to this, a draft of sorts existed to assign previously unsigned minor league players to MLB teams, but amateurs could be signed to any big league team and then assigned to the minors. Teams with larger bankrolls, most notably the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals at the time, were known for signing significant amounts of young players and setting up notably large minor league systems in order to host all the players they had signed.

Other rules were attempted in order to calm some of the disparity among teams, including a bonus rule that restricted the amount any individual player could receive to $4,000 and still be assigned to a minor league team. Thus, the era of the “bonus baby” began, where players were signed to larger bonuses and then placed immediately on the major league team without the chance to develop as a player in the minor leagues for a period of time.

The draft received criticism from numerous teams of various financial positions, but the loudest critics were certainly those who had big financial backing. Yankees executive Johnny Johnson was quoted by the New York Times, comparing the draft to communism. By the time the league voted on the draft in the 1964 winter meetings, only the Cardinals voted against the proposal.

The first draft was held June 8-9, 1965 in New York City. Due to the details about the draft being listed under Rule 4 in the rule book, the draft is often called the Rule 4 draft, in contrast to the Rule 5 draft that occurs every offseason. There have been many variants of the draft over the years, including multiple drafts per season and unlimited rounds in each draft all the way to the limited five-round draft held in 2020.

The Argument To End The Draft

I intended to assign a different tone to this piece before we saw two of the players that were featured in a college preview piece for the IBWAA newsletter earlier this year as potential top overall selections end up unsigned after being drafted in the first two rounds of the 2021 draft. Kumar Rocker was selected 10th overall by the New York Mets and Jud Fabian was selected in the second round, 40th overall, by the Boston Red Sox, and neither signed with their respective clubs.

While COVID-19 reclassification for college players and the opportunity for Name, Image, and License (NIL) money during their college careers does give college players additional negotiating power, to have two players from college selected in the first two rounds of the draft return to school shows just how broken the overall system is.

Next year, the Mets will simply be able to draft 11th overall, along with the first-round selection that they earn in next year’s draft, giving them a significant signing pool that could allow them to manipulate the draft. The Red Sox will be able to use the 41st pick in next year’s draft, wherever that may fall, whether it’s in the second round or in the competitive balance round after the first round.

There really is no punishment for the teams in this case. The players lose a year that they could potentially earn money, getting closer to the major leagues. Rocker won’t be back to school, so the idea of NIL money being something he could use isn’t even an argument.

What Other Option Could There Be?

The easy answer is that while MLB owners have been trying to use an international draft to suppress the money that they pay out to players on the international market, the most recent changes to the international market have actually created a system that could work for domestic amateurs as well. Heck, the system could even be combined.

What the number ends up being is not something to be debated here, but the idea would be to take something like an overall bonus allotment for all MLB clubs for all amateur signings, and then starting on a particular day, any eligible high school or college player would be eligible to be signed by any team.

The current international system counts all bonuses paid over a certain amount toward a limit for that club, with any bonuses under that limit exempt from the bonus pool. For example, this system could allow for MLB teams to have $15 million of overall bonus pool room, with all bonuses paid out over $100,000 counting against the bonus pool.

That definitely could mean that this most recent amateur period could see a team spend their entire $15 million on Jack Leiter and Henry Davis, the two players who ended up selected first and second in the 2021 MLB draft. That team would then be limited to signings under $100,000 to fill out their amateur signings for that year, but it is a strategy that could work. Another team could choose not to spend $1 million on any single player and sign dozens of players for $250,000-$500,000.

The system would force excellence in scouting and would allow players to choose the best deal for them, which may not be simply the highest bonus amount. If a team has a terrible reputation for how it treats minor league players, it may find players not even listening to offers. That’s a more fair system for both players and teams, requiring teams to invest in their personnel and giving players a choice of where they begin their career.

Could it work? Absolutely. Will it be done? Almost certainly not.

The MLB Players Association typically puts draft concerns very last on the list during Collective Bargaining Negotiations, and by the time the players get to negotiating for anything that would take away from the owners’ ability to manipulate money away from players in the draft, they’ve used up their bargaining chips in other realms and the draft remains status quo.

It’s a sad thing for those who would love to see the game continue to grow and progress forward in care for players, but it’s a reality.

Benjamin Chase is a newspaper writer in his day job but spends any moment he can watching baseball, and especially prospects. His weekly minor league roundup can be found on Baseball Farm. You can find him on Twitter @biggentleben.