MLB’s amateur draft now a big thing
Posted: Friday, June 06, 2008 7:02 PM
There were 202 players selected on the first day of Major League Baseball’s amateur draft. That the precise number is known and written about is further proof that the draft’s growing impact cannot be stopped.
Another reason the draft has become so significant is that nine of the first 11 players chosen in 2006 have already played in the majors. That’s the kind of fast-arriving help that teams used to dream of but now cannot be faulted for realistically expecting.
It’s become that the amateur draft is looked upon as an immediate source of talent that is all but ready for the big leagues. Teams that are down can fill an urgent need through an astute first-round pick. Strong teams can continue to stockpile their farm systems and teams that lose major-league free agents can rebuild quickly by using the compensation picks awarded in the draft for the loss of those elite free agents.
Free agency is still a healthy avenue for the elite players who come on the open market and the handful of teams willing to pay them top dollar but far more teams are looking at the “old school” method of building a winning team – that being draft, sign and develop.
And here is where the amateur draft takes an intriguing turn. Tradition is that the sport held back bonuses for drafted players, believing that unlike football and basketball, these players had to serve minor-league apprenticeships to become MLB-ready. But the 2006 draft shows those days are dying. And the players’ families and their “agents” have noticed.
So now teams have to be ready to pay for the top talent. One look at Tampa Bay or Arizona and how those teams built through drafted talent can serve as the blueprint for success nowadays. Tampa Bay’s pick of high-school shortstop Tim Beckham with this year’s first overall selection received major play in the Tampa Bay newspapers. Yet only nine of the 30 first-rounders chosen were high school players. This suggests teams are increasingly viewing the first round as a lifeline for quick help.
Thus, MLB’s efforts to “slot” bonuses based on where a player is chosen has not been uniformly followed. Even the top executives in the sport admit that Detroit’s signing of high school pitcher Rick Porcello, who dropped to 27th last year because of his salary demands, to a $10 million deal is a problem.
Informal salary slots for draft picks based on where they are chosen work in football and basketball, but high-school talents in baseball have an option – it’s called collegiate baseball. That’s why the Tigers paid well for Porcello and as one scouting director told the Wall Street Journal last week, there are two sets of teams drafting in MLB -- those adhering to a budget and those who pay anything for the best players. With baseball’s recent health and no evidence that the nation’s economic downturn is yet hurting the game, there is no reason to see that trend changing.
A decade ago, a general manager told me that he would rather spend $2 million on a couple of major-league free agents than on a signing bonus for top amateurs. At the time, the logic seemed sensible. Again, those days now seem over.
Instead, here is what I see: MLB starts its own television network in January. The draft becomes for MLB TV what the NFL draft has been for NFL Network, a source of year-round programming. Fans will learn about the best high school and college players as they are tracked through their draft-eligible seasons. The needs of teams will be debated. The draft becomes a TV show with live studio audiences, perhaps the location of the draft is rotated around various MLB cities.
And that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Baseball’s June exercise in selecting amateur players into the professional ranks will never equal the grotesque excess of the NFL draft but the MLB amateur draft is no longer a quiet and anonymous drill.
