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Friday, August 15, 2008
Creating the ideal draft system
Tim Marchman gives us a good summary of what’s wrong with the MLB draft. Let’s think outside the box, and try to come up with something novel based on these constraints:
1. Treat kids like human beings, not horses.
2. The worse teams should be better positioned than better teams.
3. Understand that your totalitarian regime is not the only game in town.
The NHL has a decent system (worldwide draft), but it has its regional biases. They also have a salary cap for the first three years of a player’s contract, which is bothersome for someone like John Tavares. He’s the best player not yet drafted, and he will turn 18 on the day the NHL has its first preseason game. Because of that technicality, he’s gotta wait a year… to join the NHL. The WHA 30 years ago pounced on this (back then the draft age was 20), and signed underaged players, including Gretzky. These days the Russian League is a legitimate option. The NHL counts on the fact that a Canadian boy wants to play for the Stanley Cup more than playing at the highest level he can, even if that means playing Junior hockey for a year. The North American kid leaves alot of money on the table. It is not uncommon at all for a 20 year old kid to become an NHL star. The draft is 7 rounds. There are no signing bonuses, just rookie contracts. You can trade draft picks.
The NBA has a 2-round draft system. They also are biased against 18yr olds, but like the NHL, they count on lack of competition for their services to be able to implement such a system. Making Lebron wait a year would have been an even worse situation than making Tavares wait a year.
Both of these have a draft lottery to prevent the possibility that a team will throw the season for a better draft pick. Immediate impact players are much more common in NBA and NHL than MLB.
Ok, if you were starting an MLB draft system from scratch, and you had the three above constraints (even if #3 doesn’t, yet, apply to MLB), what would you do?