Trading Draft Picks
Posted: June 4th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 48 Comments »
So, someone finally offered a reason that makes sense to me about why Major League teams are not allowed to trade draft choices. I’ve been looking and looking for that reason because, frankly, every one I had come across before was lame.
Reason 1: Owners are worried that if teams are allowed to trade draft choices that all the best young players will go to rich teams like the Yankees and Red Sox.
Reason 2. Owners are worried that small-market teams will go all Ted Stepien on us and start trading their draft choices like crazy so that they don’t have to spend money on signing bonuses.
Reason 3. Owners have this nostalgic belief that the best young players should go to the worst teams.
These reasons all seem pretty dumb to me. Reason No. 1 is dumb because rich teams already have all the advantages in Japan, the Dominican, Venezuela, Panama and the like, and they’re not getting all the best young players there. There’s a reason for this, one that I’ll get into in a minute.
Reason No. 2 is dumb because it assumes that small-market teams are being run by nimrods. Keep the sharp objects away from the small-market GMs!
Reason No. 3 is dumb because the draft doesn’t work this way NOW.
Anyway, someone — namely my friend Danny Knobler of CBS Sportsline — gave me the most realistic reason why baseball will not allow teams to trade draft choices: They’re scared to death that this will give Scott Boras and the other agents even MORE power over the draft.
Now, I actually get this. It doesn’t seem possible for things to get much worse since basically Boras and others have been running the draft for years. I remember in 2007, when the Royals had the second pick in the draft. They KNEW — and I say this based on conversations I had with numerous people in the organization — that Rick Porcello was likely to be the best pitcher available. And then KNEW that Matt Wieters was likely to be the best player available to them. And they drafted a high school slugger named Mike Moustakas instead.
Why? Well, you know why. Wieters’ agent is Scott Boras and it was made clear to the Royals (in the ways that such things are made clear) that they could not afford Wieters. Porcello’s agent is Scott Boras and it was made clear to the Royals (in the ways such things are made clear) that they could not afford Porcello either.
But here’s the kick … Mike Moustakas’ agent is ALSO Scott Boras. So somehow the Royals’ takeaway from their conversations was that that they COULD afford Moustakas, and sure enough about 15 minutes before the deadline, they signed him. You following? Three players, all Scott Boras clients, and the Royals took the third-best one because that was the one they believed Scott Boras would allow them to sign. He’s also the one not in the big leagues, the one who is in Class A ball, currently hitting .263. The Royals still have high hopes … but that’s the amateur draft, people. That’s how messed up this thing is.
So, Danny suggests — and I can see this — that the big fear is that if teams are allowed to trade draft picks, suddenly Boras and his ilk becomes even more powerful. Suddenly they have yet another hammer. They can demand trades. They can bully small-market teams with even bigger demands. Yes, I can see why the owners are afraid … these people are not exactly known for their self control. They’re like the people who refuse to take the mini-bar key when they go to hotels because they know, just know, that at 2 a.m. they will not be able to stop themselves.
I don’t know that there is a good answer to this problem. There is talk — hell, there is always talk — about a slotting system which would put a figure on the amount of money that each draft slot gets. Some people seem to think that the absurd money Steven Strasburg will demand this year will force some serious negotiations about slotting — Jayson Stark wrote an excellent column on the subject*, and in it he suggests that big league ballplayers are getting tired of these kids getting huge signing bonuses. I have my doubts. I would agree that players probably are sick of unproven kids getting all this money, but I also don’t think they’re really prepared to do anything about it. What are they going to to do: Go to their union and demand that owners pay LESS MONEY for players? I don’t think so. The players might be willing to give up slotting for a concession, maybe, but I’m not sure how that would work, and anyway I have this feeling that the agents are pretty powerful in the players’ union. Agents will fight slotting to the death.
*As brilliant reader Matt points out, not everyone liked Jayson’s column. I think Craig makes good points — I wasn’t crazy about Jayson’s ranting about signing bonsues — but I still thought the column, overall, was interesting and good.
Without slotting, I think Danny is right: Trades would probably give Boras and the other agents more opportunities control of the draft.
But I still think teams should be allowed to trade, and here’s why: Because everyone forgets the most basic feature of baseball’s amateur draft — it’s a bleepin’ crapshoot. Take this year: Everyone’s going on and on and on about Steven Strasburg. He’s the greatest prospect ever! He’s a can’t miss! He throws 102 mile per hour! There has never been anything like him!
Well, maybe. You know, there have been other hyped pitchers before. There have been 13 pitches selected with the No. 1 overall pick.
2007: David Price. Looks good, but so far he has won 1 big league game. Let’s wait and see.
2006: Luke Hochevar. Pitching in Omaha. Royals still have hope. His 0-2, 10.80 ERA this year doesn’t add to that hope.
2002: Brian Bullington. He’s 0-5 in his big league career. Pitching in relief in Toronto now.
1997: Matt Anderson. Probably could throw 102 mph. Definitely could throw 100. Had 22 saves one year. Managed 256 innings in big leagues.
1996: Kris Benson. he had double digit wins five times in career. His record: 69-74.
1994: Paul Wilson. Won 11 games one year. Career record, 40-58.
1991: Brien Taylor. Scott Boras called him a once-in-a-generation talent. Got into a fistfight and never made it to the big leagues.
1989: Ben McDonald. Struck out 202 batters his junior year in college and was viewed as a can’t miss prospect. Won 78 games in the big leagues.
1988: Andy Benes. A good pitcher over a long career, he won 155 games in the big leagues, led the league in strikeouts one year, and was selected to one All-Star Game.
1984: Tim Belcher. Similar to Andy Benes, good pitcher, won 146 games in a lengthy big-league career, led the league in complete games and shutouts in 1989 while pitching in Los Angeles. Was also named Royals pitcher of the year in 1997 when he went 13-12 with a 5.02 ERA.
1982: Mike Moore. Pretty good pitcher who was occasionally better than that. Won 161 games in career despite career ERA+ of 95 — that’s the most wins for any player pitcher with a 95 ERA+ or worse.
1977: Floyd Bannister. Good pitcher. Would have been about as hyped as Steven Strasburg if there was hype about the draft in 1976. He averaged 14 strikeouts per game his junior year at Arizona State, raced through the minors, and he led the league in strikeouts in 1982. He won 134 games in the big leagues, including 16 in 1983.
1973: David Clyde. Famously skipped the minor leagues and pitched just a few days out of high school. Could not have been more hyped — considered by many to be the greatest high school pitcher ever. Went 18-33 in big leagues.
Well, that’s it. That’s every pitcher taken No. 1 overall in more than 40 years of selecting. How many stars are on that list? How many disappointments? Is there a single pitcher on that list who would have been worth a $50 million signing bonus or whatever it is that Boras is planning to demand for Strasburg. To be far, there have been a few No. 2 picks — Justin Verlander, Josh Beckett, J.R. Richard, Mark Mulder — who have hit higher highs than anyone taken No. 1 overall. But that just adds to the whole point: It’s a crapshoot. Roy Halladay was the 17th pick. Roger Clemens was the 19th pick. Greg Maddux was the 31st pick. Randy Johnson was the 36th pick. Dan Haren was the 72nd pick. Mark Buehrle was the 1,139th pick.
And this is why the option to trade picks would be good … I’m not saying Washington SHOULD trade the Strasburg pick. I’m just saying trading him could work out for the best. Right now, Strasburg looks like a guy who will have a Roger Clemens meets Pedro Martinez type career. But he might not. He probably won’t. His absolute trade value peak might — MIGHT — be right now.
And it’s like that throughout the draft. When the Royals had the second overall pick in the draft in the 2005 draft, everyone was raving about Alex Gordon. Hell, I went to see him play at Nebraska and with my limited scouting talents he looked to me like a George Brett clone. I suspect just about every team in baseball would have taken Gordon No. 2 overall (behind Justin Upton) and the feeling was that he would be a big league All-Star by 24.
Well, he’s 25 now, injured, and his career numbers in the big leagues are .250/.331/.417. That’s not to say that Alex Gordon won’t still be a good big league player … he still has that opportunity. The point is his value was pretty high the day he was drafted. It might never be that high again. What if the Padres in 2004 had traded away the No. 1 overall pick for a batch of prospects. Would they have been worse off than they are now, having taken Matt Bush? Would the Royals have been better off getting prospects or Hochevar?
So, yes, I do think baseball should allow general managers the option of trading draft choices. It gives them more opportunities to improve their teams. Would their be bad trades? Sure. Maybe Arizona would have dealt the rights for Justin Upton to Boston or the Mets or something, and everyone would be screaming bloody murder.
But it’s like Susan Sarandon says: Bad trades are a part of baseball — who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas for God’s sake. It’s a long season and you got to trust it.
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Joe,
What was so great about Jayson Stark’s article? I would go in the exact opposite direction and use adjectives like “moronic” to describe it. There is a great discussion going on with Craig over at Shysterball:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/article/jayson-starks-hypothetical-outrage/
@matt,
joe is not going to slam another journalist. he’s far too professional for that. he’s also too nice. after all, he calls us all “brilliant readers” regardless of how moronic we are.
I’m glad you noted the power that agents wield within the players’ union, because I’ve been wondering for years why veterans don’t offer to concede a rookie salary cap for, say, an increased veterans’ minimum salary or something like that. I’m not sure that the problems with the amateur draft are worse than some of the issues with draft pick compensation for free agents, though. Watching Juan Cruz go for months without a firm contract offer just because he was classified a “Type A” free agent… I still don’t quite understand how that all works, but I’m certain that it’s not in the players’ favor.
From the list of pitchers, it looks like teams best understood how the draft worked in the late ’70s through the ’80s. (The pitchers taken during those years had the best records of any of the pitchers you mentioned.) Is a similar trend seen throughout that time period, at other levels of the draft and with other number one picks (who weren’t pitchers)?
I profess I don’t know the baseball draft as well as the hockey draft, Joe, so this question may be naive. Why don’t the Nationals draft Strasburg anyway? If it’s the same as the hockey draft, the same thing may happen that happened to the Quebec Nordiques in 1991. They picked the can’t miss kid, Eric Lindros, even though he said he’d never play for them. And he didn’t. He sat out a year. Then the Nordiques traded Lindros to the Philadelphia Flyers for (take a breath) Peter Forsberg, Ron Hextall, Chris Simon, Mike Ricci, Kerry Huffman, Steve Duchesne, 2 1st round picks who became Jocelyn Thibault and Nolan Baumgartner, and $15 million, which was HUGE 17 years ago. I personally think Forsberg alone would’ve been a win for Quebec. The Nords became the Colorado Avalanche and won 2 Stanley Cups. The Flyers are still waiting….
If the Nats draft Strasburg anyway, and then trade him if they can’t sign him for a ‘reasonable’ ($10 million?) amount, where’s the downside to this strategy for the Nats? Please advise.
@Ian,
This isn’t FJM, I understand that. I am not asking Joe to slam other writers. I just wish he wouldn’t call an awful article “great”. AND when he does do so I would want him to explain why he thought the article was great. That is all.
Here is another nice Jayson Stark gem–where he claims Steve Carlton is perhaps the best LHP ever:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4231338
I mean Jayson did see Carlton pitch: “I saw Steve Carlton pitch a lot of games with my own eyeballs. And that was greatness… So as much as I think the numbers matter here, I have a hard time getting past that feeling I got watching Carlton pitch.” Who cares about ERA+, Jayson Stark has eyes!
Joe,
I think you are missing the biggest argument in favor of allowing trading of draft picks.
If some smaller market team (e.g. KC) for some reason does not want to sign the Nth best prospect with the Nth pick, rather than simply skipping down to a lesser prospect, that team can trade down to the right pick and pick up something for their trouble.
Should Baltimore have skipped Elway? Of course not! Baltimore should have traded the pick or traded the player after drafting him. The picked up the 4th pick of that draft (Hinton), a 4th round QB from two years earlier (Hermann) and a future 1st round pick. Would they have been better off to just skip Elway and pick someone else? Well, allowing them to trade the pick would give THEM the right to decide that.
Allowing teams to trade draft picks maximizes the potential for holders of high picks to maximize their return on those picks, regardless of what Boras wants. If Boras insists that the clear #N must goes to one of handful of cities, they can they can start a bidding war for it. And if none of their offers are good enough, the team can just pick someone else.
This doesn’t hurt small market teams at all. It helps them.
However, it does make the GM’s job a bit harder and more open to second guessing. So, they are protecting themselves from potential criticism. How do you feel about that motivation?
Oops. That was me at #7.
Laid Off Too,
The answer is that unsigned players cannot be traded (I don’t think) and you cannot trade a signed draft pick for a year.
It’s just not allowed in MLB.
Thanks for the linkback Joe (and thanks for posting it in the comments, Matt).
(1) Just to be clear, I don’t necessarily disagree with Stark’s overall “the draft it broken” argument. I think it is in many important ways. What I disagreed with was using the reported Boras demand of $50 million as a starting point — and the point of his most heated rhetoric — in the service of those arguments. Boras can ask what he wants. He’ll get what the Nats are willing to pay. By constantly parroting that $50 million number we’re simply allowing the Nats to declare victory for paying any amount less than that, when a good argument could be made that they’d be silly to pay anything north of, say, $25 million.
(2) I don’t think I can find a single thing with your piece, Joe. If there’s a good argument against trading draft picks, I’ve yet to hear it, and I think your points about the prevalence of draft busts may be the one most salient arguments for trading picks, at least from the owners’ point of view.
If the Yankees of the world trade big stuff to pick the Stephen Strasburgs of the world enough times, they’re going to experience diminishing returns. We know this, because that’s how the baseball draft rolls. Eventually, then, the Yankees are going to stop trading so much for these picks, and the signing bonuses the owners are so worried about are going to come down (and they may come down even if there aren’t a ton of busts, simply because there won’t be as big a need for top amateurs to demand so much to scare away undesirable franchises).
This logic, broadly speaking, is what has caused bad free agent contracts to veterans to ease down in recent years, and it will likely have a similar depressive effect on draft bonuses too.
@ Laid off too:
If they can’t sign him, they can’t trade him. He sits out a year (or plays independent ball) and goes back into the draft, a la J.D. Drew, Matt Harrington, and a few other guys.
Joe, Craig,
No problem, you guys do great work. We should be the one’s thanking you.
I also wanted to mention I have no qualms with Joe’s article–outside of the Jayson Stark reference. I agree completely that draft picks should be open to trades.
Although, Joe’s point about the Boras’ of the world is interesting. I will always defend Boras, the man has a job to do, get his client’s top dollar and I think he more often than not accomplishes that. What worries me is whether or not Boras breached his fiduciary responsibilities to his clients in the example Joe gives.
The problem with saying teams shouldn’t be able to trade draft picks because agents like Boras otherwise will have too much power is that they already have that power. Your Mike Moustakas story makes that clear.
[...] Posnanksi has a big piece (not that he ever writes small ones) about trading draft picks. In it he cites yesterday’s Jayson Stark article approvingly, with a nod back at my comments about Stark. Two things: [...]
Did you get to this? If so, I missed it.
My reaction to the above statement is abolish the draft. If Washington can’t sign Strasburg, they’re out of luck. If there is no draft, they can talk to any number of players who might not be as good as Straburg, but they’ll get somebody. Let the teams bid the way they do with foreign amateurs.
I’m sad to say this is one of the weakest Joe Poz columns I’ve ever read. There’s a great story out there to be told about Ben McDonald (just for example) sneaking a cortisone shot to trudge out and make his 20th start in 1997 to kick in what I believe was a $5MM player option for ‘98. Ben got his option, the Brewers got two mediocre starts, and Ben’s arm went “sproing!” for the last time. I hope he still has some of that five million bucks still lying around somewhere.
Sticking with the theme: The Orioles paid about $10 million in total for six years of Ben McDonald, over which he made about four years’ worth of starts at around a 120 ERA+. Even in 1990s money, you can’t argue that the Orioles didn’t come out ahead on that deal.
Trades would probably give Boras and the other agents more opportunities control of the draft.
I think you’re missing an important point, Joe. In your example with the Royals, Boras *alread* exerted tons of influence on what the Royals did. They passed on two much better players because of Boras. If trading were allowed, they would have received some compensation for passing on those players.
why veterans don’t offer to concede a rookie salary cap for, say, an increased veterans’ minimum salary or something like that.
This would provide precisely the opposite incentives to the teams than what the players would want to achieve. By making rookies (or, at least, young players) cheaper and older players more expensive, you encourage teams to play young players, at the expense of, well, older players.
Thanks for the explanations. They’re greatly appreciated.
I’d still be tempted to draft Strasburg anyway, because if he wanted to get to the majors immediately (and he’d better if he’s getting that kind of money!), he’d probably want to sign for something ‘reasonable’ ($10 million?) than sit out an entire year. If the Nats skip Strasburg, would he command the same money being #2 overall? Couldn’t the next team say “well you must not be that good if the Nats didn’t take you” and bargain down?
I just think the Nats hold more cards here than they (and other teams) may think. Just my humble opinion.
I thought this all came about from when Pete Incaviglia didn’t want to play for the Expos so he didn’t sign and his rights were traded to the Rangers for Bob Sebra and Jim Anderson and he went directly from Oklahoma State to the bigs and hit 30 homers in his rookie year.
er. isn’t there slotting now? and doesn’t bud get irked when people don’t follow the slotting guidelines he’s wanting them to follow?
Could the Nats draft Strasburg, negotiate a trade, sign him for what the OTHER team is willing to pay him, and then make the trade?
no, mikey, they can’t do that.
The Nationals need to channel the Houston Texans and find their Mario Williams.
David Pinto @# 14 asks, “Did you get to this?” (“This” being the reason why Reason #1 – all the best young players will go to the rich teams – is dumb.)
Yes, although he didn’t point it out: “Because everyone forgets the most basic feature of baseball’s amateur draft — it’s a bleepin’ crapshoot.”
Craig expands on the reasoning in his comment #9 (also on his blog).
Why is that pb? Is that collusion?
Can’t trade a player until a year after he is drafted. That’s why, Mikey.
The Royals should have drafted Weiters or Porcello regardless of Boras. Make him a reasonable offer and let the kid sit out a year if he doesn’t want to play for them. Then draft him again the following year (assuming they have the chance) and make him a lower offer. Better than wasting millions on an inferior prospect…especially one that is also a Boras client.
Red: you can’t draft a guy, miss signing him, and then draft him again the next year, unless he signs off on it and says it’s okay with him.
the nationals are talking about trying to do that with crow, if he’ll sign off on it.
brian called it, mikey.
me, i’d get behind just doing away with the draft. the poorest most brokedown franchises now are nowhere near the train wrecks the old traditional broke down franchises were.
the idea was to make sure teams like the yankees or dodgers couldn’t just sign up every good amateur player around, and bury them in farm systems that were a lot larger than today’s farm systems are.
well, that’s not likely to happen. there’s only so many slots you can put guys into with the smaller systems, now.
no team is as in as desperate financial straights as the old time browns or the old time phillies or the old time senators were. you’ve got better financial base to each team, and the luxury tax is designed to be used for building up the less fortunate franchises.
and you know…some of those teams got so far behind the curve that they were never going to dig themselves out. they literally didn’t have real farm systems, or real scouting staffs.
well..it’s not like that any more. everyone would be starting out on a relatively even playing field.
i mean really…so much has changed, why is it we even have a draft any more?
besides, i don’t much like any professional sports draft.
these are young free agents who don’t belong to the player’s association, have no say til after the fact, and certainly had nothing to do with setting up the rules they have to live with.
they should be free to sign with whichever organization they choose, for the best deals they can get.
#27: Except the point of the draft is to try to improve your team, not to make stands of principle against Scott Boras.
I think this has been hinted at and danced around, but not said out right. Why not allow unsigned players to be traded, but give the teams up to a year to make the signing and something like 30 days to make a trade once the year’s up. Boras, et al, can demand a trade and get it, but only if their guy’s willing to sit out a year. The drafting team still gets something for their trouble.
I’m not sure what the union would say about this, but I can’t say I entirely understand their objections to slotting and/or bonus caps.
The draft already keeps contracts significantly down. Case in point, when Travis Lee, Bobby Seay, Matt White and John Patterson were declared free agents, they got way more money than would have gotten if they had remained draftees. The money in the draft doesn’t need to be locked down any further. That just wouldn’t be fair. It would also be outrageous because why do obscenely rich owners need draconian cost-control measures for their benefit?
[...] Posnaski explains, thoroughly, why GM’s should be able to trade draft [...]
The Padres drafting Matt Bush #1 is exhibit ‘A’ as to why the system sucks as it currently stands. The Pads were afraid to draft Drew or Weaver because they knew they couldn’t sign them and they couldn’t trade their pick so they drafted a local guy who projected no higher then a 2nd round round pick with the #1 OVERALL PICK!
Implement slotting, let teams trade picks and limit the draft to 5 rounds so anyone not drafted would be a free agent.
My comment is in regards to the purported need for a slotting system to fix the draft.
First of all, I don’t agree that just because a draftee might demand and get a huge signing bonus there is a problem. No one is forcing an owner to pay a huge bonus, they do so of their own free will. And the draftee who demands a huge bonus risks not getting it and having to wait a whole year before he can be drafted again. A year is a long time for an athlete considering how short most professional athlete’s careers are, so there is a lot of pressure on a draftee to be realistic about his demands.
Second of all, the notion that older players would benefit from a slotting system that limits bonuses is not at all obvious to me. Owners who save money on draft picks are just as likely to stash that money in their pockets as they are to pass it on to veteran players. But if veteran players are truly bothered by the practice of giving huge bonuses to draftees I suggest they negotiate for a 15% tax on all bonuses of over $1 million dollars. The funds generated by the tax could go into a special fund to be distributed among retired players.
i like stark a lot. baseball in the end is a hobby. something to do in between work. he gets that. he doesnt get too down. he doesnt get too up
there’s a slotting system in place right now. take a look at keith law’s most recent espn chat, in which several answers right at the top regard players who will or won’t sign for slot money.
of course, it’s a relatively informal system, which our beloved commissioner would like to see followed. guys like drayton mclane follow it religiously. lots of other owners don’t.
Steve at 32-
Good point. The draft significantly constrains salaries because you have only one bidder. Still, it is worth mentioning that the salaries of White, Seay et al were quite inflated, as they were the *only* guys teams could bid on- if everyone eligible for that draft had been declared a free agent, no way Matt White gets $10 million.
Same principle at work with free agency in MLB- players generate huge revenues, but teams are restricted in who they can spend it on because of market regulation. No one can go out and buy Justin Upton, which leads teams to make insane offers to players like Gary Matthews Jr.
One typo, Joe: “I wasn’t crazy about Jayson’s ranting about signing bonsues” s/b “signing bonuses.”
As for the prices of baseball, here’s a link to seating and pricing at Dodger Stadium: http://mlb.mlb.com/la/ballpark/la_seating_pricing.jsp . I’ve looked at this link for a long time, and I’m extremely familiar with the ballpark, having sat in every level from dugout to the nosebleeds. As you can tell, prices run from $9 for the worst seats on the top level to $500 in the dugout. My rough estimate is that there is an average ticket price of $40. Yes, there are a lot more $9 seats than $500 seats, but each $500 seat brings the average to $40 for a smidge over 16 $9 seats. The $285 seats are more plentiful, and each balances out 8 of the cheap seats to an average ticket price of $40. The $225 seats are still more plentiful.
The Dodgers sell 3,000,000 tickets every year. They have expanded seating to make it easier. If my $40 average is correct, that’s $120,000,000. And that’s $15,000,000 more than the major league payroll. I’ll assume that the excess goes to pay all the organization’s employees who don’t work at other ballparks: the scouts, the coaches, the GM, the Assistant GM, the Director of Marketing. If there are 200 such employees, that’s an average salary of around $75,000/year, and I’m sure there are a lot of secretaries and phone sales folks making way less than that in there.
I could not easily determine the price of parking. For our admittedly preferred lot, we pay $10/game. I guestimate that the Dodgers sell about 20,000 parking tickets per game. If all are $10, that’s $200,000/game times 81 games (not counting the Freeway series games which usually do well and are not discounted even though they are exhibitions) for another $16,000,000. For purposes of this brief evaluation, lets call parking a wash. I’m sure they make money on parking, but they hire a bunch of folks. Same with concessions. Yes, lots of Dodger Dogs and beers get sold, but there are also lots of employees. I’m being unreasonable kind to the Dodgers now, but maybe I was harsh in my average ticket price estimate.
Then we have to look at media rights. The Dodgers supposedly were stuck with a lousy long term television contract on FoxSports when Fox sold the Dodgers. Okay, I’ll concede it. But it is still the second largest television audience in baseball, behind only the Yankees. And the huge radio audience was not stuck with Fox Sports TV. Okay, they have to pay Vin Scully, Charlie Steiner, and Rick Monday. But what’s left over has to be huge, and I’m out of places for it to be spent. Based on what I’ve gleaned from some internet searching, the Dodgers undervalued television rights amount to $32M/year for the cable package, $8M/year for the local television package, and surely they get something from the national packages on Fox Saturday and ESPN. From what I’ve seen on the internet, the radio rights probably pay for the announcers on radio and television ($5M+ per year).
Okay, these numbers are not wholly fair because ticket receipts are split. But the Dodgers are a big road draw. Chances are that these numbers aren’t too far off. And what they say is that except for the debt the McCourts went into to buy the team and Dodger Stadium (one of the biggest assets of the Dodgers), the Dodgers are a huge cash cow. By the way, the stadium is used for lots of other events every year. I’m sure the Dodgers get paid rent for them.
Net result is, the owners get really really rich. Arte Moreno owns the Angels, the team that is probably most like the Dodgers demographically (size of crown, ticket prices, and so forth). They have a higher payroll. They have a smaller audience for television (not every Angel game in on TV), for radio, for ticket sales. I don’t believe they own Angels Stadium. And Moreno seems to break even or better.
All of which leads me to say that the owners have no legitimate beef with Scott Boras. A few rich teams, including the one I root for, seem to be blocking any progress on a revenue sharing deal such as exists in the other team sports. It is *not* in the best interests of the Yankees to share revenues, and given their enormous television contracts, it is in their best interest to overpay for players in order to drive television ratings that justify that contract. So barring a strong and effective commissioner mandating some form of revenue sharing, the few super “haves” will block any aid to the have nots.
Greed has ruled baseball since its inception. Times are no different today. By my estimates above the Dodgers are returning some 25% profit. That’s awfully good in a recession. Dodger Stadium has been rebuilt to expand the seats, changing the very nature of baseball there: no more big foul areas, no more distant outfield fences, no more pitcher’s park. Loyal fans have been displaced from their field adjacent seats after years or decades of support because those tickets can be sold for more than most normal folks can afford. There’s a level or profit I’ll tolerate, but I think that level has been exceeded. Maybe it will take a few more $50M rookies who wash out to finally persuade baseball to change the way it does business. So I say, go Boras.
[...] Joe Posnanski wrote a blog piece a couple of days ago about why MLB doesn’t allow teams to trade draft picks. It gives some nice tidbits about the power of Scott Boras, and what could happen in a world where Boras is actually Big Brother. [...]
[...] Some serious Poz action — on the baseball draft, walks and on big [...]
I’m shocked, SHOCKED, to see Joe discuss Floyd Bannister in a column with nary a mention of his son.
One more correction:
Brian Bullington is currently pitching in Las Vegas, Toronto’s AAA affiliate.
A question I’ve been pondering that I haven’t seen addressed anywhere (and sorry if it was mentioned, I skipped some of the comments) – I’ve been hearing about Strasburg being a Boras client for quite some time now, since well before Strasburg was finished pitching for SD State. How is that possible? Isn’t that like the biggest breach of NCAA rules there is? If I had heard “Drew Rosenhaus is asking whoever picks Matthew Stafford for a $___ Million signing bonus” a few weeks before the Sugar Bowl, Stafford’s career at UGA would have been done. Why are baseball players allowed to sign athletes while they’re still students? Is it just b/c baseball isn’t a big cash cow, so they don’t have to play the same charade as football and basketball players? If so, the NCAA is an even bigger farce than I thought.
The NCAA rules say that they player’s can’t hire agents, but they can consult with advisors…but those advisors can’t negotiate directly with teams.
Recently a court ruled that the NCAA couldn’t take away a players’ eligibility for using an agent in negotiations. I think I read somewhere that the NCAA is ignoring the court’s ruling.
The way to fix the draft is to follow the NBA’s system. You declare for the draft, no being eligible just because you graduated high school, or because you finished your junior year of college. You want to come out after high school, fine you give up your college eligibility. You want to be draft eligible after your junior year of college, forfeit your remaining year of eligibility. At that point, the player doesn’t have that leverage to use against the team. Along with that, once a player is drafted, his rights belong to that team. Period. If you want to go to Japan for a couple of years, play independent ball, whatever. When you decide to play major league baseball, you come back and sign with the team that drafted you. The final piece of the puzzle is absolute salary slotting. You can give a range for each pick, but instead of guy like Boras demanding so much over the “suggested slot amount” as happens now, you sign and work hard to get to the majors. Then if a team is sitting at #1 or #5 or whatever, and there isn’t a player they want to pay that pre-determined amount they can trade the pick to a team who wants it, grab a prospect or two, and get something out of the deal.
I think Joe actually bought into a point that lines up with number 2, small market teams hire nimrods. RIght now, the system is as follows: 1)small market team want to draft player, 2)Boras says you can’t afford player 3)Then a) Small market team chooses to draft another signable player, b) chooses to draft Boras’ player and doesn’t sign him getting another pick in the following draft, or c) chooses to draft Boras’ player and meets the demand/negotiates a deal each side will take. How does adding option d) trade Boras’ player to another team for prospects, hurt the system. It assumes the small market team will not be able to decide if whatever package being offered is worth more than the draft pick the following year. If another team is willing to pay Boras’ player more money, then they need to offer a package to the team who drafted him. The team that drafted the player still has the same leverage they have now, except they have more options to improve the team. Let the team decide if it wants to make a trade. Agents can try all they want to control where a player goes, but if a team is willing to pay a player twice what anybody else is, then they also must be willing to part with something to get that player. Although not totally analogous, The Red Sox paid 50 millions just to negotiate with Dice-K. If Boras really thinks the situation is the same, does he think the Nationals could sell the rights to Strasburg for 50 million dollars to some other interested team. If so, the MLB is doing a terrible disservice to the Nationals, who could invest that money in other players in the draft later on who slipped becuase of signing issues, in the Dominican and elsewhere assuming the players they sign are actual prospects and worth the bonuses they are given, to free agents to help the team, or to locking up their own players long term. The agent does not increase the power so long as teams can appropriately value their options.
I could be wrong, but didn’t the A’s sometime in the ’90s trade away a veteran (David Justice?) to help free up money to pay for their boatload of draft picks (7 or so in the first 60 picks?)??
For some reason that rings a bell, and if it did happen, that should have been the point the MLBPA should have pushed for slotting draft picks… If that did happen, the current big league players just saw their average pay decline (assuming the A’s brought up a minimum-salaried player) in order for the A’s to pay for several unproven players…
I’m sure no one else will see this as I just got back from vacation and am reading all the Joe Pos blogs that I missed from the last week, but what the heck, eh?