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Baseball draft is broken, but no one can agree on how to fix it
By SAM MELLINGERThe Kansas City Star
Can they afford it?
Pedro Alvarez is considered one of the most advanced hitters out there, a Vanderbilt infielder who set the school home-run record as a freshman and has continued to mash ever since. Reported price tag: $9 million.
OK, moving on, Eric Hosmer is a left-handed hitting-first baseman who projects as an All-Star-level hitter with superstar power. Reported price tag: $7 million.
Ouch. Both guys are being advised by Scott Boras, and those numbers are more than twice baseball’s recommended bonus payment for the No. 3 overall pick and well more than each Royals player is making this season with the exceptions of José Guillen and Gil Meche.
The Royals have tried to stay close to the slot recommendations — about $3.3 million for their No. 3 overall pick this year — but went nearly a million over for Mike Moustakas a year ago.
This time around, the general feeling is that teams will feel less obligated to follow baseball’s suggestions, which carry no concrete consequences. That means it’s closer to the wild west of amateur players asking for the world, and, perhaps, closer to baseball being collectively motivated to fix a draft system that four baseball executives who spoke for this story called “broken.”
Commissioner Bud Selig has formed a committee of 10 former and current general managers chaired by John Schuerholz to address problems with the draft — issues that will next be addressed after the current collective-bargaining agreement expires in 2011.
“Yes, it’s broken,” says Mike Radcliff, an executive with the Twins and the team’s scouting director for 14 years. “That used to be an issue on the back burner, but not anymore. Because the amount of money spent in the draft has exponentially gone up, teams now see it as a more important part of the equation.”
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Rick Porcello is called “a problem” by Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball’s vice president for labor relations. Porcello is the top high school pitcher from last year’s draft who slid all the way to the Tigers at No. 27 because he demanded a $7 million signing bonus.
“The original purpose of the draft has been undermined by economics,” Manfred said. “The price of a certain player has resulted in a situation in which the No. 1 team isn’t taking the best player, and I think that’s a concern to people.”
The tide may be changing, but not the way baseball wants. One American League executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity indicated that perhaps the high bonus demands have won out, because he expected fewer teams this year to pass up expensive but talented prospects.
The issue is getting the attention of big-league players, too, who have mixed feelings.
“It’s hard sometimes as a big-leaguer to see a guy from high school get drafted and get more money right up front than some guys make playing three years in the big leagues,” says Royals outfielder Mark Teahen. “That’s a little strange. … They’re trying for such astronomical numbers, I don’t blame small-market teams for not going after some of these guys.”
Teahen is also a union man and says he’d be hesitant to agree to something that would limit the earning potential of a fellow ballplayer. Luke Hochevar, who received a $5.3 million guarantee as the top overall pick in 2006, calls it the free-market system and ability for players “to be treated fairly.”
It has been suggested by some agents and union officials that the number of teams wanting a cap on bonus money is the same number of teams unwilling to pay for the top talent.
And they’re always sure to say “unwilling,” not “unable,” a nod to the game’s record profits and revenue sharing that have beefed up the financial arsenal of small-market clubs.
Both the NFL and NBA have systems that approximate slotting, but the culture is so different in baseball that one club executive in favor of limiting bonus payments called it “organized collusion.”
“Each team has to assess its own situation,” says Mark Newman, a longtime executive with the Yankees, who consistently exceed baseball’s recommended payments. “We don’t make the rules. We just take the rules as they are and try to do what we can to succeed.”
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It shouldn’t surprise you that Scott Boras has an idea to fix all this. What might surprise you is that some owners have told him his plan would save them money.
“It’s a fail-safe system,” Boras says.
The details can be tweaked, but essentially it goes like this. Hold separate and shorter drafts: Two rounds for high school kids, eight for college, and one or two for international guys.
This means teams would only be spending on the very best players, eliminating the “high-risk money” on picks in the later rounds.
Everybody in college would be eligible, even freshmen, with undrafted seniors filling out minor-league rosters for livable wages — say, $30,000 a year — instead of the subpoverty money they make now. The undrafted players would be groomed for fallback careers in baseball in scouting, coaching or the front office.
“I can demonstrate that this would save teams money,” Boras says. “People come to me and say this is logical, would save teams money, allow better use of their funds and allow more kids to enter the game with maturity.”
Some general managers back a plan in which players would have to “opt in,” agreeing that if they’re selected in the first few rounds they will sign. That would eliminate a lot of wasted time, money and effort scouting players who aren’t committed to pro ball, but might be difficult to install because it would strip the draft picks of significant leverage.
Other hot topics include the installation of an international draft, allowing teams to trade draft picks, holding a combine similar to the NFL’s and opening potential draft picks to medical examinations.
That last point probably seems minor but is one many baseball officials are passionate about. Royals scouting director Deric Ladnier, for instance, calls the current ban “absolutely, positively insane.”
Doug Rogalski, an agent with previous experience as a professional scout and college coach, says Major League Baseball has developed a reputation for installing last-minute changes that put the players’ side in flux.
A year ago, for instance, Major League Baseball lowered its bonus recommendations by 10 percent in the days leading up to the draft.
There is no shortage of ideas to improve a system that is as essential to teams’ success as it is filled with flaws. Several team executives indicated Boras’ plan, in particular, had potential to benefit all sides.
Boras’ plan isn’t unique in that sense. There are a lot of plans that a lot of people think would be beneficial for all sides.
The problems lie in getting everyone to agree on a single plan, and overcoming the logistical obstacles of implementation. And double that when the idea comes from Boras.
“He’s a smart guy, he has a lot of things that make sense,” Radcliff says. “If (Orioles president) Andy MacPhail’s carrying it into a room, yeah, it might get some traction. Scott Boras brings it up, a lot of people in my industry don’t want to listen to it.”
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Putting any of this into practice is a different problem.
“No one wants to admit that,” said one high-ranking official from a big-money club. “They say, ‘We can do what we want.’ Well, if we could do what we want, we would’ve done it a long time ago.”
The union has used back channels to indicate it may be willing to accept a strict slotting system or bonus cap in exchange for players being eligible for arbitration or free-agency a year earlier.
This is the crux of the problem on the union’s side, an internal and philosophical debate over how it would look to limit the earning potential of ballplayers not yet in the union while fighting salary structures at the major-league level.
Any implementation of bonus limitation may need to come with other benefits for draft picks, like more education reimbursement or health insurance. But anything like this is far from a sure thing.
“It was raised during bargaining in 2002 and again in 2006,” said Steve Fehr, a lawyer for the union, “and both times the players rejected the idea. I am sure we will discuss it again when we next negotiate, but I would not say that it is likely that we will agree to it then.”
There are problems with every proposal. Trading draft picks would allow a GM with shaky job security to sacrifice his club’s future for a few extra wins in the short term.
Some agents claim teams use medical examinations to exaggerate problems and negotiate lower bonus payments.
And the international draft probably includes the most obstacles, since governments like Venezuela with anti-U.S. sentiments would have to cooperate.
“You can talk about it now until the cows come home,” says Cam Bonifay, a former general manager and current scout. “All the good ideas you’ve got, all the good ideas other people have, there’s just so much that people have to agree on to make it happen. All (the union) has to do is say, ‘In exchange for that, we want every rookie to make a million dollars.
“It’s a bargaining chip.”
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None of this will help the Royals this afternoon, of course.
They likely will either pass on the most talented player available, or draft someone who’s reportedly asking for roughly 15 to 20 percent of the team’s major-league payroll.
All for a player who may not ever make an impact on the big-league club.
“We’ve taken who we felt like was the best player,” says Ladnier, the Royals scouting director. “I’m not going to sit here and complain. We’ve been able to do what we’ve wanted to do.”
Even so, unless things change, baseball scouts have to make two evaluations: one based on ability, the other sign-ability.
No other sport is like this — notice that the arguments between Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley have nothing to do with money, only talent and potential.
Baseball’s current collective-bargaining agreement covers three more drafts after today’s, and with no change appearing certain, some teams are getting used to the current system’s flaws.
To be fair, there were rumors last year that Moustakas would demand much more than the $4 million he eventually signed for. So maybe the Royals could negotiate another draft pick down.
“You just take the best player, and you hope you have the information that will support signing that player,” Ladnier says. “It’s a grueling process. But if the player’s worth it, you’re willing to fight the fight.”
•FORMAT: The draft lasts 50 rounds but could end sooner if every team passes in any round. Most clubs typically draft players through all 50 rounds. Teams have a maximum of five minutes to make first-round picks. Thereafter, picks rarely take longer than 30 seconds. ESPN2 will provide live coverage today from 1-5 p.m.
•WHO IS ELIGIBLE: The basic pool consists of high school seniors in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico; players from four-year colleges who have completed their junior or senior years or are at least 21 years old; all junior-college players; and anyone who is 21 within 45 days of the draft date.
•NEGOTIATING PERIOD: Teams must offer drafted players a minor-league contract within 15 days of selection to retain exclusive negotiating rights. Players must sign by Aug. 15 or they return to next year’s draft pool. Teams get supplemental picks next year if they fail to sign a player drafted in the first three rounds.