As part of ongoing collective bargaining deliberations, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have kicked around the possibility of implementing some form of draft lottery. With both sides willing to put a lottery in place, it seems likely to be included whenever the next CBA is finalized.
The precise format the lottery would take remains an open question, though. The MLBPA — of the mind that a higher draft slot for teams with worse records incentivizes already bad teams not to improve — has pushed for a lottery to determine the first eight selections. MLB has favored a narrower system, with only the top three choices to be settled by the lottery. While the sides differ on the number of picks it would impact, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet reports (Twitter links) they are in agreement that all non-playoff teams would be eligible for the lottery. The team’s chances of winning would be weighted such that clubs with the worst record the previous year would have the highest odds of landing a high pick.
That’s broadly similar to the systems in play with both the NHL and NBA, although those leagues have some individual nuances. The NHL prohibits teams from jumping more than ten spots relative to their position in inverse standings order, effectively restricting a shot at the top pick to the league’s bottom 11 finishers. The NBA allows all non-playoff teams a chance — admittedly a very small one for the best non-playoff clubs — to get a top-four selection but doesn’t allow teams outside the bottom five in the standings to make more marginal moves up the draft order (say, from 12th to 9th).
MLBTR has learned some specifics regarding the MLBPA’s latest proposal for the draft, which MLB rejected during recent collective bargaining discussions. Under the union’s offer, teams would find themselves excluded from the lottery for finishing below certain thresholds in the standings for two to three consecutive seasons. The specific thresholds for exclusion varied depending upon market size, with larger-market clubs facing stricter requirements for lottery eligibility. Non-playoff teams either excluded from or that didn’t win selection in the lottery would select in reverse order of the previous season’s standings from Pick #9 onwards; playoff teams would select in reverse order of regular season record after all the non-playoff teams have picked, as is the case under the current system.
The possibility for lottery exclusion is doubtless a measure the union hopes to implement in response to tanking, with the lowered draft position serving as something of a punitive measure for teams that finish among the league’s worst across a multi-year stretch. Diminished draft position for repeat bottom-dwellers wouldn’t alone stamp out rebuilding, and some teams that merely underperformed rather than setting out to rebuild would be adversely affected. Yet avoiding the possibility of the same teams collecting top picks for three-plus straight years seems to be a goal for the MLBPA, with the union taking particular aim at unsuccessful large-market franchises that should theoretically have enough of a financial advantage to avoid lengthy down stretches.
On the flip side, the union has proposed measures that would reward competitive smaller-market franchises with additional draft choices. Clubs eligible for Competitive Balance picks — those among the bottom ten leaguewide in either revenue or market size — would receive a bonus pick before Competitive Balance Round A (around #31-#40 overall in a typical draft) the year after reaching the postseason. Competitive Balance-eligible teams that finish .500 or better but don’t reach the playoffs would receive a bonus pick before Competitive Balance Round B (around #65-#75 in an average year).
Much about the potential MLB draft lottery remains unclear. The number of picks subject to the lottery and the probability of moving up for each team based on their position in the standings remains to be determined. So too is the number of teams that will be involved. How many non-playoff teams will there be in the next CBA? That’s presently unknown, given the league’s desire for an expanded postseason field. It’s also not clear whether a lottery would only apply to the domestic draft, or if a draft for the acquisition of international amateurs — which MLB hopes to include in the CBA — would contain one as well.
The draft lottery is far from the most important point of contention between the league and union. The competitive balance tax, league minimum salary and path to arbitration eligibility are all among the bigger topics to iron out. Implementing a draft lottery is, however, one of the smaller yet visible ways in which the league is likely to change in the coming months.
The best solution for tanking is simply to invert the draft order for non playoff teams.
1 – team that missed the playoffs with best record
16 Worst record
The thing you really want to solve is the thing the Astros made popular. Tearing your team down to the barest bones, accumulate top picks for 3-5 years, then you have have pocketed lots of money with your gutted payroll team (and also maybe signed some veterans to one year deals to flip them for more prospects at mid-season if they pan out). That’s what the Orioles and Pirates are actively doing, that’s what Oakland is positioned to do.
Instead, reward them for trying to make the playoffs. Bad teams still get better draft picks than playoff teams, but there’s no reason to trade literally all of your good players to tank.
The interesting thing is, it worked great for the Astros (and Cubs), so several other teams want to do it. But if several teams are doing it, the can’t all succeed. In the meantime, you have a miserable group of uncompetitive bottom dwellers.
Funny how two large payroll teams were able to win it all recently. This suggests to me it worked because when they were ready to win, they were able to also spend (i.e. Astros and Verlander and Cubs with Lester just to name one player on each squad).
In 2015 not one team that went over the Luxury Tax won a playoff series.
I didn’t realize that. What I knew was the Sox finished in last…
The Astros already had Springer, Altuve, Kuechel and Correa in their system before they started to tank – something the Pirates and Orioles don’t have the luxury of their plan.
Correa was the #1 draft pick in 2012, a direct result of the Astros tanking. Springer went 11th in the 2011 draft, so just as the full-on tanking was beginning. Altuve reached the majors in 2011 and Keuchel in 2012.
The Pirates have Bryan Reynolds as a Springer parallel in CF and C Henry Davis as the #1 pick last summer as their hoped-for version of Correa I don’t see an Altuve or Keuchel on the team.
The Orioles, quite coincidentally, have Cedric Mullins in CF and C prospect Adley Rutschman. John Means might be their Keuchel.
As I said, when multiple teams tank, it’s harder for any one of them to do it successfully and come out of the tanking as a World Series contender.
Pirates have Bryan Reynolds because SF thought they could compete in 2018 with an old team that lost 98 games the year before.
Giants did get a benefit though: they signed Farhan Zaidi to clean house. No tank, best record in MLB in 3 years.
SO how many of those top draft picks the cubs had in the 70s and 80s worked out.
Top draft pick doesnt always work out.
draft lottery is flawed. I remember the chicago bulls had a .001 chance of the #1 lottery pick, even with a winning record and they got the #1 with dereck rose.
Seattle had a bad record one year, lose the last 3 games and its a #1 pick. They won the last 3 games and lost the #1 to washington who drafted steven strasburg.
Jorge posoda was a 43rd rounder, trout was drafted 25th overall.
Piazza was drafted in the last round as joking favor to someone.
Some top draft picks don’t work out, some low-round picks do great. That’s just the way it goes.
The Bulls winning the draft lottery with very low odds actually is evidence it does work. It’s random chance. If you don’t want a team to have any chance to win, don’t put them in the lottery.
If you have three consecutive last place finishes within the division or have received one of the top five draft choices in five consecutive years, your team should be put last for the draft and penalized monitarily. More competitive teams would exist. The goal of a franchise shouldn’t be to tank so they could get a higher draft pick. Don’t award ineptness.
Five years is too long only give them 3 years then they go to the bottom of the list until 3 more years are up. No team should have good picks for more then 3 years, otherwise they will tank for the full 5 years.
No, that won’t do a thing, because tanking doesn’t occur because teams want the #1 pick. In baseball, there isn’t a big difference between the #1 pick and, say, the #5 anyway. Tanking occurs because it’s economically rational for small market teams not to spend on payroll. That’s because there is almost no connection between winning and increased revenue. If you want to fix tanking, build that connection.
Depends on the club. Baltimore for example can act like a bigger market club (which they are) when they win on the field. Why? Because they sell seats and marketing merchandise. Oakland and Tampa cannot even when they perform well. At least not to a large degree.
The one revenue stream that is tied directly to winning is gate receipts. Ticket sales and concessions. Not local TV deals, which are long term contracts. Certainly not national TV deals which go to MLB and are split up from there.
So 48% of local revenues go into the pool for sharing, thereby reducing the marginal increase in revenue gained by winning. It pays less and less to win.
If smaller market teams were able to keep a larger share of gate receipts while other local revenue still went into the pool, they’d have a greater financial incentive to win.
The players are going about it all wrong. They should want more revenue sharing, not less, if they want smaller market teams to spend more on players.
I agree teams should want more revenue sharing. The problem is they don’t because they consider it too close to a salary cap. I guess the way they think of it is that more revenue sharing means some teams won’t make as much money. They still want those giant market teams making boatloads because that’s what allows them to afford huge contracts. It’s definitely a catch 22 and it seems like they want it both ways. They want unequal revenue because they want the top players to get huge contracts. The issue with that is smaller revenue teams will spend less money so the lower tier players they sign end up getting less money. They can’t really have it both ways and seems to me that’s what they are trying to do. Revenue sharing would give the top players slightly smaller contracts but it would give players as a whole more money overall. The players need to make a decision and stick with it. If they want less revenue sharing for a shot at having some players get massive contracts than they have to accept other players will make less money. If they want the lower teir or younger players to make more money they need to maximize revenue sharing and accept the fact some of those massive contracts might not be quite as big because the top payroll teams won’t make as much personal revenue as they have in years past.
The current problem with revenue sharing is the lower-revenue teams aren’t doing what the system is supposed to help them do – spend more on players.
Several teams have simply kept player payroll low and pocketed a significant portion of the revenue sharing funds. This means low-revenue teams aren’t spending more, and high-revenue teams have less to spend, so overall spending on players is reduced.
The real-world actions aren’t lining up with the theoretical goals of revenue sharing, so the players are saying, reduce revenue sharing so the high-revenue teams will have more to spend and will spend it while the low-revenue teams will receive a lesser handout to pocket.
The solution to that would be a salary floor. I realize small market teams would fight that especially if it were set at $100M immediately. the alternative to that would be a $100M floor by the end of a ten-year CBA where the floor increased at a compounded rate of 2% annually. I believe I figured that would set the initial floor at about $81M.
The only way a floor gets implemented is if there’s a cap – or at least harsher penalties for exceeding the CBT – and the players don’t want that. The proposal the owners put forth at the start – $100M floor, $180M luxury tax starting point – would have lead to much lower spending overall.
The idea of a floor sounds appealing until you stop to consider how it would be policed. Then you come to the realization that the wolves are guarding the henhouse, which leads to wondering if a floor has the potential to solve any problem the game has actually got. Good luck fixing the problem of team owners who have little incentive to field a winning team for their fans when the fans show up anyway, and a big chunk of their revenue is guaranteed no matter what. Teams aren’t penalized for losing, in fact they are rewarded for it. And that’s the underlying issue that nobody has any appetite to address, and is sure won’t be with a salary floor that will just turn into another game within a game, more financial smoke and mirrors to make it look like they are doing something, when in reality the 30 owners for reasons of their own are perfectly happy with the system they’ve got.
@GBS I disagree with you to some degree. Smaller market clubs use the money from sharing when competitive. Pirates had their payroll near 90 million at the end of their 3 year run of .500 ball and playoffs. When fans started to disappear, so did their spending. Now it’s under 40 million and MLBPA is unhappy about teams like the Pirates or A’s dip their payroll to lowest standards. If fans don’t show up, revenue sharing covers what ticket sales can’t.
So in theory like you would with a busted up, broken down car, you won’t sink thousands of dollars for something that isn’t working. This is how smaller market have to business
They don’t have to do business that way, it’s just the most profitable way under the system as it now exists. Change the financial incentives, and suddenly the profit motive drives different business decisions. But like I said before, nobody in MLB has any actual interest in changing the incentives. Even the smaller market teams make money under the current system, and they can do it without really trying. So if they have no complaints, and the fans of the teams who are actually the ones getting screwed have no complaints, then why would anyone want to change any of the financial incentives?
What they would have to do is make it total revenue sharing. MLB profits as a whole would get split evenly between all 30 teams. Then they would tie spending directly to revenue and there would be a very high salary floor. That’s how the NFL works and even the smallest market teams spend close to $200 million a year and every single team always pulls a profit. MLB offered that to the players and even offered them a guaranteed 50% cut of the revenue. So half the revenue would have to be spent on players every single season which is a heck of a lot better than it is right now. Teams have no incentive to cut back payroll because every team is equally profitable. The hard salary floor also prevents it.
I am totally for that and MLB players as a whole would get much more money and a much bigger piece of the pie if they agreed. They refused though and said it was “too much like a salary cap to have all the teams make equal revenue.” They were worried the top teams would no longer spend $300+ million on the very best players if that happened. That could end up being true but at the same time the lower contract guys would make a lot more money. Way more than enough to outweigh any potential loss the top tier players may or may not have.
It was the players call and they chose to make sure the top guys could still get the biggest contracts possible. Now they are complaining the little or younger guys are making less. They really can’t have it both ways. The poorer players can make more money while the richer players are also making more money. The younger players can’t make more money while the older players are also making more money. A direct 50/50 split is clearly the most fair way to handle it. The players calling that a “nonstarter” and refusing to even try it but then complaining about the consequences of that decision really looks like the players trying to have their cake and eat it, too. They want the benefits of taking no risks while also getting the rewards of taking risks that pay off.
If you want to make sure you can get massive contract you have to accept the risk that some players won’t get paid as much. If you want the security of every player being paid very well you have to accept that the top players aren’t going to always get near record breaking deals every offseason.
Even in the draft it’s like that. For every player who turned out great but only made a few thousand, there are several players who made hundreds of thousands or even millions who didn’t pan out at all. Unless the overpaid bad players give back their money it would be bad business for owners to pay the underpaid players more money.
It sucks but in the world of guaranteed contracts that’s just how business works. Some of the better but lower drafted players are taking a financial hit to make up for their higher paid colleagues who didn’t do as well as hoped.
If I was the King of Baseball (and why am I not?) I would pool most if not all of the revenue of the game and split it equally 30 ways. Now I know the players were offered revenue sharing, and turned it down, but as far as I’ve ever heard, the 30-way split was not a part of that proposal, and nobody has ever put the idea on the table. And who would propose it anyway? Surely not the owners. The rich teams would say not only no, but hell no. They’d much rather throw just enough money at the smaller-market team owners to keep them from squawking, as they do now.
If you can point me to a source to the contrary, please do.
It sounds like they are leaning toward giving small market teams a permanent advantage in the draft by making it harder for large market teams to be eligible for the draft lottery for a top pick. It seems like this may lead to more of the best you players going to small market teams. Yeah, the large market teams can sign more free agents which are in the neighborhood of 30 years old. Which would you rather have more of the better younger players or more of the better older players? Younger is probably better. So, is this a big advantage being given to small market teams?
That sounds like a logical concern to me. Interesting… it’d probably take quite a few years but someone like the Rays might break the system with that advantage to draft position on top of their obvious developmental successes
Kyle: Yeah, advantage Rays.
you should be young in the 2nd sentence
I’m not sure the final agreement will include what’s been mentioned. Doesn’t the union want top talent to also sign with big market clubs who theoretically should be able to offer that huge deal before free agency that will then set the bar for all other young stars?
I hope not, Dewey. If MLB is working to achieve competitive balance, then the draft order should basically be a reflection of the results in the previous. Large market teams should not be penalized further in the draft in my opinion.
all…wear,
How does this draft lottery disavantage large-market teams? It’s based on record like it is now, just with the 3-8 teams with the worst records – regardless of market size – all having a chance at the #1 pick.
The article mentions penalizing large market clubs from getting the top picks and also mentions extra picks for smaller market clubs.
Thanks, Dewey. I only reread the first couple of paragraphs before commenting. It does make some sense that large-market teams would be expected to be more competitive given their financial advantages. Market size, payroll, and winning don’t correlate perfectly well, but there certainly is a positive relationship.
I don’t see the union winning on that. The owners seem up for some sort of draft lottery but they won’t agree to give smaller market teams higher odds in the lottery. It should be an evenly weighted lottery for the bottom 8 teams with no restrictions on how many years teams can finish in the bottom 8. Every team owner wants to win; it’s just that it takes 5+ years to build a winner in baseball and it takes a very shrewd front office (like they have in Tampa) to maintain competitiveness, especially with small market teams. The one constant is that the successful franchises do develop their own talent or use their young talent to acquire win now veterans. Building up that talent pool in the minors that can make a successful jump to the majors is extremely hard to do, so they shouldn’t limit how many times a team can draft in the bottom 8. Teams need to keep doing so until they get it right.
Dorothy, your only point I might disagree with is that every owner wants to win. I’m not convinced that’s true for all 30 teams, certainly not all the time.
An idea that just came to me regarding the draft lottery than would incentivize winning: teams get X number of “ping pong balls” in the lottery, with that X being wins above a certain minimum, maybe 45-50. That way, bad teams almost certainly all would get a decent chance at the #1 pick while encouraging teams to win more.
I’ve thought for years that the NBA should do this. You’d have meaningful games for every team in the league throughout the whole season. Even the terrible teams would be trying hard to win and making little bits of progress would be rewarded.
Here’s how to stop the long tank:
Any team that loses 100+ games more than 2 consecutive years or 3 of 5 years pays a $75MM penalty that goes to the players.
That should put an end to the $40-$50MM payroll for more than 2 consecutive years.
The Mariners had a youth movement too. But the names were Ackley, Smoak, Brad Miller, Taijuan Walker, Danny Hultzen, Mike Zunino, Michael Saunders, Nick Franklin, James Paxton…..Some of these guys had some success. Not a real star among them. Maybe Zunino? There are no guarantees obviously. The MLB draft is really unpredictable.
They need to create the most convoluted draft system imaginable, so that nobody can understand it or know whether it’s doing what was intended. That way nobody has to know what they were trying to accomplish with it in the first place.
This seems like a fair summary of the plan so far.
I suggest that the convulsed draft be developed by the management team at my workplace. What you described is how they do business.
Any problem can be solved so long as you don’t know what it is.
That would have made a great Seinfeld episode, George is solving the tanking!
This was supposed to be the summer of George!
Cotton uniforms is comin to this CBA baby!
Would rather have Kramer try to resolve the problems of baseball.
Snoop Dogg
Kramer. picture him as the commish on draft day.
The draft lottery is largely meaningless, the baseball draft is a whole lot of luck. Top picks fizzle out all the time, it’s a really hard path to the majors, and then, finding success is difficult as well. I don’t think a lottery would truly disincentivize any team trying to rebuild or pinch pennies from intentionally putting out a dog of a team.
Lol I can think of a few owners who would be happy to end up with a pick out of the top 10 to save money on bonuses
Oh hell yeah, you’re so right.
My thinking goes the same way. The higher percentage of top picks are a waste of time and money. Granted, you still need to give them a shot, but it really is a crap shoot. The owners need the picks now, more than ever, simply to use as an excuse not to sign free agents at the cost of losing these precious draft picks. This round of negotiations has little meaning and is just killing time. There isn’t any leverage to gain for either side.
5 worst teams should be in a lottery. No team should be in the lottery more than 3 straight years. No team should get a first overall in back to back years.
Fair balance between allowing bad teams to rebuild without giving tanking teams a glide path to the top picks.
Give all the teams similar spending pools. No benefit in losing 92 games.
They started the draft in 1965, because the Yankees give the biggest signing bonuses and got the best prospects and always won. Not giving the worst teams the best draft picks would make things worse. You have fans that want to make things worse trying to make things better.
If each team is limited to, say, $9 million per draft in bonuses, the good teams can put together a decent draft from the back of the draft.
I still like the idea of an unweighted lottery for the worst 8 teams. If they want to do a separately weighted lottery for the remaining non-playoff teams that is fine, but if all 8 bottom teams have an equal chance of getting the #1 pick, you’d see a lot less intentional losing in September than we do now.
Or you would see.teams that suddenly can’t make the playoffs vying to be in the bottom eight, just as they are playing meaningful games (for the other team) down the stretch. Being 8th worse could get the 1st pick, when being in top 12 is out of reach.
The postseason teams choose the draft order.
WS winner chooses pick one
Runner up pick two
Then based off of the point differentials for the subsequent rounds (higher differential chooses higher pick so the Yankees this year would choose who gets the pick before the cardinals)
Only works for a fourteen team playoff or less.
Then it’s seeded by record after the playoff teams choose.
Owners without help from FOs decide who picks.
Take that Manfraud and TClark
Oh it’s sarcastic if y’all didn’t get that
To hell with that. I should choose the draft order. And, we’re done.
How about the top pick in the draft is eligible for free agency one year earlier than the rest of the draft. This might also cut down on service time manipulation.
All picks of losing teams fit this requirement
The Seattle Mariners could have ended up with Stephen Strasburg fail indeed!
They couldve had trout
The majority of the league could have had Trout.
if MLB does this I just hope they don’t do what the NBA does and make the pick order/drawing ping pong balls in a back room somewhere. Determine the pick order in the open in front of everyone.
lol
Clubs should be allowed to trade 2nd & 3rd round picks.
Aren’t catchers and pitchers reporting soon? Oh wait….they thought starting in January would leave plenty of time?
Draft picks usually take years to get to the big leagues, so it;s not the same. If I’m the players this is something I would give to the owners. There are still teams that have never won a world series, how did they draft, I’ll tell you poorly. There is no magic way to win a championship, just look at the last 10 champions, they all did it differently, and the weren’t favor for the most part.
I agree. Lottery makes sense in other sports because players are so close to Pros. Also, there isn’t even a consensus on who to take with the first pick. There’s no “Suck for Luck” going on. This year the #1 ranked prospect (Mayer) went fourth in MLB Draft. How would lottery change anything.
A DRAFT LOTTERY WILL NOT STOP TANKING
Teams with extremely low payrolls simply do not want to spend the money. They’re not doing it for draft picks, they’re doing it for money. The notion that a draft lottery will cause teams to spend more money is a sham.
Sure, teams are being rewarded for being cheap, and sometimes they will get a better draft pick for their frugality, but that is not their primary motive in being cheap. Follow the money.
The MLB draft isn’t like the NBA or NFL where players step in and start right away. It’s much more of a crap shoot.
There is just a 50 percent chance that a No 1 overall pick will net 30 WAR for his career. The average is 24 WAR. Second pick is 15.78 WAR, and there is little difference from pick to pick beyond that.
I wrote about this last month right here:
blessyouboys.com/2021/12/13/22830846/mlb-lockout-c…
In order to force teams to spend, there must be either a salary floor or tax on lower payrolls, or a requirement that revenue sharing dollars be spent on player salaries above the minimum salary. If they gotta spend it to get it, they’ll spend it. That won’t guarantee winning, but they’ll spend it.
Nothing that the players or owners have proposed thus far addresses this issue head on.
Excellent and spot on.
Really great data on the average WAR of draft picks by slot in the top 20 of the first round. Is there similar data on later picks?
Mickey Moniak likes what you say……
I would like to see a lot of tweaks to not really the draft but aspects of team building to make these teams quit sitting on their wallets, quit tanking and put real talent on the field.
Make a team forfeit picks if they keep payroll under a certain number (70-80M) for three or more years.
Give teams “tax breaks” on re-signing their own players. 20% of the annual salary is covered if payroll is over 100M, 30% if the team is under 100M. This money will come from the revenue sharing so essentially a poor team would pay a 30M player only 21M per year from their own salary.
If you are a bottom 5 team in the league for three years straight according to record, you move down 5 picks in the first round every year until you improve.
Award compensation picks if drafted players reach the all star game for their team, incentives for starting rookies at the start of the season and per ab’s.
Ah yes, the old “beatings will continue until morale improves” argument. If your not competitive, we will make it harder for you to be competitive, until you are. Small market teams being forced to buy mid level journey men in FA is not going to build a winner.
I’m not really wanting them to just sign free agents, but maybe they can sign their own players? Sign guys to one year deals, maybe flip them at the deadline? I prefer the Royals method of rebuilding (actually spending money on players) and trying to stay afloat as opposed to the Pittsburgh approach which is basically suck forever, add nothing and hope to catch lightning in a bottle for two years. Reds are scaling back now but at least they tried their best the past few years. Some of these teams aren’t putting an effort out at all.
Puzzles me why posters think bad teams should spend money on free agents. I look at teams like the Pirates and the Orioles. If either team had spent save thirty million on free agents last year, how much would that have improved them? Would they have gone from being really bad to being merely bad? Heck, if the Pirates, who needed outfield help last year, had signed Michael Brantley and George Springer, that would have added five wins according to WAR and $41 million to their payroll. If a team is bad and is rebuilding, that is not the time to waste money on free agents. The time to spend money is when the team is becoming competitive or is competitive.
Also, it is not as if there are a lot of free agents sitting on the shelf waiting to be picked up who don’t get signed. The number of quality free agents is limited. Forcing teams to spend money on free agents to fulfill some arbitrary quota will just drive up the cost of those free agents and saddle some teams with bad, expensive contracts. It is basic supply and demand.
You’re right spending “30 million” one time and the result would be nothing. Winning takes a commitment. That means many millions over multiple years to compete.and several teams don’t try. Pittsburgh has no problem competing in Football and Hockey. Same with Baltimore with Football. Neither city is a small market. St Louis, Milwaukee and Tampa Bay are all smaller markets and they compete.
Many teams just don’t try. If the owners can’t/don’t want to invest in their team, maybe they don’t deserve one.
Those leagues have hard caps. Are you really that stupid?
Exactly
You might be, hard caps don’t work. NFL parity is a joke, as is NBA. And we’ve seen multiple back-to-back NHL champions in a span where MLb has had 8 unique champions in a row
Exactly. 7 big market teams and the only small market team in 30 years to win (with a top ten payroll).
Equality of opportunity isn’t the same as equality of outcomes.
But MLB wants it’s finger on the scale for big market teams because it needs the ratings. It doesn’t have a big enough national audience to actually allow small market teams to thrive.
“7 big market teams” — San Fran is included with this group, but Oakland, across the river is considered small market. Basically people consider a ‘big market’ any team that wins. If you don’t win (Oakland, San Diego, Miami, White Sox) you’re considered a small market, regardless of how big your market really is.
FOOTBALL DOES NOT have a hard cap, I think youre the stupid one. Idiots around here.
If you are unaware of the market and revenue generation differences between SF and Oakland…not sure what to tell you.
SF is the #4 market in the US.
Every recent champ except KC was in a top ten media market.
KC, BUF, GB, PGH, CIN, etc. all thriving in the NFL with a cap while the Giants and Jets stink. That’s baseballs’ nightmare. And that’s why the finger will always stay on the scale in MLB.
When teams take in more money from revenue sharing than their entire payroll, there’s a problem. And they could improve their teams on the field by spending, but they refuse to do it. The reason isn’t draft picks. The reason is money. If they’re going to get revenue sharing money, they should be forced to spend it on player salaries.
Why should it have to be spent on payroll expenses, and not just expenses? Do stadium improvements not help their business? Does an improved scouting dept, or player development not help them be more competitive? Payroll is just one part. Revenue sharing is all about the large markets maintaining their large markets and the advantage that provides. It acknowledges that Cincinnati is a much smaller market yet still does not provide anything close to an equal playing field. If payroll is 50% (not sure of that) than maybe 50% of revenue sharing should go to payroll. If Cincinnati has 1/3 the market, than maybe 33%.
Revenue sharing should be between the Teams. The Union being involved just makes it a harder issue to resolve.
And what teams have done that? Remember, all teams contribute to revenue sharing pool. Poor teams are net beneficiaries, rich teams are net donors. So while each team received $118 M in 2018, we really do not know the net benefit for the poor teams. Asking the poorer teams to spend all their revenue sharing on salaries ignores the fact that the net benefit to them is much smaller than their revenue share and ignores the fact that there are other things teams need to spend money on.
I would have no problem forcing them to spend their NET (not gross) revenue share on salaries. But the likelihood is that teams are already doing that.
Revenue sharing is just one source of income from teams.
They also have local revenues from ticket sales, local TV and media rights, concessions, parking, marketing, naming rights, etc- the portion that does not go into revenue sharing.
They also have their share of National TV revenue, and money from the central fund. (mlb network, national marketing, etc)
They have more than enough revenue to meet all of their non player expenses before they get a dollar from revenue sharing or their cut of national TV revenue.
Competitive balance isn’t just about the Pirates having a chance to make the playoffs. It’s about what it’s like for a good team playing the Pirates down the stretch. Is it better for baseball if the Cardinals roll into Pittsburgh on September 30th with the playoffs on the line to face a last place Pirates team full of kids who are kicking the ball around and a pitcher who can’t find the plate with a cane? Or is it better if the Cardinals are facing a last place Pirates team with competent experienced mediocre veteran free agents who’ll make it a quality baseball game worth watching and remembering? They need to set incentives that get us the latter.
The “tanking” issue is certainly not as bad as made out to be (especially in recent years). It’s more so lazy owners and lack of willingness to buy in. The draft needs options to trade more than anything, but that’s a whole different subject.
Rebuilds take longer. You can’t punish teams for just deciding they can no longer contend, just rebuild and trade marquis players.
I like the lottery idea but no team should just be in the top 5 for 4 years running and show no progress in the MLB standings. Baseball is a different breed because teams do finesse the system if the season doesn’t go there way. Maybe push some team into the top 10-15 after 4 years.
I do like the the competitive balance picks. lol cue the Cardinal hate.
With such a long season, baseball has always had a big problem with attention and excitement around teams well out of the playoff picture in September.
Why not use it as an opportunity to kill two birds. Move to a dynamic schedule the last two weeks of the season, have teams with playoff implications play eachother down the stretch, with the bottom 6-8 teams playing eachother for the draft order (ie the best of the worst teams picks 1st) it’s a solution that would make a diamondbacks vs pirates game in September exciting.
Probably a logistical nightmare, but would be cool
Screw all the monkeying around BS.
You’re a city large enough to sustain a professional ball club… or you aren’t.
You’re an owner wealthy enough to own, run and support a professional ball club… or you aren’t.
All this competitive balance/parity BS should stop.
If Pittsburgh can’t put a product on the field that can compete with New York then screw’em.
Oh wait, how does Oakland and Tampa Bay continuously do it?
Rays picked in the top 10,(including four 1-1 picks) every year from 99-2008.
While all of those players are long gone, that gave them a base of prospects and top talent that they’ve turned over a bunch of times before they’ve been able to sustain success.
Dusty, that’s a long time ago, and they had some bad drafts, which caused them to change their approach. They often secure future talent by trading MLB players.
For sure but that was 10 years of top draft picks, they turned a lot of those players in to assets and then turned those players in to assets, tampa peels the onion very well.
But regardless they were a basement team for 10 years and spent no money, that’s the exact situation the PA is trying to address. Someone had to finish last, but it shouldn’t be a strategy over a 5 year period in order to compete.
All expansion teams used to be like that, until the Rockies and DBacks. I think the Rays get a pass on their first decade.
That’s how the Yankees won all their Championship. Less teams = more Championships. Has anyone looked at the baseball climate when the Yankees won? Eliminate teams so the Yankees can win!
Or the Pirates and Rays and Brewers can move their teams to NY.
And the other poor teams can move to LA.
Is that a preferable solution?
I like the union’s idea here. Needs to be fleshed out a bit but it would take a major component of tanking off the table.
As long as there is a $200 million payroll difference between the top teams and the bottom there will never be competitive balance. All of the teams need to be spending the same amount on player payroll. Then it comes down to coaching, talent and avoiding injuries. The draft doesn’t matter since drafted players don’t step into the starting lineup in MLB. As long as the Mets, Yankees and Dodgers can outbid every other team for talent there will never be fair competition. Set the hard cap at $125M and the players will have to sell their talent to the teams at the bottom. There would be no $30oM contracts. Of course, the players wouldn’t like it. But it would be good for the fans. and the game.
Only thing a hard cap does is create a league of average teams, potential dynasties will have to be sold off after championships instead of being able to stay together.
I hate that the NHL did it.
Hard caps are very easily manipulated, and put smaller market teams at a disadvantage. Players, all the time, take less-than-market contracts to leave cap room for the players they want to play with. Brady has done it multiple times, and it’s part of why he’s always so good. Lebron has done the same. There are other examples too.
Then the teams that don’t already have Brady to play with have to pay more for the same free agent, hurting their cap room more, because the free agent wants to play with the proven winner.
Baseball doesn’t need to implement a hard cap, the other sports should be following baseballs example.
It is awful that 25 out of 32 teams are legit playoff threats and that the regular season games are played hard all season long. Stupid NHL.
Oh, wait…the cap has produced a great product.
Every season, half of MLB teams seasons’ are over before the Opening Day first pitch. They have no chance to win that year. That is a moronic and insane thing for a sport to accept.
25 of 32 being a legit playoff threat in NHL is because half the league makes the playoffs. 25 of 32 teams are not, in any capacity whatsoever, threats at a championship run. If the goal is to make it so any team can be a playoff threat, expand the playoff field like NHL..
And half the teams in MLB is a gross exaggeration.
Every team that makes the playoffs is a threat to win. Ask the 19 Blues or 12 Kings, who won Cups as the last seed. The playoff race starts on day one of the season because of the parity. And the Cup playoffs remain the greatest thing sports has to offer.
But, whatever, if you are happy with baseball as is…enjoy.
Unless something changes, baseball dies with the boomers. Declining audiences, declining attendance, declining fan engagement, propped up by sports TV money with nothing else to air in the summer. For now.
So you’re saying teams will have peaks and valleys as players age and become more expensive, and lower draft position during those winning years thin the farm, just like it currently is?
You can’t have dynasties without having their opposites – perennial losers.
I think a system that promotes more rotation amongst the winners and losers is better for an overall fanbase – even if it means that the fans of those potential would-be dynasties end-up not getting one.
Salary Caps do not create parity. They’re tools used to suppress player wages. They’re merely hidden behind the guise of parity.
I hate this idea that the Clevelands, Pittsburghs and Marlins of the league should be propped up by the larger markets anyway. If the market can’t support a team, it can’t. That’s just how it is. The league would be better off contracting a few teams, to be honest.
I don’t like the lottery systems. Too much luck and imo, won’t help to stop tanking. As far as the draft changes, I’d like to see trading of draft picks allowed first. Then, competitive balance picks can be expanded. When teams gain picks when they lose players, they should also lose draft picks when they lose a player to FA without making that player an offer.
Incentivize teams for keeping players.
The biggest issue to curb tanking is instilling a salary cap AND a salary floor. Players don’t want a cap; owners don’t want a floor. So, have both. And if the cap raises, so does the floor. Keep them married together.
These measures will help tanking. But, ultimately what will stop tanking is us, the fans. If Pirate fans would stand together, stop spending money on tickets for the games and buying merchandise, the owners would lose money. In the short term, the team would dump talent. But the owner would not continuously lose money and keep the team. Then, MLB must step in and force the owner to sell the franchise if they are not being competitive.
Salary floors are a bad idea. There’s no rule that players HAVE to sign with your team. So, if you offer a couple big contracts and those guys sign elsewhere, then what? You’re stuck overpaying for some journeyman just to hit the floor. Then your team is stuck with that player.
I’m not huge on floors, but there should only be one if there is a cap. Caps have their pros and cons, but they do limit large teams from buying and stockpiling top players. But the players won’t accept a cap, so a floor is the give something to get something move.
That would have been nice for the end of the Drayton era in Houston. A bunch of high picks.
There is already a salary floor. It is 26 players times the minimum salary ($570,500) which is about $15 million. Player payroll is the one costs teams can control. They are locked into stadium expenses, coaching and scouting costs, farm system costs, IT and accounting, etc. It is necessary to have at least $200M in revenues just to field the most limited team.
A draft lottery is so pointless in baseball. The top picks are fluid every year.
Then having a lottery doesn’t hurt anything, right?
If it’s pointless, why do it? I don’t have strong feelings against a lottery, I just don’t really want it much either.
::shrug::
I kinda like the unions proposal, but I’d add in something like no team can pick in the top 5 for consecutive seasons and make all picks tradable.
A lottery makes sense, but I favor the system that first team to miss the playoffs gets the first pick and worst record gets the worst pick. This rewards teams for trying and tells bottom dwells good luck.
Ironic to see this post from an Astros fan. That is all.
A lottery makes sense, but I favor the system that first team to miss the playoffs gets the first pick and worst record gets the worst pick. This rewards teams for trying and tells bottom dwells good luck.
The difference between MLB and NFL/NBA/NHL is that a lot more baseball players are drafted. It’s not uncommon for a 10th round pick to be a major league player.
Permit teams to trade their own draft picks as well.
I agree, why doesn’t this get mentioned more? Allow trades among the draft picks. Certainly would make the draft more watchable thus more money for MLB which I am sure they want.
Who cares – close the league ! The sport is dead … the NFL is Mt Everest , MLB is a speed bump. Once a die hard baseball fan , now k could care less if I ever see another game. So tired of bickering millionaire on both sides of it. I have spent my last penny on this selfish sport.
Yet you are here on a baseball trade rumor site posting a paragraph for all to see…
I blame rich people.
This is playing around the edges of the big picture–how to get all teams make legitimate efforts to compete. Why MLB professes not to see it as a problem is beyond me…it says that the mid and small market teams hold sway over the commissioner, and it says that the owners, collectively, see an advantage in having half a dozen teams refuse to spend on players, hence depressing the market. But it’s still a bad thing, especially when it comes to the integrity of the last wildcard spots hinging on a few late games against tankers.
As many pointed out, it’s not necessarily the draft picks causing teams to tank. Draft picks in baseball are a crapshoot anyway. Along with the draft pick order being changed, there should be financial penalties for owners that finish in last more than 2 years in a row. You’ll get punished for tanking and for being a bad owner. Even rebuilding teams will have incentive to finish out of the cellar.
Have COMPLETE TV revenue sharing like the NFL
They basically do for the national TV deals. They don’t share local TV revenue but neither does the NFL.
The best way to resolve this is to reward the top draft pick to the team with the best record at the end of the season and draft down from there.
This should be the order of the top 5 for next year’s draft…
1. San Francisco Giants
2. Los Angeles Dodgers
3. Tampa Bay Rays
4. Houston Astros
5. Milwaukee Brewers
Encourage teams to be competitive and win and also improve their farm system.
But it would be come very difficult to improve by shoring up the farm system once a team has fallen out of the upper ranks.
A better interim step is a draft lottery for all non-playoff team with better odds the worse you do. But there’s no guarantee that teams with the worst records come away with the best draft picks.
Exactly. And in this case you could further reduce those odds for teams that continually finish last.
Look at #3 on the list. They don’t have a flashy brand name, nor the high paying salaries but what they do good at is analytics and farm development. The last time they had a #1 pick was in 2008 and he didn’t pan out. They drafted Blake Snell 52nd overall and he worked out quite well during his time there. It isn’t always about having the top picks to help you get there.
True, there are 3 ways to improve your team, draft well, trade, well, and when you get you window, add free agents that produce! It’s simple, but few teams are lucky enough to do it.
Yes, but the Rays and Brewers have never won the world series, which is the goal. We should be talking about the teams that have never won the world series and what they are doing wrong instead of the other way around.
One thing that isn’t mentioned often, and that the MLBPA seeks to worsen, is the preposterous Competitive Balance draft system. Small-market teams are given supplemental picks before the second round or before the third round. These extra picks help boost their farm system, but also allow them to grow more talent at home without having to compete for talent. It is particularly unfair to middle-market teams that don’t generate the TV revenue of the biggest clubs, but don’t get the benefit of additional early-round picks each and every year!
Can someone explain the difference between a “Small Market” team is and a “Big Market”. Sure, you’ll point at New York and LA as big markets and Kansas City as small, but thats where it ends. After that, you’re a ‘Big Market’ if you win, and small if you don’t.
Supposedly Small Markets:
Miami
San Diego
Oakland
White Sox
Baltimore
NY Mets
Tampa Bay
It clearly isn’t Population or Clout. Some of those cities are very large. Is a weak fan-base that makes you a ‘Small Market’? Is it their owners are shittty managers? Many of those cities do fine in other sports. Please elaborate, because “Small Market” is used as an ‘catch-all’ excuse for any crappy team.
It is defined by the population in the market. The trick is where they draw the lines to define the market, which is very arbitrary for non-isolated cities. Oakland, for example, is a very small city by MLB standards. But there are about 10 million people in the region who the A’s can compete with the Giants for unofficially, and they were winning that competition back when they had the more desirable stadium to come to.
MLB uses a formula based on revenue and population. Revenue sharing is described in section XXiV of the CBA, and the list of teams’ market scores are in attachment 26 to the CBA.
There are 13 teams that are payors and the rest are payees for revenue sharing.
The smallest markets are
Cincinnati
Milwaukee
Kansas City
Pittsburgh
St Louis
San Diego
Cleveland
Miami
The scores are also used to determine which teams receive competitive balance round draft picks.
Teams that have never won the world series- Padres 4th, 184 million, Rangers 13th 114 million, Brewers 17th 100 million, Rockies 20th 90 million, Tampa 21th, 75 million, Seattle 25th 75 million. The Padres have become a big market team, but so far it hasn’t paid off for them. I would say most of the big market teams have the best TV contracts.
What about relegation playoff similar to European football?
12 teams qualify for playoff
6 teams qualify for relegation playoff (call it loser’s playoff)
Last place in each division plays each other.
Last place in AL East plays against NL East.
Same goes for central and west.
3 losers in mini-playoff will lose significant amount of revenue sharing (not really getting relegated; each team usually gets 100mil in revenue sharing I heard. Let’s say three losers will lose 50% of that next year.)
150mil will be collected from revenue sharing cut.
50mil goes to minor league players compensation.
50mil goes to top 30 pre-arb players.
50mil spreads among small markets teams based on their winning percentage.
Loser playoff will still net about 5-10mil per team.
I wonder how much of bad teams issues are tanking and how much is bad ownership/Front Office? Look at the Orioles. While you can make the argument they tanked, you also have to remember they avoided IFA for many years. Besides that here is my problem: We can generally agree that the MLB Draft offers the least amount of certainty for greatness of the four professional sports. But even the NFL is not a given. For example: I remember when the Cleveland Browns went 1-1 two straight years and picked Tim Couch and Courtney Brown. Besides the Cleveland case, look at the Detroit Lions and New York Jets as other bad franchises who have not been good in years. I do not think tanking is the biggest problem: To me it is bad ownership/Front Office.
Penalizing traditional bottom dwellers isn’t the answer—it will only serve to reward large market teams who already enjoy competitive advantages over the rest of the league. They already have profit-sharing for smaller markets. So the MLB needs to get its act together and kick out owners who refuse to spend money to retain their players. If you’re not willing and able to invest money into your roster (ever), you shouldn’t own a professional sports team.
A few things:
1. You can’t base lottery eligibility or changes on revenue distribution on division finish or records while divisions and playing schedule are so imbalanced. Playing the Giants and Dodgers 19 times apiece is different than playing the Tigers, Royals, and Twins 19 times every year.
2. With so many playoff teams, why even have divisions any longer? Have an Eastern and Western Conference to even out travel and strength of schedule. You still maintain at least 2/3 of the supposed rivalries. You also ensure the strongest teams get in each year. (You also have to have a universal DH in this scenario). Baseball lost the point of having divisions as soon as the original wild card was created in the ’90s.
3. A hard salary cap needs to be in place. The proposal isn’t much of a deterrent to a determined, wealthy team to go way over every other year or even to eat a penalty.
4. At the same time, a hard floor is needed. Don’t want to spend it? Sell your team. Baseball owners swim in money like Scrooge McDuck, if they didn’t first of all no one would ever own a team and number two every team’s books would be out there three seconds after the books close each year trumpeting how poor they are. The Pirates and Orioles would probably have gofundme accounts.
5. I don’t think we need additional playoff rounds unless the regular season is being shortened unless people want to watch games at Thanksgiving. If the owners won’t come down from 162 then monthly scheduled double headers (expansion by 1-2 slots allowed for these) and elimination of the all star game would help keep the season April-October.
But these suggestions to improve flow, increase competitive balance, allow more teams to be competitive – none will happen. Too much greed and too much clinging to a “tradition” that was gone 30 years ago.
Stop the tanking!
Knowing the Mets as soon as they implement a lottery they’ll start to finish in the bottom 5 (which they haven’t done since the early 80s), then lose the lottery and get the 7th pick
Remember when the pirates broke the draft by signing Josh bell and the big market teams complained. That was a way to compete spend more on the draft the player are cheap longer
I’d like to see a “loss cap” instituted instead. Set it at 100 losses this year and if a team loses 110 again, 10 over the cap, they get treated like a 90 loss team for draft compensation purposes. Then over the life of this CBA walk the cap in to 90 losses. Allows for small market clubs to rebuild but not flat out tank for a competitive edge.
Canceled my subscription for the MLB package. Done with them.
Draft lottery is a stupid request. Teams don’t tank so they can get higher in the draft. They tank in order to clean house and save tens of millions of dollars in payroll.
I would think allowing the trading of trade picks like the NFL would go a long ways towards tanking.
MLB draftees rarely make the bigs within 1-2 years. However, if the Orioles could get a MLB ready player today for their #1 pick that won’t be ready for 2 years wouldn’t that make them better…sooner?
Teams that pocket revenue sharing money and don’t put it back into the players should be excluded from the lottery and there should be a salary floor. Larger clubs are being asked to help level the playing field, not set up baseball welfare for other (albeit smaller) billionaire owners…
The NBA Lottery system really doesn’t work, their is no parity in the league. There are 11 teams that have never won a championship!