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DENVER – Imagine the Mets seeing Kumar Rocker slide into Sunday’s draft and start to have a stronger impression that Vanderbilt’s right-hander is going to drop them at No.10.
So interim general manager Zack Scott calls his Cubs counterpart Jed Hoyer and asks if Rocker goes to the Mets, would Chicago trade Kris Bryant for that pick? Or how about contacting Twins General Manager Thad Levine and telling him which prospect (s) plus Rocker’s rights would be enough for Jose Berrios?
If that had been possible, would you have watched the first round of the MLB Draft?
Because there are two factors that keep it from generating huge interest in the draft and turning it into a TV show the MLB craves:
1. The NBA enjoys the residual benefits of the NCAA tournament, raising the profile of many draft-eligible players. The NFL is reaping the benefits of Saturday after Saturday from college football by turning potential draft picks into more familiar entities and skill sets. College baseball and, certainly, high school baseball do not compare nationally to increasing recognition.
2. This is most important: As soon as a player is drafted into the NBA or NFL, he is part of the big team and could have an impact on the season ahead. Zach Wilson will likely be the Jets quarterback. If the Pistons draft Cade Cunningham, he’ll be at least a spinning player immediately.
The Pirates took Henry Davis of Louisville first and – like pretty much everyone else took in the first round – he’s now one to four years away from making the majors. He is about to be out of sight, which leads to largely out of mind.
No matter what it does, MLB can’t change these two factors. So the only element that can be added to increase the popularity and impact of the event is to allow the exchange of draft picks so that established players – players that fans already know and care about – Be involved in the draft.
The Major League Baseball Players Association has offered to allow the exchange of draft picks in the last two collective bargaining negotiations. The MLB has been resilient, fearing that this is another area where agents potentially manipulate clients to supportive teams (read especially large markets) and / or teams from large markets could essentially bully and buy their way to the top of the ladder.
Well, the agents and teams are already handling the draft. The top 10 prospects did not make it to the top 10 picks on Sunday. Also, clubs have draft pool dollars and are looking for the best way to spend them and that could be to take a lower player to have more to spend elsewhere, for example.
Also, to view small market clubs as weak sisters in need of MLB protection in this forum is to ignore the way franchises are run now. The best organizations try to tap and maximize all player supply channels. If you give a well-managed team – no matter how small – like the Rays or the A’s more ways to gain talent, they’ll do well. If you don’t think the Rays would play every angle as a contender again this year – we’ll trade you two future first-rounders for a spike starter or impact bat – then you don’t know how they got it. builds a persistent competitor on a low budget.
MLB has already dipped a toe in those waters in recent years by allowing the trade in international pool money and competitive round picks, which come after round one and round two. It’s time to take the next, more interesting step.
Essentially, you can create a second trading deadline before the actual trading deadline and create another part that you must follow on the MLB calendar. This is why I would move it a week earlier than the All-Star Game so as not to cannibalize this event, yet still be late enough that 1) it probably still comes after the College World Series and 2) quite late in the timeframe that suitors and sellers have been sufficiently defined to act.
As an example, the Red Sox came in this year with the perception that they were still preparing for a brighter future, so the fourth pick achieved with a terrible 2020 was initially a tool for that end. But from the day of the draft, they were leading the AL East. They would at least have the option of asking the Pirates, would you want to have not only the first pick, but also the fourth pick, in your rebuild in exchange for Bryan Reynolds or ask the Rockies – in their rebuild – if add to the eighth pick. Would they take the fourth pick plus the prospects of German Marquez?
The Yankees haven’t had a choice in the top 12 since Derek Jeter’s sixth place in 1992. Could this be the year – with their big club struggling – to question the teams in the top 10 on a 20th package? choice and Gleyber Torres to access one of the best amateurs available? Colorado, on the verge of trading Trevor Story or losing him in free agency, would he do so for the eighth pick?
This is the kind of plot that would be added to the draft and that plot would lead to a product that would attract much more interest in the draft process.
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