Thursday, November 19, 2015

Thoughts on Two More Things I Would Like To See In the New CBA

I knew there was at least one more item for the CBA when I wrote the original post.  There are actually two:

9.  Allow limited trading of draft picks.  I completely understand why MLB does not allow the trading of draft picks.  I mean, can you imagine the Brian Sabean of the 1990's with unlimited trading of draft picks?  He might have unloaded every single pick for a whole decade on one trade!  I do think the time has come to allow limited trading of draft picks.  I would limit it to only the upcoming draft.  You would have to wait until draft positions are finalized, then have a "window" from that point in which teams could trade their draft picks through the end of the draft.

10.  No loss of draft picks when signing a free agent.  I would still award a compensatory pick to teams losing a star FA and you could still use the QO to determine which teams get compensation, but the signing team should not be penalized for signing a player.  All that accomplishes is unfairly depressing the value of a very few players who are on the edge of being worth their QO.

5 comments:

  1. How about cutting the draft, to 10 or 20 rounds?

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    1. It could definitely be cut to 30 rounds immediately. The Giants routinely waste their last 10 picks on unsignable HS players.

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    2. Not a total waste. When they have money left over, they try to sign someone back there. Also, I've read that they use this opportunity to start a relationship with the player and get to know them better, for future reference. Even when the draft was at least 50 rounds (rules back then allowed a team to keep on picking if they felt like it), while many teams had already stopped, the Giants picked all the way to 50, even though they didn't sign very many of the back end. They must see some value in doing that, though to DrB's point, probably not a lot of value.

      But to the commenter's point, probably can cut the draft to 20 rounds and it won't matter much to the farm systems. The odds of guys back there succeeding is pretty minimal. Yet, they sometimes do, like Matt Duffy!

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  2. I agree with allowing limited trading of draft picks. I think that the allowing of trading of the competitive balance picks was a trial run to see how teams would use the picks. I don't think that Sabean would have unloaded every single pick. I agree with limiting to just the next draft, teams have definitely shot themselves in the foot (cough, Warriors, 49ers) by trading away half a decade's worth of picks.

    I like the idea of no loss draft pick when signing a free agent. Right now, it helps the old team but hurts the player. But perhaps that was the intention, to give players an incentive to stay with their old team. Perhaps it would be better to only allow the transfer of a draft pick for free agencies leaving the team that either 1) signed him or 2) that he made his debut with. Otherwise, use your plan of no loss of pick, but give the old team a pick.

    Though, frankly, it bothers me a bit that teams sign free agents to basically buy a draft pick, though I suppose they could just instead trade the player and get a "pick" that way.

    Perhaps there can be a limit on who gets penalized. Teams are using this on borderline players a lot now. Perhaps how the pick is handled can depend on the player's salary in the season before. Maybe if the player's salary was over the QO that last season, the signing team loses their pick, and the old team gets that supplemental pick (oh, and I like the supplemental pick system, no return back to the old "get the new team's pick" system), but if the player's salary was under the QO, the signing team keeps their pick, but the old team still gets the supplemental pick. Eh, still kinks with this, just trying out ideas...

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  3. Oh no! Then Mike Piazza Jr. won't be drafted. Lol

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