Grand St to Vanderbilt?
I’m still on the fence about this new CBA. When you read the details it doesn’t appear as onerous as it did at first glance. Slot numbers can be exceeded without penalty as long as a team doesn’t exceed its overall allotted budget, so you can overspend on a few choice picks and underspend elsewhere without being subject to harsh sanctions.
I partially agree with William’s post from yesterday that small market teams crying foul over an inability to spend aggressively is largely misplaced, that the more likely outcome is a controlling of costs. But hard budgets will affect the small market team that wants to be aggressive one year and scale back the next. All drafts aren’t equal, some are deep in terms of talent while others simply aren’t. Draftees aren’t equal either, so a truly top flight talent like Bryce Harper that has the leverage of going back to school can force a team to exhaust more of its budget on him, leaving less cap space for the rest of the draft. That means they will have to pass on players in later rounds for signability reasons, defeating the stated goal of achieving more competitive balance.That can actually work in favor of a team like the Yanks, where talented players that would otherwise be picked fall in their laps. On the international front, the cap and trade system could allow the Yanks to continue to mine Latin America for talent, which is the place where they typically find their best prospects. Many teams aren’t active internationally, so plenty of credits should be available annually. In that way, for the Yanks its business as usual with a few twists added. But I do see two main changes as a practical matter in how the new system will play out.
Less Borrowing From the Future:
One way that the MLB Rule IV draft has always differed from other sports is that it isn’t as linear as the others, where the best players are well known to all teams and are selected early. Players are further away in terms of development, so teams will try to identify skills at a young age and draft them in the hope they can turn them into a player down the road. The new system means you won’t be able to go over slot as often in later rounds or at the end of the draft, since there will be no money available (100K) after the first 10 rounds and harsh penalties if you exceed your league-mandated budget number. This tactic was a main component of the Yankee draft strategy in recent years. Even if they can still do it, with a hard number they cannot exceed that means they will be doing it less often. Kids they were once able to entice to go pro will simply opt to go to college since there’s less financial incentive.
More players go to college:
There’s another side to cost containment for owners, and that’s how it affects the draftees. With less money available through the draft, all teams will be less able to entice a talented player to forgo college or leave in his junior year. That means more high end players go to college, and stay there longer. There’s a benefit to this in that MLB gets much more certainty in who they draft as a result. College players are far less speculative than High School draftees, so you let the NCAA separate the boys from the men. This can cut down on the number of busts all teams will have, and that would benefit everyone. More certainty also means drafts will be deeper at the upper levels, since you’re wasting less picks on high school players who’ve been weeded out in College.
From Yankee perspective, the news rules both help and hurt them. The new system will drive talent into college, so the Yankee strategy of drafting high end HS talent largely goes out the window. With just 4.5M to work with, its difficult to imagine them offering big money in later rounds. Under the current rules Dellin Betances almost certainly goes to Vanderbilt as an 1M 8th round pick. Brett Marshall’s 1M 6th round deal that included a college scholarship is less likely as well. Mason Williams is probably offered a fraction of the 1M 4th round bonus he got from the Yanks and goes to college. But teams at the top of the draft who blow most of their budget on their top pick will be forced to forgo players afterward, so picks 25-100 is where I see the Yanks doing best. I don’t think top players will demand less money because of this new system, teams will be faced with the decision of losing their pick or blowing too much of their budget on their top pick. That can create opportunities for the Yanks.
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Vanderbuilt is like Vanderbilt for strong people.
Ouch. Thanks, its been corrected.
Very nice post offering some subtle ways Yanks might benefit from new CBA. Personally, though, I remain skeptical as the motive for these changes — as it has always been for Selig — is to benefit small market owners by throttling Yanks. It is my personal belief that all these efforts have actually been counter-productive and are a key factor in salary inflation. But that’s another story. For now, let’s hope the good old law of unintended consequences comes into play.
It always does. Small market teams aren’t griping about this for no reason. This really wasn’t about competitive balance as much as an attempt to achieve cost certainty.
I still don’t know why Scott Boras should give a damn whether or not the team he’s negotiating with will lose their next two 1st rounders or not, so I don’t think salary demands will drop one bit. As I said in the article, I think teams will be faced with a tough choice of losing the #1 that year and overspending on it. If they do spend too much, it will have to come from elsewhere in that same draft. I could see teams blowing their entire budget on a Bryce Harper-type talent, and signing everyone else for 100K. That means more talent available for the Yanks. So the Yanks could sign another Cito Culver with their #1 and do their damage later.
I agree with Steve that this is more about controlling costs for the small market teams than competitive balance. I also think we already knew that lots of the owners care more about profits than trying to have a winning team – I won’t mention what city I now live in.
I don’t think salary demands in the amature draft will change much in the first year of the new CBA, but I do think they will fall. Having that cap does give the team a little more leverage than they used to. But where I really see things shifting is after the first really deep draft. As more kids initially opt to go to and stay in college, once you get a draft where there’s real talent in the second round, those 2nd rounders are going to get peanuts compared to the 1st rounders. And I think this will start to depress bonuses for 1st rounders, as teams weigh the relative cost benefit analysis. Sure you pay a premium to have a player who packs a whole bunch of WAR in one roster spot, but I don’t think teams will want to pay bonuses four times higher for a player who they think will be 1 WAR better. That could be the tipping point.