Simple Change to Fix Drafting/Tanking of All Major Sports

[rickh150]

In short....

Have all non playoff teams' names put in the hat for a true lottery

All playoff teams are then slotted after them, based on record

The following year the same occurs; however, the teams that had a top 3 pick the previous year are taken out of the hat until the 4th pick and thereafter.

 

First off, this fixes the end of season dilemmas bad teams have in all sports. Do Not try ( or more accurately don't play the good players) so that your spot in the draft gets better ( sometimes in football or baseball the no. 1 pick). I believe this would promote a healthier sports scene. What we have now at season's end for select bad teams is a debate against winning and losing.... A debate that should never be had for any team or fan base at end of season.

 

2. I also like the idea of young .500 teams (Bucks) getting a high pick to really help them improve.

 

3 The List of teams tanking in multiple year sets for better draft positioning would shrink, which is better for sport overall.

 

Finally, and really not important to me, the lottery for all sports would be HUGE prime time tv...... one reason why money guy execs would want to get in on.

 

Overall, I view a MLB worldwide draft and MLB Revenue sharing for all TV money as more important fixes to help small market teams..... Yet this drafting/tanking issue is by far the easiest to fix quickly.

[trwi7]

Or you could just keep it the way it is, since there's nothing wrong with the current system.

[CheeseheadInQC]

The only sport that might really be affected is basketball. I don't think you see teams tanking in the NFL in the truest sense. A lot of times bad football teams are just bad, and not for lack of effort. In baseball, the draft picks are helpful, but the real prize is the value of the prospects acquired in trades. Making the draft more random isn't going to change the calculus of years of control for teams not built to win now, especially ones who can't spend Dodgers-style. Only in basketball do I think is tanking for draft picks is actually a thing.

[rickh150]

Every year in football it is discussed come last week of season..... Commentators talking about how losing would benefit draft position.... Being able to pick a top QB

 

In baseball, Brewerfan had a running thread of guys hoping the team loses more games to get a top pick.

 

On sports talk radio many callers were hoping for the Brewers to play poorly during the summer to land a top pick or THEEEE #1 pick, AND now the Bucks to continue to play poorly or trade off Monroe to get a top pick.

 

Why have this system that rewards losing to that great of an extent? Easily fixable....

[trwi7]

Teams know the consequences of losing that much for a long time. Fewer ticket sales. Fewer merchandise sales. That means less money in their pockets. That's incentive enough.

 

Why should mediocre 80 win teams get the benefit of picking at the top of the draft? Hell, maybe let the World Series winner pick 1st as an example to everyone else on how teams should be built.

[Point Beer Is Best]

Every year in football it is discussed come last week of season..... Commentators talking about how losing would benefit draft position.... Being able to pick a top QB

 

In baseball, Brewerfan had a running thread of guys hoping the team loses more games to get a top pick.

 

On sports talk radio many callers were hoping for the Brewers to play poorly during the summer to land a top pick or THEEEE #1 pick, AND now the Bucks to continue to play poorly or trade off Monroe to get a top pick.

 

Why have this system that rewards losing to that great of an extent? Easily fixable....

 

Why fix something that isn't even remotely broken outside of the NBA, which is the only league to have a lottery like you speak of.

 

It might be talked about in the NFL by the commentators and the fans who have no vested interest, but you never actually see it. If anything, they had a problem with the GOOD teams sitting starters in weeks 16 and 17 if they had their playoff seeding set, which they've now rectified by having divisional games the final week. The NFL would also impose draft pick penalties if they felt something was up. Not to mention the fact that everyone in the NFL is basically on a one year deal. If you're the coach and you don't make the playoffs for two or three years, you're out. There's just too much at stake (personal livelihoods) due to the cutthroat nature of the business for an owner to tell his front office to tell his coaches to tell his players to tank.

[MrTPlush]

I feel like you should have put this in the Off Topic section. This really makes zero sense for baseball because teams don't intentionally tank. Actually the only sport where tanking is seen is in basketball. Even in the NFL the bad teams are trying to win in week 17.

 

Bottom line tanking doesn't exist in Major League Baseball.

[jerichoholicninja]

Or you could just keep it the way it is, since there's nothing wrong with the current system.

 

This. No one is tanking. The Brewers traded a bunch of guys (Lind, Krod, Gomez, Segura, Aram, etc.) who were going to be free agents, quickly getting expensive, or not going to be around by the time the team was going to compete again. Holding on to them or spending money or average players to win 5 or 6 more games when you're going to be under .500 is just stupid and a waste of resources. If anything MLB needs a system like the NFL when it comes to free agency and draft picks instead of the stupid qualifying offer system that just hurts the players. And stop giving teams like the Cardinals "competitive balance" draft picks.

[rickh150]

"Tanking"???? What is it exactly in MLB?

I view it as upper MANAGEMENT purposefully taking resources away from your major league club and using them on your minor leagues in hopes of being better in the future AND BECOMING WORSE now for draft position/ slot pool benefits. The major league players and coaches want to win, of course. They are not throwing games.

 

So, in many of your viewpoints, DS would take a 81-81 season this year instead of the first draft pick next June? Bull...No way he wants a mediocre team now.... Every move is about the future of this team in 5 years or so. Most fans would take the first pick too. How about the Bucks?? Hands down 90% of fans take the 1st pick of next draft instead of another mediocre season. I wouldn't blame them a bit based on the systems we have now where losing badly for long periods of time is considered wise and hip for not only building rosters around minor league talent ( which is fine by me) but for also getting better draft pick access to key talent ( not ok with it).

 

You should always want the home team to win, whether rebuilding or not. With the drafting systems we have in the major sports, that isn't so with more and more fan bases increasingly. It is now better to be bad than average for long periods of time.

[bylo tesi me]

Tanking to me is doing strange things like putting a position player in to pitch in the 5th when only down a couple run against another struggling team. Double switching your best player early when your starter struggles. Or playing Yuni at 1st.

Trading valuable players for past their prime Major League players or to the Mets for the remainder of Bobby Bonilla's deferred contract is Tanking, acquiring young talent isn't.

[Dmiles23]

"Tanking"???? What is it exactly in MLB?

I view it as upper MANAGEMENT purposefully taking resources away from your major league club and using them on your minor leagues in hopes of being better in the future AND BECOMING WORSE now for draft position/ slot pool benefits.

 

I agree with most others that tanking only happens in basketball. Why try to fix something that isn't broken in MLB?

 

Do you really think the Brewers offseason would have been different had your lottery been in place? You're not going to last long as a MLB GM in the league if you're positioning yourself for a better draft pick. Two or three guys won't make your team, like they would in the NBA. So, in my opinion, the trades the GM makes are much more important than the draft. So I suspect the Brewers offseason would have gone pretty much the same had your lottery idea been in place.

[MrTPlush]

Stearns would LOVE to go 81-81! Why would you not want this team to go 81-81? If our team destined for 100 losses wins that many games on this low of a payroll we have one nice looking future. That our a lot of players having solid season to trade for more prospects.

 

Why would you want the #1 pick? You realize that means a lot of players having to be horrible? Lucroy, Peralta, Nelson, Davis, etc. all having poor season. That won't help trade value very much. Also means all these buy low guys we acquired probably flopped.

 

The #1 pick isn't as great as people want to think. A lot of very bad things need to happen to get it. In short Stearns doesn't want that pick if it means he has to take all the negatives with it.

[1992casey]

"Tanking"???? What is it exactly in MLB?

I view it as upper MANAGEMENT purposefully taking resources away from your major league club and using them on your minor leagues in hopes of being better in the future AND BECOMING WORSE now for draft position/ slot pool benefits. The major league players and coaches want to win, of course. They are not throwing games.

I suppose that different people could define tanking in different ways. When different definitions exist, you have the potential for misunderstanding.

 

A full-fledged tank would extend all the way to the dugout and the field. That would cause problems on lots of levels, including fan morale, player morale, raised eyebrows in the commissioner's office, and credibility in general.

 

Some members believe that Stearns is making losses an objective; others believe that losses should be an objective without claiming that the front office is actually operating that way. I don't believe that the Brewers are trying to lose. They're simply trying to make the best use of their resources in order to sustain winning when it becomes practical to do so. Losing is a probable consequence, but it isn't an objective.

 

If the team happens to win more than expected this year and next, that's not a bad thing. It means that players have performed well and that Stearns has either found some keepers or some trade chips. Winning would mean less draft money, but it'd also mean that there'd be more potential to stock the system with trades. There's more than one way to skin a cat; the Brewers simply need to go with the flow.

[paul253]

In baseball, Brewerfan had a running thread of guys hoping the team loses more games to get a top pick.

 

 

That's not exactly accurate. As someone who participated in that thread I can't necessarily say I was rooting for them to lose. I was just unhappy with how they refused to sit veterans a few times a week. And I think looking at what's happened since then I can say "I told you so". First off I wanted them to sit Lucroy more often. They didn't and what happens? He gets a concussion and doesn't catch again. Then I wanted them to give someone like Smith or Jeffress to get some experience closing games. They didn't. Now KRod is gone is the two leading loser candidates go into the season with zero closing experience. Then you see guys like Jason Groom taking off but realize that the more he, or other draft prospects for that matter, take off the less likely it is we get a chance to draft them.

 

Like I said I didn't want them to "tank". I just wanted them to realizing keeping your best players healthy and giving young guys opportunities is more important than wins at that point.

 

In regards to the draft the two changes id like to see:

1) International draft. Whether it's a separate draft altogether or all players are included in one draft but it needs to happen

2) A hard cap in draft spending. I don't care how it's done but I'd like to see it done.

[logan82]

I wanted them to lose more. I didn't want them to do it intentionally but I would have been much happier with 2-3 more losses. 2 more loses would have move us up to 3rd instead of 5th which is a significant amount of pool money.

 

I would define tanking as losing intentionally for picks. I don't think any team does that. The Brewers are shifting their assets around so they have their talent concentrated closer together instead of spread out through the organization like they have in the past few years.

[trwi7]

Tanking would be taking a good pitcher with a perfect game through 5 innings on 50 pitches and replacing him with the worst pitcher on the roster. It would be replacing Braun with Nieuwenhuis against Aroldis Chapman when we're down by 1 with the bases loaded and two outs in the 9th.

 

There's nothing wrong with what the Brewers are doing. The major league club stalled and became stale. We're re-setting that and get as many young, talented players as we can to help us a few years down the road. That's something every team should be doing but especially small market teams.

[rickh150]

Isn't there something wrong when true fans hope their team loses?

[And That]

Isn't there something wrong when true fans hope their team loses?

People are free to hope what they want to hope. The Brewers could have been in a considerably better position in the 2016 draft had they lost 2 more games, or 5 more games, or 6 more games.

[yfinn6]

Isn't there something wrong when true fans hope their team loses?

 

Not really, at least not when those 'true fans' are going to continue their fandom through a rebuild process where the losses will pile up. I don't think you quite understood the gist of the thread you referenced in one of your posts in this thread.

[Ennder]

It is a broken system right now but what you suggest is also a broken system. I'd say some sort of algorithm that takes into account the past X number of seasons instead of just 1 season probably makes the most sense. Though to be honest in most cases that is just bailing out a team that has had consistent bad decision making more than anything else. The Browns are bad for a reason as an example, it is because they continuously make awful choices.

[markedman5]

http://espn.go.com/blog/buster-olney/insider/post?id=12222

[jerichoholicninja]

Honestly I don't understand how this is even an issue. Tanking would be if a team went out and filled a roster with Yuni and Macier Izturis types. When teams "tank" they acquire young players who were former prospects or blocked in other organizations. That's not trying to put a bad team on the field, that's putting together a team with potential upside. I can't recall a single MLB team tanking in my lifetime.

[yfinn6]

Honestly I don't understand how this is even an issue. Tanking would be if a team went out and filled a roster with Yuni and Macier Izturis types. When teams "tank" they acquire young players who were former prospects or blocked in other organizations. That's not trying to put a bad team on the field, that's putting together a team with potential upside. I can't recall a single MLB team tanking in my lifetime.

 

Me neither, but it's the "hot topic" for uncreative sportswriters. Particularly those writing for ESPN.

[1992casey]

There's one team (the Marlins) that's abused revenue sharing and torn down teams that didn't need to be torn down. But that falls a whole lot short of tanking. Their motivation has been money rather than draft picks.

[Boomer5]

We traded our closer and our middle of the order 1B for nothing that can help in 2016 or 2017 but we arent tanking in 2016?

 

And you folks think hiring a guy from the Astros is completely unrelated to how they got where they are?