Simple Change to Fix Drafting/Tanking of All Major Sports

[QuevedosTongue]

It isn't about saving money or being bad to get picks, so a salary floor and random draft would do absolutely nothing. Those two things are just a side effect of trading away MLB players to get prospects. The goal for every single team is to get enough talent together at one time to win the World Series. There are only a finite number of ways to acquire and keep good players, and when one of those avenues is completely out of the question for the majority of the league you are going to get teams that have to trade away good players to amass talent. Teams like the Brewers do not do this by choice. They are going to be bad by necessity.

 

 

Well, it is a side effect, but it's also about saving dollars on the big league team and being bad, thereby giving the team a larger pool of money to spend in the draft. If it wasn't about that, why wouldn't Milwaukee have made all these deals, but also spent some money to bring in players that might make them better? Part of it is giving someone like Santana a shot to play, but otherwise they have doled out minimum wage deals to flawed/failed young players that are nothing more than roster filler. They may get lucky on one or two of the guys on the roster this season realizing their talent but, realistically, none of the players they've brought in to play 1B, 2B, SS, 3B or C will be around in 2018, most won't be around next year. Milwaukee needs a CF, yet they aren't in play on Dexter Fowler. You can say it's because of the draft compensation, but I don't think they'd be signing him even if the draft compensation went away.

 

Now, I'm not advocating for anything like signing moderately better players just to squeeze out a few wins. I think the Brewers are doing what they have to do to build something sustainable. When 24 MLB teams are basically a farm system for the other 6, the low end revenue teams have to go this route.

[Baldkin]

Where is the outcry over large market teams spending on the international market? I know they have penalties and teams can't hit up the international market for a couple years but it is still unjust. How is it fair that a 19 year old Yoan Moncada gets over $30 Million? And that the Red Sox can eat another $30 Million in penalties. That blows team's entire draft pools out of the water....

 

Seems like a way bigger problem to me than a couple NL teams rebuilding/tanking....

 

The international market is a joke. They are paying 16 year old kids more than number 1 draft picks. An international draft is the only solution to fix that problem.

 

A salary floor is dumb too. I read that the Jacksoncille Jaguars are something like $30 million under the salary floor. Is there any way that spending the money to get them over the floor is going to turn them into a playoff contender? It's the NFL, maybe, but probably not. If they make the playoffs next year it's going to be more because they got lucky with injuries and Andrew Luck repeats his 2015. In the Brewers current situation, forcing them to spend any more money on the MLB team does nothing to help the organization.

 

A salary floor is simply a way to ensure that the owners don't simply hoard money in a league with a salary cap and full revenue sharing. It's the players association way of avoiding collusion to artificially keep salaries down.

[jerichoholicninja]

Where is the outcry over large market teams spending on the international market? I know they have penalties and teams can't hit up the international market for a couple years but it is still unjust. How is it fair that a 19 year old Yoan Moncada gets over $30 Million? And that the Red Sox can eat another $30 Million in penalties. That blows team's entire draft pools out of the water....

 

Seems like a way bigger problem to me than a couple NL teams rebuilding/tanking....

 

The international market is a joke. They are paying 16 year old kids more than number 1 draft picks. An international draft is the only solution to fix that problem.

 

A salary floor is dumb too. I read that the Jacksoncille Jaguars are something like $30 million under the salary floor. Is there any way that spending the money to get them over the floor is going to turn them into a playoff contender? It's the NFL, maybe, but probably not. If they make the playoffs next year it's going to be more because they got lucky with injuries and Andrew Luck repeats his 2015. In the Brewers current situation, forcing them to spend any more money on the MLB team does nothing to help the organization.

 

A salary floor is simply a way to ensure that the owners don't simply hoard money in a league with a salary cap and full revenue sharing. It's the players association way of avoiding collusion to artificially keep salaries down.

 

If the MLBPA is pushing it, it would be because they want to make sure their veteran, AAAA fodder member players are getting major league jobs and salaries over cheap, young minor league players.

[FVBrewerFan]

I have no problem with a floor, as long as their is a reasonable ceiling also. THAT'S why you never hear talk of a floor, because the power brokers in MLB certainly don't want a ceiling.

[Point Beer Is Best]

Ken Rosenthal has a good write-up on the situation, and appears to be the anti-Buster Olney on this topic which is a welcome change.

 

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/philadelphia-phillies-milwaukee-brewers-rebuilding-tanking-021416

 

I'm starting to think that the grumbling is coming from the owners who have to pay into the revenue sharing system, and they don't say anything while the big market teams like Chicago and Philly are rebuilding, but if the Brewers field a team with a payroll of under $50mil while they rebuild while pulling in revenue sharing dollars, suddenly it becomes an issue for them. Nevermind the fact that if the Brewers hit on a few draft picks who become stars, those same owners will have no problem plucking them away in free agency. They can't have it both ways.

[Lee16]

I just don't see tanking as an issue in baseball. This isn't the NBA, or the NFL where you can get a very top pick and have an absolute stud come in and help your team dramatically the following season. (Lebron James, Andrew Luck, Kobe Bryant, etc.) Even the most blue chip MLB prospect could very easily turn out to be nothing more than average, and even if he does become a breakout star, he still isn't helping the big league club for 2 to 3 years at the earliest.

 

Just my opinion.

[Boomer5]

The only way the Brewers can compete is through the infusion of the draft and lower level international. The Brewers don't have the ability to acquire a Harper or a Fernandez unless they started their careers here.

 

Tanking - the term - seems to have a bad connotation but when you trade your good players for guys who can't help you this year or next and you wind up having a higher draft pick the next two years, your team tanked on purpose. Call it rebuilding if that helps you sleep better but it's tanking.

[BillScottCanRake]

People object to tanking because they are able to see a difference between rebuilding to turn over a roster and doing things that are designed to result in losses.

 

Baseball has always called what the Brewers and Phillies are doing and what the Astros did "rebuilding". Rebuilding pre-dates the MLB amateur draft, so in ye oldin' days losing was a nasty side affect to the rebuilding process that had to be endured. While losing is no longer quite so horrible now that there is a draft, draft position doesn't mean you are getting a future ML contributor, much less a star. In that regard, I feel losing is still something that has to be endured and are perhaps is made just a bit less horrible because the team may potentially be able to draft a player who is better than they otherwise would have drafted if they strove for mediocrity. Besides, I feel that what Milwaukee does with their picks is far more important than where the picks fall. And I'd rather have Maverick Phillips and the 30th than just a top-five pick any day.

 

Most people see a difference between roster management resulting in losses and on-field/court actions that are intended to result in losses for the purpose of improving of draft position. When people watch the 76ers, they don't talk about them "tanking" because of their roster management, they do so because coaching decisions that have allowed people to conclude that attempting to win tonight's game isn't a priority. How come player x only played 20 minutes? Why on earth did player y get 35 minutes? Down five with a minute to go and you don't foul to extend the game? Yes, rebuilding results in teams having an inferior roster and losses, but "tanking" goes beyond having a low talent roster and starts undermine the on-field/court competition. People tend to not like that.

 

We obviously haven't seen the Brewers play yet this year, but until they show lackluster effort and/or coaching decisions that are intended to result in a loss, I am perfectly OK using the term rebuilding and rejecting tanking. I'll be highly disappointed if I see anything close to tanking.

[FVBrewerFan]

I just don't see tanking as an issue in baseball. This isn't the NBA, or the NFL where you can get a very top pick and have an absolute stud come in and help your team dramatically the following season. (Lebron James, Andrew Luck, Kobe Bryant, etc.) Even the most blue chip MLB prospect could very easily turn out to be nothing more than average, and even if he does become a breakout star, he still isn't helping the big league club for 2 to 3 years at the earliest.

 

Just my opinion.

 

Exactly Lee, and it's not just your opinion- it's fact. There is absolutely no way Stearns' plan is tear down the roster so he can get the #1 pick in the draft next year. Especially when at this point you have no idea if there's a Harper type of player over a year from now in the 2017 draft. Once again, this is a RESULT of a rebuild, not the goal.

 

I didn't expect this to be even a matter of debate or confusion. The goal is to be as competitive as possible 3-5 years down the road. That means selling off pieces that will not contribute then, and bring in players who will. You can call it tanking if you want, but that has nothing to do with planning to get the #1 pick.

[pacopete4]

Buster Olney can buzz off. Guys like him shouldn't even be allowed to weigh in on the Brewers organization. Until the playing field is more even for large and small market franchises, guys like him can get lost. Does he even know where Milwaukee is?

[QuevedosTongue]

Today Buster discredited Rosenthal's article as 'missing the point' of what the concerns are around MLB. He goes on to say that teams like Milwaukee are doing exactly what they should be under the current rules. The issue that is being discussed, per Buster, is the fact that, right now, there is no incentive to try to be incrementally better.

 

I tend to agree with him here. It just seems to me that the goal in sports should be to win as many games as possible. That said, I don't know what MLB could do to create incentives to win a few more games for a team that has essentially no chance to make the playoffs.

[pitchleague]

Maybe they qualify the draft order with a requirement that teams with at least 65 wins (just pulled a number out of a hat) will be considered for the #1 draft pick.

 

I'm just making stuff up, of course, but short of doing something along these lines, you won't have any chance at forcing teams to "win as many games as possible." Sometimes, winning is not the goal. A rebuilding team is better off competing and putting players into spots and seeing who produces, who flames out, and who cares if they win or not. Or course, if they do win, great! But it is not the goal.

[jerichoholicninja]

Hey let's just ditch the amateur draft all together and make these kids free agents. It worked so well before.

 

All these anti-tanking writer loons can buzz off. They didn't make a peep about it while the Cubs were doing it and they never said a word when the Red Sox traded 1/3 of their Major League roster to the Dodgers.

 

The only kind of change I can get behind to "end the tanking" is setting the draft order based off of multiple past seasons combined record instead of just the previous year. And even that wouldn't stop it from happening.

[FVBrewerFan]

No, those changes in the draft would have zero effect. Do you think Stearns would have done anything differently if he was guaranteed NOT to have the #1 pick next year? Or even top 10? Me either.

[ReverendBrewmeister]

Changes in draft order probably wouldn't be a major factor in avoiding "tanking" in baseball, given how many draft picks never pan out. NBA, yes; MLB, no.

 

Salary cap and floor wouldn't be a bad development for MLB. Might prevent the hard feelings owners have about abuses of revenue sharing. But the big market owners and the players' union would probably not go for it. Couldn't buy a championship and won't get the mammoth contracts.

 

If the goal was to avoid tanking altogether, there is a guaranteed way to prevent it: Promotion & Relegation within a baseball pyramid. Too bad the calendar can't be turned back 50 or more years to implement it.

[Fear The Chorizo]

The simple way to prevent tanking in MLB, to the dismay of all the big market owners with huge TV contracts funding their payrolls and profits, is to share league revenue the same way the NFL does. Until the economics of how to run an organization are standardized, it is impossible to fault teams taking varying approaches to attempt to build a MLB roster worthy of contending.

 

Baseball has far more avenues to acquire talent than the NBA and NFL, each with its own set of rules few people actually understand. Creating a standardized international draft should also be a MLB priority.

[DuWayne Steurer]

If Buster thinks there should be an incentive to try to win "this year", then obviously he's missing the point, not Rosenthal.

[Boomer5]

Milwaukee has to use unconventional tools to win a WS. They cant sign guys like a JHey for $190M and a Lackey for $150M in back to back years and fill what is essentially support level roles.

 

JHey by himself is what, the top 3 contracts the Brewers have ever signed?

 

A team like the Phillies and Cubs tanking with their revenue streams are the ones that should be targeted. Olney should be intelligent enough to know the Brewers ONLY chance to win a WS is from incredible luck or building the farm system was a large draft pool.

 

If Olney wants to fix it, put in a hard organizational salary cap( and floor), and do away with the draft all together. Done.

[FVBrewerFan]

Milwaukee has to use unconventional tools to win a WS. Olney should be intelligent enough to know the Brewers ONLY chance to win a WS is from incredible luck or building the farm system was a large draft pool.

 

Brewers current rebuilding process is not unconventional. It's the same thing smart teams have been doing for decades.

 

Also, a large draft pool is not the only way to build a WS capable team. How about selling off assets and bringing in guys like Phillips, Hader, Santana, Houser, Davies, Diaz, Nottingham, and others- and more to come? Maybe use the international market wisely (Arcia, Lara, others to come.)

 

Of course the draft is important, especially for a team like the Brewers. But you seem to imply targeting the 1st or 2nd overall pick is the goal, and the best (or only) way to find top players and build a winner. That is simply not true.

[brewcrewdue80]

I said it elsewhere, the simple change to fix drafting/tanking is retraction. You could probably reduce 8teams of course it must be the 8lowest markets/team value teams. Instead of revenue sharing the Pitts/Milw of the world. You're sharing money to Houston/St Louis/Philly of the world. Avg team payroll will be 200million if not more then. Your draft cycles every 22picks. You've removed Hundreds of Lucroy type talent wasting away on a losing team to wind up playing on a Texas w/o costing any prospect to acquire him. Every one of the 22teams will have so much talent nobody can tank because there's no need to. If you're not going to do that, then you have no argument on tanking and being concerned on it. When teams can only have 110million payrolls before losing money vs a team that can have a 1billion payroll and not lose money. You can't sit there and expect every resource spent attempting to improve the ML roster while relying on the less than40% crapshoot of your drafted players.

 

Now I think another way to end tanking would be to penalize teams their #1draft pick if a majority vote of owners believe your organization tanked. The Marlins tanked multiple times. It was obvious. I'd say the Reds tanked last season. And again this season. They finished the season with a Rookie SP staff. Traded one of the best IF in Frazier away. Why couldn't they extended him like Votto? Maybe the Reds could be the argument against not "tanking" A GM fills the roster with high priced extensions and try to win and completely failed aside from one season of playoffs.

 

Why not just attack Oakland/Toronto/Arizona instead for their willingness to take our supposed ML players to aid us in "tanking" shame on them to better their ML team by helping to weaken our Starting roster. They should have either overpaid a FA or bring up their best prospect at that position. Regardless is single A or AAA. Boras wants that Service clock ticking as well as his FAs to all be paid

[FVBrewerFan]

Now I think another way to end tanking would be to penalize teams their #1draft pick if a majority vote of owners believe your organization tanked.

 

That would not prevent a team from rebuilding, or tanking as you call it. I keep asking, what would Stearns have done differently if a rule like this was in effect? Do you think he wouldn't have traded Lind, KRod, Segura, Davis, etc.? Do you think he still wouldn't try to trade Lucroy, Braun, and others even if it was guaranteed he would have no 1st round pick in the 2017 draft?

 

As for retraction, that may work marginally. But you will still have a bottom tier of teams who will want to rebuild for a window to compete. Plus, of course, it will never happen since MLB is looking for ways to expand, not retract.

 

Finally, I think it's odd that this has become a topic of debate suddenly this year, when teams have been rebuilding/tanking for decades. I don't see what the problem is, it's up to each team to do what's best in their situation. Has always been that way, always should be that way.

[Fear The Chorizo]

The reason it's an issue this year is because I believe it's a CBA year, correct? Small market teams get the brunt of complaints from both the Player's Union side ("this organization won't pay bloated veteran FA contracts!") and big market owners ("that organization takes revenue from my payroll luxury tax and other limited shared MLB revenues and pockets it instead of spending it in FA!").

 

Also, it's a dead period in the sportsnews world - NFL's over, spring training hasn't started to write about actual baseball being played, NCAA bball tourney still over 1 month away, NBA and NHL regular seasons in the dead period before people start anticipating the playoffs....

[DuWayne Steurer]

When you have a core group of young players coming up in your system, and you have a bad team at the MLB level..... signing mid-tier FA's makes absolutely zero sense to try to field a 75 to 80 win team. There's no sense in that kind of strategy at all.

 

Signing place-holders (like MIddlebrooks, like Villar, like Carter, etc, etc, etc) is not to lose on purpose, it's to hold down the fort until your guys like Arcia come up. Gatewood. Clark, etc, etc, etc. You aren't going to go out and spend huge dollars on the marquee free agents when you're developing your (hopeful) stars, and secondly because, well, you're the Brewers, and you can't afford guys like Bryce Harper or Josh Donaldson or the like. And honestly, spending money on those guys when they hit free agency is not good strategy anyways.

 

You don't block your future stars with middle tier free agents, and you don't sign big-buck stars (because you can't), so you sign place holder guys (like Middlebrooks, like Villar, like Carter, etc, etc, etc) and hope they perform as best they can. BEST case scenario is that maybe a few of those guys actually pull a Casey Mcgehee or Scotty Po magic act and you can turn around and flip them for something useful, or they stick around and play a role when the team is contending.

 

Stearns is not getting these guys to LOSE ON PURPOSE ZOMBGBBQ!!! They are playing a role (and an important one) in the rebuild process. They're easy to move or let go when your guys like Arcia and Clark and Gatewood and so on and so on start hitting the show.

 

 

I'm not surprised that a hack like Olney doesn't understand it.

[Jenkins5]

Tanking really isn't as big of a situation as it is made out to be. Outside of 76ers, there are not to many professional teams who actually intentionally lose year after year with no attempt to be better. This has been going on in baseball since the beginning. It is nothing new. In baseball, you sometimes need to rebuild and restock talent. It is not tanking, it is rebuilding. There is nothing unfair or bad about rebuilding. Baseball is a sport where a team like the Brewers have very little options to compete with large market teams because they can't fork out 20 million dollar contracts to handful of okay players. They need to develop own talent and trade for it. Simple as that. The issue is that this year and time period, many teams are rebuilding at once, usually it is more spread out.

 

The draft in baseball is so useless to tank for. Way to many variables. The chances of getting your Bryce Harper at #1 overall who will carry your franchise largely on their back is highly improbable. There are 25 players on a team and no matter how good one player is, they will not be enough to win you anything. Having the top SP in baseball is great but what do you do the other 4 nights? Its great to have next Babe Ruth, but what good is he if the other 8 guys can't get job done. Really the most elite player may WAR you 10 games. That isn't enough on it's own to do much. Not to forget baseball probably has the largest bust rate of any sport and a player can bust at many points in their career. They can bust as soon as they are draft, they can be a star prospect and bust entering majors and flame out, or they can make it to majors and bust in terms of never living up to the hype. From my perspective, that is just a gosh awful decision.

 

The signing pool is a new concept which needs to go & has created a much bigger issue. Fix the awful system they have put in place and life & the draft will be much better.

[Boomer5]

Milwaukee has to use unconventional tools to win a WS. Olney should be intelligent enough to know the Brewers ONLY chance to win a WS is from incredible luck or building the farm system was a large draft pool.

 

Brewers current rebuilding process is not unconventional. It's the same thing smart teams have been doing for decades.

 

Also, a large draft pool is not the only way to build a WS capable team. How about selling off assets and bringing in guys like Phillips, Hader, Santana, Houser, Davies, Diaz, Nottingham, and others- and more to come? Maybe use the international market wisely (Arcia, Lara, others to come.)

 

Of course the draft is important, especially for a team like the Brewers. But you seem to imply targeting the 1st or 2nd overall pick is the goal, and the best (or only) way to find top players and build a winner. That is simply not true.

 

While every likes the direction the Brewer farm system has gone the last two years, I havent heard anyone say we have a truly Superstar talent base other than Arcia.

 

What the system lacks are the guys that make the StL "fans" have the kind of discussion we were having about the Cubs two years ago. That is the difference and thats what a larger draft pool means to the WS viability of this team or if just being good is the goal.

 

This is the 2015 slot pool for the first 10 rounds of the draft (Houston had 2 high picks so that skews it but you get the idea). If you think Stearns isnt painfully aware of this and what it would mean to his talent acquisition plans, think again.

 

Astros -- $17,289,200

Rockies -- $13,989,800

D-backs -- $12,816,100

Braves -- $10,684,100

Rangers -- $9,099,900

Yankees -- $7,885,000

Dodgers -- $7,781,700

Reds -- $7,777,900

Brewers -- $7,743,800

 

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/126797888/breakdown-of-2015-draft-signing-bonus-pools