PLEASE REFORM THE MLB DRAFT
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by user El Guapos Ghost
It should be no surprise that both the Red Sox and MFY made two of the biggest splashes in the international free market for kids. Even though I think the buying 16-year-olds is morally questionable, not to mention the buscones, it is the culture in many countries and who am I to judge them. My baseball issue is that the process does not redistribute talent for the betterment of the game.
No matter how one stands on small market versus big market teams, revenue sharing, the luxury tax, etc., I think we can all agree that the draft is in place to allocate the best young talent to the worse teams. It is supposed to assist in creating competitive balance among the clubs. Unfortunately, it fails every year.
The draft primarily falls short for two reasons: 1. It does not include players outside of the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. 2. It does not provide any support or an alternative to passing over a player due to financial concerns.
Adrerw Miller should not have fallen to the Tigers last year and beaten the Sox on last Friday. He should be pitching for the Royals. Jered Weaver should be in Petco not the OC. And Dice-K should have been subject to the draft as well. The only mechanism that is solely designed to level the playing field by distributing the best talent is extremely flawed.
I am certainly not knowledgeable enough to offer up a solution - whether it be trading of draft picks, changing the posting process, setting a minimum age requirement. But many people are, and they need to stop neglecting the issue for the best interest of the game.
As an aside, how much fun would a draft day be the Wednesday after the All-Star game that would allow teams to trade picks and included playoff impacting players like Dice-K. Talk about ratings and MLB could broadcast it on its own channel. It would be huge!
El Guapo's Ghost Rambles on about the Red Sox - a baseball blog focusing on the Red Sox from a numbers geek, plus other random rumblings
