Trading Draft Picks

[GoldGlove21]

Can anyone tell me MLB's reasoning behind not allowing teams to trade draft picks? There has been a lot of talk about dealing a guy like Guthrie for example. A team might be more willing to give up a first round pick for an established #3 starter and the Orioles could prefer to receive picks in a deep draft. I do not see a downside to trading players for draft picks or draft picks for draft picks like they do in football.

[Greg Pappas]

Can anyone tell me MLB's reasoning behind not allowing teams to trade draft picks? There has been a lot of talk about dealing a guy like Guthrie for example. A team might be more willing to give up a first round pick for an established #3 starter and the Orioles could prefer to receive picks in a deep draft. I do not see a downside to trading players for draft picks or draft picks for draft picks like they do in football.

I am 100% in favor of allowing it, though there would need to be certain restrictions set in place to limit the number of picks that could be dealt. Just imagine... the Yankees trading their entire draft for Felix Hernandez.

MLB is unimaginative, and hard to move off of certain traditions. There are those that believe that teams like the Yankees and Red Sox would use their financial resources to buy the top pick(s), if money were allowed to be exchanged. I believe that the league would have measures in place that would prevent such things. If money cannot be exchanged, then how would the Yanks/Sox be able to manipulate the draft process? I just got up, and perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but I don't see a downside, especially with the proposed new slotting system coming into place.

Allowing trades in the MLB Draft would bring a level of excitement to an event that sure could use it. I would be elated if it were implemented.

[Can_of_corn]

I am against it for two reasons.

1- I like that baseball has these odd, quirky touches the other major sports lack.

2- I have no faith in the O's front office's ability to exploit the change more effectively then their division rivals.

Its mostly #2 that I am concerned with.

[jgdomino]

For this to work you would have to overhaul the free agent pick compensation plan.

Type A and B free agents etc. IF a team trades its 2012 Draft pick in lets say July then signs a type A free agent they are trading a pick they do not have.

The downside to this would be if you do not put restrictions on type A free agents there is no penalty to teams like the Yankees and Red Sox when they sign a bunch of top players in the off-season.

Really until there is a salary cap in place I do not see this working. Once the cap is in place they can do away with the type a and b system and just reward teams supplemental picks similar to the NFL.

(sorry my grammar is horrible when I do not take my time, but hey its a message board )

[Greg Pappas]

I'll believe there's a new slotting system, when I see it. On the one hand you don't want a rule that prohibits trading draft picks because there's no downside but on the other hand you want to limit the number of picks that can be traded. What's the limit and what's the downside to trading as many picks as you want to?

As my Hernandez example pointed out, I believe that there should be restrictions on the number of picks that can be dealt. However, I may be persuaded that it's not a big deal.

What are your thoughts on this matter?

[Greg Pappas]

For this to work you would have to overhaul the free agent pick compensation plan.

Type A and B free agents etc. IF a team trades its 2012 Draft pick in lets say July then signs a type A free agent they are trading a pick they do not have.

The downside to this would be if you do not put restrictions on type A free agents there is no penalty to teams like the Yankees and Red Sox when they sign a bunch of top players in the off-season.

Really until there is a salary cap in place I do not see this working. Once the cap is in place they can do away with the type a and b system and just reward teams supplemental picks similar to the NFL.

(sorry my grammar is horrible when I do not take my time, but hey its a message board )

Agreed that many changes would be forthcoming, and the FA system would be among them. Good point.

[mrbraswel3]

If needed, I would imagine capping the amount of rounds, at let's say 35, wouldn't be a problem if that was an issue. Even if limited, it's clearly way past due to allow the bartering of draft picks.