The O's keep improving their draft position

[sportsfan8703]

Too early to tell. Some interesting talent on the Cape, a couple of pop-up arms in the Northwoods. USA Collegiate National Team was interesting, but the bats were light. HS class was strong with lots of big arms on the showcase circuit. Looks like there is a fair amount of talent, but we don't know who will stay healthy and what these guys will look like in the spring.

Thanks. I figured it was way too hard to tell with baseball being the hardest sport to predict. I just hope we end up in the top 10 and maybe somebody falls to us the way Machado and MW did. We'll definitely have the pool money to go overslot in the 1st rd. Lots of picks next year and lots of flexibility.

[Stotle]

Thanks. I figured it was way too hard to tell with baseball being the hardest sport to predict. I just hope we end up in the top 10 and maybe somebody falls to us the way Machado and MW did. We'll definitely have the pool money to go overslot in the 1st rd. Lots of picks next year and lots of flexibility.

I don't think there is any doubt there will be a talented player for Baltimore to draft up top. It's how they use the other 5-6 picks that will be interesting.

[Stotle]

There's nothing irrational about hating to lose. There is something very irrational about a system that rewards failure.

Top record gets top pick -- that would sure make for an interesting league for a third of the teams or so.

[SteveO]

There's nothing irrational about hating to lose. There is something very irrational about a system that rewards failure.

Yes, lets let the winning teams get first pick of the new young talent that is available....makes a ton of sense, said nobody ever.

Better yet lets make all the young guys free agents so that a team like the O's never sniffs a guy like Machado or KG.

You say rewarding failure is irrational, it's not so irrational though when the alternatives are even more irrational.

[Stotle]

Yes, lets let the winning teams get first pick of the new young talent that is available....makes a ton of sense, said nobody ever.

Better yet lets make all the young guys free agents so that a team like the O's never sniffs a guy like Machado or KG.

You say rewarding failure is irrational, it's not so irrational though when the alternatives are even more irrational.

It's so irrational that every major sports league in the US utilizes some variation of the process to help stabilize competitive balance.

[24fps]

Top record gets top pick -- that would sure make for an interesting league for a third of the teams or so.

Who said anything about that? I certainly didn't. Feeling a little squeezed in binary world? Landscape kinda flat?

If the goal of a game - or by extension a series of games - is to win then it is irrational to incentivize not winning. This thread and all the others like it over the years speak directly to that. Good Lord, there's already been one thread suggesting we emulate the 76ers. The current environment makes contemplating losing for strategic reasons at least somewhat sensible, although not for me. I'm aware that there's no evidence that any MLB team has ever deliberately tanked in any egregious way. Even so, a lottery for the first ten picks or so (by the worst 10 teams that season) would be a step in the right direction for further removing an incentive to fail. A relegation system might be even better, but I doubt there's a cultural or historical fit for that scheme in the US.

[Stotle]

Who said anything about that? I certainly didn't. Feeling a little squeezed in binary world? Landscape kinda flat?

If the goal of a game - or by extension a series of games - is to win then it is irrational to incentivize not winning. This thread and all the others like it over the years speak directly to that. Good Lord, there's already been one thread suggesting we emulate the 76ers. The current environment makes contemplating losing for strategic reasons at least somewhat sensible, although not for me. I'm aware that there's no evidence that any MLB team has ever deliberately tanked in any egregious way. Even so, a lottery for the first ten picks or so (by the worst 10 teams that season) would be a step in the right direction for further removing an incentive to fail. A relegation system might be even better, but I doubt there's a cultural or historical fit for that scheme in the US.

I don't see a lotto solving any problem. Well, I don't see a problem to be solved, but in any event instituting a lotto would add complexity without providing any benefit. Pass.

[Morgan423]

Who said anything about that? I certainly didn't. Feeling a little squeezed in binary world? Landscape kinda flat?

If the goal of a game - or by extension a series of games - is to win then it is irrational to incentivize not winning. This thread and all the others like it over the years speak directly to that. Good Lord, there's already been one thread suggesting we emulate the 76ers. The current environment makes contemplating losing for strategic reasons at least somewhat sensible, although not for me. I'm aware that there's no evidence that any MLB team has ever deliberately tanked in any egregious way. Even so, a lottery for the first ten picks or so (by the worst 10 teams that season) would be a step in the right direction for further removing an incentive to fail. A relegation system might be even better, but I doubt there's a cultural or historical fit for that scheme in the US.

We've always joked that the worst record teams should have to play each other in a playoff type game to get the best draft pick.

Like football would have the two worst record teams in the league play the Toilet Bowl to get the #1 pick.

[SteveO]

Who said anything about that? I certainly didn't. Feeling a little squeezed in binary world? Landscape kinda flat?

If the goal of a game - or by extension a series of games - is to win then it is irrational to incentivize not winning. This thread and all the others like it over the years speak directly to that. Good Lord, there's already been one thread suggesting we emulate the 76ers. The current environment makes contemplating losing for strategic reasons at least somewhat sensible, although not for me. I'm aware that there's no evidence that any MLB team has ever deliberately tanked in any egregious way. Even so, a lottery for the first ten picks or so (by the worst 10 teams that season) would be a step in the right direction for further removing an incentive to fail. A relegation system might be even better, but I doubt there's a cultural or historical fit for that scheme in the US.

So let me see if I understand you correctly. You just got done saying that no baseball team to your knowledge has tanked in the egregious way as the NBA's 76'ers have but then you go on to say that baseball should scrap its current system to adopt one that produced......wait for it....the 76'ers tank job. How does that make any sense at all?

Having a lottery does not diminished the incentives to lose, it only lowers the bar or level of loser one need be in order to be included in a shot for the grand prize for losers. If you truly want to take the incentive away to lose as you put it, then you should simply make the best record the first pick and worst the last of the first round. Of course you would probably have a completely dysfunctional, uninteresting, boring and predictable league but who cares....least those losers will be learning their lesson. There is a reason that those one top should provide opportunities to those who are down to improve their lot, it benefits everyone in the long run. Maybe in the short term baseball would see amazing numbers if the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Mets, Cubs, and big market teams got in the playoffs every year, in the long term though, the league would wither and die except in those few cities and even there it would become, well....boring. The reason NFL is king is simple, every single year you know if your team sucks, its simply because your management sucks, not because they got outspent 2:1.

[abbott]

Yes, lets let the winning teams get first pick of the new young talent that is available....makes a ton of sense, said nobody ever.

Better yet lets make all the young guys free agents so that a team like the O's never sniffs a guy like Machado or KG.

You say rewarding failure is irrational, it's not so irrational though when the alternatives are even more irrational.

youre right, of course. But the Orioles did sign Brooks Robinson in 1955 and Jim Palmer in 1963 without an amateur draft

[SteveO]

youre right, of course. But the Orioles did sign Brooks Robinson in 1955 and Jim Palmer in 1963 without an amateur draft

I hear ya but that was 50 yrs ago. A-Rod probably made more last year than the entire payroll of baseball in 1955

Replacing the amateur draft with a free agent free-for-all would be disastrous. Manny, Harper, Price, any of those talents would be mere pipedreams for markets like this with our resources.

[24fps]

So let me see if I understand you correctly. You just got done saying that no baseball team to your knowledge has tanked in the egregious way as the NBA's 76'ers have but then you go on to say that baseball should scrap its current system to adopt one that produced......wait for it....the 76'ers tank job. How does that make any sense at all?

Having a lottery does not diminished the incentives to lose, it only lowers the bar or level of loser one need be in order to be included in a shot for the grand prize for losers. If you truly want to take the incentive away to lose as you put it, then you should simply make the best record the first pick and worst the last of the first round. Of course you would probably have a completely dysfunctional, uninteresting, boring and predictable league but who cares....least those losers will be learning their lesson. There is a reason that those one top should provide opportunities to those who are down to improve their lot, it benefits everyone in the long run. Maybe in the short term baseball would see amazing numbers if the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Mets, Cubs, and big market teams got in the playoffs every year, in the long term though, the league would wither and die except in those few cities and even there it would become, well....boring. The reason NFL is king is simple, every single year you know if your team sucks, its simply because your management sucks, not because they got outspent 2:1.

No, you don't understand me correctly.

[24fps]

We've always joked that the worst record teams should have to play each other in a playoff type game to get the best draft pick.

Like football would have the two worst record teams in the league play the Toilet Bowl to get the #1 pick.

That works for me. For a long time I maintained, only half joking, that in order to claim the first overall draft pick the "winning" owner and GM both had to step up to the podium in full clown costumes in order to claim their prize. That would work too. It's only appropriate that the most pathetic loser should be recognized as such.

[SteveO]

No, you don't understand me correctly.

I'm sorry cause I thought you suggested MLB who has never had a team tank quite like the 76'ers have should have an NBA type lottery to determine the first pick as a way of not providing incentives to lose and preventing a team from tanking. Glad I misunderstood cause that idea would be a kinda strange suggestion given the very problem we are trying to avoid came out of that lottery system.

It's apples and oranges anyway. No MLB draft pick will ever have the amount of immediate impact that a number one pick in the NBA can on a team. No one player in baseball can have the amount of impact one player in the NBA can....simple mathematics. 1/5th is greater than 1/25th

[VTech]

If a team with a protected pick signs a player with a pick. does that team still get a pick at the end of the first round?

So if the phillies have the number 1 pick and sign Davis and end up forfeiting a 2nd round pick. Would the O's get a pick at the end of the 1st or 2nd round?