Thoughts on the draft lottery?

[oriole]

Without someway of controlling what the rich teams too, it’s all kinda lose-lose. Either teams will strategically field bad teams for high draft picks or lower market teams will have to rely on luck to get valuable draft picks. The whole conversation is weird because everyone gets upset (rightfully) that teams intentionally lose but no one is terribly up in arms about the root problem which is inequality in the resources to add talent. 

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, oriole said:

Without someway of controlling what the rich teams too, it’s all kinda lose-lose. Either teams will strategically field bad teams for high draft picks or lower market teams will have to rely on luck to get valuable draft picks. The whole conversation is weird because everyone gets upset (rightfully) that teams intentionally lose but no one is terribly up in arms about the root problem which is inequality in the resources to add talent. 

The competitive balance tax has done a ton to fix that issue.

Every team can spend enough to be competitive.

The question is are they willing to?

When the O's suffer because they aren't willing to spend money on International talent that isn't the fault of resource inequality.  When the A's owner (net worth 2.4B) isn't willing to spend is resource inequality really the issue?

[kidrock]

13 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

The competitive balance tax has done a ton to fix that issue.

Every team can spend enough to be competitive.

The question is are they willing to?

When the O's suffer because they aren't willing to spend money on International talent that isn't the fault of resource inequality.  When the A's owner (net worth 2.4B) isn't willing to spend is resource inequality really the issue?

Your logic seems sound to me.  Would you be able to hazard a guess as to what you think an appropriate payroll would be for a team like the A's, O's, Royals etc?

[oriole]

25 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

The competitive balance tax has done a ton to fix that issue.

Every team can spend enough to be competitive.

The question is are they willing to?

When the O's suffer because they aren't willing to spend money on International talent that isn't the fault of resource inequality.  When the A's owner (net worth 2.4B) isn't willing to spend is resource inequality really the issue?

This is all true. But the tax is a deference, not really a cap. The divide between the top teams and even just the average small market team is chasmic. It just doesn’t make sense to me to put all the blame on the owners of smaller market teams. Granted, the O’s could be spending a whole lot more than they are now and I wish they were. I don’t really believe the empty promises of future spending. So that’s obviously a huge issue as well. But how do you draw the line between appropriate spending (whether too little or too much) and having the whole system collapse? You can’t really force someone to spend money, and it’s anyone’s own prerogative to spend frivolously. 
 

Very difficult issue to address…I just don’t like when all the blame is put on the small market teams when it’s the system they’re working in that is the issue. Sure, there’s teams like the O’s that are abusing it a little and that’s frustrating. But overall there was never a chance that the O’s could compete in free agency with the behemoths of the league regardless of whether the rebuild type payrolls should be in the rear view or not. 

[Aristotelian]

What's done is done. What matters is that disincentives to true tanking are good for baseball moving forward. That said, I question how much of a deterrent it will be. The worst team is still guaranteed a high pick. The NBA has a lottery and that did not prevent a lot of teams from competing for the better chance at Wembenyama. Arguably some did way worse than anything the Orioles did in the rebuild in terms of really throwing games. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Aristotelian said:

What's done is done. What matters is that disincentives to true tanking are good for baseball moving forward. That said, I question how much of a deterrent it will be. The worst team is still guaranteed a high pick. The NBA has a lottery and that did not prevent a lot of teams from competing for the better chance at Wembenyama. Arguably some did way worse than anything the Orioles did in the rebuild in terms of really throwing games. 

But they aren't in the case of a multiyear tank.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I don't see why they need a draft at all if they have bonus pools and slots. If the last place team gets five times as much to spend as the first, then the talent will naturally go to the last place team.

My guess is two reasons:

1) Every other sport in North America has a draft and MLB isn't going to be creative/weird. Ooh look, the draft is on ESPN and dozens of people are tuning in!

2) It's easier to "negotiate", if you want to call it that, with your 20-odd draftees than with everyone. It's less work.

People will say things like all the good players will end up with the Yanks or Dodgers, but prior to the draft and way before pools and slots the Orioles signed Brooks, Palmer, Boog, and most of the core of the 1966 champs. Players go where they have opportunity. 

Very interesting.  This is what they do with the international amateurs, so we know it could be done.  The players would like it better, as it gives them some say in where they’ll play.  It might be disadvantageous to teams in smaller cities in regions that aren’t hotbeds of HS talent, since you can imagine players taking less money initially to (1) be close to home (California, Florida and Texas for a large proportion of players) or (2) be in a location where outside endorsement deals are more lucrative.

The players have opposed an international draft, so I assume they’d favor the abolition of the existing draft so long as the total slot money was the same.  

[sportsfan8703]

Is there actually a draft lottery for this upcoming draft?

[Frobby]

Just now, sportsfan8703 said:

Is there actually a draft lottery for this upcoming draft?

It already happened, months ago.  

[Frobby]

Back to the initial question, I have mixed feelings.  Obviously this does disincentivize tanking.  But, will it result in certain teams being in permanent purgatory?   I preferred living through 4 years of really pathetic baseball to living though 14 years of semi-pathetic baseball.   

I don’t know if anyone has really studied how the NBA lottery has affected the competitiveness of that league.  They still ended up this year with a team that played .207 ball and two more that played .268 ball.   The .207 team, the Pistons, have four straight seasons of .280 or less.   
 

[backwardsk]

8 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Is there actually a draft lottery for this upcoming draft?

Pittsburgh jumped to number one. 
 

I’m a little confused about some of the nuances. I understand that the Nationals can’t pick higher than 10 this year because they will pick in the top 6 two years in a row. But that rule doesn’t apply for all teams. I believe Pittsburgh (if they fall off from their hot April) could still get the number 1 three years in a row. 

[Tony-OH]

3 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Of course there is value in it.

But is the value worth the overall cost?

It is for the owner, but for everyone else?

I'm fine with not rewarding a team that is making no effort at all to be competitive.

I don't know. I'm pretty ok with Rutschman and Holliday being in the organization. If that meant tanking those seasons, I'm ok with that vs trying to get to .500, and picking 15th each season. That was what happened with the Orioles from about 1998 to 2012. 

Tanking is no fun for the fans during the tanking, that we can agree upon, but considering what the organization looks like right now, I'm ok with how Elias did the rebuild even if I don't agree with all of his moves. Losing a year of minor league development due to COVID probably pushed things back a year so overall, I'm pretty ok with everything because the results have been there since Adley arrived on the major league roster.

[DrungoHazewood]

9 hours ago, Frobby said:

Back to the initial question, I have mixed feelings.  Obviously this does disincentivize tanking.  But, will it result in certain teams being in permanent purgatory?   I preferred living through 4 years of really pathetic baseball to living though 14 years of semi-pathetic baseball.   

I don’t know if anyone has really studied how the NBA lottery has affected the competitiveness of that league.  They still ended up this year with a team that played .207 ball and two more that played .268 ball.   The .207 team, the Pistons, have four straight seasons of .280 or less.   
 

It's a little disincentive, but it's not huge, since draft position is probably not as important as saving $10s or even $100s of millions in salary in years where you're not competitive. And baseball draftees are far less certain and further away in time than other sports. Ask an owner if they'd take an extra year of rebuild in exchange for saving $400M in salaries over five years and they'll probably take that deal.

The NBA has naturally lower parity, mostly due to the structure of the sport. I'm not a basketball expert by any means, but I've definitely read that the nature of the sport and the many many possessions and scoring opportunities per game lead to the better team winning a much higher percentage of games than in baseball. Basketball has true talent .800 teams, and baseball hasn't had a true talent .700 team (i.e. regularly wins 113+ games) in a century-plus.  And if you have real .800 teams you'll have real .200 teams, too.

[DrungoHazewood]

12 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Of course there is value in it.

But is the value worth the overall cost?

It is for the owner, but for everyone else?

I'm fine with not rewarding a team that is making no effort at all to be competitive.

In theory, in an alternate universe, I'd much rather have a open pro/rel setup where if you aren't good you go away to a lower league until you figure out how to be competitive again. And hundreds of teams all have a shot at building something and passing the teams that don't care if they lose.

But in this universe and the rules we have in this reality, tanking is a thing, it really sucks for fans, but it's advantageous for owners and GMs.

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

It's a little disincentive, but it's not huge, since draft position is probably not as important as saving $10s or even $100s of millions in salary in years where you're not competitive. And baseball draftees are far less certain and further away in time than other sports. Ask an owner if they'd take an extra year of rebuild in exchange for saving $400M in salaries over five years and they'll probably take that deal.

The NBA has naturally lower parity, mostly due to the structure of the sport. I'm not a basketball expert by any means, but I've definitely read that the nature of the sport and the many many possessions and scoring opportunities per game lead to the better team winning a much higher percentage of games than in baseball. Basketball has true talent .800 teams, and baseball hasn't had a true talent .700 team (i.e. regularly wins 113+ games) in a century-plus.  And if you have real .800 teams you'll have real .200 teams, too.

You also have a situation in the NBA in which the players have considerably more power than in MLB.  Players can effectively force a team to move them, sometimes even picking the destination.