Give a Little, Get a Little, MLB Owners

Editor’s Note: This is the seventh in a 10-part series commemorating baseball’s new commissioner with advice for his tenure. To read more about this series, click here.

Back in 1977, the White Sox signed first baseman Ron Blomberg to a major league deal. The slugger had two at-bats for the Yankees the previous season, and injuries meant his career high in at-bats was only 301, but he was a proto-Nick Johnson, hitting whenever he was healthy enough. Only 72 players in baseball history with 1,000 plate appearances or more had an adjusted OPS as high as Blomberg. The White Sox were making a downright sabermetric move, then.

It failed. Blomberg played in just 61 games before retiring. But you’re not here to read about the former first-overall pick who couldn’t stay healthy, or the machinations of the 1977 White Sox. You’re here to read about the horrible compensatory draft pick system, which started with the pick given away for Blomberg. The Yankees used the pick to draft Wonder Dog Rex Hudler, who probably wasn’t the missing piece for future White Sox teams. The idea that they had to give up anything just to sign a player, just to help their team win, though, that’s what rankles. And it’s rankled for nearly 40 years.

World Series have been won because of compensatory draft picks. Consider Jacoby Ellsbury and Clay Buchholz, drafted by the Red Sox for losing Orlando Cabrera and Pedro Martinez, respectively. World Series have been lost because of them. Picture an alternate history with Rafael Palmeiro on the Padres, Torii Hunter on the Reds, or Shawn Green on the Giants. The picks affect every offseason, every team’s plans. They cost players millions of dollars when the circumstances are just so.

It’s important to remember, though, that draft pick compensation is just the stupidest thing. I’m reminded of something Sam Miller wrote once:

Draft pick compensation is just the stupidest thing.

Indeed. Miller likens the system to something that taxes the team trying to get better and taxes the player who dares switch teams. It rewards the team that loses the free agent, but the newest Collective Bargaining Agreement even took the steam out of that reward, giving teams picks at the bottom of the round instead of the higher pick the signing team lost.

Here’s how the current system works: A team can offer its free agent the deal of a one-year salary that’s based on the average of the top 125 player salaries from the previous season. This is called the “qualifying offer.” If the player refuses this offer, any other team that signs him has to give up a draft pick. A team picking in the first 10 spots will give up a second-round pick (or later if it has signed other free agents who received the qualifying offer.) A team picking after No. 10 will give up a first-round pick for the first qualifying free agent it signs sign, losing a subsequent pick for each free agent thereafter.

This is actually an improvement on previous systems, if slightly. It’s something we’re used to, something that’s codified, but that doesn’t mean it still isn’t pointless. Review the arguments for the compensatory draft system:

1. To save the owners money
2. To save teams money, and therefore save the owners money
3. 
To cost the players money, which leads to the owners saving money

The other benefit is that it saves owners money. This is why it will never die.

Here’s hoping, though. Commissioner-in-waiting Rob Manfred has a lot of priorities, I’m sure. Lots of ideas, lots of big ideas. They all come under the umbrella of one goal, though: Make baseball better. That’s the golden rule of baseball commissioning, then. Do unto baseball as you would have baseball do unto you. Make the game better. Expand the audience. Help the fans enjoy the sport more. Worrying about money is an important part of the gig, but it still falls under that golden rule. Make the sport better, and the money should follow.

A free agent market without compensation would make the game better. Not directly, sure. The average fan isn’t sitting at home, wondering about compensation picks at the end of the first round, then using the information to decide on season tickets. But what does stoke the interest of the average fan is movement. Transactions. Big free agent deals. Teams going for it. Teams really going for it. Signings. Trades. More signings. The coal of the hot stove warms many a heart, and ditching the system makes for a better hot stove season. More teams will be interested and active. The team with the No. 11 pick doesn’t have to worry about losing it because it had the gall to finish with 86 losses instead of 87.

What’s not going to happen: Manfred walking into an owners’ meeting and saying, “Let’s get rid of this money-saving tactic we’re used to because it’s just the stupidest thing. All in favor? Ayes have it. Next order of business…” It saves money. The average fan doesn’t know it exists. We’re all used to it. What reason would the owners have for ditching it? None.

What reason would the commissioner have for ditching it? Well, it would make the game incrementally better. It’s a part of the golden rule. So he would have to sell it to the owners. Here’s how I would hope he could do it:

Let us use this money-saving rule as a bargaining chip to get some sort of concession from the MLBPA that can also save us money, but isn’t so dippy and transparent.

The owners are sitting on a bargaining chip that is in place, and it’s one they’ll fight for, fangs bared. But it’s also a nonsensical one that disproportionately hurts the mid-high-range free agents who win the reverse-free-agent lottery and the teams trying to win more games (and draw more fans). More than a few owners have been burned by the idea of compensatory draft picks. “Boy, I’d sure love to make my team better, but …” is a thought GMs have to ponder every year. Get a concession from the MLBPA that’s just as juicy, and it might not be farfetched for compensatory picks to go away forever. They’re only popular when they save money.

Exactly what would that concession be? You got me there. I’m a baseball writer, not a lawyer. I walk off the lot with an overpriced car and extended warranty every time. That’s not for me to figure out.

The basics make sense, though. The players hate the system. The system depresses the free agent market, which is a stealthy marketing tool to keep people caring about the sport during the winter. The money saved is abstract, except for a few unfortunate cases. Most of the owners have been burned by it. No one likes it (until they save money).

Figure out a way to exchange the system for something else, then. Make it revenue-neutral, that’s not my business. Keep on ownin’, owners. Keep on saving money wherever you can. But if I had to figure out something for the new commissioner to do, it would be “make the game better.” Here’s an easy target and a good place to start when the new CBA comes up.