MLB Draft - new limits per Nightengale

[RED VAN HOT]

I see some logic in 5 rounds this year. There is a lot of growth among draft ready players in their final year. Scouts have not been able to see it. Some HS players will be hurt by truncating the draft; some may actually benefit from college or JC time. Good college seniors will now have a little leverage. College juniors likely to go in the 6-10 range will be hurt, although granting them an extra year of college eligibility would benefit them.

A 5 round draft after 2020 makes no sense to me. Assuming they do shrink the minors, how many players are needed to stock 4 minor league teams and a deep development squad at the team's spring training site. If half come from international, they still won't have enough unless they hand out a bunch of $20K contracts.

Reds have typically signed college seniors under slot in order to make over slot offers to college bound HS players. That strategy would go away. Further, if limited to a $20K offer, the better players are likely to have several offers if they are not drafted. I opine that all teams would not have an equal shot at these players if the price is fixed.

Complicating matters is a need to leave some talent for professional, newly non-affiliated teams. Cutting off the MLB draft at 20 rounds might do this. For the independent teams, establish a second draft for ML teams to draft independent team players. Make it 5 rounds with a scale for each round. The MLB team would be required to pay half to the player and half to the team. Lots of ways to do this.

[dougdirt]

I am totally behind paying players a fair living wage, but phrasing it as “pay them what they are worth” could be asking for trouble.

Many of these guys are placeholders used to fill rosters and there are guys who would line up to take their place. Sadly that diminishes their “worth.”

I’ll gladly listen if someone wants to explain how much a low minors guy is worth but I don’t think it ends well. I suppose one argument could be that 1 out of 200 late draft picks becomes a multi-million value worth player therefore we have to divide that amongst all late round picks, but I’m not sure I follow that logic.

Pay a fair living wage and leave it at that.

Well, we know that a draft artificially limits how much guys can make. So every single bonus signed is a player being paid less than they are worth. The fact that someone less talented would play for less doesn't change that.

[REDREAD]

Well, we know that a draft artificially limits how much guys can make. So every single bonus signed is a player being paid less than they are worth. The fact that someone less talented would play for less doesn't change that.

Some players are paid less than they are worth, some players are paid a lot more than they are worth.
Lots of guys get $100k or more to sign and never appear in a big league game.
If they never appear in a game, their worth is pretty low.
In most jobs, a guy straight out of college or high school does not get any kind of signing bonus.

I can see paying the kids more money in salary, as they are making less than minimum wage (from what I understand).. in any event, their salary is not a living wage.
Doug, hypothetically, if baseball eliminated signing bonuses, but increased the yearly wage, would you be in favor of that? Let's suppose the same total amount of money is spend. Yes, I know it would never actually happen in real life. So no more instant millionaires, but the kids in the minor leagues would get paid a decent wage.

[WrongVerb]

If I was going to radically restructure the draft, this is what I'd do:

Make the length 15 rounds
First 10 rounds act as they do now as far as signing bonuses go
Rounds 11-15 would be for teams to draft players committed to going to college the following year, with signing bonuses capped at $100,000 plus 4-year scholarships; if player leaves school before their junior/draft-eligible sophomore year, or if a player attends a junior college, teams retain the option to sign them at any time for the signing bonus or allow them to become a free agent
All other players can sign with any team for $20,000 with a cap of 25 of these players signed per team in any given year.

[dougdirt]

Some players are paid less than they are worth, some players are paid a lot more than they are worth.
Lots of guys get $100k or more to sign and never appear in a big league game.
If they never appear in a game, their worth is pretty low.
In most jobs, a guy straight out of college or high school does not get any kind of signing bonus.

I can see paying the kids more money in salary, as they are making less than minimum wage (from what I understand).. in any event, their salary is not a living wage.
Doug, hypothetically, if baseball eliminated signing bonuses, but increased the yearly wage, would you be in favor of that? Let's suppose the same total amount of money is spend. Yes, I know it would never actually happen in real life. So no more instant millionaires, but the kids in the minor leagues would get paid a decent wage.

No player is paid more than they are worth.

But no, I still don't like your proposed scenario because players are drastically underpaid right now even if we do include their bonuses. The players are worth far more than they are being paid in both the draft and international free agency, as well as their yearly salary after they sign. We know this because until the bonuses were restricted, guys got paid a lot better than they do now in bonus terms, and well, we also know that they don't get paid anything remotely close to a reasonable yearly salary.

[dougdirt]

Let's expand on this a little bit. We don't know how much minor league free agents sign for. But we do know what guys will be making if they've never reached free agency. If we assume there are 40 players on a rookie-ball roster, 30 players on an A-ball roster, and 20 players on both the Double-A and Triple-A roster (lower numbers here because more guys on these teams will have reached free agency and thus we don't know what exactly it is that they make), that gives us 220 players. For the entire year their combined salary is $1,752,000 for the 2021 season with the new "higher" salaries. That also includes 80 players that may not even be around next year because two rookie-level teams are likely to be eliminated, which would erase $384,000 from that total and leave you with $1,368,000 in known player salary for the year.

Then you get about $5,500,000 in international signing bonus money. In the draft you get wider variances, but let's just call it an average of $11,000,000 (the Reds, for example, were at $11.2M last year while drafting in the Top 10). So we've got a grand total of let's just round it up to $18,000,000 a year. If you spread that out evenly to the 140 players who haven't reached free agency between rookie and Triple-A, that would be about $128,000 per year. For some guys, that would be a huge boost over the amount of money they see in their baseball careers. For others it's not going to sniff the amount that they would see before reaching the Major Leagues. A guy like Nick Senzel, for example, would have made like $500,000 or so before reaching the Majors instead of over $6,000,000 like he did in the current system.

What I'd actually like to see is the teams just pay guys in the minor leagues enough money to actually be able to be baseball players full time, while also paying them something remotely close to what they pay them now in signing bonus money. For the price of a middle reliever you can pay every non-free agent in your farm system $25,000 a year. That's an additional $2,000,000 a year for a team. I know it's easy to spend someone else's money, but I don't think that's unreasonable, either.

And hey, I still want to know where that $200,000,000+ that teams paid as penalties to themselves basically (it went to MLB's central fund) for overpaying international free agents until they changed the rules went to. That alone tells us how underpaid these guys actually are. But I'd still like to know where that money went to that teams were absolutely willing to spend to acquire the players, but the players didn't see anywhere near the money teams spent to acquire them. And I'd like to know why that money isn't being used to pay players now.

[Bourgeois Zee]

Why not just make it simple?

A living wage is typically $15 an hour.

Assume 40 hours a week in game time, practice, and other work.

Assume they work during the off-season to improve.

So a base of $31,200 for every minor leaguer.

They start earning that money as soon as they sign. The signing bonus is on top. So is the per diem. So are other incidentals they may earn.

That would seem simple, no?

[kaldaniels]

If an easily replaceable “scrub” (forgive me for the term but it’s relatable) plays for a minor league club that loses money without being subsidized by MLB and the like, how much is that player “really” not “artificially” worth?

I don’t enjoy typing a loaded question like that because I don’t like the answer I come up with. But when it comes to debating what the low minor guys are “worth” other than just calling for a living wage, I get lost in the weeds.

[kaldaniels]

Doug is right in that all these prices are artificial. From Mike Trout to Rece Hinds the salary system is out of whack.

However when Doug writes as fact “no player is paid more than he is worth”...ehhhhh.

[kaldaniels]

Let's expand on this a little bit. We don't know how much minor league free agents sign for. But we do know what guys will be making if they've never reached free agency. If we assume there are 40 players on a rookie-ball roster, 30 players on an A-ball roster, and 20 players on both the Double-A and Triple-A roster (lower numbers here because more guys on these teams will have reached free agency and thus we don't know what exactly it is that they make), that gives us 220 players. For the entire year their combined salary is $1,752,000 for the 2021 season with the new "higher" salaries. That also includes 80 players that may not even be around next year because two rookie-level teams are likely to be eliminated, which would erase $384,000 from that total and leave you with $1,368,000 in known player salary for the year.

Then you get about $5,500,000 in international signing bonus money. In the draft you get wider variances, but let's just call it an average of $11,000,000 (the Reds, for example, were at $11.2M last year while drafting in the Top 10). So we've got a grand total of let's just round it up to $18,000,000 a year. If you spread that out evenly to the 140 players who haven't reached free agency between rookie and Triple-A, that would be about $128,000 per year. For some guys, that would be a huge boost over the amount of money they see in their baseball careers. For others it's not going to sniff the amount that they would see before reaching the Major Leagues. A guy like Nick Senzel, for example, would have made like $500,000 or so before reaching the Majors instead of over $6,000,000 like he did in the current system.

What I'd actually like to see is the teams just pay guys in the minor leagues enough money to actually be able to be baseball players full time, while also paying them something remotely close to what they pay them now in signing bonus money. For the price of a middle reliever you can pay every non-free agent in your farm system $25,000 a year. That's an additional $2,000,000 a year for a team. I know it's easy to spend someone else's money, but I don't think that's unreasonable, either.

And hey, I still want to know where that $200,000,000+ that teams paid as penalties to themselves basically (it went to MLB's central fund) for overpaying international free agents until they changed the rules went to. That alone tells us how underpaid these guys actually are. But I'd still like to know where that money went to that teams were absolutely willing to spend to acquire the players, but the players didn't see anywhere near the money teams spent to acquire them. And I'd like to know why that money isn't being used to pay players now.

I’m the math a-hole on here lately so here’s another one - does Dougdirt really think 12 dollars an hr (25k) is a living wage? I don’t. Are you sure you don’t want to round up?

[Boston Red]

$25k should be a living wage for these guys. Hell, $10k SHOULD be a living wage, because the teams SHOULD be housing these guys, making sure they are well fed and making sure they have the proper clothing and equipment (and medical care) to play and train. I get paying these guys peanuts. They're mostly really NOT worth very much financially. I DON'T get not investing in the health and welfare of guys that you hope are eventually going to play some part in helping you win Major League baseball games.

[kaldaniels]

$25k should be a living wage for these guys. Hell, $10k SHOULD be a living wage, because the teams SHOULD be housing these guys, making sure they are well fed and making sure they have the proper clothing and equipment (and medical care) to play and train. I get paying these guys peanuts. They're mostly really NOT worth very much financially. I DON'T get not investing in the health and welfare of guys that you hope are eventually going to play some part in helping you win Major League baseball games.

If a team housed these guys year round, provided quality food fit for athletes and healthcare at minimum cost to these guys then yes, 25k is just fine. That’s what they should be doing if they want to groom these guys for success. The current paradigm is whack.

Having said that not all minor leaguers are created equal. It is cruel to say but I’d identify the top 30 or so guys in the system and treat them like royalty. The rest I would treat respectfully but view them as replaceable cogs.

[dougdirt]

I’m the math a-hole on here lately so here’s another one - does Dougdirt really think 12 dollars an hr (25k) is a living wage? I don’t. Are you sure you don’t want to round up?

If we are still accounting for signing bonuses, AND they get $25,000 salary, I have a lot less of an issue about things. While there are certainly guys who aren't getting much of a signing bonus, I do think that $25,000 should be a minimum starting point. It's enough to get by on, especially when for 5 months at least half of your meals are paid for by someone else while you are playing baseball. I have no issue rounding up, though. Let's do the quick math on 140 players - make it $30,000 a year. That's not even an additional $3,000,000 a year to cover that versus what they'll be paid in 2021.

[757690]

NM - Doug beat me too it.

[757690]

If we are still accounting for signing bonuses, AND they get $25,000 salary, I have a lot less of an issue about things. While there are certainly guys who aren't getting much of a signing bonus, I do think that $25,000 should be a minimum starting point. It's enough to get by on, especially when for 5 months at least half of your meals are paid for by someone else while you are playing baseball. I have no issue rounding up, though. Let's do the quick math on 140 players - make it $30,000 a year. That's not even an additional $3,000,000 a year to cover that versus what they'll be paid in 2021.

The Reds are valued at over a billion dollars. This should be easy for them to cover. If they cry they can't, time to ask Congress to remove their anti-trust excemption.