The MLB Draft is quite frankly one of the bigger letdowns of the year. For all the positive things that have happened around baseball in the past few years, the draft never seems to be one of them. Now I know that we at Athletics Nation and other blogs around SB Nation are fascinated by the draft. We follow it very closely, wondering what player the A's might pluck. But it doesn't have the cache of other professional sports' drafts. The NFL draft is an Event. Granted, ESPN helped manufacture that as an Event with nearly 24/7 coverage of it leading up to the late April date. Even both the NBA and NHL drafts are seemingly events compared to the draft for baseball.
I think there's a lot of good reasons why it isn't nearly as compelling as the other sports. For one, many of the players chosen are high school kids that seem like they're three, four or even five years away from ever contributing to the pro level. Whereas if you look at football, there's a chance that the running back your team selects in the first round will be on the field immediately or at least in a third down role. Basketball is often the same thing, whereas it doesn't seem like the player you select early won't be a part of your team for a long, long time.
Obviously baseball is the only league to have at least five levels of minors before the player makes it to the pros. You've got rookie ball, low A, high A, Double-A and Triple-A. If the player is talented (or more likely, old enough with college experience) enough, they might make that rare jump into Double-A and then possibly to the pros. But that's a relatively rare occurence. Though the A's had that happen pretty quickly with Huston Street. But again he was an older college player and a reliever. You don't see it happen too often with hitters or starting pitchers because the jump from the aluminum bats to wood bats is one adjustment and then the adjustment to pro level pitching, even at the A-level is enormous.
Still, I wish that baseball would make a move to really market the draft as an Event more. Yes it was on the MLB Network for the first time this year. But it needs to be scheduled for a different time. 3 p.m. PST on a Tuesday? That's usually reserved for Golden Girls re-runs and Oprah. Not that I'd know anything about Oprah's favorite things. Ahem.
Here's what I think they need to do. Move the draft to a Saturday morning and get it on Fox or ESPN. Do it the Saturday before the All Star break and don't have any games scheduled. Make it the feature of the league for that short time period. It's tough enough that the draft takes place during the season, which is the only professional sport that does that. Or better yet, move it to before or just after the season ends. I know that would make it tough to get kids to participate in any of the leagues and likely put them behind the curve a bit, but baseball is the second most popular sport in this country. The draft that determines much of what happens with these kids should be more prominent than it is now, and MLB Network isn't that venue.
What do you think? Is it enough that it's a niche event that barely gets a mention anywhere outside of rabid fans of those particular teams? Or do you want more for it? I guess I'm just a little jealous of those football guys and their very high profile draft every year. Either that or Mel Kiper's cool hair.
0 recs | 45 comments
It was aired on ESPN last year, IIRC.
Frankly, there’s just too many players taken who are too far away from even making an appearance in the big leagues, let alone being an impact player, for the MLB draft to even remotely compare to the hype of the NFL or NBA drafts.
Except Strasburg, who’s probably gonna be in the Washington rotation by September.
mikev - June 10, 2009
People watch college football and college basketball, so when it’s draft time, we know the guys getting drafted. Plus, those guys will enter their league straight away.
I love football and basketball, and I love baseball, too, but I watch college football and college basketball unlike college baseball. I’ve never heard of any of the guys that are getting drafted into Major League Baseball. For me, that’s why I personally care a whole lot the NFL and NBA drafts respectively and not the MLB draft.
Rated-R Superstar - June 10, 2009
Ding Ding!
Beat me to it. It really is that simple. If you know the players coming up, you care about who you’re drafting. College and high school football and basketball are wildly more popular than college baseball.
Who really knows about baseball projects coming up? The most hardcore fans, sure. But the average fan — nah. They learn about their players in the farm league (maybe) or when they finally make it to the bigs.
princemilo - June 10, 2009
Right.
But I think it’s the combination of these factors. We don’t know about the players because there are so many levels of development (e.g., college is sort of like a minor league to casual fans). The draft is during the season, so many aren’t as motivated or hungry to do baseball research. And the draft is during the season, well, because the players are so far away (back to the “so many levels”).
I would only add that I think there is something about the nature of baseball and inability to predict who will make it to the show and who will waste away for years in the minors. The tools that it takes to become a great NFL player are much more obvious at draft time than are the tools it takes to become a great MLB player. In a way, this reduces back to the “so many levels” idea (the reason we have the minor leagues). But I would venture to argue that perhaps ML B talent relies more on nurture than on the nature side of the equation, compared to football and basketball. That’s not to say all pro-sports require a tremendous work ethic, I just feel like baseball might be more dependent on things like good coaching and practicing “the right way” than are other sports. This could explain why the baseball draft is more of a crap shoot than other drafts.
smokelanda - June 10, 2009
It'd be nice if it got more attention but it just doesn't really get the interest from the average person
It’s not like college football where every Saturday there are games on TV all day long and now they have a game of the week seemingly every weeknight. It’s not like college basketball where Thursdays and Saturdays are their big days for games. Those athletes get the exposure needed for the casual fan to recognize them when their names are called in the draft.
With baseball, the only games you ever really hear anything about are when the college World Series starts up with their regionals and so on. Like you said, a lot of the players taken are high school kids who are relatively unknown and if they sign they’re going to spend multiple years progressing through the minors instead of opening the season on an NFL team’s special teams unit or in an NBA team’s D-League affiliate, for example.
And with so many players taken, it’s hard to even be that interested in it after the first few rounds. Unless you pay very close attention to baseball players in college and high school, 95% or more are going to generate a “Who?” response.
Just the way it is, I guess. It’d be different if college baseball was on TV a lot. At least then there’d be more exposure to build on.
Flashfire - June 10, 2009
Yeah I also think the big thing is the immediate rewards
You often see college players make big impacts immediately in those other sports. That’s a much bigger rarity in baseball.
Tyler Bleszinski - June 10, 2009
Definitely
Hearing about someone like Strasburg potentially joining the Nationals before the season is over is REALLY rare, compared to football and basketball where some teams draft a guy they expect to contribute as a starter right away.
Flashfire - June 10, 2009
What those three guys up there said.
And rather eloquently, I might add.
67MARQUEZ - June 10, 2009
No trading picks
In the NFL and NBA, the draft night trades are a big intrigue. You can’t trade up or down in the MLB draft, a big part of the reason it’s not as popular. Half the fun of the NFL and NBA drafts is the trades
SamYam - June 10, 2009
Trades and stuff are some of the fun, yeah, but majority of the fun is seeing where the players you watched in college go professionally.
Rated-R Superstar - June 10, 2009
yeah draft-day-pick-swapping is part of what draws me to the NHL draft, as well..
plus their amatuer prospects are covered a lot more, i.e. Tavares/Hedman/Doughty etc. getting just as much hype in hockey circles every offseason as Strasburg got in baseball circles..
dtownmbrown - June 10, 2009
agreed
if you were waiting, and say one of the team just traded away a pick for a reliever or something, that would be cool
closetasfan - June 10, 2009
NFL drafted players typically contribute the seaon in which they're drafted
MLB drafted players take time to develop and there are minor league affiliates oF the big club that ‘house’ them until (or if) they are ready to contribute. That’s what I see as the biggest difference in the attention pay to both. I’d write more about roster sizes, the more individual nature MLB takes over NFL in not noticing the roster turnover as much in football but am using a phone, and not a real keyboard, to reply.
LowcountryJoe - June 10, 2009
A lot of it is also speculation
I would guess, without running the numbers, that there are many more players who were drafted really late in baseball who wind up huge impact players than in other sports, showing that it’s much more of a dartboard experiment than the other drafts. Then again, that’s just a guess.
Tyler Bleszinski - June 10, 2009
There are only 2 rounds in the NBA draft
and 7 in the NFL … there are no later rounds in the other drafts …
devo - June 10, 2009
Completely agree with everything that's been said so far
The good drafting (especially non-first round draftees) → good team is much more pronounced in NFL/NBA than it is in MLB. People see the impact almost immediately in NFL and NBA, as you said Blez.
A lot of it has to do with the salary cap. A team like the Yankees, Mets, or Red Sox can buy their way out of bad draft picks, or not having their picks due to FA signings. I mean, the Mets had an awful draft by many means (I don’t think they even took one top 100 talent) but they’re not really going to miss that much. The Yanks had a pretty bad draft as well, even with the picks they did have (they had a pick in the 1st and 2nd rounds due to non-signs from last year).
That’s not really the case in NFL.
Blicks - June 10, 2009
It makes me think or at least reinforce my idea
that the MLB system is really broken and archaic. By that I mean, a salary cap as well as the ability to trade draft picks would really change the dynamic of things, I think.
Then again, clearly MLB loves the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Angels and Dodgers being able to be really solid every year because they’re in larger markets that bring in more revenues.
Tyler Bleszinski - June 10, 2009
If MLB wanted to make the draft a spectacle like the NFL or even NBA draft
They’d have to put a whole hell of a lot of resources towards it. Unlike the NFL, where there are 7 rounds of 32 teams, and the NBA, where there are 2 rounds of 30 teams, baseball has 50ish rounds. That’s around 1,500 players. Even if you wanted to popularize the first 10 rounds, that’s 300 players.
It would be terribly difficult to give all these guys attention like college basketball and football get. I think the main problem is that people just don’t know who is being drafted. The only attention amateur baseball gets is the College World Series, which is just a handful of games towards the end of the year. Nobody would watch high school baseball.
And unless you’re a minor league baseball nut, it’s hard to follow a draftee for the years that he plays in the minors. I love the draft. I love watching scouting videos and reading reports. But there’s no way I can keep track of 1,500 players. Strasburg got a bunch of deserved attention in the days leading up to the draft, and I think if there were a few BBTN (with special guest analysts, not Ravech and Co.) that went over the best draft prospects, then they could probably televise the first few rounds like they did on the MLB Network, but you can’t go much further than that.
NateHST - June 10, 2009
Haven't seen this brought up:
This is an absolutely terrible idea, especially for the kids getting drafted, and not just for the reason you mentioned, (then dismissed out of hand,) which was that the players wouldn’t be in professional programs that summer. Missing out on some pretty crucial development time is bad enough, but a lot of these kids have to decide between going pro or going to college. As it is they have a pretty short window in which to make a decision that could affect the rest of their lives. Shortening it by a month by moving the draft to All-Star weekend is a horrible burden to place upon them. Making them put their lives on hold until October or even November is just insane.
Nate - June 10, 2009
I agree with this 100%
Though moving it after the end of the CWS would make it easier to judge which idiot coach let their pitcher throw 200 pitches and messed up their arm.
designatedforassignment - June 10, 2009
+1
Nick - June 10, 2009
Also
Players shouldn’t be allowed to refuse to sign and re enter the draft the following year. Yeah so we drafted so and so, but they won’t sign for whatever reason, and we don’t actually get that player we drafted.
If the player won’t sign with the team, the players rights should be tradeable by the team that drafted them all while knowing they can’t re enter the draft next year.
Cut down the number of rounds.
eliminate high school prospects eligibility.
It’s too broad and massive for anyone but really hardcore baseball people to follow closley.
A combine would help too. I know the NFL combine has it’s flaws, but its’ something for the fans to get excited about and follow and gets you to know the players who are about to be drafted much better.
once again the NFL does it best and the other leagues are slow to adapt.
TheGreenGoldCrush - June 10, 2009
I don't think it will ever be that way.
Like everyone above me said it has to do with the ability to watch players. I have never seen any of the players drafted play, beyond youtube videos of a couple of swings, which in itself is a new invention and the amount of video footage has increased dramatically in just the last year.
If you really want to make the draft worth while I would set up a rule that prevents HS kids going into the draft like both the NBA and NFL have. Then I would invest in promoting college baseball, so that people can see the players.
I would allow trading picks, as it increases the intrigue of the draft and a team like the Pirates can trade down rather than being forced to take a substandard player at #4 and players people know current prospects and big leaguers could be included.
Then the entire week before the draft their should be draft special after draft special on whatever network is showing the draft, so people get to know what kind of players these potential draftees are. This should also include a combine for the top draft prospects which would allow for exhibition games drills and a lot of video footage to be available.
They shouldn’t have the MLB network do the analysis either. I didn’t hear one draft pick they said was a reach or a bad pick. Being critical of teams is necessary for good coverage and interest.
Lastly they should hire me to implement all these changes as I am currently unemployed :-P
designatedforassignment - June 10, 2009
Setting up a rule that prevents HS kids from going into the draft...
Problem with this is though that the international FA market in MLB grabs guys at like, 16. Either that would have to change by putting a minimum age limit in that accord or HS players would have to be allowed to be drafted.
That just generates a major age disparity and double standard between the international players who are signed very, very young and the US/Canada/Puerto Rico players who have to wait until they’re a college sophomore or 21yo.
Blicks - June 10, 2009
I think another part of it is that people watch a lot more college football than college baseball (due to availability on TV, etc.).
If you follow your favorite college football QB on your favorite college football team, your more likely to be interested in the draft if he’s in it. However, if you can’t watch your college baseball team on TV all the time, how can you develop affinity towards the players? I mean, you can to some extent, but not as much as the NFL, NBA, etc.
DyeLongJustice - June 10, 2009
College football is on TV alot because people like to watch it.
Not the other way around. College baseball just isn’t that attractive a product.
Glorious Mundy - June 10, 2009
I don't think the MLB draft is ever going to compare ...
Most NFL and NBA draft picks are playing in the pros from day 1 and a handful of them will be stars within year 1 …
It’ll be 2-3 years before even the best MLB draft picks make it to the show.
They’ll never be comparable.
devo - June 10, 2009
unless your Xavier Nady
DyeLongJustice - June 10, 2009
or Joey Devine
although that didn’t work out so well for the Braves.
Blicks - June 10, 2009
Or us...
Helloooo 1st - June 10, 2009
They should let AN run the MLB draft.....
Over 1000 posts on day one? And at least 400 posts today? Wow. We rock.
gigglingone - June 10, 2009
I don't get why you want it to be a big event
I watch them because the Warriors and 49ers are always awful and picking near the top, but both those drafts are incredibly, incredibly tedious. The first round lasts, like, hours. Frankly, I thought the MLB Draft moved along smoothly and nicely and was exactly what a draft should be. Informative and appealing, but not overwhelming and exhausting.
I’d rather they fix the stupid slot system and let teams trade picks before they worry about the glitz and glam of the draft.
walk off bunt - June 10, 2009
I completely agree with this.
There are other things MLB needs to fix with the draft.
Perhaps not a hard-slotting system, per se, but definitely a maximum bonus.
Also no Major League contracts to draftees. That’s the big killer. Handcuffs teams in a big way.
Blicks - June 10, 2009
this
Future Ed - June 10, 2009
This isn't a reality show
The draft is designed to make the distribution of young talent more equal among major league franchises, and to balance that need with the rights of individual players to make a living earning money for professional baseball teams. Decisions about the draft — when it happens, who’s involved, who’s eligible, etc. — should be made to maximize those goals. If the draft ends up being a good t.v. show in addition, then fine. But moving it to the offseason so there’ll be more buzz, or making HS players ineligible, are, IMHO, really, really, really bad ideas, and misguided ones at that.
Oh, one other factor to consider when discussing why the MLB draft isn’t such a big deal — baseball is the only sport in which a huge portion of the players were never eligible for the draft, since no one outside Canada or the US (including PR) gets drafted. Many of the players everyone loves were never even eligible to be drafted in the first place. That’s not how it works in the NFL or NBA, or the NHL I think.
Nick - June 10, 2009
I believe the draft is "second rate"
because the players dont have an immediate impact. Most players take 2-3 years to make it to the show
robbo650 - June 10, 2009
draft order doesn't count
In MLB draft, the quality of the player is usually more dependent on the money they sign for rather than the picks they were drafted at. So richer teams will likely to have higher rated prospects. It’s almost like watching the free agency, you know the Yankees and BoSox will make their play, and the A’s can stick around and pick from the scrap heap.
asfansince1989 - June 10, 2009
Not really true.
The A’s have made a concerted effort to improve through the draft, mainly by being willing to pay the tough sign guys and get them in their system.
In theory the Yankess/Cubs/Red Sox should just go off BA’s top 100 list in the lower rounds and draft those guys, but they stick to the slotting system by and large.
OldhamA - June 10, 2009
Sports Illustrated ran an article about this today:
Link
My favorite line from the article:
Selig is about as personable as mud on TV, IMO. Other than that astute observation, I have to agree with this article, and many of the comments on this post, that there are countless reasons as to why the MLB draft is just “not like the others.”
PortlandPachyderm - June 10, 2009
You mean, "Los Angeles"?
Nick - June 10, 2009
All i read was the headline
i say its that the returns take so much longer…
most NBA and NFL rookies will play in their first year at some point
Huston Street was the fastest callup from being drafted that i can remember, and that was still at least a calender year
9Custs - June 10, 2009
I don't see the problem
What I was able to see and hear and read was fine. Its should not be a faux event like the NBA draft. I am not clear on what an “NFL” is so I cannot comment.
THe draft is the definition of “inside baseball.” I was excited when I heard the A’s first pick because i care about baseball even though I heard it on my drive home from someone who may or may not be called “Mr. T” but was never in a hit TV show. THis “Mr. T” was bagging on the process. Frankly I don’t want “Mr. T” caring because he would more likely than not say something stupid and that would make my head explode, orphaning my kids. I would not like that.
Future Ed - June 10, 2009
Baseball is totally different.
Basketball and football don’t even have minor leagues. They play college and then they play pro. Baseball drafts players at a different stage of their development. To expect it to be comparable to drafts in other sports is just silly. Short of drastically changing the sport, it’s not going to happen.
I don’t know a whole lot about why baseball is how it is. I assume there’s some good reason why players are drafted in the summer rather than the winter, why draft picks are not tradable, and why we have several levels of minor leagues. If you think those reasons really aren’t good reasons, fine; let’s debate that on the merits. But don’t throw out a system that’s working just to make the draft more entertaining, because really, the watchability of the draft is not very important. Certainly not worth mucking up something else for.
iglew - June 10, 2009
Does the baseball draft have to be an "event"? I don't think so.
I agree with the general consensus that the fact that so many players drafted never even smell a major league field as being one of the primary reasons it’s not. But I really don’t see why it needs to be either.
UncleLeo - June 10, 2009
How about pointing out the obvious
Baseball America had the names of the first 7 draft picks on their website (free content, I might add) an hour before the draft started! What’s the point in watching when you already know the results.
Allow trading draft picks.
Enforce a slotting system.
Only televise through the 2nd round, max.
grover - June 10, 2009
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