Finding MLB Draft Changes that Stop Tanking

On 11/19/2021 at 9:16 AM, Mike Sixel said:

How so? The worst teams get to add more players before the best teams add one. The money is capped, so the rich can't outbid the others. The money is a bit more, but not much, than teams currently spend in a draft. 

There is an incorrect assumption that players sign simply for the max money. Ignore all of the under slot signings. It assumes players will go for the highest amount of money. That has not been the case even in free agency, Winning organizations will draw more and better talent than the have nots. The rich will get richer. Try looking at attendance for teams as it relates to winning, There are outliers like Tampa, but there usually are outliers in anything. 

26 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

Teams are definitely trying to lose.  As long as there are structures in place to help teams with poor talent improve their state (and there has to be) there will be incentive to lose.  Too many leagues try too many things to eliminate this behavior in mostly gimmicky, ineffective ways.

The only thing you can do is have a salary cap and a salary floor and hope for parity.  That's the NFL model and it works.

It is debatable that it really works in the NFL. The Lions continue to do poorly while the Patriots have won how many titles? 

21 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Teams might still be terrible, but that's not the issue. Some team is ultimately going to draw the short straw and lose a lot of games. The Twins had what looked like a competitive roster this year, but injuries and poor play led to a bad season record.

The issue is teams not even trying to be competitive and committing to long stretches of non-competitive baseball during rebuilds. The Marlins and Pirates' of the league, if you will.

Spending money does not always make for a more competitive team.  Telling them to spend more money is not going to fix anything. The leagues with salary floors do not see a parity. Mediocrity as opposed to very bad does not improve revenue.

3 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

No league can fix perpetual mismanagement through their system.  Nor can they (or should they) limit success if you draft a GOAT in the 5th round.

You just shot down your own proposal. Nice job. 

Not trying to win does not equal actively trying to lose as far as I'm concerned. Those are two entirely different concepts, but I think it's really semantics in a lot of ways.

Many MLB teams are not trying to compete for years at a time. The rebuild philosophy is incredibly unpopular with fans but extremely popular with franchises because rebuilding is more successful than a traditional approach when it comes to fielding a championship team.

The Dodgers and Yankees don't have to rebuild. The Royals? They had losing seasons for 17 of 18 years from 1995-2012. They began a rebuild for the 2011 season and made it to back to back World Series' in 2014-2015. That is not a coincidence. The trade off of assets by the Royals led to a few names like Lorenzo Cain, Alciedes Escobar, James Shields and Wade Davis. Big names which led to 14 WAR for the 2014 World Series team and 10 WAR for 2015 with Shields departing for the Padres. The World Series appearance in 2014, bolstered by great young talent and the saved money from trading away big assets allowed Kansas City to go big (for them) in free agency which led to the Royals becoming the 2015 World Series Champions.

Rebuilding works. Fans hate it. It's not good for MLB as a whole, but it is good for an individual small/mid market team owner. It's a valid strategy to allow small and mid market teams a better shot at the World Series.

The traditional method involves trying to spend near the maximum the club can afford and fielding a mediocre team hoping that a group of home grown prospects have a breakout in a very short window to supplement the already good, short term asset entrenched players. This means the up and coming players must mesh with the existing players. Having all DH's (like the Twins) doesn't work here.

Finding a sort of balance which smoothes out the process, where owners are compelled to put a competitive product on the field, but not prevented from rebuilding is the best option, IMHO. A salary floor does this. The Royals still start the rebuild in 2011 by trading Greinke and Betancourt, but they sign a couple aging 1 year guys to bring the payroll up, but without any kind of long term drag on the team's finances. You never know when a has-been veteran pitcher on a one year contract will show back up with a career year and help you into a World Series Championship.

1 hour ago, TheLeviathan said:

Um....no.  Perfect parity isn't the goal.  The NFL works because good (or bad) management is the largest determining factor.  Teams rise and fall moreso on the basis of their choices than league structures.  That's the best that can be hoped for.

Teams still tank in the NFL too, but the issue is better mitigated there.

The issue is mitigated in large part due to the playoff structure. Right now only 2 teams have no shot at the playoffs There is hope until late in the season. Not so in baseball.  A quick turnaround can happen in football with a good draft and a few acquisitions. That does not happen in baseball. Very few draftees can play in the majors within the year after they were drafted. Relatively cheap signings that have an impact in baseball are the bounce back players like Robbie Ray.. Football has the Linval Joseph type contracts, relatively cheap, huge impact. The differences how they operate incomparable for a model for business

2 hours ago, old nurse said:

Spending money does not always make for a more competitive team.  Telling them to spend more money is not going to fix anything. The leagues with salary floors do not see a parity. Mediocrity as opposed to very bad does not improve revenue.

I don't disagree with you in regard to spending money always making for a competitive team. It does increase the likelihood the team is competitive. I'm also not encouraging a hard salary floor or a hard salary ceiling. Just a luxury tax system like baseball currently has. Hard floors and caps are bad for teams because it takes away all flexibility and can lead to teams being forced to make unexpected, but catastrophic decisions to their roster.

Mediocrity does improve raw revenue vs. being very bad. Mediocrity provides hope. Hope brings fans to the game improving ticket sales and engagement. Hope gets fans to tune in and leads to larger TV contracts. Looking at team revenue's the worst teams will have the lowest revenues. The best teams will have the highest revenues. Revenue sharing does get mixed in there to help smooth that out so from a "net" perspective, there might be more truth to what you're saying.

6 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

Yes...baseball has other challenges.  The contract issues could be mitigated by a cap and floor.  Which is all I suggested.  No magic cure, tanking is here to stay, just mitigate.

NFL has tanking too.  Just less nonsense because there arent 200M payroll differences between teams.

"Suck for Luck" was real. Teams weren't even putting their best players on the field.