What's Wrong With The MLB Draft

Last night I turned on ESPN to watch the first round of the 2009 MLB first year player draft. After the first 10 picks or so I started to lose interest in the draft. Why is this you ask, well let me tell you. The reason I lost interest was I had barely ever heard of any of the players being drafted and had never seen most of them play in an actual game. 

First let me explain how I feel about college baseball. I consider myself a casual college baseball fan. I try to watch a couple games here and there during the regular season and I usually watch as much as I can of the College Baseball World Series every year. During every baseball draft I have usually heard of about 20 or 30 of the players who are going to be taken in the draft but have only seen, either live or on television, about 6-10 of them actually play. 

Here’s are the reasons why no one cares about the MLB Draft. First and foremost most baseball fans have no interest in college or high school baseball. Their reasoning for this is simple; once the players are drafted they are for the most part, not going to make the major league for 2,3 or 4 years. Their argument against trying to follow the draft is: why would I try to follow the players who are drafted because by the time they reach the majors I will have forgotten who they are. When people I know make this argument I have no rebuttal, they have a valid point.

The second reason why people have no interest in the draft is that they have never seen or heard of most of the players in the draft. This argument is hard to refute because let’s face it, unless your a die-hard college baseball fan you’ve never heard of 95% of the players in the draft. I believe this is a very solvable problem. This problem can be solved by moving back the draft until after the college world series is over. By having the draft after the college world series, most of America will now be able to watch some high quality college baseball and see the prospects in action. 

The last reason why people have no interest in the draft is because of the sign ability factor. When a team drafts a player they may or may not sign that player because the player may demand too much money. Let’s say for example you are a Seattle Mariners fan. The Mariners have the second pick in the draft so you want to get really excited about who they might draft. They take as expected Dustin Ackley. Now as a Mariners fan you are ecstatic and believe your team just added the most talented position player in the draft. However, six months down the road that same Mariner fan is still waiting for their star draft pick Ackley to sign. Now Ackley is saying the Mariners aren’t offering him enough money. You the Mariner fan will probably never care about the draft again because to you, the draft is irrelevant. This is another solvable problem. Instead of having a free-for-all when signing draft picks you should make teams be forced to sign a draft pick (especially for the first round, maybe not so much in the later rounds) and if you are taken in the first round you should not be allowed to reenter your name in the draft again. You can choose to sign with that team or wait a year and then enter the league as a free agent. I know this sounds like a hard stance but something tough has to be done to make it easier for players and teams to reach agreements. 

These are the reasons why people have no interest in the MLB first year player draft and some ideas about what can be done to make it more interesting.