Abolish the Draft? I Like it!

This article originally appeared on Friar Forecast.

Earlier in the week, Ben Davey asked whether the draft was fixable. His post not only touched on a number of his concerns but has also generated some interesting discussion in the comments.

Today at FanGraphs, Dave Cameron put forth a draft reform proposal that I believe should be seriously considered. Rather than tweak the current system, Cameron suggests we just get rid of the entire thing.

He proposes replacing the draft with an auction similar to free agency. Based on where teams finish in the standings, they would be allocated a budget they could not exceed. The team would then be free to allocate the money in the manner they see fit. International players would be included in the auction.

As Cameron explains:

The top tier teams who have been winning recently would receive small sums of money that would essentially take them out of the running for the premium talents. Given that the teams that finished in the bottom half would likely be willing to bid ~60-70 percent of their budgets on the top guys available, the Strasburgs of the world would probably command bonuses in the $7 or $8 million range, which the winning teams would not be able to match.

By giving each team a player acquisition budget, you also open up new strategies for teams to pursue. Like the international crop a lot more than the American kids? You could sign practically everyone you want with $10 or $12 million and skip the domestic players entirely. Want to load up on the best kids from your home state? Sign them all if you want. Think your team needs an infusion of pitching immediately? Bid on college arms and college arms only.

Cameron also proposes using revenue-sharing dollars to create the budgets. He notes that teams spent $160 million on signing their picks this year, so Major League Baseball could take something like $200 million from revenue sharing to make up the budgets for the auction.

I am still not sure what to think about that element of his proposal. Cameron makes a good point when he writes that using revenue-sharing money would ensure a “massive part of the revenue-sharing money did not go into the pockets of the owners.”

At the same time, the whole point of revenue sharing is to help smaller market teams that are not capable of generating the same level of revenue as larger market teams. This system reallocates revenue-sharing dollars away from low-revenue teams and towards low-win teams (there is, however, a good amount of overlap between the two).

Even if revenue-sharing dollars were not used, I think some form of this system could work. There are bound to be logistical issues, and because the total pot is capped, there is an element of unfairness towards the players.

However, this system is highly efficient in allocating talent, provides an advantage to the teams with the worst records, and subjects international players to the same process as those from the US and Canada. I like it!