Tigers Win The Lotto!

The Tigers won baseball’s version of the lottery yesterday when MLB held it’s first ever competitive balance lottery. You see, the idea behind the extra picks for next year’s amateur draft is to try and help teams out in markets that are at a disadvantage. In other words, teams that don’t generate revenue, and are in the smallest markets. Most of the teams involved took part in both drawings, there was one for six picks at the end of the first round, and one for six picks at the second round. The Tigers were the only team that was added to just the 2nd round of picks.

Well, the Tigers got lucky! Detroit was awarded an extra pick in the 2013 draft after the 2nd round. The good thing about this pick, is that it can be used in trades before the trading deadline on July 31st. Well, a pick that late might not have a ton of value, but if the Tigers are dealing with a team like Houston or something, it could be a nice little throw-in instead of cash.

I will be honest with you all. I haven’t dug into the language completely, but if teams like St. Louis and Detroit were part of the competitive balance draft, I feel like there is something wrong. Let them collect their revenue sharing, but it seems to be, competitive balance should be about a team’s record if anything. Take the worst 6 teams, give them a pick after the first. Then take the next 6 worst and then give them a pick at the end of the second.

The whole idea seems kind of strange to me however. It’s almost like baseball is trying to tell small market and lower revenue teams, sorry, we won’t let you level the playing field by overpaying for amateur talent, so here is an extra pick. My question would simply be to that. Why put the cap on the spending then in the first place?

It’s no secret I am not a fan of the bonus pool spending. Baseball allows owners free reign to overspend wildly on free agents, which are guaranteed contracts way more damaging to franchises than spending 13M dollars on a collection of amateurs, yet owners hands are now tied by penalties for overspending in the draft.

Well, no use me talking about it, it’s certainly not going to change because I don’t like it.

Thanks for the extra pick though Bud Selig. It should come in useful at the trading deadline.

Go Tigers!