By: Steven Green

Steven Green — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 20:58:44 +0000

MLB's recommendation for the draft slot seems to be causing problems which lead to negotiation mistakes both for the teams and the players' agents. Take, for example, the Cardinal's first four picks this season.

A whole slew of teams passed on Zach Cox due in part to what they felt his signing bonus demands are. Clearly his talents and capacities demand much more than the 25th draft slot, so everybody involved is going to ignore MLB's recommendation for his No. 25 draft slot, yet MLB actually expects they either will collect a fine from being ignored, or will be notified so they can send a representative to futily demonstrate why he should only be given an offer to be commenserate with MLB's recommendation for his No. 25 draft slot. This will be a waste of time and resources from MLB, yet for some reason, Bud Selig will feel these to be fully justifiable expenses. Moving on.
The Cardinals were actually fortunate enough that several teams passed on Seth Blair, who should not have been on the draft board at 25 much less remaining there at 41. Blair's agent should have demanded a signing bonus commensearate with MLB's recommendation for the No. 25 draft slot, but may have felt it is not personally worth his time to negotiate a 12% differrence of half a million, which is maybe $60k difference in his pocket for what could be 2 or more months worth of negotiation. Seth Blair deserves better from his agent.
Tyrell Jenkins and Jordan Swagerty actually were safer picks that got drafted before other players who have higher talents, so they would be hitting the lottery to accept signing bonuses by the guidelines of MLB's recommendation for their draft slots.
Perhaps if MLB wanted to get serious about slot recomendations, they should give additional recomendations on each slot. Category 1, team is ambitious by selecting a player whose talents surpass at least 3-5 other players who were already selected, NO RECOMENDATION, team is on its own realizing the player has more talent than the team should have aquired with that draft slot. Category 2, team is selecting safely by selecting a player whose talents are surpassed by at least 3-5 other players who have not yet been selected, REDUCED level of recomended slot money realizing the team is accepting less talent than they should have acquired with the draft slot. Category 3, team selects the best player available and the player was not passed over for signing concerns by other teams, CURRENT level of recomended slot money. At least with this change in recomendations, Bud Selig saves money on his representatives being sent out needlessly, MLB teams have a better understanding of how to read the recomendations for the signing bonuses, and agents understand what part of the recomendation they are negotiating against.

Comments on: Cards Land Blair for $751,500

By: Steven Green