NewsGMs discuss ideas for tweaking Draft
Change would better reflect previous season's standings
By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com
11/10/09 7:21 PM EST
CHICAGO -- Major League Baseball's collective general managers floated the idea of changing the order teams pick in the First-Year Player Draft to better reflect their success during the previous season. The topic came up at Tuesday morning's meeting. As of now, the 30 teams pick in order of their regular-season finish. The new concept includes postseason success as well, meaning the team that wins the World Series would pick last rather than the team with the best regular-season record. "It's an open-ended question," said Giants GM Brian Sabean. "It's a subject that wasn't resolved during the meeting." Changing any of the rules of the First-Year Player Draft is a matter for collective bargaining and won't be addressed until representatives for the owners and Players Association begin to negotiate a new Basic Agreement during the 2011 season. The current agreement expires on Dec. 11, 2011. There has also been some traction among owners to create a worldwide Draft of amateur players. As of now, only amateur players from the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico are included in the Draft. The remainder of the players from other baseball-playing nations are considered free agents. That topic didn't come up among the GMs at Tuesday's meeting, said Jimmie Lee Solomon, MLB's executive vice president of baseball operations. Under the proposed new plan, the eight teams making the playoffs would pick behind the teams with the worst records from 1 to 22. "Right now, the proposals that were bandied about today talked about a team's overall success the previous year," Solomon said, "that it should have a direct correlation on the position a team drafts in during the succeeding year."Barry M. Bloom is a national reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
