No Draft

Jack Moore at The Hardball Times takes up the cause of eliminating the amateur draft in favor of universal free agency:

One of those questions came from Jim Bouton, then with the New York Yankees. It’s a question that has in many ways defined the way we think about the economics of baseball. “I think there would be a problem if the players could move from one team to the other. Wouldn’t the wealthiest team get all the stars?”

Miller’s response was simple: “What would you say about a system which has produced one team that has won thirty pennants and twenty World Series in the past forty-five years?”

That team was, of course, the Yankees, who were even more dominant in the era before free agency than in the era since, during which money would supposedly rule over all. Despite this fact, common knowledge in baseball suggests free agency supports rich teams at the expense of poor teams.

Rules on player movement make baseball worse, not better. Allow everyone to negotiate to be paid for their value, and we will have a better game on the field. No matter what rules are thrown up to prevent rich teams from getting all the good players, those teams game the system to their advantage. Eliminate the rules, and gaming the system becomes more difficult.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2tCFjyG