Trading Up in the Draft

[SufferingSoxFan]

How sweet would this be?:

My Red Sox just won the 1977 World Series in my league. We are at the 78 draft. Fred Lynn and Jim Rice will be free agents in 79 if not re signed. Let's say in this example that Ricky Hendeson is in the draft pool and the Astros have the # 1 pick. Wouldn't it be awesome to trade the Red Sox # 24 pick and Fred Lynn for the Astros # 1 pick?

Think of the possibilities. It would be awesome.

[Sweed]

I may be wrong here but I don't believe real ML teams can trade draft picks like the NFL or NBA. The only way to accomplish this in real life would be for the Astros to select the player you want and then do a sign and trade. IF I'm wrong someone please let me know.

[Andy]

Sweed, you are correct. No trading of draft picks in MLB. If this is ever added to OOTP, I would want it as an option.

[YankeePride]

instead i would rather want draft picks being given to teams who lose free agents.

dont know the exact rule on how it works, but it does.

[Andy]

Originally posted by YankeePride
instead i would rather want draft picks being given to teams who lose free agents.

dont know the exact rule on how it works, but it does.

Good suggestion. Not sure how tough it would be to add but I would like to see it.

[blmeanie]

you are right about the rules concerning the inability to trade draft picks...

BUT these picks are not the same that MLB has the rule for. These are guys that are debutting in the majors that year. They were "drafted" in years previously.

Would love to see this feature in career leagues, tired of the arguement about mlb and draft rules.

Every online league I have seen or been in allows trading of these picks and commishes have to handle it manually and off line. Would be a nice feature.

[Fred]

Realism is nice to a degree but trading picks would add a whole new dimension to the game.

[Steve Kuffrey]

There is a utility which allows for this, but it is not something that can be done so that the game AI repsonds to this, it is most effect and used by online leagues.

[CaLíKrAzY]

Yankee Pride brought up the only way teams can pickup extra draft choices in the real Major Leagues.

Heres an article about a team aquiring drafts picks in a real situation.

Every year, free agents are divided by position and quality by a process that takes into account the past two seasons and heavily favors counting stats. The top category, Type A, is the slot many players who have started at their position over the last two years end up fitting into -- obviously, they look great when compared to the likes of Chris Jones and Keith Lockhart. Any team signing a Type A free agent must give either their first- or second-round draft pick to the team losing that free agent, provided they still have that pick. In addition, the team losing the free agent is awarded a "sandwich pick" between the first and second rounds of the draft. These draft picks can add up quickly, as the Orioles should know: by losing Eric Davis, Rafael Palmeiro and Roberto Alomar last offseason, they ended up with seven picks in the top 50 of the 2000 draft.

The implications of the Royals failing to trade Stillwell? For losing the services of a defensively challenged middle infielder with no stick, they were awarded both the Padres' first-round pick and a sandwich pick. That sandwich pick? Current Royal Johnny Damon.

Chances are, Bordick will be rated a Type A free agent at the end of the season. If the O's had held on to him, they would have been virtually assured of a couple of high draft picks for him signing somewhere else. As it is now, the Mets get those picks -- in addition to the services of a shortstop they badly need -- and it cost them only a flamethrowing pitching prospect with control issues, a couple of utility players too old to make a difference on the next good Baltimore squad and a 23-year-old gassing the youngsters his third time around the league in A ball.

Obviously, even a high draft pick doesn't ensure that an organization will pick up a useful player: the Royals drafted washout Jim Pittsley with the other pick they got for Stillwell. Sometimes, a team gets more than fair value for a veteran on a deadline deal, like Cam Bonifay's Pirates did when they stole Enrique Wilson and Alex Ramirez for Wil Cordero. At some point, though, it becomes a better gamble to take the compensatory draft picks than to peddle the free agent to the highest bidder -- something teams entering a wholesale rebuilding phase, like the Orioles, would be wise to keep in mind.

Dave Pease writes for the Baseball Prospectus, the annual book by the same name, covering over 1500 players with in-depth statistical analysis and hard-hitting commentary. Dave may be reached at dpease@baseballprospectus.com.

found this at ESPN.COM

I don't know about you but this would be great to have...

Johnny

[fluharty]

My $0.02...

Why should OOTP reflect MLB? Some people likely dont really care whether trading draft picks is allowed in the real world or not, since with ootp you can create your own fantasy realm, whether MLB allows something should not factor into the question of its inclusion in ootp at all. That being said, while this would be cool, its not high on my personal list of desired add-ons.

[rwmorey]

This doesn't have to do with OOTP, but I think the reason the NFL and the NBA allow trading draft picks is that often times players make an impact in their first year of the NFL or the NBA. In the MLB, guys get drafted out of high school and wind up going to college just to be drafted four years later by a different team and even then they kick around the minors for a few years before coming up.. So the impact of a draft pick in the MLB is much different than in the NFL or the NBA.

Rich

[Darren Drewitz]

Steve, you said that there is a utility that allows you to trade draft picks. Where can i find this add on?

[lynchjm24]

A player that has accrued 6 complete years or more of service time at the end of a season and does not have a contract is eligible for filing for free agency, after which the player can sign with any team he wants.

To receive compensation for a player that signs with another team, the team must offer the player salary arbitration.

The team must offer salary arbitration to the player by December 7 or will not be allowed to negotiate with or sign the player until the following May 1. After arbitration is offered, the player has until December 19 to either accept or refuse salary arbitration. If it is refused, the player can only negotiate with the club until January 7th, after which no more negotiation can take place until May 1.

The compensation formula is based off a negotiated formula, heavy on triple crown stats, for the previous 2 seasons. Type A players are those that rank in the top 30% of his position. Type B players are those that rank below top 30% but still in the top 50%. Type C players are those that rank in the top 60% but not the top 50%.

A type players fetch the 1st-round draft pick of teams in the top half of W-L record or a 2nd-round draft pick of teams in the bottom half of W-L record and an additional pick between the 1st and 2nd rounds. B types don't get the sandwich pick and C type players fetch a sandwich between the 2nd and 3rd rounds. The higher the player's ranking in the compensation formula, the higher priority the old team gets in acquiring draft picks.

Something that's never mentioned is that there are still limits to the type of free agents that teams may sign.

If there are 14 or less type A and B players available, no team may sign more than 1 type A or B player. If there are 15-38 available A and B players, no team may sign more than 2. From 39-62 this becomes 3. The club quota increases accordingly for higher totals of available free agents. There is no maximum allowed for type C free agents. Lastly, a team can sign up to as many type A and B free agents as they've lost, regardless of the above quota.

Major League free agents come with an automatic no-trade clause until after the next June 15.

[SufferingSoxFan]

Originally posted by rwmorey
This doesn't have to do with OOTP, but I think the reason the NFL and the NBA allow trading draft picks is that often times players make an impact in their first year of the NFL or the NBA. In the MLB, guys get drafted out of high school and wind up going to college just to be drafted four years later by a different team and even then they kick around the minors for a few years before coming up.. So the impact of a draft pick in the MLB is much different than in the NFL or the NBA.

Rich

but playing in a historical league, you have the advantage of 20 20 hindsight and the draftees usually make immediate impact on the major league level. This was intended to be the premise of the original thread post. I know that I would have loved to have traded my 26th pick plus Dewey Evans for a #1 pick, which would have been Rickey Henderson. Obviously, it is not that easy in the real world. But historical replay is far from reality anyways. Who cares if MLB doesn't do it this way.

[Cory S. Ridgway]

Originally posted by Sweed
I may be wrong here but I don't believe real ML teams can trade draft picks like the NFL or NBA. The only way to accomplish this in real life would be for the Astros to select the player you want and then do a sign and trade. IF I'm wrong someone please let me know.

You can't trade picks, and you can't trade a player picked until a year after they sign. So if you drafted and signed a player right away you still couldn't trade him 'til after the next draft.

The best you could do under the current rules is to agree to a "Player to be named later" deal in which teams dictated each other's choices and then exchanged the players drafted later. But I'm not sure even that's allowed; I vaguely remember there being a restriction upon how long you can wait to name a PTBNL.

I think the PTBNL in the recent Floyd to Montreal deal is supposed to be Josh Karp, but Montreal can't trade him until September because they didn't sign him until that time last year. If it is Karp then the Marlins did pretty well. They traded a guy they probably would have had to overpay to keep (Floyd) and another guy whose overrated (Dempster) to get a reasonable replacement in the OF (Encarnacion), and three good pitching prospects (Karp, Wayne, and Snare). They have to eat Graeme Lloyd's contract this year (at least for the moment), but next year they'll be better off. Long term, call it Encarnacion and Snare for Dempster and the two young Expo pitchers for half-a-season of Floyd and the compensation picks they'd be due when he left. They end up down this year and up a little long term, but are better off short term with the more advanced pitchers and better salary structure (the bonuses have already been paid to first-rounders Wayne and Karp, while the comp picks would still have to be paid).

Anyway, back to OOTP... what I'd like to see are those compensation picks implemented. Trading picks is a lot of fun, and can be done in a human run league, but I think the computer AI already has enough trouble without adding more options; stick to rules that are at least as restrictive as the MLB ones for computer run leagues. I think compensation picks would benefit computer teams more the human teams.

Cory