Major League Baseball draft
Prior to 2023, the draft order was based on the previous season's standings, with the worst team selecting first.
Another distinguishing feature of the draft compared to those of other North American major professional sports leagues is its sheer size: currently, the draft lasts for 20 rounds (600+ selections), in addition to compensatory picks introduced in 2021; until 2019, it lasted up to 40 rounds (1,200+ selections).
[2] On March 10, 2022, after agreeing on a new collective bargaining agreement, it was decided that the first-round order would be based on a lottery participated by 18 non-postseason teams to determine the first six picks, starting with the 2023 draft.
Congressman Emanuel Celler questioned the legality of drafts during a series of hearings on the business practice of professional sports leagues in the 1950s.
[9] At the same time, Pulitzer Prize-winning sports columnist Arthur Daley compared the system to a "slave market.
"[10] Prior to the implementation of the first-year player draft, amateurs were free to sign with any Major League team that offered them a contract.
As a result, wealthier teams such as the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals were able to stockpile young talent, while poorer clubs were left to sign less desirable prospects.
[12] In its most restrictive form, it forbade any team which gave an amateur a signing bonus of more than $4,000 from assigning that player to a minor league affiliate for two seasons.
[10] In one famous incident, the Kansas City Athletics signed Clete Boyer, kept him on their roster for two years, then traded him to the Yankees just as he became eligible to be sent to the minor leagues.
Other clubs accused the Yankees of using the Athletics as a de facto farm team, and the A's later admitted to signing Boyer on their behalf.
Major League Baseball's first amateur draft was held on June 8–9, 1965, in New York City.
[17] Teams chose players in reverse order of the previous season's standings, with picks alternating between the National and American Leagues.
[18] With the first pick, the Kansas City Athletics took Rick Monday, an outfielder from Arizona State University.
The June draft, which was by far the largest, involved new high school graduates, as well as college seniors who had just finished their seasons.
[21] However, the college players who were drafted outperformed their high school counterparts by what statistician Bill James called "a laughably huge margin.
In a study of drafts from 1984 to 1999, Baseball Prospectus writer Rany Jazayerli concluded that, by the 1990s, the gap in production between the two groups had nearly disappeared.
In the study published in Baseball Prospectus, which included a follow-up article of the financial benefits,[25] Jazayerli concluded that the very young players return more value than expected by their draft slots.
In Jazayerli's study he looked at the statistics and broke draftees into five distinctive groups based on their age and being drafted in the early rounds.
[28] High school players possessed additional leverage, as they had the option of attending college and re-entering the draft the next year.
In 1990, Boras client Todd Van Poppel signed a $1.2 million ($2,798,574 today) contract with Oakland Athletics, after committing to play for the University of Texas.
In effect, the rule prohibited a high school draftee from attending college and re-entering the draft after his junior or senior seasons.
Additionally, within each playoff group, teams will be sorted by revenue-sharing status and then reverse order of winning percentage.
In each subsequent round, the first 18 selections are still determined by the preceding season's standings and the remaining picks are also based on the postseason clubs' results.
A selected player who enters a junior college cannot be signed until the conclusion of the school's baseball season.
A player who is eligible to be selected and is passed over by every club becomes a free agent and may sign with any club, up until one week before the next draft, or until the player enters, or returns to, a four-year college full-time or enters, or returns to, a junior college.
Before the 2013 draft, free agents were ranked by the Elias Sports Bureau based on their previous two years of playing, and against players of similar positions.
In a feature that did not change with the old CBA in 2012, teams can also earn compensation for unsigned picks from the previous year's draft.
Instead, a team is only able to receive compensation if it makes its former player an offer at least equal to the average of the 125 richest contracts.
