Boras, Strasburg, and the Draft

If you haven’t read the baseball news lately, you starting to see a name called Stephen Strasburg. Strasburg was the #1 pick by the Washington Nationals in this year’s draft. He is represented by Scott Boras. He is a pitching phenom that can throw over 100mph, with control.  Rumor has it that the Nationals have offered Strasburg a record 10 million plus in sign bonuses. As of Sunday morning, it appears that it’s not going to get it done. Scott Boras also has the #2 and #3 picks, both unsigned. The deadline is Monday night at midnight.  Before we turn this into a Scott Boras bash session, let’s be honest. Fans hate him. The owners probably hate him. The players love him. But if I was a player, I probably wouldn’t want any other agent. He even gets you big money, for little talent. Ask Darren Dreifort.  But this is different. This is the draft. This is not an established pitcher. Boras himself tried to get the draft thrown out as illegal a couple years ago, with no success. The other thing is that this is baseball. This is not the NBA, or the NFL. Draftees are usually several years away from being able to compete at the Major League level.  So what is the problem? Believe it or not, much of it is college. And some of it is stupidity. College? Well, many times, draftees have held out with the threat of going to college. It is a huge bargaining chip for the draftees. You see, when you enroll in college and the signing deadline passes, you essentially give up your right to be drafted for 3 years. So you cannot re-enter the draft until after your junior year. It worked for Brien Taylor. It works for many. The argument against that is that the draftee cannot make money for those 3 years. But you are mostly talking about small minor league money, since the big money goes to bonuses in the few couple rounds.  I am not sure if Strasburg is even using the college bargain chip. If not, he will have to sign with an independent league, or sit out a year. It could very well be that he does not want to play for the Nationals, and is pulling a J.D. Drew or John Elway.  Which brings me to my point. How do you take these chips away from these unproven players? Well, it’s pretty simple. Yet, I do not know why it is still not imposed. You simply make the draftee, the property of the team for a period of 3 years. This way, he cannot re-enter the draft after 1 year. Otherwise, he can either sign, or go to college. Then he would not be able to re-enter until after his junior year.  The NBA had this problem. The NFL still has this problem. The problem is that the unproven kids take big money. All the players unions don’t like this, because it is money out of their pockets. Then if they are busts, the team is out that money. In Baseball, the draft is by far the biggest crapshoot of all the major sports. The majority of all picks, even early round picks, quickly are duds.  The NBA used to sign a ton of big money players out of college, many of whom were also busts. The Union didn’t like it as unproven kids were making more money than proven vets. The solution? A rookie cap and slotting system that placed the top pick at a  certain max, and allowed the lower picks to work off of that figure. The NFL still has this problem (I am a Jets fan. We cornered the market on big money busts out of college). Am I proposing a rookie cap in baseball? Absolutely not. You won’t need it. If you make the draftee the property of the team for 3 years, you have essentially taken away their entire bargaining chips. They will not sit out 3 years. I can guarantee you that if they go to college, it’s because they wanted to go to college, ala Gerrit Cole of the Yankees.  There it is.  A simple solution, that will never be implement. Instead, the deadline will likely pass and Strasburg will re-enter the draft next year. Update Aug 17, 2009: The offer that is rumored today is  17 million. I wrote the article just 24 hours ago, when it was 10 million. Wow!