Draft Changes & 2022 Trade Deadline

[Rockies GM (Alex)]

Hi guys, 

One note for you: The 2022 Trade deadline will be August 6th this summer.  The date is also on the first tab of the Official Roster page and is updated throughout the year if you ever forget.  

Here is a league change proposal as well.  

Draft Changes Proposal

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Why:

- In order to allow access to rookies performing at the MLB level in the first two months of the season.  
- In order to allow more draft picks to be traded.  
- In order to provide more time for information to come out on the new J15 class
- In order to provide more time for more information to come out on the newest MLB Draft class (most podcasts/books/articles on new prospects are in the winter)

What:

- The Amateur Draft is expanded from 6 rounds to 8 rounds.  These draft picks can all be traded.
- The International Draft is shortened from 6 rounds to 4 rounds.  These draft picks cannot be traded.
- The Amateur Draft is shifted forward from October 1 to now start on December 1 of each year.  
- The International Draft is shifted forward from February 1 to start on May 1 of each year.  

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Further Thoughts

I have heard consistently for a couple years now that people want more draft picks to be eligible to be traded.  I think it is wise to still keep two separate drafts as it has been working for us for years.  However, I feel with the current activity and expertise level of the league we can trust teams with more draft picks to trade.  

This proposal keeps both drafts intact, while tilting the importance in favor of the Amateur Draft where more unowned MiLB prospects with experience will be drafted during the off-season.  More information comes out on Amateur Draft guys as the fall/winter roll around, so this will also give teams access to better scouting reports and rankings as they pick from the new crop of rookies.

Meanwhile, the International Draft would shift to focus more on the new January 15 International Class, along with prospects who are playing well at the MLB level at the start of a season.  Currently, we have no way to access these MLB players for the first 2-3 months of the season while we wait for them to hit their rookie limits.  This is a pretty unrealistic factor of our league that could be remedied by shifting our International Draft back.  

This model would begin if approved starting with the 2023 Amateur Draft and 2024 International Draft (being our current season is already affecting the 2022 Amateur Draft and 2023 International Draft).  It's a ways out, but a change I feel is worth making.  You guys also get more draft picks to trade.  Yay.  

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I'm curious to hear your thoughts.  Please respond with more than "No, I want everything to stay the same."  Please evaluate what I'm saying.  If you think it is a bad idea, please explain why so others can benefit from your perspective.  I'll throw a poll up here too.  

Thanks guys!

- Alex

[Blue Jays GM (Stephen)]

I like some of this but not all. I have always thought that the Draft should be used not only to draft players and what not, but as a gauge of activity as well and a way to make the baseball fun spread through out the year. I am not a fan of drafting mid season, but hey that may just be me. Although it adds an interesting dynamic, I prefer to have drafts done by the time the season starts. I would love to see some sort of schedule like: The Amatuer Draft starts the Monday after the MLB World Series ends and goes through conclusion. Then the next draft starts in February after free agency madness cools down. This gets us some sort of activity whether it be draft, free agency, or trades to get through the offseason. If someone is consistently autodrafting we know they are a candidate to be replaced if needed.

Overall thoughts on drafting, I have never truly understand the need for two distinct drafts. If anything it encourages tanking because you get a top draftee and top international signing, where as a normal draft would mean 1 elite prospect. I also don't understand the untradability of international picks, while also allowing people to be skipped altogether. The purpose is to fill a team with specs, but we skip teams fully... wouldn't it be better if that team could trade their picks or something? Idk. Post is getting long now.

TLDR: I wouldn't mind changes to the draft process, but I don't know if these are them.

[Marlins GM (Travis)]

I'm interested in getting the amateur draft back during the season. I think it makes the trade deadline more fun, and more exciting. But if we do this, then having it be 8 rounds and only 4 rounds in offseason, I think offseason would be too boring, cause it'll be shorter. Zach shares my sentiment on getting it back during the year.

[Das (Former Giants GM)]

I'd prefer not to have more tradable draft picks, it gives more of an edge that doesn't need to be added. It might make sense to move the Amateur Draft to December 1st, that allows us to be drafting during what seems like draft season. March 1st might be a good start date for the International Draft, that would have us drafting during spring training and into the start of the season. I don't really have that strong of a preference in terms of moving the draft start times.

[Orioles GM (Michael)]

Re draft "schedule changes:" I'm open to discussing draft schedule changes, but I personally like having our drafts the way they are and don't feel a strong need to change them.

Regarding "7th/8th round picks" and more tradable assets: I think we also keep saying "I don't love how many teams are rebuilding", but the expansion of tanking has gone hand in hand with the way we've expanded tradable assets in the past, so I'm personally against more "amateur picks", making MILB picks tradeable, or making future year picks tradeable.

As someone who's done quite his share of rebuilds and teardowns, a lot of the time when I talk to GMs, guys simply aren't looking to move their picks because they don't think adding one or two impact pieces is enough to catch teams that have traded all their picks and prospects to get lots of 75% covered guys, and prefer to sort of stay the course of being a contender.

I realize some of that is ultimately up to GMs to decide (which is obviously fine), but to me, the fact that's been a relatively common attitude among GMs I talk to (as someone who has bothered most if not everyone about trades at some point in the last year) tells me this is only going to expand the gap between the top few teams (that can use these picks) and others (which again, whatever, but it feels like we've been saying we want less of that, not more). And it puts more "cheap ammo" out there to let rebuilders strip down even more - rather than a team being in the 150-pt range because they cant find a contender who will give them a 6th for a few of their guys, more "7th and 8th" rounders lets them sell off even more than is already the case, so this would be a "pro-tanking" move, in my opinion.

I also like that having 6 rounds of MiLB draft/untradeable picks provides something of a safeguard for if a team has a pretty barren roster in both MLB and MiLB. Sure, a 6th round MiLB pick isn't going to turn a team around, but having those two 5th/6th round picks is better than nothing, especially in a league where roster depth matters at least as much as talent on a roster. Keeping those 6 picks plus keeping future year picks untradeable helps us make sure there's always a path for a team to claw back into some degree of relevance, even if an owner burns everything down then leaves. In a free league where there's not really any accountability/forcing function to make someone stick it out if they screw everything up, I think having those things in place is important.

If we're going to discuss making things more or less tradeable, if anything I'd rather start that conversation with *less* and look to reduce and/or eliminate salary cap coverage.

[Rockies GM (Alex)]

Obviously my idea has been shot down. No worries! Open to other suggestions, perhaps keeping things as is is fine. Seems like a lot of people have opinions on ways to make our drafting experiences better though.

[Brewers GM (Tim)]

On a kind-of-related note, I think we should consider a lottery for the top 6 picks in the amateur draft (a la MLB).