Longgone

You've missed the point entirely. There would be a league of haves and have nots, who wants that? Having a shot at the playoffs would in no way address the resource disparity, it's a non sequitur.

There would never be anything even remotely competitive when a few teams can just grossly outspend their rivals, not just for the best players, but scouts, infrastructure, etc. Baseball is not like other sports, where most revenues are shared, there is a huge disparity in resources which is attempted to be addressed with revenue sharing, the draft and the CBT. As long as this disparity exists, there needs to be some mechanisms like this. Does it inhibit salaries, sure, but it keeps them at a level where every team has a chance to be competitive, not just a few.

When some teams have ten times the resources, or more, some mechanism is required.

You can't call something legally negotiated collusion, it's more like anti monopoly/ competitive balance measures, which i do believe are necessary. On the other hand, no one is negotiating their existence, just how hard and how high the limits, which should be resolvable.

Stop, without some type of deadline, they'd never settle. This puts the onus on both sides.

Baseball players are risky.

I believe prospects being overvalued or undervalued is cyclical.

I wouldn’t have done a thing differently, except the prospects I traded for would all have panned out.

You are such a cynic

The second paragraph is fine, removes the doubt and temptation, although you are still reacting to perception, not any unidentifiable facts, which i believe is always misguided. the first paragraph is really admitting that you are being subjective, and that there is really no factual basis for it, just feelings and assumptions. That's not a good reason to change a fundamental component of talent distribution.

You are saying keeping the lottery small won't disrupt the draft too much. Why disrupt it at all? Why draw the line at 8, why not 12, or 20? Where's the logical rationale? What if these exact same 8 teams were the only teams in the mlb, would you still say the differential in records and talent is negligible and there should be a lottery for draft order?

There are varying levels of competence in mlb, of course there are. Teams are going to have varying budget constraints in the current environment. However, it it no secret that the Yankees and Dodgers excellence in scouting and player development year after year is in no small measure due to their huge revenue differential compared to other teams, and their ability to outbid and outspend other teams in those areas. Sure, a Tampa Bay has found some success, but is continually losing talent to deeper pockets. With revenues so lopsided, the draft is one way to maintain parity. Leave it alone. All teams want to win, all gms, scouting directors, owners, players, etc., want to win. The idea that some teams are just cheap, greedy, or just plain incompetent, and should be punished for it, is a fallacy, just frustration speaking. Baseball has some issues to address, but the draft isnt one of them, and a lottery isn't going to address any of them.

That will come out in the wash, over time, as intended, if you don't screw things up with a lottery.

You are allowing a better, more competitive team to draft ahead of a weaker team. That is not the purpose of a draft. And you are doing it for no productive reason. If you buy the premise that won/loss record is indicative of ability, then artificially altering that hierarchy is a corruption of intent.

This seems like a non sequitur, the lottery doesn't address either incompetence or five straight years of losing. There are two facts: 1. Lotteries don't do anything to impact team behavior. 2. They unnecessarily distort the true function of a draft, which is to allow weaker to become more competitive, and create long term parity.

The only principle you state is you don't want to reward incompetence, but there isn't one iota of evidence that finishing last is due to incompetence. All you know is that there is a competitive imbalance. Someone is always going to be on the bottom. Is that always incompetence? Not by a long shot. And yes, it can take five years or more to correct a competitive imbalance.

Tanking is a perception, not a reality. Teams are going to rebuild, and to do so, they need to be able to trade present assets for future ones. You can dislike the losing that results from that, but it is a legitimate strategy, not to mention a lottery has absolutely no impact on the behavior, except to distort the function of the draft.

Of course! They want more teams spending more money. No surprise there.

That's a huge distortion of the function of a draft for a "maybe", all to provide something that will have no impact on behavior and fail to address any real issues.

It's not "essential" in basketball! It hasn't changed behavior one iota, nor has it had the slightest impact in the NHL. It is an irrational response to a mythical problem. It's all perception, not reality.

Sure they are, for the same reason the worst team is more deserving than the best. Teams draft in reverse order for a reason. Besides, it's pointless, accomplishes nothing, with so many other real issues to be addressed.

Come on, Lee. There are 30 teams, somebody is going to be on the bottom. Talent is not going to pan out evenly. It can easily take 5 years or more for a competitive imbalance to reverse. It doesn't at all imply incompetence. Bigger issue is to make sure bottom teams can reverse fortunes, and thats the purpose of a draft. Corrupting it with a lottery is irrational.

Touche, my friend

They want draft picks because they want to win!!!!

They are dumb, they are an irrational response to a mythical problem. Baseball has enough real issues without wasting time on this crap.