The MLB Draft and Other Baseball Thoughts

The MLB Draft is starting to gain ever so slightly in popularity among fans. In general, we love the "next big thing" so it was only a matter of time before interest picked up.

As this is happening, the Draft is also becoming a focal point in the next round of the CBA. Lower-revenue teams want the ability to draft the best talent and not have to worry about the prohibitive costs associated with doing so. Thus, a "hard-slotting" system, which would resemble the NBA's system, is being discussed.

For what it's worth, I like one of the ideas proposed by Gord Ash, former GM of the Toronto Blue Jays, in this article which would resemble an NHL rule:

Retaining signing rights for high schoolers into the future - "Baseball needs to adopt the NHL rule where if you're drafting underage players (high schoolers) you retain the rights," Ash said. "If you're forced into signing them and overpaying because you're trying to buy out colleges you could say, `Look, go to college. We'll keep our eye on you and we'll sign you later.'"

It makes a ton of sense to use principles from the other major sports as guidelines for baseball.

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*Casey Blake: class act.

*Are the Mariners really going to be that good? I know they play great defense and improved the offense a little, but they only have two starting pitchers - Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee (granted these are Cy Young-caliber arms). Where are the rest of the innings going to come from?

*Shameless plug: check back next week for a ranking of every team's offseason.