The Competitive Balance Lottery gives clubs with the 10 lowest revenues and in the 10 smallest markets the opportunity to obtain additional draft picks through a lottery. The picks are made after some weighting is applied based on winning percentage (i.e. the best teams in the lottery have lower chances of being drawn) and six are given additional draft picks immediately following the first round of next year’s draft. Sort of like the old sandwich picks. The remaining teams are then drawn for six more slots following the second.
Today that lottery was held and here are the winners:
Congratulations to the Cardinals for bucking the odds. Yes, St. Louis is one of baseball’s smallest markets, but the Cardinals also happened to be the reigning N.L. pennant winners, so they had the worst odds of being picked.
An odd system, though. One that assumes the smallest market or smallest revenue teams are those in most need of extra help in the draft. That’s clearly not the case. Especially when you consider that the draft represents a very low percentage of a team’s overall outlay for talent and thus is one place where low revenue/small market teams are least disadvantaged compared to their bigger richer peers.
Maybe more annoying about this, though, is that it’s a lottery in the first place. Major League Baseball has a habit of turning things that should be straightforward — overturning calls; aiding poor teams — into contests and games. A lot of calls are being missed and replay is needed? Let’s add strategy and game show rules to the process! Competitive balance is an issue? Let’s address it through a lottery! The All-Star Game is less competitive? Let’s turn it into a contest to decide home field advantage in the World Series!
If you actually think something is a problem, you solve it in a straightforward manner. If you merely wish to shut up complainers, you condescend with games. That’s what this is.
