I was having a blast watching the 2020 Major League Baseball Rule 4 Draft, but at some point in the 4th round, the whole pageant started to feel gross.
All these billion dollar teams focused on doing little maneuvers to afford the high school kids they actually wanted.
In the draft.
When you presumably add the players you want.
It’s incongruous.
And it’s not some pandemic 2020 thing.
That’s just the base design of the thing made even more salient by the compressed variation MLB farted together in what passed for their attempt to rise to these unique circumstances.
Seniors’ ages are leveraged against them.
Juniors’ ages are leveraged against them.
Sophomores’ ages are leveraged against them in a slightly different, Wilcoxian way.
All this so owners can acquire laborers who’ll make less than minimum wage as cheaply as possible. It’s a salary cap for amateurs, designed to be much, much smaller budgets than a free market would generate.
One might think the Yankees, Cubs, Dodgers or just about anyone competitive would campaign for more, maybe even better, but it turns out: who doesn’t love the leverage provided by an artificial line beyond which you must not go?
Easy way to end negotiations.
Just like writing some bullshit god-power rule into the bylaws of a short-term agreement built to get through a pandemic. I knew the players shouldn’t have signed that noise.
Anyhow, onto the shizz, making my best Karl Ravich face.
Let’s start with my least favorite few drafts so we can end on a high note.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
