Body Building
Every team now has the idea of building through the draft. One cannot help but wonder what took so long. However, they have it now and are not likely to relinquish it, and so it is here we must be just a little creative.
As stated, the bottom twelve teams would be guaranteed the top twelve picks, buuuuuut in order of wins, not losses: How you finish in the regular season standings is how you draft. If you want the top pick in next year’s draft, you better win the regular season of the lower tier.
And if you don’t think Eric Hosmer can help you with that, I bet your competition does.
Again, the idea is to incentivize as many teams as possible to try to win every year, including the Yankees. That needs to include prompting them to add at least one or two free agents. And that should mean a much more prominent market for the mid-level players.
Predicting effects on free agency is difficult, to be sure. And one objection right now is why I would anticipate these signings; why would this reality make it less likely the Sox would sign Moreland and more likely they would have to sign both Eric Hosmer and JD Martinez?
Yeah, Why Would it Do That?
That would be due to the scheduling changes.
The teams in the two tiers are going to play slightly more games against each other, and marginally fewer against the different tier. That doesn’t mean the Yankees are going to play the Red Sox more; it means they will play the Angels more. And, if it were to be this season, they would play the Rays less.
More games in a smaller pool should mean more competition and less margin for error. And that should suggest that if you are in the upper tier, you need to get the top free agents and quickly.
Conversely, if you are in the bottom, you might get a top free agent, but you will want to get those mid-range guys before the other teams in the bottom do.
Which brings us right back to draft order:
Right now, the pattern is to wait until you have enough homegrown talent to compete and then add free agents. One of the reasons for the slow market is that some of the most significant teams—New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, as examples—are mostly loaded with maybe one need, while some teams are in full rebuild and see no reason to add payroll; the Marlins again spring to mind.
But what if they had to get the free agents first to grow the team? That is what this creates, without the pressure of trying to afford the Yu Darvish’s of the world.