ORLANDO, FL -- Major League Baseball did it this time. They fell into the pitfall of commercialization by putting the first round of the first-year player draft on national TV. As if we didn't give agents enough reasons to expose clients to mainstream media to jack up their possible signing bonuses.
If there was any justice in MLB it was Mark Prior's representatives telling the Minnesota Twins they couldn't afford their client so the cash-loaded Chicago Cubs would pay a king's ransom to add the high and mighty instant gratification pitcher to their rotation.
Who got the last laugh? The Twins, as Joe Mauer (aka, the guy they had to 'settle' for) was the first catcher ever to win a batting title, smacking .347 in the American League in 2006.
More and more, it seems teams are straying away from anyone with Scott Boras' name stamped to their credit in the early rounds. While Boras blows sunshine up his clients' ass, MLB teams blow them to the second round unless they are truly desperate.
Back to the draft...
If anyone is like me who religiously follows the draft, listening to every pick on MLB.com, they would know how ridiculous televising the picks are. The MLB draft goes rapid fire for about four to five hours per day. The teams don't want to wait around because they don't trade picks and let's face it, the beauty of the game is there is no Mel Kiper, Jr. to tell us about every pick and how they are going to progress even though most of his lines are taken verbatim from college football sports information directors.
No, baseball has made Steve Phillips their Mel Kiper, Jr., who reads verbatim from Baseball America instead. Add to that the squeaky and annoying voice of Casey Stern, which you normally have to listen to for 50 rounds on the phone repeating every pick in the teleconference, and it drives you batty. Some people are better off heard and not seen.
I was hoping MLB teams were going to flood Bud Selig with picks the second one was made. Evidently, ESPN encouraged teams to take the alloted five minutes when most teams don't even need five seconds to make a selection. The picks were coming rapid fire in the second and third rounds. By the time they ended the fifth round a little past 7:00 p.m., the draft was over five hours old. Last year, 20 rounds would have been completed.
All Major League Baseball did by moving the draft to Thursday and Friday and showcasing the first five rounds is keep scouting and player development personnel from watching any of their prospects and draft picks during the College Baseball Super Regionals today.
Baseball's draft is special and sacred because of how it's played out. Some people thought this was a great idea. They're morons, plain and simple. Ask any person in player development, even the media and they'll tell you what a horrific idea this was.
Hopefully they learned their lesson and will go back to the previous format from years past. Thus, it will keep us from having to hear Steve Phillips talk up the instruction in the professional ranks over the college ranks, even though two pitchers were taken from Vanderbilt in the first eight picks overall. Evidently Vanderbilt just magically got the best players over a three year period and Tim Corbin and Derek Johnson had nothing to do with their development.
Keep the baseball people doing baseball stuff and the Hollywood BS out of the game. There's a reason Phillips is on ESPN and not a GM of a Major League team. This guy ran the Mets into the ground and traded away most of their prospects to other teams. Omar Minaya has done a pretty good job repairing the damage with a little help from Fred Wilpon's checkbook.
I will attempt to watch the College Super Regionals and listen to the draft at the same time, all well doing my job today, in a ballpark of course. Now that's multi-tasking!
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