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Betting
System
Sports betting is the general
activity of predicting sports results by making a wager on the
outcome of a sporting event. Perhaps more so than other forms of
gambling, the legality and general acceptance of sport betting
varies from nation to nation.
Online
Sports
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Welcome To
Major League Baseball Draft!
The First-Year
Player Draft, also known as the Rule 4 Draft, is Major League Baseball's
primary mechanism for assigning amateur baseball players, from high
schools, colleges, and other amateur baseball clubs, to its teams.
Before the draft
Major League Baseball has used a draft to assign minor league players to
teams since 1921. In 1936, the National Football League held the first
amateur draft in professional sports. A decade later, the National
Basketball Association instituted a similar method of player
distribution. However, the player draft was controversial. Congressman
Emanuel Celler questioned the legality of drafts during a series of
hearings on the business practice of professional sports leagues in the
1950s. Successful clubs saw the draft as anti-competitive. Yankees
executive Johnny Johnson equated it with communism. At the same time,
Pulitzer Prize winning sports columnist Arthur Daley compared the system
to a "slave market."
Prior to the implementation of the First-Year Player Draft, amateurs
were free to sign with any Major League team that offered them a
contract. As a result, wealthier teams such as the New York Yankees and
St. Louis Cardinals were able to stockpile young talent, while poorer
clubs were left to sign less desirable prospects.
In 1947, Major League Baseball implemented the bonus rule, a restriction
aimed at reducing player salaries, as well as keeping wealthier teams
from monopolizing the player market. In its most restrictive form, it
forbade any team which gave an amateur a signing bonus of more than
$4,000 from assigning that player to a minor league affiliate for two
seasons. If the player was removed from the major league roster, he
became a free agent. The controversial legislation was repealed twice,
only to be re-instituted.
The bonus rule was largely ineffective. There were accusations that
teams were signing players to smaller bonuses, only to supplement them
with under-the-table payments. In one famous incident, the Kansas City
Athletics signed Clete Boyer, kept him on their roster for two years,
then traded him to the Yankees just as he became eligible to be sent to
the minor leagues. Other clubs accused the Yankees of using the
Athletics as a de facto farm team, and the A's later admitted to signing
Boyer on their behalf.
Major League clubs voted on the draft during the 1964 Winter Meetings.
Four teams -- the New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles
Dodgers, and New York Mets -- attempted to defeat the proposal, but they
failed to convince a majority of teams, and in the end only the
Cardinals voted against it.
The draft
Major League Baseball's first amateur draft was held in June of 1965.
Teams chose players in reverse order of the previous season's standings,
with picks alternating between the National and American League. With
the first pick, the Kansas City Athletics took Rick Monday, an
outfielder for Arizona State University.
Originally, three separate drafts were held each year. The June draft,
which was by far the largest, involved new high school graduates, as
well as college seniors who had just finished their seasons. A second
draft was held in January for high school and college players who
graduated in the winter. Finally, there was a draft in August for
players who participated in amateur summer leagues. The August draft was
eliminated after only two years, while the January draft lasted until
1986.
Early on, the majority of players drafted came directly from high
school. Between 1967 and 1971, only seven college players were chosen in
the first round of the June draft. However, the college players who were
drafted outperformed their high school counterparts by what statistician
Bill James called "a laughably huge margin."[16] In 1978, a majority of
draftees had played college baseball, and by 2002, the number rose above
sixty percent. While the number of high school players drafted has
dropped, those picked have been more successful than their predecessors.
In a study of drafts from 1984 to 1999, Baseball Prospectus writer Rany
Jazayerli concluded that, by the 1990s, the gap in production between
the two groups had nearly disappeared.
Economic impact
Initially, the draft succeeded in reducing the value of signing bonuses.
In 1964, a year before the first draft, University of Wisconsin
outfielder Rick Reichardt was given a record bonus of $205,000 by the
Los Angeles Angels. Without competition from other clubs, the Athletics
were able to sign Rick Monday for a bonus of only $104,000. It would
take until 1979 for a drafted player to receive a bonus higher than
Reichardt's.
Player salaries continued to escalate through the 1980s. In 1986, Bo
Jackson became the first draftee to sign a total contract (signing bonus
and salary) worth over one-million dollars. Jackson, a Heisman Trophy
winning football player for Auburn University, was also the first
overall choice in the National Football League Draft, and was offered a
seven-million dollar contract to play football for the Tampa Bay
Buccaneers.
Negotiating
Rights
Prior to 2007, a team retained the rights to sign a selected player
until one week prior to the next draft, or until the player enters, or
returns to, a four-year college on a full-time basis. Starting in 2007,
the deadline for signing a drafted player is August 15. A selected
player who enters a junior college cannot be signed until the conclusion
of the school's baseball season. A player who is drafted and does not
sign with the club that selected him may be drafted again at a future
year's draft, so long as the player is eligible for that year's draft. A
club may not select a player again in a subsequent year, unless the
player has consented to the re-selection.
A player who is eligible to be selected and is passed over by every club
becomes a free agent and may sign with any club, up until one week
before the next draft, or until the player enters, or returns to, a
four-year college full-time or enters, or returns to, a junior college.
In the one-week period before any draft, which is called the "closed
period", the general rule is that no club may sign a new player.
Compensatory Picks
Teams can earn Compensatory picks in the draft based on departing free
agents. Free Agents are ranked by the Elias Sports Bureau based on their
previous two years of playing, and against players of similar positions.
The top 20% of free agents are considered 'Type A' free agents, and the
following 20% are 'Type B' free agents. Type A free agents will get
their former team a supplemental round pick between the first and second
rounds, and a compensatory pick from the signing team. Type B free
agents get their former team just a supplemental round pick. To earn a
compensatory pick, a free agent must either be signed before the
arbitration deadline in early December, or be offered arbitration by
their former team but still sign with someone else. |
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