Collective Bargaining Issues: MLB and MLBPA Raise Lottery Draft

As part of the ongoing collective bargaining deliberations, Major League Baseball and MLB Players Association (MLBPA) have considered the possibility of implement some sort of Lottery Draft. With both sides set to hold a lottery, it seems likely that it will be included when the next CBA is finalized.

However, the precise format the lottery would take remains an open question. The MLBPA, which believes that a higher draft position for teams with worse records incentivizes already bad teams not to improve, has promoted a lottery to determine the first eight selections:

MLB has favored a narrower system, with only the top three options to be resolved by the lottery. While the sides differ on the number of picks that would affect, Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith reports that they agree that all non-playoff teams would be eligible for the lottery.

The team’s chances of winning would be weighted in such a way that the clubs with the worst record the previous year would have the highest odds of getting a high pick.

That’s very similar to the systems in play with both the NHL and the NBA., although those leagues have some individual nuances. The NHL prohibits teams from jumping more than ten places relative to their position in the reverse order of standings, effectively restricting a shot at the top pick to the bottom 11 finishers in the league.

It may interest you: MLB Collective Bargaining Issues and Changes to the International Signature Draft

The NBA allows all non-playoff teams a chance, admittedly a very small one for the top non-playoff clubs, to get a top four pick, but does not allow teams outside the top five bottom in the standings make more marginal moves. the draft order (say, from 12 to 9).

Raphael Martinez

I am a fan of the King of Sports, especially the Boston Red Sox in MLB and all Mexican baseball in general. This profession has given me the opportunity to cover major events such as the Caribbean Series, LMB All Star, LMP (uninterruptedly since 2009), signatures of important players. I had the chance to attend the 2013 World Classic in Arizona, USA, although as a fan. Apart from this beautiful sport, I love basketball, where I have also narrated games and even an NBA friendly 10 years ago, but I have baseball in my veins. Degree in Communication Sciences from the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS) , from which I graduated in 2011. I was born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa and started in the world of sports journalism in 2004 in the newspaper El Sol de Mazatlán, where I was a baseball columnist and a reporter at the same time. In January 2009 I arrived at El Debate as a journalist reporter and it was almost six years (in the first stage), until in November 2014 I emigrated to the radio providing my services at Línea Directa-Grupo RSN. My cycle there ended in July 2019 and a few days later, El Debate gave me another opportunity to work and opened the doors for me again. That is how I came to Al Bat, where I have been since 2019 as a web journalist.

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