The first-year player draft is the primary mechanism of
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
(MLB) for assigning amateur baseball players from high schools, colleges, and other amateur baseball clubs to its teams. The draft order is determined based on a lottery where the teams who did not make the postseason in the past year participate in a state-lottery style process to determine the first six picks, starting in 2023. The team possessing the worst record receives the best odds of receiving the first pick. Until 2022, it was determined by the previous season's standings, with the worst team selecting first.
The first amateur draft was held in 1965. Unlike most sports drafts, the first-year player draft is held mid-season, in July since 2021. Another distinguishing feature of this draft in comparison with those of other North American major professional sports leagues is its sheer size: under the current collective bargaining agreement, the draft lasts until 20 rounds in addition to, since 2021, compensatory picks. It lasted up to 40 rounds until 2019. In contrast, the
NFL Draft
The National Football League Draft, also called the NFL Draft or (officially) the Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the league's most common source of player recruitment. Each team is given a position in the drafting o ...
lasts for only seven rounds (260 selections), the
NHL Entry Draft
The NHL Entry Draft (french: Repêchage d'entrée dans la LNH) is an annual meeting in which every franchise of the National Hockey League (NHL) systematically select the rights to available ice hockey players who meet draft eligibility requirem ...
lasts for seven rounds (224 selections), the
MLS SuperDraft
The MLS SuperDraft is an annual college draft for teams of Major League Soccer in the United States and Canada. It takes place in January and is used by teams to select players who have graduated from college or otherwise been signed by the l ...
lasts for only three rounds (75 selections), and the NBA draft lasts for only two rounds (60 selections).
On March 26, 2020, MLB and the
Major League Baseball Players Association
The Major League Baseball Players Association (or MLBPA) is the union representing all current Major League Baseball players. All players, managers, coaches, and athletic trainers who hold or have held a signed contract with a Major League club ...
(MLBPA) reached a deal that included the option to shorten that year's draft to five rounds, and halve the 2021 draft to 20 rounds. On March 10, 2022, after the two entities came to agree on a new collective bargaining agreement, the first round order will be based firstly on a lottery participated by 18 non-postseason teams that determines the first six picks in the draft, starting with the 2023 edition, and secondly on the results of playoff teams. Subsequent rounds will be determined by the preceding season's win-loss records for the first 18 selections in each round, followed also by playoff finishes.
Before the draft
Major League Baseball has used a draft to assign
minor league
Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...
players to teams since 1921. In 1936, the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
held the first amateur draft in professional sports. A decade later, the
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...
instituted a similar method of player distribution. However, the player draft was controversial.
Congressman
A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...
Emanuel Celler
Emanuel Celler (May 6, 1888 – January 15, 1981) was an American politician from New York who served in the United States House of Representatives for almost 50 years, from March 1923 to January 1973. He served as the dean of the United States H ...
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
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
. At the same time,
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
-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
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...
and
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...
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 rule 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
The history of the Athletics Major League Baseball franchise spans the period from 1901 to the present day, having begun as a charter member franchise in the new American League in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City in 1955 for 13 seas ...
signed
Clete Boyer
Cletis Leroy "Clete" Boyer (February 9, 1937 – June 4, 2007) was an American professional baseball third baseman — who occasionally played shortstop and second base — in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Athletics (1955–57 ...
, 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
Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in No ...
. 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. Finally, it was the bidding war for
Rick Reichardt
Frederic Carl Reichardt (born March 16, 1943) is a former Major League outfielder for the Los Angeles / California Angels (1964–70), Washington Senators (1970), Chicago White Sox (1971–73) and Kansas City Royals (1973–74). He batted and ...
, who signed with the
Los Angeles Angels
The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. Since 1966, the team ha ...
for the then outrageous bonus of $200,000, (about $1.8 million today) that led to the implementation of the draft.
Major League clubs voted on the draft during the 1964
Winter Meetings
Representatives of all 30 Major League Baseball teams and their 120 Minor League Baseball affiliates convene for four days each December in the Winter Meetings to discuss league business and conduct off-season trades and transactions. Attendees in ...
. Four teams—the
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...
,
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...
,
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...
, and
New York Mets
The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major league ...
—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
MLB player transactions are governed by ''
The Official Professional Baseball Rules Book
''The Official Professional Baseball Rules Book'' governs all aspects of the game of Major League Baseball beyond what happens on the field of play. There are a number of sources for these rules, but they all ultimately are sanctioned by the Offi ...
'', within which, Rule 4 governs the "First-Year Player Draft". Due to its place in the rules book, MLB's amateur draft is sometimes referred to as the "Rule 4 draft"; there is also a distinctly different Rule 5 draft.
Major League Baseball's first amateur draft was held on June 8–9, 1965, in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. Teams chose players in reverse order of the previous season's standings, with picks alternating between the
National
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, c ...
and
American League
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league ...
s. With the first pick, the
Kansas City Athletics
The history of the Athletics Major League Baseball franchise spans the period from 1901 to the present day, having begun as a charter member franchise in the new American League in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City in 1955 for 13 seas ...
took
Rick Monday
Robert James "Rick" Monday Jr. (born November 20, 1945) is an American former professional baseball player who now serves as a broadcaster. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a center fielder from 1966 to 1984, most notably as a member ...
, an
outfielder
An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to cat ...
from
Arizona State University
Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...
.
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. Another draft was held in January, which typically involved high school players who graduated in the winter,
junior college
A junior college (sometimes referred to colloquially as a juco, JuCo or JC) is a post-secondary educational institution offering vocational training designed to prepare students for either skilled trades and technical occupations and workers in su ...
players, and players who had dropped out of four-year colleges. Junior college players were required to wait until their current season was completed before they could sign. 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.
Influence of the draftee's age
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
George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. ...
called "a laughably huge margin."
By 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
Baseball Prospectus (BP) is an organization that publishes a website, BaseballProspectus.com, devoted to the sabermetric analysis of baseball. BP has a staff of regular columnists and provides advanced statistics as well as player and team perf ...
'' writer
Rany Jazayerli Rany Jazayerli (born June 14, 1975), a Chicago-area dermatologist, is a co-founder of and writer for Baseball Prospectus. He developed the statistical concept of Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP), which relates to high pitch counts in baseball.
Jazayerli ...
concluded that, by the 1990s, the gap in production between the two groups had nearly disappeared. In October 2011, Jazayerli presented another research study which included an analysis of those players drafted since 1965, but instead of breaking them into college or high school draftees, he segregated them by their age on draft day. In the study published in ''Baseball Prospectus'', which included a follow up article of the financial benefits, Jazayerli concluded that the very young players return more value than expected by their draft slots. In Jazayerli's study he looked at the statistics and broke draftees into five distinctive groups based on their age and being drafted in the early rounds. Jazayerli's defined a “very young” player as those who are younger than 17 years and 296 days on draft day. Since the inception of the draft, the youngest player ever drafted in an early round is
Alfredo Escalera
Alfredo "El Salsero" Escalera (born March 21, 1952) is a Puerto Rican who was a world champion boxer. A native of Carolina, his nickname was "Salsero" because he was a fan of Salsa music.
Early boxing career
Escalera had his first professiona ...
. Escalera was drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the eighth round of the 2012 draft at 17 years and 114 days. Jazayerli's study does not clearly demonstrate the influence of the player's age when drafted in a late round.
Economic impact
Initially, the draft succeeded in reducing the value of signing bonuses. In 1964, a year before the first draft,
University of Wisconsin
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
outfielder
An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to cat ...
Rick Reichardt
Frederic Carl Reichardt (born March 16, 1943) is a former Major League outfielder for the Los Angeles / California Angels (1964–70), Washington Senators (1970), Chicago White Sox (1971–73) and Kansas City Royals (1973–74). He batted and ...
was given a record bonus of $200,000 ( $1,798,722 today) by the
Los Angeles Angels
The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. Since 1966, the team ha ...
. 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
Vincent Edward "Bo" Jackson (born November 30, 1962) is an American former professional baseball and American football player. He is the only professional athlete in history to be named an All-Star in both baseball and football. Jackson's el ...
became the first draftee to sign a total contract (signing bonus and salary) worth over $1 million ($ today). Jackson, a
Heisman Trophy
The Heisman Memorial Trophy (usually known colloquially as the Heisman Trophy or The Heisman) is awarded annually to the most outstanding player in college football. Winners epitomize great ability combined with diligence, perseverance, and hard ...
-winning
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
player for
Auburn University
Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a public land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama. With more than 24,600 undergraduate students and a total enrollment of more than 30,000 with 1,330 faculty members, Auburn is the second largest uni ...
, was also the first overall choice in the
National Football League draft
The National Football League Draft, also called the NFL Draft or (officially) the Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the league's most common source of player recruitment. Each team is given a position in the drafting o ...
, and was offered a $7 million ($ today) contract to play football for the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South divisio ...
.
High school players possessed additional leverage, as they had the option of attending college and re-entering the draft the next year. Agent
Scott Boras
Scott may refer to:
Places Canada
* Scott, Quebec, municipality in the Nouvelle-Beauce regional municipality in Quebec
* Scott, Saskatchewan, a town in the Rural Municipality of Tramping Lake No. 380
* Rural Municipality of Scott No. 98, Saska ...
routinely exploited this advantage to increase the contracts of his clients. In 1990, Boras client
Todd Van Poppel
Todd Matthew Van Poppel (born December 9, 1971) is a former Major League Baseball pitcher who played for the Oakland Athletics (, –), Detroit Tigers (1996), Texas Rangers (, –), Pittsburgh Pirates (1998), Chicago Cubs (–), and Cincinn ...
signed a $1.2 million ($ today) contract with
Oakland Athletics
The Oakland Athletics (often referred to as the A's) are an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The te ...
, after committing to play for the
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
. The following year, Boras negotiated a $1.55 million ($ today) contract for
Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...
first round pick
Brien Taylor
Brien McKeiver Taylor (born December 26, 1971) is a former pitcher in minor league baseball. He spent seven seasons in the minor leagues, primarily with the New York Yankees organization. In his career, he had a Win–loss record (pitching), win ...
, who had said he would attend junior college if he did not receive a contract equal to Van Poppel's. By June 2009, a figure as high as $15 million was floated for collegian pitcher
Stephen Strasburg
Stephen James Strasburg (; born July 20, 1988) is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Washington Nationals of Major League Baseball (MLB). Strasburg was selected by Washington with the first overall pick in the 2009 Major League ...
.
Increasingly, teams drafted based on whether or not a player was likely to sign for a particular amount of money, rather than on his talent. This became known as a "signability pick". Before the 1992 draft, team owners unilaterally decided to extend the period of time a team retained negotiating rights to a player from one year to five. In effect, the rule prohibited a high school draftee from attending college and re-entering the draft after his junior or senior seasons. The
Major League Baseball Players Association
The Major League Baseball Players Association (or MLBPA) is the union representing all current Major League Baseball players. All players, managers, coaches, and athletic trainers who hold or have held a signed contract with a Major League club ...
filed a legal challenge, but Major League Baseball argued that, since the Players Association did not represent amateur players, it was not necessary for the union to agree to the change. An arbitrator ultimately decided that any change to draft articles must be negotiated with the Players Association.
Media exposure
The first-year player draft has historically had far less media exposure than its counterparts in the other leagues for three primary reasons:
* High school and
college baseball
College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional pl ...
, the primary sources of MLB draftees, are not nearly as popular as
college football
College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States.
Unlike most ...
,
college basketball
In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...
, and, in Canada and certain parts of the U.S.,
college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...
and
junior hockey
Junior hockey is a level of competitive ice hockey generally for players between 16 and 21 years of age. Junior hockey leagues in the United States and Canada are considered amateur (with some exceptions) and operate within regions of each cou ...
. Consequently, most prospective top draft picks were unknown to the casual sports observer at the time of their draft. However, this is slowly changing:
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
baseball has enjoyed a spike in popularity in the 2000s and top collegiate baseball players have enjoyed greater media exposure, though still far below that of their basketball and football counterparts.
* Unlike top draft picks in the
NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
,
NBA
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
, and NFL, all of whom are expected to make immediate impacts, top MLB draftees are nearly always assigned to the
minor leagues
Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in No ...
for several years to hone their skills, usually at low levels (Rookie or Class A) initially. Due to this, fans cannot see the newly drafted players perform immediately, causing them to forget or lose interest in them. The entire 2007 first round (64 players) totaled one inning of major league playing time as of the end of the 2008 season; as of the 2009 season, the vast majority of 2008 first-rounders were still assigned to minor league organizations. In contrast, every first-round pick in the
2008 NFL draft
The 2008 NFL Draft was the 73rd annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible American football players. The draft took place at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, New York, on April 26 and April 27, ...
had played in the league by the end of the 2008 season.
*While many NHL, NBA, and NFL draftees will eventually reach their respective leagues, the vast majority of players selected in the first-year player draft will never play in a single MLB game, including many first-rounders. For example, only 31 of 52 first-round draft picks in the 1997 draft eventually made a big-league appearance, and only 19 of those 31 appeared in more than 100 games as of 2021. In 1997's sixth round, only five of the 30 players selected eventually made a big league appearance, all of which pitchers, and only two of those five (
Tim Hudson
Timothy Adam Hudson (born July 14, 1975), nicknamed "Huddy" is an American former professional baseball pitcher of Major League Baseball (MLB). After spending his college years at Chattahoochee Valley Community College and Auburn University, Hu ...
and
Matt Wise
Matthew John Wise (born November 18, 1975) is an American former professional baseball player. A right-handed pitcher, he played all or parts of eight seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) between 2000 and 2008. He became the bullpen coach for th ...
) pitched more than 40 innings in the majors. Further illustrating the unpredictability of the draft's middle and later rounds, none of the 30 players selected in the 18th round ever reached the major leagues, but the 19th round eventually produced an all-star and
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...
MVP
In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...
,
David Eckstein
David Mark Eckstein (; born January 20, 1975) is an American former professional baseball player. He was an infielder in Major League Baseball (MLB) for ten seasons. He played college baseball for the University of Florida and played professiona ...
. Even stranger, Hall of Famer
Mike Piazza
Michael Joseph Piazza ( ; born September 4, 1968) is an American former professional baseball catcher who played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1992 to 2007. He currently serves as the manager of the Italian national baseball tea ...
was selected in the 62nd round, 1390th overall, of the 1988 draft.
The 2007 draft was the first to be televised live, on June 7, 2007. The draft coverage took place at
Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex
The ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex is a multi-purpose sports complex located in the Walt Disney World Resort, in Bay Lake, Florida, United States, near Orlando. The complex includes nine venues and hosts numerous professional and amateur s ...
at
Walt Disney World
The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee. Opened on October 1, 1971, th ...
near
Orlando, Florida
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...
. Since the 2009 draft, the first round of the draft has been broadcast annually on
MLB Network
The MLB Network is an American television sports channel dedicated to baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball, with Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit, Comcast's NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications, and Cox C ...
live and in
prime time
Prime time or the peak time is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for a television show. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...
from its studios in
Secaucus, New Jersey
Secaucus ( ) is a town in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the town's population was 16,264,2021 draft, the event takes place during All-Star Weekend.
Procedures and rules
Eligibility
To be drafted, a player must fit the following criteria:
* Be a resident of, or have attended an educational institution in, the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, or a
U.S. territory
In the United States, a territory is any extent of region under the sovereign jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters (around islands or continental tracts). The United States asserts sovereign rights for ...
such as
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
. Players from other countries are not subject to the draft, and can be signed by any team unless they have attended an educational institution in the aforementioned areas.
* Has never signed a major or
minor league
Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...
contract.
* High school players are eligible only after graduation, and if they have not attended college.
* Players at four-year colleges and universities are eligible three years after first enrolling in such an institution, or after their 21st birthdays (whichever occurs first).
*
Junior
Junior or Juniors may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* ''Junior'' (Junior Mance album), 1959
* ''Junior'' (Röyksopp album), 2009
* ''Junior'' (Kaki King album), 2010
* ''Junior'' (LaFontaines album), 2019
Films
* ''Junior'' (1994 ...
and
community college
A community college is a type of educational institution. The term can have different meanings in different countries: many community colleges have an "open enrollment" for students who have graduated from high school (also known as senior sec ...
players are eligible to be drafted at any time.
Draft order
From the 2023 draft, as part of the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA), the general draft order in the first round will be based on a lottery participated by 18 teams which did not make the postseason in the past season to determine the first six picks in the draft, with the three worst clubs having an equal chance of winning the top overall pick, and secondly by the finishes of playoff clubs, i.e.,
Wild Card Game
The Wild Card Series (formerly known as Wild Card Game from 2012 to 2019 and in 2021) are games that serve as the opening round of the Major League Baseball (MLB) Major League Baseball postseason, postseason. A single wild card game was first ...
losers down to the World Series winner. Additionally, within each playoff group, teams will be sorted by revenue-sharing status and then reverse order of winning percentage. In each subsequent round, the first 18 selections are still determined by the preceding season's standings and the remaining picks are also based on the postseason clubs' results. Revenue-sharing recipient teams are limited to receiving lottery picks in two consecutive drafts and non-recipients can get one of the top six selections in a single draft year only. Also, a lottery-ineligible, non-postseason club can only select 10th overall or lower. The 2022 CBA ratified the draft's reduction to 20 rounds.
The order was the reverse order of the previous year's standings, until 2022. If two teams finished with identical records, the previous year's standings of the two teams was the tiebreaker, with the team having a worse record receiving the higher pick.
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. This was known as the "draft and follow" procedure.
Since 2012, the deadline for signing a drafted player is July 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.
The 2022 CBA reinstated the draft-and-follow option for players drafted after the 10th round who opt to attend junior college and are eligible to sign with their drafting clubs before the following draft.
Compensatory picks
Currently, teams can earn compensatory picks in the draft based on departing free agents who reject a Qualifying Offer from their respective team. A qualifying offer is defined as a one-year contract worth the average value of the top 120 player contracts for that year (in 2015, the value of the qualifying offer was $15.8 million). The 2013 draft saw major changes to the compensation rules. This was implemented as part of the previous CBA between MLB and its players' union, which took effect with the 2012 season.
Pre-2013 rules
Before the 2013 draft, free agents were ranked by the
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based on their previous two years of playing, and against players of similar positions. Players were categorized as either Type A or Type B, or fell into the category of all other players. Below is a description of each free agent class and the compensation the free agent's former team received when the player signed with a different team.
* A Type A free agent was ranked in the top 20 percent of players at his position. A team that signed a Type A player gave its top draft pick to the club that the player left; that club also received a supplemental pick in the "sandwich" round between the first and second rounds.
* A Type B free agent was ranked below the top 20 percent but in the top 40 percent of players at his position. A team that lost a Type B player received a supplemental pick, but the signing team did not lose a pick.
* All other players carried no compensation at all. There had previously been a third class of "Type C" players, but that was eliminated in the 2007 CBA.
To earn a compensatory pick, a free agent must have been either signed before the arbitration deadline in early December, or offered arbitration by their former team but still signed with another team.
Compensatory picks that one team gave another via this method were the highest available pick that team had, with the exception of picks in the top half of the first round. These picks were protected from being used as compensation. If a team that picked in the top half of the first draft signed a Type A free agent, they would give up their second-round pick. If a team owed two other teams draft picks via Type A free agents, the team whose departing player had a higher score got the higher-ranked pick. A team could not lose picks it earned via compensation. The post-2012 rules for this aspect of the draft are similar, except that the "Type A" and "Type B" designations no longer exist (see below).
The order of the supplemental round between the first and second rounds, a feature that remains in place in 2013 and beyond, is determined by inverse order of the previous year's standings. Under pre-2013 rules, Type A picks were made first, and then the order reset for all the Type B compensation picks.
In a feature that did not change with the old CBA in 2012, teams can also earn compensation for unsigned picks from the previous year's draft. If a team doesn't sign a first or second round pick, they will get to pick at the same slot plus one the following year. For example, if the team with the No. 5 pick does not sign that player, they would have the No. 6 pick the following year. The regular draft order would continue around those picks. For compensation for not signing a third round pick, teams would get a pick in a supplemental round between the third and fourth rounds. If a team fails to sign a player with one of these compensated picks, there is no compensation the following year.
Current rules
For the 2012 draft, the previous "Type A" and "Type B" designations remained in place, but the CBA included special provisions that modified the statuses of 11 players who were Type A free agents under the 2007 CBA. Six of these were "Modified Type A"—meaning that the signing team did not forfeit a draft pick, but the player's former team received a compensatory pick in the same position it would have earned under regular Type A rules. The remaining five were "Modified Type B", with compensation identical to that for other Type B free agents.
Since the 2013 draft, free agents are no longer classified by "type". Instead, a team is only able to receive compensation if it makes its former player an offer at least equal to the average of the 125 richest contracts. However, if a player is traded during the final season of his contract, his new team will be ineligible to receive any compensation.
Starting with the 2023 draft, the 2022 CBA provides for the awarding of compensatory draft picks under the following:
*Clubs that receive revenue sharing will receive a third-round pick if the player signs for more than $35 million total or $18 million in average annual value, a compensation round B pick if the player signs for more than $55 million or $23 million in average annual value, a compensation round A pick if the player signs for more than $100 million or $30 million in average annual value, or a third-round pick and compensation round A pick if the player signs for more than $150 million or $40 million in average annual value.
*Clubs that do not receive revenue sharing but also not go over the competitive balance tax (CBT) will receive a third-round pick if the player signs for more than $55 million or $23 million in average annual value, a compensation round B pick if the player signs for more than $100 million or $30 million in average annual value, or a compensation round A pick if the player signs for more than $150 million or $40 million in average annual value.
*Clubs that go over the CBT will receive a third-round pick if the player signs for more than $100 million or $30 million in average annual value or a compensation round B pick if the player signs for more than $150 million or $40 million in average annual value.
Other changes from 2012
The previous CBA introduced other significant changes to the draft.
Bonus pool
From the 2012 draft on, each team is allocated a "bonus pool" from which it can offer initial contracts to its drafted players. Each team's pool is based on its draft position and number of picks, plus the amount spent in the previous year's draft. For the 2012 draft, these pools ranged from $4.5 million to $11.5 million. If a team goes over its threshold by 5 percent or less, it must pay a "luxury tax" of 75% on the amount over the threshold. Teams that go 5 to 10 percent over must pay a 100% tax on the excess, and will lose their next first-round pick. A team that goes 15 percent over can lose its next two first-round picks, in addition to the "luxury tax". These excess picks will go to smaller-revenue teams via a yet-to-be-reported formula. Uniquely, these compensatory picks can be traded—marking the first time MLB has allowed trading of draft picks. However, all previous rules against trading of regular picks, or picks awarded as free agent compensation, remain in force.
New signing rules
Teams can no longer offer major league contracts to their draft choices—only minor league contracts are available. The only exception is for drafted players who have
scholarships
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in other sports. Also, the date for signing new picks has moved from mid-August to mid-July. However, the deadline was moved to early August in 2021 to compensate for the new date of the MLB Draft.