The Rangers were completely quiet on the trade deadline this year after being as active as anyone last year. Texas comfortably rests in baseball purgatory: 11 back in the division, but 4 games over .500. They’re on the local radar, not quite on the national radar, and not completely drowned out by Cowboys training camp. That might seem bleak, but its a major improvement from this time last year. Not looking to sell, and with a massive cupboard of prospects, the Rangers were able to tell prospective trade partners “Give us pitching, or give us death”.
Well the Rangers got no pitching at the deadline, but that’s fine. The main surplus still remains at catcher. All 4 guys are young enough that deals could be completed in the offseason, or at the next deadline. I’d be one to argue that the return on Gerald Laird could be higher this coming offseason when teams will be more willing to make deals. Teagarden, Saltalamacchia, and Ramirez will just be a year older. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m disappointed slightly, but I understand why nothing happened for the Rangers. They have one specific need that is always hard to deal for, and always expensive.
Texas didn’t present me with any irritation for the 2nd straight trade deadline, but the rest of the league did. I’m sick and tired of hearing about draft pick compensation. I think the idea of draft pick compensation is a great help to lower market teams. They don’t have to be afraid to lose free agents as badly as they had to in the past. Draft pick compensation gives these teams leverage in trade talks.
Two problems arise though. One problem with draft pick compensation is that teams like Boston and New York can easily exploit it by allowing players they don’t want anymore to leave so they can recoup picks then sign replacements. The rich are just getting richer. The sandwich round in between the first and second rounds is now massive. Wouldnt smaller market teams be better off without those 10-20 extra picks crammed in there for, more or less, the more successful clubs?
The main problem is what we witnessed today. What happens when these GMs overstate the leverage draft pick compensation affords them? The trade market collapses. Middle relievers and fringe to slightly above average closers end up having inflated values that no one wants to pay. There are many examples to choose, but the one that pushed me over the edge was Will Ohman. He isn’t a bad player, but 10 teams were reportedly interested. Why are we waiting for draft picks that will cost 1-1.5 million to sign?
Why does it make more sense to make a deal than hope for compensatory picks? There are several reasons that make the whole system look inefficient. First of all, any prospect is by definition closer to the majors than a late first round pick in a draft that is 11 and a half months away. These prospects also have pro experience which draft picks won’t. This whole process slows down the building time for franchises.
Hoping for draft picks is also a fairly significant roll of the dice for a franchise to take. These teams make several assumptions or hopes regarding the players they keep. For one that assume they have their player slotted correctly. How can they be for sure that a player is a Type A or a Type B? Last year the Rangers threw out that Gagne would be a Type A. Not so. The other issue is if the free agent is signed by a team with a protected pick the value of the picks is even less than before. It’s a literal crapshoot.
There are two ways to eliminate this problem. The first is to reconfigure the compensation system. Make Type A free agents worth an unprotected 1st round pick or a 1st round compensation pick instead of both. Type B free agents then can be worth a 2nd round compensatory pick. Would these teams be willing to gamble on a pick being somewhere in the 15-70 range? Doubtful. The other quick fix is to institute a slotting system in the draft to keep players from dropping due to signability. Rick Porcello, Craig Hansen, Andrew Brackman, and numerous others, wouldn’t land in the laps of the top franchises, or potentially make compensatory picks worth more than they should be.
I usually have bigger Rangers issues on my mind around the trade deadline, but this year that isn’t the case. The league has great parity going right now, but within a few years that is going to end unless the draft pick compensation system is reworked. The rich are getting richer via the draft, and lower teams can’t compete if they think the draft is going to help them in the same ways. Thankfully the Rangers were smarter than that last year, or else 2008 might have caused me to lose even more of my hair.
