MLBTR and MLB.com report that the league is going to conduct its new Competitive Balance Lottery today. Under the new CBA, in theory, small-market and low-revenue teams will have the chance to win extra selections in next year’s amateur draft. The ten smallest-market teams and ten lowest-revenue teams will have the chance to win extra selections in 2013.
How these extra draft picks are determined is confusing. Some small-market teams are low-revenue teams, but there are a few small market teams with high payrolls. Reports state that there are 13 clubs involved in the first-round lottery: the Diamondbacks, Orioles, Indians, Royals, Athletics, Pirates, Padres, Rays, Reds, Rockies, Marlins, Brewers and Cardinals.
How the Cardinals need "competitive" help is somewhat baffling; and the Pirates are in first place in the NL Central. And the Tigers are a deep pocket team on par with the Yankees, Angels and Red Sox in payroll flexibility.
The first six selections will be made between the first and second rounds of next year’s draft. A second group of six picks will be available to the teams from the first group that didn’t get an early pick, plus the Tigers.
The second group of selections will be made after the second round of the draft.
But here is the key element of this new system: MLB teams can trade the draft picks they obtain in the Competitive Balance Lottery. The picks, which can only be traded once, cannot be sold or traded during the offseason. In theory, the draft picks could be involved in some of this summer’s deadline deals.
So, a team not a party to the Lottery draft wants to get extra draft picks (i.e. the Cubs management would LOVE to add more draft picks as part of their rebuilding process), that means the big market and large revenue teams will pay and trade to get one or more of these high value draft slots.
