The MLB amateur draft takes place this evening. Here’s how to watch.

With only five rounds, there should be a ton of players available for the independent minor leagues that should spring up next year.

Bill Thompson at Beyond the Boxscore joins the end the MLB draft movement. It is very difficult for me to pick out my favorite paragraph, but here is a sample:

This system doesn’t exist anywhere else in the professional world outside of team sports. Professors don’t get their PhD’s and then enter a draft to see which university will get their services. I didn’t become a Paramedic and enter a draft among fire departments to hopefully get to practice medicine. Name your career, there is no draft involved unless it is a team sport. These players should have the ability to ply their trade where they so choose. There’s no reason Spencer Torkelson shouldn’t be able to say, “you know what, I’ve decided I want to play for the Los Angeles Angels, sorry every other team that was interested.”

BeyondTheBoxscore.com

Baseball Musings held this position since 2007. I hope Bill gets on the universal free agency bandwagon as well.

How do scouts evaluate talent when the talent isn’t playing? Damon Oppenheimer, Yankees top domestic scout, talks about the challenges:

Yes, Yankees scouts saw players last summer and in the fall’s showcase circuit, but not laying eyes on a high school senior makes the evaluation incomplete.

“It really makes it more of a challenge,’’ Oppenheimer said of being unable to get an in-depth look at players. “You haven’t seen the player. Did he get stronger? It makes it hard. It’s a little bit of a challenge.’’

NYPost.com

High school players are still growing, so the difference between a junior and a senior can be significant. I have little doubt talent will be missed this season.

In addition, the skills of baseball are learned through repetition. Batters build pattern recognizers to identify pitches. That means they need to see a lot of pitches. Pitchers need to throw to build arm strength and perfect their mechanics. The actual game competition teaches all players how to adjust, how to anticipate strategy, what actually works and what doesn’t.

While this year’s draft class is going to be hurt, the talent coming up behind them might be hurt as well. They will miss a season of competition that would help them build skills. We might see a deficit of talent coming to the majors for another three or four years.

Shane Tourtellotte joins the call to end the amateur draft in major league baseball.

Baseball gives its prospects a hard road to the majors, in the many minor-league levels they have to ascend and the Poverty Row conditions they must endure much of the way. Giving these players more control over how they start on that long road would reconcile them better to their labors and maybe coax some more multi-sport talents into choosing to pursue baseball professionally. That means more talent in the pipeline, and that means baseball is stronger and better.

THT.FanGraphs.com

This has been a long standing call here at Baseball Musings (and here), part of the idea of going to universal free agency.

The night of the MLB amateur draft is a good time to discuss the abolition of the process. The draft as it stands today gives the players another reason to be angry with owners. Amateurs should be free agents, able to sign for what the market will bear, especially if their careers are going to be controlled by a team for up to 12 seasons (minors and majors).

At least prior to a few years ago, drafted players could at least negotiate a deal, and threaten to not sign if their number wasn’t met. Now, with slots, baseball pretty much dictates how much they make.

That’s why I was happy to see a Japanese team go after a drafted player who did not sign. MLB lowered the price of amateur talent with draft rules and international signing limits, so it would be a good time for Japan and other leagues around the world to grab that talent. I hope that happens, that MLB loses talent. It would force them to rethink how they pay amateurs, and it would improve the quality of play of other leagues around the world.

I would love to see universal free agency, but at this point I would like to see some way of players and teams being able to negotiate with a range of players, based on some kind of ranking (maybe draft lists submitted by teams). So the top five teams could negotiate with the top ten players; the next five teams could negotiate with six through fifteen, etc. It would keep the rich teams from getting all the good talent, but give everyone the chance to find the best fit.