Wednesday, June 02, 1999
Draft is high risk
Reds pick 14th today
BY CHRIS HAFT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Follow the money. It shows what a big-business, high-risk gamble Major League Baseball's amateur draft has become, and the lengths to which teams will go just to have a chance to get talented players.
Roulette is shrewd financial planning compared with the baseball draft, which starts today. Baseball's draft receives a fraction of the publicity of the NFL and NBA drafts. Yet the risks that baseball teams take on each player far exceed those in professional football and basketball. Only 10 percent of the players who sign contracts with big-league clubs ever play in the majors.
In football and basketball, drafted players who make a team proceed directly into the top professional ranks. In baseball, even the very best prospects must serve an apprenticeship in the minor leagues. Since the draft's inception in 1965, only 16 players have made their professional debuts in the major leagues.
But when a young player shows major-league potential, teams will forget fiscal responsibility and pay these players millions to join their organizations.
The Reds, who have the 14th pick in the first round today, are no exception. Only five players (Greg Vaughn, Barry Larkin, Denny Neagle, Pete Harnisch and Jeffrey Hammonds) have a 1999 salary that exceeds the $1.95 million bonus the Reds gave outfielder Austin Kearns, the Lexington, Ky., native who was their first-round pick last year. Kearns, the seventh pick overall, is in Single-A ball, three steps away from the majors.
It is estimated that the first pick in this year's draft will collect a bonus of at least $4.5 million.
Only 12 years ago, Moeller graduate Ken Griffey Jr., who has blossomed into one of the game's greatest stars, secured a then-lavish $180,000 bonus from the Seattle Mariners after they made him the first overall pick.
“Now,” said Brian Goldberg, Griffey's Cincinnati-based agent, “you have all these side issues you didn't have before.”
Numerous factors have influenced the spiraling bonus payments:
• Agents. Formerly, said David Rawnsley, a nationally renowned draft expert and a Baseball America columnist, “teams could draft a player, negotiate directly with him, and things usually went according to the club's plan. Now, it's rare for a player drafted in the top 10 rounds not to be represented.”
• Leverage. A high school senior selected in the draft can spurn a pro contract for college. A college junior can return for his senior year. The only players who pro teams can pressure, in this sense, are college seniors, and even they can find refuge in an independent league, as St.Louis outfielder J.D. Drew and Boston catcher Jason Varitek did.
“Before, the issue of whether to go to college or turn pro came down to $20,000 or $30,000, not $200,000 or $300,000,” said Goldberg, who represented four of last year's top 50 selections.
Said Rawnsley, “An 18-year old without bus fare in his pocket will be insulted if you offer him a half-million dollars.”
• Competition. Multi-sport athletes can threaten to give up baseball, and command bigger bonuses. “Talented players can get that much more money because of the perceived talent shortage,” Rawnsley said.
The Reds haven't experienced the multimillion-dollar draft dramas endured by other teams that either pick higher or chase the few, select “loophole” free agents.
Pitcher Matt White, whose 1996 selection by the San Francisco Giants was ruled invalid due to a technicality, received a $10.3 million signing bonus from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. First baseman Travis Lee, who escaped his selection by Minnesota under similar circumstances, got $10 million from the Arizona Diamondbacks. (He reached the majors after only one minor-league season).
REDS 4, METS 0
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