Quote: Originally Posted By pirate_dave on 2/03/2009
It may too late (but maybe not) for this season's rookie draft, but I'd like to suggest a bit of a twist to the rookie draft:
for the first round only, the players are exclusive to their actual rookie year team. Obviously, this only affects players who didn't play for the same team their whole careers. The players who played for the same team their whole careers would still be assigned a "pick-by" number.
This will allow teams to have a shot at players who excelled for their first teams, but moved on towards the end of their careers. Some examples from the past would be Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. To a lesser extent, Tom Seaver would be one also.
It could also set up some very tough decisions. For instance, say Molitor and Yount were rookies in the same season. Yount would be an exclusive with a "pick-by" number of 1. However, Milwaukee would also have the rights to Molitor for the first round. The manager has to decide which great player is better for his team and he won't get both.
If you like the idea, post it and let Larry know. Also, express your willingness to do this for this year's rookie draft or not until next year's rookie draft.
I don't want to see anymore rule changes at this point... too many decisions were made in this initial draft to change the rules for the rookie draft. I will tell you right now, if this rule gets passed for this rookie draft you'll need to find a new owner for the Dodgers.
The change I'd like to see, starting with the'73 rookie class, would be for Larry not to spoon feed us the list of eligible players...we should have to research them ourselves... Larry would just need to confirm their eligibility.