Tuesday, February 25, 2014

No Draft Pick for Ervin?

Wouldn't it be just the Royals luck if Ervin Santana waited until after the All-Star Break to sign with a Major League team robbing the Royals of the supplemental round selection that they should have received? Well, according to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports that is exactly what the agent of Ervin Santana is threatening. You can read the whole article here.

Rosenthal also makes the point that Santana could sign immediately following Opening Day in order to guarantee that he isn't eligible to have a draft pick attached to him at seasons end. I'm not sure that I buy this part of the post as it would be easy for Santana's agent and a team to simply reach a handshake agreement ensuring this without forcing Santana to sit out extra time.

At the moment I'm not ready to buy that Santana will wait until mid-June to sign a professional contract. At the same time, I'm looking for Santana's market and I just don't see it. Seriously, who is signing Santana to a four-year, $50 million contract now? At this point I really don't know what to expect for Santana.

Moving forward, it would make sense for Major League Baseball to get rid of teams losing draft picks as a punishment for signing free agents. It has always seems a little strange that big market teams are penalized for spending the money that they earned. Baseball could continue to subsidize teams that "can't afford" to keep their top players by still awarded supplemental picks to players turning down a qualifying offer.

What happens with Santana is now anybody's guess, but I would think that a one year deal with an agreement of no qualifying offer would make the most sense. A big knock on the Dominican is his inconsistency and a strong one year deal would help to suppress this criticism. While there isn't much of a market for Santana now, I have to think that if he was signing a one year deal, there would be more than a handful of teams with interest.

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