It is about baseball, but relevant to use none-the-less.
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Tanks But No Tanks: How to solve MLB’s tanking problem? Reverse the draft order
Jayson Stark Dec 10, 2021 434 “A lot of the issues … (come down to) too many teams not attempting to compete.”
—Longtime reliever Andrew Miller, on The Athletic Baseball Show
I have come here to solve the great baseball labor snafu. You’re welcome. If Andrew Miller has captured this correctly, the first step toward peace, kumbaya and, especially, pitchers and catchers on Feb. 14 is this: We need to end tanking. I can help with that.
I have a plan. It isn’t my plan. I’ve heard people talk about it for a few years. Neither side has presented it at the bargaining table. Neither side even seems particularly interested in it. I’m happy to explain why shortly.
It has flaws. It’s far from perfect. It might be overflowing with all sorts of unintended consequences. But let’s put those aside for a moment because the more I’ve delved into it, the more I’m convinced it has one major selling point:
It would work.
So here’s the idea for this plan, which we’ll call (for now) the Tanks But No Tanks plan: Let’s not award the top picks in the amateur draft to the teams that lose 112, 104 and 101 games in the previous season. Let’s award those picks to teams that just miss the playoffs, not teams that lose hope by Mother’s Day.
If this plan were put in place immediately, here’s how next year’s draft would work. (We’ll assume no expanded playoffs for now, even though they’re likely coming.)
OK, so that’s different. If baseball were to keep the draft order as it is now, those two groups would be reversed. That means it would be the Orioles and Diamondbacks lining up to find the next Bryce Harper, Stephen Strasburg or Gerrit Cole, not two teams that just won 90-plus games apiece.
So why do this? It’s simple.
You’re not getting that No. 1 pick — the next Harper/Cole/Strasburg, plus all the draft-pool money that goes with it — by tanking. There’s only one way you can get that pick — by trying. How ’bout that for a revolutionary concept.
“This would work,” said one agent who is probably the biggest fan of this idea I know. “It would incentivize everyone to win in September, either to get to the playoffs or get the No. 1 pick. And that’s the first thing all fans deserve.”
And it isn’t only people on the players’ side who agree. For a piece I wrote a couple of months ago, on what we learned this past season, I surveyed people in front offices about which 2021 trend they thought was most important to address in this labor deal. The runaway winner: tanking.
So about three weeks ago, before the lockout, I circled back to one of the executives I talked to then to see how he felt about this idea. I won’t describe him further, other than to say his team has spent a few seasons in the recent past in what MLB would characterize as “a down cycle.” So he’s familiar with the benefits and pitfalls of that cycle.
“It certainly gives teams a reason to compete in September,” he said, “or to pitch your best pitcher that last weekend because you can get a better draft pick. There’s no doubt it would change the way you approach things.”
Like many people, he has other changes he would favor, either in addition to this or as stand-alone ideas. He initially talked up those ideas as being preferable to this plan. But the more he thought this one over, the more he warmed up to it. He texted me, several hours later, with more thoughts. He still has reservations, but he concluded this way:
“It definitely incentivizes winning, and that would be the purpose. So after thinking about it, you’d get my vote. Creative.”
You’d get my vote. I love that kind of talk. But I haven’t even shown you yet how powerful the impact of this plan would be. So here it comes …
The true power of Tanks But No Tanks Let’s illustrate, with actual data, how much draft order can change the fate of a franchise. To do that, I looked at the nine amateur drafts from 2010 through 2018. Then I added up the collective Wins Above Replacement of the players picked in different spots in that draft. As always, we do the math here so you don’t have to.
(Source: baseball-reference.com) So what does that chart tell us? For one thing, it tells us that you shouldn’t totally buy the old axiom that “the baseball draft is a crapshoot.” Those top three picks? They’re nowhere near the level of crapshootery as those picks at the bottom or even the middle of the first round.
I chose pick No. 20 because, at the moment, 10 teams make the playoffs, so the team with the worst record would get that pick under the Tanks But No Tanks plan. I also looked at pick No. 16 because, if the playoffs expand to the 14 teams MLB has proposed, the losingest team would wind up with that pick.
But either way, it’s not hard to measure how much more that No. 1 overall pick means than those 16th or 20th picks: 100 extra Wins Above Replacement! Seems like that would be enough to motivate my team to try instead of tank. Oh, and also, here’s one more thing I want to point out …
It would stop the July clearance sales Let’s go back to that “What we learned this season” column one more time. I can’t stop thinking about the words of one longtime executive, who reminded us in that piece that it isn’t just full-season tanking that’s a problem. What about midseason tanking?
“We have to actively discourage teams from tanking,” that exec said. “Under this system, if you’re out of it in July, there’s nothing wrong with making trades at the deadline. But when you have three, or four, or five teams that have absolutely no incentive to win and start tearing down everything, which we had this year, it sways the races. It’s a huge problem.”
Another executive pointed this out: Heading into the day of the deadline (July 30), the Cubs (50-54) had only one fewer win than the Braves (51-53). Granted, the Cubs were a lot farther out in their division. But guess how many games behind the eventual No. 2 wild-card team (St. Louis) they were? Just two.
So if the Tanks But No Tanks plan were in place, would a team in their position always decide to trade off seven players in the last 30 hours before the deadline, as the Cubs did? In their case, considering all the impending free agents on their roster, maybe they would. But in every case? I doubt it. And that matters. It can even have a huge impact on the playoff field.
The Cardinals went 6-1 against the Cubs after that selloff. The Braves went 7-2 against another “Everything Must Go” team, the Nationals, following the Washington closeout sale. But suppose teams in that position needed to keep winning to chase a top-three or top-five pick, as opposed to what they did in real life under this system? If they held onto their stars, how much more challenging would it be for other contenders to play those teams in August and September?
You know the answer. But we’re really just daydreaming, because now it’s time to consider …
What’s actually on the table Alas, there are no signs that the Tanks But No Tanks plan will ever make it to the bargaining table. Maybe if people read this column and start marching outside the offices of Rob Manfred and Tony Clark, they’ll reconsider. But don’t bet the Christmas shopping fund on it.
What has reached the table, though, are enough proposals to indicate that both sides are willing to discuss changes to the draft as a vehicle to incentivize teams to compete. MLB’s biggest idea: a draft lottery. But why don’t we review every proposal we’ve heard, either because it has been reported publicly, confirmed by the two sides at last week’s news conferences or described to us by people briefed on the negotiations.
FIRST UNION PROPOSAL: The Athletic’s Evan Drellich has reported that as far back as May, the Players Association trotted out a plan that would determine the draft order with a 60/40 formula that would balance market size with a team’s record the previous season:
• 60 percent weight to winning percentage (worst to best)
• 40 percent weight to market size (smallest to largest)
The most interesting concept here: Small-market teams wouldn’t have motivation to lose to get a top pick. In addition, the union made two proposals specifically aimed at penalizing tanking:
• Teams that had one of the five worst winning percentages two years in a row couldn’t pick higher than sixth the next year.
• Teams that ranked in the bottom 10 in winning percentage three years in a row couldn’t pick higher than 11th the next year.
One more item designed to reward small-market teams that built rosters to contend, not tank: Extra competitive-balance draft picks after the first two rounds would go to teams that received revenue sharing and made the playoffs or had a winning record.
MLB’S COUNTER-PROPOSAL: Weeks later, according to reporting by Drellich and others, the owners rejected the union’s ideas and countered with a lottery, plus another measure that theoretically would discourage long rebuilding cycles:
• A draft lottery to determine the first three picks.
• Teams could not have a top-five pick more than two years in a row.
The reaction to this variation of a lottery from players hasn’t been spelled out in much detail. But in general, the union appears to be interested in a lottery only if it involves many more teams than just three. It seems skeptical that lotteries involving just a few teams do enough to discourage tanking, with the NBA as its prime example.
I’ll look at lotteries versus the Tanks But No Tanks plan momentarily. But since the union shot down this lottery idea, let’s review one more late-breaking proposal from the players.
FROM THE UNION LAST WEEK: According to sources briefed on these negotiations, the Players Association last week responded with a different lottery proposal, one that appears to more specifically target anti-tanking ideas.
• A lottery to determine the first eight picks, not three.
• Small-market teams that finished in the bottom eight the previous two years are bounced out of the lottery.
• Large-market teams that finished in the bottom four the previous two years are ineligible for the lottery.
• After the first eight picks are determined by that lottery, the draft order then would begin with small-market clubs in reverse order of winning percentage the previous year, followed by large-market teams in reverse order of winning percentage.
The union clearly designed these proposals to discourage tanking, both by teams in and out of the lottery. It also seems apparent it believes that an eight-team lottery provides a stronger disincentive to lose than a three-team lottery. It isn’t known how MLB reacted to that proposal. But that shouldn’t stop us from asking …
Why do NBA teams still tank? If a lottery is any kind of answer, we should look at the NBA. Why? Because the NBA has had some sort of draft lottery for nearly 40 years, starting in 1985. Has anyone out there seen signs that it has discouraged tanking?
“Ask the Sixers,” said the agent quoted earlier. “The Process. It didn’t stop them. And the problem with this lottery (as proposed by the league) is that if you’re bad, you still have the chance to pick in the top three. So it’s not going to stop Pittsburgh from doing what they’re doing. It’s not going to stop Baltimore from doing what they’re doing.”
But executives on the other side who like the lottery idea don’t agree. One of them pointed to the description of MLB’s lottery proposal as “an NBA-style” draft lottery. What that means, it’s believed, is that it would be similar to the system implemented by the NBA in 2019, not the previous version which inspired the Sixers to go all-Process all the time, for four years.
The current NBA lottery gives the three worst teams identical odds (14 percent) of drawing the top pick, with the fourth-worst (12.5 percent) and fifth-worst (10.5 percent) teams not far behind. It’s too soon to get a full handle on whether this version has killed tanking. But in the Process days, the worst team had a 25-percent shot at the top pick and couldn’t pick lower than the No. 4 pick. Now those odds are almost halved, and the losingest team can drop all the way to the sixth pick.
We don’t have enough details to know exactly how MLB’s lottery would work. But one exec who defended it said: “What you really want to get rid of is teams thinking they have to lose 100 games to get the top pick. With an NBA-style lottery, there’s no longer that incentive to lose 98, 99, 100 or 101 games, because all those teams have the same odds.”
So let’s ask this question a different way…
Is a lottery the answer? This is where we get to compare the lottery to the Tanks But No Tanks plan. That sounds fun, doesn’t it? Of course, there’s no easy way to simulate a lottery. So I looked at three consecutive powerhouse baseball drafts — the Strasburg Draft (2009), the Harper Draft (2010) and the Cole Draft (2011). Then I switched the order to that year’s NBA lottery order. Here’s how those drafts turned out:
2011
ACTUAL RESULT – Cole to Pittsburgh (No. 1 overall) LOTTERY RESULT – Cole to Cleveland (No. 1 overall) ACTUAL INDIANS PICK – Francisco Lindor (No. 8 overall) NEW PIRATES PICK – Trevor Bauer (No. 3 overall)
2010
ACTUAL RESULT – Harper to Washington (No. 1 overall) LOTTERY RESULT – Harper to Cleveland (No. 1 overall) ACTUAL INDIANS PICK – Drew Pomeranz (No. 5 overall) NEW NATIONALS PICK – Manny Machado (No. 3 overall)
2009
ACTUAL RESULT – Strasburg to Washington (No. 1 overall) LOTTERY RESULT – Strasburg to San Diego (No. 1 overall) ACTUAL PADRES PICK – Donovan Tate (No. 3 overall) NEW NATIONALS PICK – Tony Sanchez (No. 4 overall)
So now let’s ask: Would those results have been dramatically different enough to discourage any team from tanking? At first glance, it looks awesome for the Indians, who would have won the lottery two years in a row and ended up with Cole and Harper. On the other hand, they never would have employed Francisco Lindor. So there’s that.
It also would have changed the arc of the Nationals franchise, obviously. But they’d have landed Manny Machado instead of Harper. And maybe they never would have taken Tony Sanchez with that fourth pick — since the list of players still on the board included Zack Wheeler (who went sixth), Mike Minor (seventh) and some kid named Mike Trout (23rd).
So how would that have compared to the same drafts with the Tanks But No Tanks plan? I looked at that, too.
2009
No. 1 pick – Strasburg No. 16 pick – Bobby Borchering No. 20 pick – Chad Jenkins
No. 1 pick – Cole No. 16 pick – Chris Reed No. 20 pick – Tyler Anderson
Now ask yourself: Which of those two systems would provide the strongest disincentive to lose as many games as possible? Doesn’t look like there’s even a debate from this view. Is there any team in history that would go into full-bore tanking mode for the chance to draft Kolbrin Vitek? Do I even have to answer that resoundingly rhetorical question?
Maybe that’s why one former baseball executive, who has been part of many a labor battle in the past, says: “If I’m Rob (Manfred), I know I can get 23 votes right now for a lottery like the NBA’s. I know I can get 23 votes for a rule that says you can’t get a top-three pick three years in a row. … But a reverse draft like you’re proposing? I wouldn’t vote for that. That wouldn’t incentivize me. I want teams that end up with the worst record to get a big advantage in the draft because that’s what drafts are supposed to do. I’d just want to limit their window to do that.”
Another skeptical executive asked a different pointed question: If my plan is so good, how come no other sport has tried it? His answer: Because drafts are supposed to help bad teams get better — and pushing those teams to the back of the draft line would just make their rebuilding cycles last longer. So what, he wondered, is the point of that?
And here’s another Tanks But No Tanks worry, about a potentially messy unintended consequence: Suppose it’s one of those years when everyone knows the probable No. 1 pick in the draft is a transcendent, Ken Griffey Jr.-type talent, with franchise-altering Hall of Fame potential. Now suppose you’re a mediocre team still in contention, but your only shot at the playoffs is a win-or-else road wild-card game, against a loaded team like the Dodgers?
Can we be absolutely sure that a team like that would push the gas pedal to get into that road wild-card game — when it might be a far more attractive long-term outcome to barely miss the playoffs and draft the next Griffey? Should baseball really try this plan if it creates any incentive to lose on purpose, remote as that scenario may seem in a sport in which no draft pick ever makes instant LeBron-type impact?
I see the argument. I understand all the reservations. I never said the Tanks But No Tanks plan was perfect. I just said that if your goal is to stop tanking, it has one spectacular selling point: It works.
It would need to operate in concert with lots of other ideas. But that’s the point of labor deals — assembling a bunch of moving parts that fit together and create something better than what you had before.
So I’ve done my part. I’ve laid out an intriguing idea. And I bet all of the skeptics in the negotiating room would be shocked by how many people love it.
“I don’t like rewarding teams that don’t try,” said one exec who has been involved in many drafts. “And this would work. It definitely would work. The only thing I wonder about is: Is it fair? That, to me, is the only question.”
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So maybe the KRFL draft lottery system isn't so bad after all?
