Cardinals to receive another competitive balance pick in the 2017 draft

The Cardinals will be one of 14 teams to get an extra pick in the 2017 amateur draft due to the competitive balance provision. That’s good news for the Cardinals. An extra pick is always welcome, especially in a year when they lost what would have been the 18^th overall pick due to their signing of Dexter Fowler, who was branded with the dreaded qualifying offer.

The idea of a “competitive balance” component to the draft was born in the 2011 collective bargaining agreement, and it was to give teams who fell in either the bottom ten in revenue or market size an extra pick after either the first or second round. Until that CBA expired, the qualifying teams were placed in order by a lottery system. For instance, in the 2015 amateur draft the Cardinals received the third competitive balance pick even though they have a larger market size than Milwaukee, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, and Denver, and obviously didn’t fall in the bottom three in Major League Baseball in revenue. That pick ended up being Jake Woodford, the #39 pick in the draft overall.

With a new freshly minted CBA, the rules have changed a bit. Here’s Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com:

The Competitive Balance Rounds are no longer determined via lottery. Instead, all teams that fall in the bottom 10 in revenue and bottom 10 in market size will get a pick in Round A, after the first round, or Round B, following the second round. Using a formula that takes revenue and winning percentage into account, six teams were awarded Round A picks, with eight teams getting picks in Comp Round B. The groups of teams will switch in 2018 (meaning there will be eight Comp Round A picks, six in Round B), and will alternate as such for the life of this CBA.

Based on that criteria, here’s the order for the 2017 draft:

Round A:

31. Tampa Bay Rays

32. Cincinnati Reds

33. Oakland Athletics

34. Milwaukee Brewers

35. Minnesota Twins

36. Miami Marlins

Round B

67. Arizona Diamondbacks

68. San Diego Padres

69. Colorado Rockies

70. Cleveland Indians

71. Kansas City Royals

72. Pittsburgh Pirates

73. Baltimore Orioles

74. St. Louis Cardinals

As you see, because the system now factors in both revenue and winning percentage, the Cardinals get the very last pick which right now is slated to be #74. (If you’re curious what sort of player might still be available at #74, usually not much but that is where the Cardinals nabbed Jon Jay in the second round of the 2006 draft.) Of all the teams in Round A, the Athletics have most recently made the postseason when they went one-and-done in the 2014 AL Wild Card game so this truly is a group of have nots. Round B? Eh, not so much. The last three AL pennant winners are represented, not to mention the Cardinals who just so happen to have the best record in all of baseball since the competitive balance provision first went into effect.

The idea of the Cardinals getting competitive balance picks has always been a bit controversial likely due to that “best record in baseball” thing. Rob Neyer beat this drum a few years ago on his now-defunct Just a Bit Outside site. And our friends from a certain rival fan base located in a certain large market have been making noise about this since its inception. To that I say, tough. The Cardinals don’t make the rules; they just play by them (adjust for standard corporate espionage margin of error).

In closing, the Cardinals will get the 74^th pick in the upcoming amateur draft and that’s that. Let’s see what heroic Cardinals fan Jon Hamm thinks about all of this:

My thoughts exactly, Jon.