Friday open thread: Should MLB teams be allowed to trade draft picks?

The NBA draft was held on Thursday evening, and it was wild, to say the least. Though the top few picks went exactly as planned, chaos reigned after that. Teams went nuts with trades for draft picks, prospects, and veterans on expiring contracts.

In other words, it was business as usual.

However, one sticking point for many fans was how the trades were presented. Players like DeAndre Hunter, the fourth overall pick in the draft, were presented as selections of the teams that originally held the pick — the Los Angeles Lakers, in this case — when in reality the pick had changed hands already, often multiple times. I went to bed thinking the Detroit Pistons had made a nice second round selection in Isaiah Roby, for instance, only to wake up and find that they had dealt that pick far before Roby was selected.

That brings us to our Question of the Day. We focus on Major League Baseball, which famously does not allow trading of draft picks (save for a few competitive balance picks). There are complications abound with allowing teams to deal picks for other picks, players, and the like, but that could either be a positive or negative, depending on your opinion.

Should MLB teams be allowed to trade draft picks?

My answer: I wouldn’t mind seeing some sort of modification to MLB’s current draft rules, but allowing a full-blown 40-round deal-fest would just make for a hot mess. It would certainly be interesting to see how teams treat the draft — I can only imagine how small Dave Dombrowski’s draft haul would be — but letting them deal picks across all 40 rounds would be something of a nightmare.

To combat that, maybe teams should only be allowed to trade picks in the top 10 rounds. Teams are mostly throwing darts at potential picks after that, and many selections made in the last 10 rounds are either relatives of current members of the organization, or high school players who have no plans on signing. Allowing for trades in the top 10 rounds would also make for exciting television, something MLB has pushed for with their draft coverage in the past few years.

And while we’re making changes, let’s move the draft to the offseason. This mid-summer event needs to go.

What do you think?