Draft Rules
Structure: 50 Rounds. 1 pick per team per round until team choose to "pass" and thus eliminating any further selections. Compensatory picks awarded between 1st and 2nd round, and 3rd and 4th round.
Order: Reverse order of previous season's record. If tie, the year prior to previous is used as tiebreaker
Eligibility: Resident of United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and other United States territories, or anyone enrolled in a United States high school or college. Have never signed major or minor league contract
- High school players: Graduated, and not attended any college
- College players: Completed Junior or Senior year or at least 21 years old
- Junior college and community college players: Number of years does not matter
Signability: Team retains rights until 11:59 August 15th or if player returns or enters a four-year college full-time. If not signed, player can be drafted again another year if eligible. Unless agreed upon by player, team can not draft player in subsequent year.
Free Agents: Players who were not chosen in draft can sign up until a week before next draft. Players from other countries can sign with teams at any time.
Compensatory: Teams receive Class A or Class B picks based on value of free agent players that were signed by other teams if they signed before the arbitration date or were offered salary arbitration by team and signed with another. Teams who lost Class A players, get the new team's first pick and a Compensatory pick between rounds 1 and 2 ordered by previous year's rank. Teams who lost Class B players, get an additional pick between the 1st and 2nd round, that is again ordered by previous year's rank after all Class A picks. A team can not lose its 1st round pick if it is in the top half of the draft, nor can it lose any compensatory picks. If a team owes two compensatory picks, the team that signed the player with the highest score, gets the first pick. If a team has two compensatory picks of the same caliber, their subsequent pick will occur after all the other teams have used their compensatory pick, using the same order as the first picks. If team does not sign first round pick, they get the a first round pick the following year in a spot one above the year before. If a team does not sign a third round pick, they get a compensatory pick in between the 3rd and 4th round. No compensation is awarded the following year, if team does not sign one of their compensatory pick players.
- Class A: Player ranked top 20% of that player's position
- Class B: Player ranked in top 40% of player's at that position, but below 20%
History: First amateur draft in 1965. Used to be 3 drafts, in January and June based on when players graduation and in August for players who played in amateur summer leagues. Class C free agents have also been eliminated. This draft is also known as Rule 4 Draft.
Rule 5 Draft: Teams draft players from another team's minor league system. |
