Close's comments leave plenty of room for questioning, as well.
Close said that if every team behaved like the Astros, then the entire structure of the draft would collapse.
“If every player was contingent on another player, we would have no draft, we would have no draft pool, we would have no signings,” Close said. “We’d never be able to reach agreements. They’d either all be reached at the same time, or none of them would ever be reached.”
A: We're talking about one isolated player, not an entire class.
B: In a way, players are already contingent on other players. Teams/scouts gauge the ability to sign players for different amounts of money. This number (or range of numbers), at least partly, affects where the player will go and whether teams can fit them into their allotted pool. In a vacuum, if all players signed for slot money, you would not have this issue. Player X was drafted in this spot, so they accept slot, everyone moves on. But, with the draft pools being flexible the way that they are, it allows wiggle room for both the players and the teams.
Using Nix, for instance, if he sees himself as worth $1.5M, but teams don't see him as being worth drafting at the pick with that value, he falls. The Astros were able to grab him later because the structure allows them to sign players for less than slot and use the savings elsewhere. Aiken goes underslot, Nix goes over. The White Sox went overslot on Rodon, using all of their savings from their other picks, plus a little extra. This has been done several times since the new structure went into place.
Applying this logic back to the original point, if no players were willing to sign for underslot, teams couldn't go overslot without incurring penalties. They would have to alter their boards, affecting where players ultimately go. It's a two-way street we're looking at. If you want to go into discussions about negotiating in good faith, that is another matter. But, to say that the Astros, by saying that we can't sign this player
yet because we were anticipating having X amount leftover after signing Player X (who has yet to sign), are attempting to destroy the system is a little careless.
