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Originally Posted by UngratefulDead
Actually, in real life, trading of draft picks is rather common..
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Yeah, I'm not sure exactly where you got that from because it's completely wrong. Not only is trading draft picks not common, it's not legal.
In the NFL and other sports, teams can trade draft picks. In Major League Baseball, they cannot.
The only way to "exchange" draft picks in the MLB is through compensation for losing free agents.
Basically, if a team loses a Type A free agent (a player a certain top percentage of players at his position -- I want to say 10%, but I'm not sure), then they get the first-round draft pick of the team that gets that player and a sandwich pick between the first and second round.
The only exception to that is that a team cannot lose its first-round pick if it is in the top half of the draft. I believe, in that case, that the team that lost the free agent would get the second-round pick of the signing team, but I'm not sure about that.
The only rule is that, to get a compensation pick, the team that loses the free agent has to offer him arbitration. If you don't offer the player arbitration, you don't get draft compensation. That's why the Braves didn't get a pick from the Yankees for Gary Sheffield. The problem with offering a player arbitration is that he might accept it; and if you can't afford it, then you're in financial trouble.
I believe losing a Type B free agent (the next percentage bracket) results in getting a sandwich pick between the first and second round, but no draft pick from the signing team (or maybe it's the other way around -- I forget).
So in Major League Baseball, draft picks can move from team to team based on compensation for free agents.
But actually trading draft picks is strictly prohibited.
Where, may I ask, did you get your false information from?