Peteros wrote:What is this Projected Elias Rankings all about? How does it benefit our team?
At the end of the year, Elias ranks all players in each league within their positional groups, and assigns classifications (Type-A, Type-B, N/A) to them based upon their performance. This determines the type of compensation to which the team would be entitled if said player was offered arbitration, declined, and entered free agency...Type A free agents entitle the team to a first and second round draft pick from the signing team; if that 1st rounder is in the top 15, it becomes a supplementary round pick and a second rounder.
As a Type-A free agent to be, if Burnett opts out of his contract (and I would expect him to...he could get a big payday) Toronto would get two compensatory picks in return. Assuming that only good teams would blow that much cash on him, the Jays are likely looking at an additional pick between 15-30 in next June's draft, and another between 70-90, depending on off-season movement.
Given the nature of MLB drafts, it's more likely than not that the two picks produce little, if anything. But the farm system is still desperately thin, and this gives the team a chance to a) add talent, b) cut salary at the ML level, and c) acquire players who'll be cost-controlled for the better part of a decade. And the last time Toronto got extra picks, when Speier bolted, the end result was JP Arencibia and Eric Eiland.
Basically, it's the type of thing that won't have any effect on the team for years...and by the time it does, no one will remember how those picks came about. But judicious management of the free agent market is the reason that a couple teams (Oakland, most notably) always seem to have more than their fair share of cheap, useful players coming down the turnpike.
