Many championship Atlantic League clubs have benefitted from parked players, because the location of their clubs allows for athletes to be seen by the same scouts sampling talent in the Eastern and the New York-Penn Leagues. While the newborn Golden Baseball League does not have the track record that the AL has, its position around the California and Arizona Rookie leagues offers similar parking spot promise to agents looking for a place to keep their players' game up for a year or so.
Hochevar is the first instance of one of these players being recycled back into the draft going in the top ten. He's the only no. 1 pick from the parked. Yet.
The tactic worked. Hochevar will reportedly get the money from the Royals that the Dodgers would not ante up.
Nothing breeds imitation like success. Several agents, speaking off the record, indicated that, in certain cases, it might be quite useful to position very select players in the indies to improve their draft number, as long as MLB doesn't rule out their draft eligibility.
The Semi-Amateur Draft, er Sort of...
Hochevar's pick as number one spotlights the holes in the arcane draft system. A pro player shouldn't be eligible for the 'amateur' draft. If the draft is no longer just limited to college and high school players, should the clubs be free to draft from the indies as well as the international leagues? Does that step on their draft rights, or is it just an extension of baseball's legalized monopoly powers?
Luke was drafted, ergo indy players can be drafted, even if they have no more amateur standing.
Super Draft
During the Draft, MLB officials made frequent reference, while locking the proceedings down to MLB.com, that they envision a day when baseball can have a draft as highly touted as the NFL or the NBA drafts. There are a couple of problems with that vision.
First, the players in the draft usually spend at least two years in the farm system developing their talents. For Major League junkies, you don't have the immediacy of a LeBron James pick in the NBA.
Second, the system of recruiting talent into the MLB is a vast hodgepodge of points of entry, from the June Draft to the Rule 5 to free agent signings. Many MLB players never saw the June Draft.
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