TOWER GROVE — If we agree that the purpose of a professional sport’s draft is to distribute the best available players to the worst teams, in inverse order of the standings, there’s a way to make the MLB Draft fit that ideal.

Why not allow teams to trade picks?

Unlike the other three major professional team sports, Major League Baseball does not permit teams to trade picks, nor does baseball let a drafted player become part of a trade until at least a year after he signs. (It’s called the Pete Incaviglia Rule.) As discussed in Sunday’s paper, signability continues to be a steering force in the draft, with some teams using their willingness to meet bonus demands as a strategy to snare talent that financially conservative — obedient? — teams pass on.

That talent slide short-circuits the theory of the draft.

The best players aren’t going to the worst teams. Sometimes the best talent is going to the most financially willing team. Good. Bad. Detroit.

The current issue of ESPN The Magazine spends a paragraph suggesting MLB reconsider allowing teams swap picks. FOX Sports examines the idea in greater detail, offering an article from Dugout Central about “spicing up the draft”. In that article, Jeff Moore writes:

What should be allowed, however, is a small window of opportunity (perhaps around 48 hours or just on draft day itself) during which time the rights to the player may be traded, much like is allowed in the NFL or NBA. This would eliminate the “signability pick” and the free fall of talented players to higher paying teams later in the first round. A team could draft the most talented player available and trade his rights to a higher paying team and at least get something in return rather than draft lesser players they know they can sign.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have the second pick of the draft, and they have been known to pick conservatively. If they had the right to trade that pick, the Pirates could select the second-best player with the second pick of the draft and then move the rights to sign that player for more picks, a prospect, major-league help … anything, something. The Pirates would be able to take advantage of having the second pick in the draft without having to equivocate or submit to signability threats.

No draft director wants to leave the first-round emptyhanded.

That means picking a player who will sign.

Trades offer another avenue.

“No question,” said Rob Manfred, MLB’s senior vice president of business and labor. “If I get the 10th pick, I should be able to pick the guy who is the 10th-best player.”

That said, Manfred told me he is against trading picks.

“As an industry, we would have to accept a slotting system,” Manfred said. “Unless slots are mandatory, we would not be in favor of that — of the trading of picks.”

The “slotting system” Manfred mentions is one that is informally in place, as discussesd in the aforementioned Sunday article. The commissioner’s office has already sent out a grid of suggested bonuses for the early picks of the June 5-6 draft. There are no penalties for not following the slot, but it is suggested teams do so. Not all teams do so. Manfred said teams “are free to go above slot, just as it is a team’s right to pay below slot.”

Such reasons would be, for example, taking a college senior with the eighth pick. The team has all the leverage, because where is the player going to go. But if a prep pitching goes at No. 9, he’s got a load of leverage.

The motivation for the slotting system and the reason why Manfred would be against trading picks in today’s system, is the integrity of the draft. The best-to-the-worst purpose. MLB appears hyper-aware of not allowing the players to dictate the draft or having “advisors” constructing draft-and-trade deals. And Manfred makes the salient argument that a team who drafts a player everyone knows it cannot sign does not have much traction for making a deal.

Without slotting “the possibility of manipulating draft order exists,” Manfred told me last week. “If you know you have to spend $15 million to sign a guy, that player’s advisor can say, ‘I know this club is going to be willing to pay that, so trade him there and here’s what you can get.’ Absent a mandatory slotting system, you have the ability to manipulate where that player is going to go.”

Fair point.

But it is also a deadly embrace — to squash the influence of signability and rid any need for a slotting system by trading picks a rigid slotting system is necessary.

There is room for another opinion.

Baltimore and Kansas City have top five picks in the coming draft, and both are going to get a crack at one of the few elite college pitchers available in the draft. If either team shrinks from the financial cost of such a pick, then the talent — which should go to the teams that, by standings, merit it — could slip. There are wealthier teams waiting. Why not give those teams the chance to benefit from that pick?

Milwaukee and the New York Mets have three picks before the Cardinals have two, due mostly to the free agents both teams lost this past winner. Milwaukee has six picks in the first 62, and the Brewers (already rich with young talent on their big-league roster) plan for a windfall. The Mets have three picks in the first 33 — and there is a going sense that the Mets are lurking for those signability slides. They certainly have the finances, and with the handful of picks they can take some risks.

Or, if trades were allowed, they could … move up.

Think if the Mets, willing to sign above slot, had the chance to package picks to move up in the draft and score an Aaron Crow or Pedro Alvarez or Tim Beckham. The team trading them the pick would then get chance to swap quality for quantity.

The argument baseball should allow teams to trade draft picks usually comes up when conversation drifts to ways to increase interest in the draft. That’s a noble goal, but the draft involves so many levels, so many unfamiliar names and so many moving, unpredictable parts that it’s a hard sell. Fine. But what about improving the impact of the draft? What would Detroit have had to give up last year for the chance to sign Rick Porcello? What is that pick worth, beyond the bonus?

Trading picks would add intrigue to the draft — and interest, too? — and a new twist to draft strategy beyond the pocketbook.

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