These 113 players have the potential to earn their teams more Draft picks this year
When Gunnar Henderson and Corbin Carroll won their league’s 2023 Rookie of the Year awards, they didn’t just pick up some hardware for themselves. They also earned the Orioles and D-backs an extra compensation pick apiece in the 2024 Draft, courtesy of the Prospect Promotion Incentive (PPI).
Ratified into the latest collective bargaining agreement, the PPI rewards teams for promoting their best prospects to the big leagues at the start of the season, enabling them to earn a Draft pick if said rookies accrue one full year of service time and then factor into a major postseason award.
Henderson and Carroll aren’t the only examples of the new program working advantageously for both teams and prospects. The Mariners picked up the 29th overall pick in the 2023 Draft via the PPI after Seattle promoted Julio Rodríguez from Double-A to its Opening Day roster in 2022 and then watched Rodríguez win American League Rookie of the Year honors.
There are other ways PPI-eligible players can earn their teams Draft picks, and at the same time, not only rookies and not every rookie is PPI-eligible. It’s all pretty complicated, so we have this FAQ to answer PPI-related questions.
In short, an MLB club can earn a Draft pick after the first round if a PPI-eligible player accrues one year of service as a rookie and then factors into a major award. That means he either has to win his league’s Rookie of the Year award or place in the top three in MVP or Cy Young voting prior to qualifying for arbitration.
But there are a few ways that can happen. One year of service requires 172 days on an active roster, which means …
So far no one has achieved this, but several players from the rookie classes of 2022 and ’23 have retained their PPI eligibility for 2024.
The exact order of the 2024 Draft won’t be set until all of the free agents who received qualifying offers have signed, but all PPI picks are granted immediately after the first round. As of right now, the D-backs have the 31st overall pick and the Orioles have the 32nd overall pick — in addition to their first-round picks — in this year’s Draft.
Those picks were courtesy of Carroll and Henderson’s success in 2023. If any team earns a PPI pick in 2024, it would be for the 2025 Draft.
Yes. There is a limit of one PPI pick per organization per year, and players can earn only one PPI pick for their clubs. So Carroll and Henderson no longer qualify.
Eligibility is based on the preseason rankings. Eligible prospects have to appear on at least two of the three Top 100 Prospect rankings released by MLB Pipeline, Baseball America and ESPN. Those players must be rookie-eligible and have fewer than 60 days of prior MLB service, which is also the stipulation MLB Pipeline makes in crafting its Top 100 rankings. MLB Pipeline unveiled its new Top 100 in late January. Baseball America and ESPN have also released theirs to fill out the field from which PPI eligibility will be granted.
Yes. PPI eligibility only extends to the clubs for which prospects make their MLB debuts. If a prospect is traded after making his debut, his PPI eligibility is nullified for his new club, even if he still has rookie status.
For example, No. 63 overall prospect Joey Ortiz debuted last year with the Orioles but still had his rookie eligibility for 2024. However, he was recently traded to the Brewers in the Corbin Burnes deal, so despite landing on at least two of three preseason Top 100 lists, Ortiz won’t net Milwaukee an additional pick no matter what he accomplishes in 2024.
On the flip side, prospects traded before their MLB debuts retain PPI-eligibility with their new clubs.
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