{"id":116196,"date":"2026-03-23T23:19:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T03:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=116196"},"modified":"2026-03-23T23:19:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T03:19:22","slug":"mlb-prospect-promotion-incentive-draft-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/03\/23\/mlb-prospect-promotion-incentive-draft-picks\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB&#8217;s Prospect Promotion Incentive: All You Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<div><span>Before the 2022 MLB season, the players and owners were locked out of a collective bargaining agreement. This resulted in the 2022 season being delayed. One of the biggest issues amongst the players and teams was the practice of teams tanking. In an effort to combat this, they agreed to an MLB Draft lottery and the Prospect Promotion Incentive.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: 610px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" image-id=\"WmOBM76GtbX9\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 3600px; aspect-ratio: 3600\/2400;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p><\/div>\n<div><span>\u200b<\/span><\/div>\n<h2><span>Why MLB&#8217;s Prospect Promotion Incentive Came Together<\/span><\/h2>\n<div><span>Prior to 2022, teams had been notorious for delaying the debuts of their top prospects in an effort to gain an extra year on these players\u2019 rookie deals. A majority of the time, most teams\u2019 top prospects wouldn\u2019t debut until late May or early June. A great example of this is Gerrit Cole, who didn\u2019t debut until June 11th in his rookie year. By doing this, teams would be able to maintain an extra year of pre-arbitration salary for their players. This allowed teams to save money on their top young stars.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>\u200b<\/span><\/div>\n<h2><span>What is the Prospect Promotion Incentive?<\/span><\/h2>\n<div><span>Now, thanks to the new collective bargaining agreement, players are able to earn an extra draft pick for their teams if they make Opening Day rosters or reach the big leagues in two weeks from Opening Day. Additionally, players must be available for the majority of the season and accumulate 172 days of service time. Teams are then awarded a draft pick if their respective former prospect finishes in the top three of major awards (ex, MVP, Cy Young) or wins Rookie of the Year. The only prospects eligible to qualify for the draft pick need to be on two of the three 100 prospect lists put out by MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, and ESPN, and have less than 60 days of prior MLB service.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Reflections on Prospect Promotion Incentive players for each franchise\u2014past, present &amp; future\u2014in the initiative&#8217;s 5th anniversary season<\/p>\n<p>A few players mentioned were assigned to minor league camp yesterday, including Elmer Rodriguez and Ryan Waldschmidt<a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1PSGxKxJey\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/1PSGxKxJey<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Matt Eddy (@MattEddyBA) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MattEddyBA\/status\/2031342305236472257?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 10, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span>\u200b<\/span><span>Draft picks can also be awarded retroactively to prospects who had previously made their debut in the aforementioned deadline and finished in the top three of the major awards prior to reaching arbitration. So, if a player finished in the top three of Cy Young or MVP voting in any of their first three seasons, a team is awarded a draft pick at the end of the first round. However, a team can only receive one draft pick per player and only one pick per season. A player will also lose their eligibility to earn their respective team a draft pick if they made their debut with a different team.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>\u200b<\/span><\/div>\n<h2><span>Who Has and Has Not Benefited from the PPI<\/span><\/h2>\n<div><span>In total, six teams have been awarded a draft pick through the Prospect Promotion Incentive. A team was even awarded a pick in its inaugural season. When <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/rodriju01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Julio Rodr\u00edguez<\/a> won the American League <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2022\/11\/14\/julio-rodriguez-named-rookie\/\" target=\"_self\">Rookie of the Year award<\/a> in 2022, the Mariners added a pick to their 2023 draft. Three other teams have been awarded a pick due to their players winning the Rookie of the Year award. <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hendegu01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gunnar Henderson<\/a> and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/carroco02.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Corbin Carroll<\/a> were responsible for these picks after winning their leagues&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/11\/13\/rookie-of-the-year-mlb\/\" target=\"_self\">2023 Rookie of the Year awards<\/a>. Most recently, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/baldwdr01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Drake Baldwin<\/a> winning <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/05\/21\/braves-aj-smith-shawver-drake-baldwin-lead-nl-rookie-of-the-year\/\" target=\"_self\">the NL ROY award<\/a> last season granted the Atlanta Braves an extra pick in the 2026 MLB Draft.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>\u200b<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>Only two clubs have received a draft pick retroactively: the Royals and the Astros. Both <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wittbo02.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bobby Witt Jr<\/a>. and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brownhu01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hunter Brown<\/a>\u2019s performances have earned their clubs a pick retroactively. The Royals received a pick thanks to Witt\u2019s runner-up MVP finish in 2024. Meanwhile, the Astros will be awarded a pick in 2026 thanks to Brown\u2019s third-place finish in last season\u2019s AL Cy Young Award. <\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>\u200b<\/span><\/div>\n<h2><span>When and Where Teams Benefit<\/span><\/h2>\n<div><span>Previously mentioned teams earn a draft pick from their top 100 prospects finishing well in baseball\u2019s major awards. These picks are awarded at the back end of the first round. For example, the Braves and Astros will pick at 26th and 28th overall, respectively. On average, teams have picked at the 29th overall slot for the six awarded picks. <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=waldsc000rya\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ryan Waldschmidt<\/a> was taken with the pick awarded to the Diamondbacks for Corbin Carroll\u2019s Rookie of the Year award. Waldschmidt is currently ranked 59th on MLB Pipeline\u2019s Top 100 Prospects List. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Main Photo Credit: G Fiume\/Getty Images<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before the 2022 MLB season, the players and owners were locked out of a collective bargaining agreement. This resulted in the 2022 season being delayed. One of the biggest issues amongst the players and teams was the practice of teams tanking. In an effort to combat this, they agreed to an MLB Draft lottery and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5736,"featured_media":55725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,926,35],"tags":[2583,2670,28943,2688,5519,4308,1308],"class_list":["post-116196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-milb","category-news","tag-bobby-witt-jr","tag-corbin-carroll","tag-drake-baldwin","tag-gunnar-henderson","tag-hunter-brown","tag-julio-rodriguez","tag-mlb-prospects"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5736"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116196"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116229,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116196\/revisions\/116229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}