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I don't even know that 'tanking' is a scourge that needs addressing.
The draft has existed for over half a century now but some seem to believe that teams have only recently discovered the concept that losing can better their draft positions. This all seems to stem from the recent and virtually flat-out admissions by basketball teams that they are in fact trying to do that. But baseball isn't basketball and the two draft are so wildly different that they're barely worth comparing. No amateur ballplayer has the immediate impact (on or off the field of play) that a young hoopster can have and baseball #1 overall picks aren't even that readily obvious they way it usually is in hoops. Plus, the concept of losing teams selling/trading off good players for future benefits has always been with us, always will be (pssst: it happens in European soccer too where they don't even have a draft) and that won't change whether there's one Wild Card team, two WC teams, or twelve WC teams.
P.S. I like the way Vaccaro's piece sort of tweaks Sherman's by first linking it then slyly mocking his anti-purist argument.
I've always hated when one falls back on the 'purist' or 'traditionalist' label, mainly because it gets pulled out whenever one wants to both generalize and mock the argument of those fans against something new.
No, we're not against all new ideas, just the bad ones (see: H, D or the idea of runners placed on 2nd base in extra innings, etc.).
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