Notes: Draft, Stephen Drew, Brad Lincoln, John Mozeliak

A few notes from around baseball:

-P- This article about using revenue as a factor in draft order is interesting. Teams like the Rays and Brewers have been hamstrung, at least to a degree, by their success -- if your small-market team is good, you'll be picking in the bottom half of the first round most years, and you won't have much to spend in Latin America either. That makes it very difficult for small-market teams to acquire stars. Plainly, it makes sense for team record to be a key factor in draft order, but perhaps it shouldn't be the only one. In addition to competitive-balance picks, teams like the Rays, Brewers and Pirates could also get slight bumps in their draft order to compensate for their financial disadvantages.

Keith Law loves to say that Major League Baseball is great at creating policies that have unintended consequences, and I'm sure this idea would have some. And of course it will never happen. But I think it's at least worth discussing.

-P- Ken Rosenthal thinks the Pirates could get involved on Stephen Drew or Kendrys Morales once the draft passes. By that point, teams will be able to sign those players without worrying about losing a draft pick. Rosenthal cites Jordy Mercer's slow start as one reason the Bucs might be interested, but obviously, there's a ton of time for Mercer to get on track. Still, Drew and perhaps Morales could be worth thinking about come June -- the Pirates should have money to spend.

-P- The Phillies have outrighted Brad Lincoln, which means he's completely off their roster. Lincoln's career ran off the rails quickly due to his injury issues, so it's easy to forget that he was a pretty big deal when the Pirates drafted him -- you can shake your head about Clayton Kershaw, Tim Lincecum and Max Scherzer still being on the board when the Bucs picked fourth in 2006, but Lincoln was a legitimate talent at that spot, not a Daniel Moskos type. Years later, I thought Lincoln would probably be able to reemerge as a reliever, but things started going wrong for him after the Pirates traded him to the Blue Jays for Travis Snider.

-P- The Cardinals have extended GM John Mozeliak through 2018. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggests that the extension might have something to do with the length of Neal Huntington's recent deal with the Pirates.