I was packing for my trip home this morning with Mike and Mike in the Morning on television. They were discussing the Major League Baseball draft with Steve Phillips, former general manager of the New York Mets and current ESPN talking head.

It was a compelling conversation during which Phillips said he thinks there’s likely to be about a $35 million difference between what the team will offer and what Scott Boras will demand for the top pick in the draft, Stephen Strasburg.

Rumors have spread indicating that Boras and Strasburg will seek $50 million in a deal that would more than quadruple the highest bonus ever paid to a draftee. Mark Prior, the previous record signee, received $10.5 million.

And the injury-prone Prior illustrates why no player who has never tossed a professional pitch in the majors or the minors should get a $50 million-plus deal.

Though acknowledging that he is an extremely gifted player, Phillips said Strasburg is likely not Major League ready, indicating that college players swing and miss at a lot of pitches outside the strike zone that professional hitters will take for balls. He said he’d spoken with Strasburg’s college coach, Tony Gwynn, and Gwynn had suggested Strasburg should not only not start in the major leagues right away but should be started off at high class A ball.

The biggest news to me was that this negotiation between Boras and the Washington Nationals could change the draft. He didn’t indicate how, but he said the $35 million gap ultimately will likely end with Strasburg going unsigned and re-entering the 2010 draft.

The Major League draft is already flawed. How some players get picked in the draft while others from outside the country get to sign as free agents to the highest bidder is ludicrous. Boras’ efforts to knock the cover off the ball with this negotiation is just one more of the league’s problems being further exposed.

And the Washington Nationals and, as usual, the fans, are the ones getting hosed.