There's some concern among MLB executives that baseball is losing top athletes to other sports, according to ESPN.com's Buster Olney. It's possible that the next collective bargaining agreement will include a slotting system, but executives point out that slotted bonuses would have to be substantial to compare to the value of a college football or basketball scholarship. Here are the rest of Olney's rumors:
- One GM told Olney that baseball's August trading system is "completely antiquated." Another GM admitted that he couldn't give Olney a good reason why players must pass through waivers to be traded in August.
- Nationals GM Mike Rizzo estimates that the team agreed to terms with first-overall pick Bryce Harper with about 26 seconds to spare before Monday night's deadline.
- Brewers GM Doug Melvin says he isn't going to give his veteran players away, but he's open to trading them to teams in contention. Melvin was speaking in general terms, but that approach presumably applies to Craig Counsell. The infielder has cleared waivers and is open to a trade.
“Another GM admitted that he couldn’t give Olney a good reason why players must pass through waivers to be traded in August.”
How about because you missed your opportunity to trade the guy straight up when the trade deadline passed? It is there to make things a little more complicated, so teams can’t firesale at the end of a year and trade all their guys to another team to let them win it all. End of July to end of August, a lot can change in the standings. What an ass.
A contending team should try and snatch up Counsell…versatile and has experience in the playoffs (2 rings).
Make a hard slotting system where low ball bonuses MUST be paid and see how many more athletes pass up baseball and go to other sports. The time of baseball being the #1 has already been long over with and slipped to #3 years ago. Go ahead and ruin it some more. Let cheap, chitzy teams get away with spending 5-6M, so 10 teams have -0- teams to exist can survive.
The waiver system was also put in place to keep the best team from using the worst team as a pseudo AAAA farm team. The way the yankees used the kansas city A’s. The waiver system means every team below the yanks would be able to block the “call up from the farm” in KC.