SUNDAY: Clubs will actually be allowed to spend up to $3.2MM, not the announced $2.9MM, writes Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports. According to the CBA, six bonuses up to $50K will not count against the international pool. If teams push the rule to the limit, they'll get $2.9MM, plus $300K.
SATURDAY, 12:26pm: There will be no international draft for 2013, reports Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports (on Twitter). Certain conditions were not met by yesterday's deadline, so the goal is to have a draft in place for 2014.
The new collective bargaining agreement implemented a spending pool for both the draft and international free agent markets. Clubs will be allotted $2.9MM for international players starting July 2nd of this year before shifting to a sliding scale based on winning percentage in the future, though a draft has always seemed to be the long-term goal.
Back in December, union head Michael Weiner said the owners are in favor of international draft "right now."
If in fact the owners are in favor of this why is MLB holding up the process. Are they worried about international camps throughout the Dominican and South America having to much control and creating a indentured situation.? If that is the case, this has already been part of the culture and would be limited with a governing body having much more control. I can only see this being a benefactor to better situations and living conditions in these parts of the world simply by the facilities and practices. If it just comes down to compensation than I see why the dragging of feet is taking place. Baseball must advance to stay relevent in the future. The NFL is so forward thinking they no comparison to the other major sports. The NHL gets most of their talent from the international markets and have nowhere near the popularity of the MLB. Granted most of the players these days are international but think about the future of having better communications, minor league teams in the lower hemisphere and nutrition clinics in these areas to benefit the players coming up. The sport would take on a whole new look with teams competing at a high level already rather than having three to five years in the minor leagues here in the states. This would also help with the language barrier as well as the lifestyle changes allowing these talents an early education to the ways and means of American baseball. My two cents.
” minor league teams in the lower hemisphere”
Yeah.. I see that happening.. Then players get held hostage, then for ransom, or subjected to laws of some corrupt governments of states that sometimes last from year to year.. Right..
We have seen enough issues with finding the right ages of some players. Lets not start having teams play in some of those locales 6 months out of the year.
Now not **all**, but some of the places not being named are of such ill repute and not with out 1st hand knowledge of having sailed and been in those places (decades ago) in the Navy..
Mexico probably should have a full fledged team, in one of the safer locales of course.. But some of the other countries shouldn’t forcibly force people to play there if it just plain old is not safe.
“…Clubs will be allotted $2.9MM for international players starting July 2nd of this year…” is that to say that Cespedes’ contract would have only been allowed to be a maximum of 2.9 million dollars if he had waited a year? Wouldn’t that deter many international players from bothering to come over? (not to say that that isn’t still a lot of money, and that they’d have obviously have potential for huge contracts after their first deal is up… but still)
Once this is in place, there will be no more Chapman, Cespedes, or even soon to be Soler contracts happening. It is to the advantage of clubs that do extensive scouting internationally, so why should that advantage be taken away from the clubs they do do extensive international scouting? MLB keeps trying to regulate contracts of first year players, yet they do little to nothing about keeping things regulated monetarily after the initial contracts.
If you are going to regulate things, then regulate it all or regulate nothing. So far, they want to regulate all initial contracts. When this international draft does happen, I hope that the next step is taken by having team salary caps. They are on the same path as the NFL in terms of regulating – just 50 years late.
I understand my points kind of contrast themselves, but my simple point is that MLB needs to decide which direction they want to take. It’s nice to hit the jackpot on an unknown international player, which is why I like how some aspects of the game are unregulated. Once players are past their initial contracts, the sky is the limit, which is what I kind of dislike about the lack of regulation. Hopefully the right decision is made.
I understand the appeal of an international draft. However, having one is going to make it all but impossible for smaller markets to spend resources to get low-cost diamonds in the rough in order to compete. Once all the talent is out there and on the board, where is the real advantage of investing extra resources into international scouting? Sure, teams still want to see the players they are considering, but if the only players to be evaluated are ones declared for the draft, it certainly takes out a lot of the guesswork.
I have a feeling the new draft/compensation rules under the new CBA are going to come back and bite the small-market teams in the rear.
Of course small market does not necessarily equate to bad team (nor does big market necessarily equate to good team, for that matter), but I think you may be overlooking the benefit of letting the teams with the worst records the year before get the first crack at the best international prospects. That seems to be fixing the inequality that is most pressing regardless of money concerns, in my opinion. I’d say this is especially true since international players usually don’t have the same kind of leverage North American ones have in demanding more money since college, football etc. are usually not on the table.
To put that International signing pool per team into perspective..
Each team is allotted 3.2m for IFA’s, yet some MLB teams (NYY, Philly as examples) get just north of 4m for the ENTIRE Rule 4 draft.. Now that makes a whole lot of sense does it not???
By international, how will this apply to the posting system for Japanese players or are they exempt? That process is also quite corrupt and ridiculous and I would think there would be something put in place to eliminate that and make them part of the world’s international pool as well.
please god let the players union stall this until Selig retires and somebody with a clue takes over…. Internation Draft is only good for the local soccer clubs, since there’s now no money in baseball for the best athletes…