Let’s check in on a few notes from the international market:
- Major League Baseball’s intentions for an international draft have provoked strong reactions not only from the trainers who work with young players in Latin America, but also from team-affiliated scouts. As Ben Badler of Baseball America reported recently, those trainers have planned to boycott an upcoming Dominican showcase being staged by the league. And scouts — including one international director — are in support, Badler adds. Players who skip the workout likely won’t find their market hindered, Badler suggests, as scouts can still see them through other avenues. The league did send down a group of league representatives to discuss the matter with several trainers, but didn’t seem to make significant headway. Badler does note that the delegation confirmed MLB’s intentions to pursue a draft, though additional details on the proposal were not forthcoming.
- Korean star Jae-gyun Hwang is heading stateside as he attempts to launch a major league career, as Yoo Jee-ho of Yonhap News reports. Hwang, who has played with the KBO’s Lotte Giants since 2010 but is now a free agent, says he expects to return to Korea in early December and declined to commit to pursuing a big league opportunity. Expectations remain that he intends to push for a chance at the game’s highest level. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams noted last week, Hwang’s improved plate discipline seems to make him a more appealing target for major league organizations, though it’s still not clear whether there’s a view among scouts that he is ready to follow some of his countrymen in successfully transitioning from the KBO to MLB.
- In a rarity for Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, a foreigner has been tabbed with the Sawamura Award as the league’s top hurler. Southpaw Kris Johnson, who pitches for the Hiroshima Carp, received the nod for his overall excellence. While he didn’t meet some of the typically-required benchmarks for the award — as this Kyodo News article explains in detail — it seems that he stood out as the NPB’s best overall pitcher. Johnson, 32, has indeed been immensely productive since heading to Japan before the 2015 campaign. Though he had never been valued highly enough to receive much of a major league opportunity, Johnson has posted 430 1/3 innings of 1.99 ERA ball — albeit with just 6.9 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9 — since crossing the Pacific.
NPB best pitcher is Kris Johnson
Yeah I botched that.
While not in favor of a separate international draft. Would rather see it and standard rule 4 draft all rolled into 1 with ALL amateur players picked on equal footing dollar wise..
It’s not hard to see from a team and scouts point, the non hack scouts and trainers in name only that is.
Several teams take the time and spend money running camps in the carribean. mostly dominica, but some elsewhere. The dominican has it’s own short season league even (DSL) made up of these teams. 1st to go away and not all large market spenders affording these teams either, tho only the big guys have 2 teams on some occasions. They not only teach them baseball, but education in general. Anyone think these kids would be getting an education otherwise when these (scouts), or buscones tore them away from normal life? Anyone think MLB, lumping them all together into one huge mass will be better?
Like the government.. having one entity trying to do everything doesn’t work well. It (commissioner needs to stick with decision making and leave the rest to the teams themselves.
So some International scouts support the corrupt “trainers” and glad that they are standing up to MLB while those amateurs from Canada, Puerto Rico, and US who are subject to the draft have their earning potential substantially reduced by the draft. Time for some player agents to band together and file a class action restraint of trade law suit against MLB and the MLB players association. How about leveling the earnings opportunities for players and either have one draft, or dump the draft entirely making all amateurs free agents and the market controls the earning potential.
Just some factual observations here …
1) The draft is a restraint of trade? Of course it is. It’s collectively bargained. Basically all of the rules are restraints on trade in some form. So is the bonus pool system that applies currently to international amateur players. That being said, pre-MLB players have a legitimate gripe that their rights are being bargained for by another entity (MLBPA). But challenging that is going to be very, very complicated.
2) I don’t agree that there’s a lack of “leveling [of] earning opportunities” between domestic and international players. International players, generally, are subject to similar (actually, in many ways more restrictive) limitations than domestic amateur players. It’s just not the case that the typical young players who sign out of Latin America, Europe, and (less frequently) Asia are somehow making out like bandits here. The separate rules regimes grew out of the very, very different underlying conditions and market developments over time.
3) That certain Cuban and Asian ballplayers can command true free agent salaries is a reflection of the unique circumstances and essentially separate rules regimes that apply. In the Cuban case, it’s because the player transfer system is in flux owing to the fact of COLD WAR. Players who have 5 years of experience there and who are 23 or older are exempt from the bonus limitations. Even those that are subject to the bonus rules are, in some cases, good enough and developed enough for teams to just bust the spending limits and take the penalties. As for Asia, it’s totally different — they are professional players subject to various domestic systems more or less akin to those that hold for MLB.
Draw whatever conclusions from this that you wish. But I really don’t see why you connect your feelings on the domestic side to what’s going on internationally. The league tries to tamp down salaries in all forms, and generally finds it easier to do so for pre-MLB players, for obvious reasons. People are pushing back against this current international effort because it seems to them to be misguided in certain respects. You, separately, feel that the pre-existing draft is unfair. It’s fine to argue for a universal approach, etc, if you can support it, but that wouldn’t address your actual concerns (in and of itself) and would quite possibly be a poor avenue for dealing with the concerns raised in the linked article.
Thanks for the reply and information; I was trying to be concise but you raise good points.. It is an unfair labor practice for companies and unions to negotiate CBA’s that conflict with federal laws. MLB has gotten around the restraint of trade issue because of anti trust exemption dating back to 1922 (Supreme Court decision). This has worked for decades, but now US players are adversely affected then the anti trust exemption should be reconsidered in my opinion. I understand the reasons for the current dilemma, but when a terrific talent like Walker Buehler is limited under the draft to 8X less than Dodgers paid to the young Cuban pitcher Alvarez there is something wrong with the system and it needs to be fixed.
I understand that perspective and hope I’m not being overly argumentative — just trying to add to the discussion. I guess I just see the comparison you posit — Buehler v Alvarez — as supporting a somewhat different point than the way you have framed it. Supposing the two are equivalent values in an open market system, I don’t think that the latter’s big payday suggests that he’s unfairly benefiting here. (Remember: half of the outlay was a penalty tax, not cash to him, and he’s one of these uniquely situated players.)
Mostly, perhaps it suggests what a fair valuation of the former would be in an open-market situation. (It’s not perfect — Alvarez also had uniquely strong bargaining power b/c of the way the rest of the system functions — but it suggests.) And that goes to your point about just how much earning power is being withheld from these amateurs who are entering through the amateur draft.
I think you can take that and argue from it in a way that doesn’t make this about domestic vs foreign fairness — especially since most foreign players are subject to similar constraints in their own right. Ultimately, both groups are in a tough spot with the MLBPA nominally negotiating on their behalf.
Could be wrong, but my understanding is that the bonus was $16MM to Yadier Alvarez, the penalty was additional. My only point is that the player subject to the draft (Buehler) was limited to a $1.78MM bonus while a pitcher who I believe has comparable talent, but not subject to the draft received $16MM; more than 8X than Buehler.
Bonus was 16 and then they paid the same amount (give or take) in the penalty tax, that’s correct. So I’d say his market value, in that setting, was $32MM. So it’s actually about 18x more than Buehler!
(FWIW, I really haven’t thought about whether it’s fair to call them equivalent value assets from a prospect perspective.)
So what’s the sticking point with the trainers? The players make a lot more money on the open market then they would in the draft and therefore a draft would reduce the trainers take?
Eloy Jimenez and Gleyber Torres made quite a bit of money. They stood out in the crowd.
Players in the crowd they stood out from? Their bonuses are usually smaller than the standard allowed maximum for a 17th Round Draft pick.
It’s the entire arrangement of the system, which MLB wants to run through its own academies and then into a draft. Obviously the trainers are motivated in some large part by the fact that they don’t want to be cut out of the process. But I assume they’d argue that they are also much more aware of and interested in the well-being of the players, on the whole, than is MLB.
Exactly
um, the trainers do all the work of preparing these kids for the MLB teams, and now MLB just wants to waltz in and take away their livelihood just because the owners want these kids on the cheap?
lord knows i’d be a little unhappy if their position. MLB’s acting in a quite arbitrary way here… doesn’t seem like anyone at the corporate level consulted with anyone ‘on the ground’ when it came up with this proposal.
I wish more fans were upset at the owners about this. The goal should be improving the game, not anything else.
What about improving the game by making a fair and competitive league where you achieve victory on the field rather than with whoever spends more money rigged auctions for talent with a well documented history of corruption?
because fairness and competitive balance have nothing to do with this at all? It’s not about ‘leveling the playing field’, mid and small market teams have been reaping the benefits of this system as much as the big market (Maitan to the Braves, Cespedes to the A’s, just for an example), it’s all about curtailing the rising cost of top foreign talent.
If MLB cared about fairness, it’s first concern would be enforcing the existing rules… which it barely does to begin with.
Enforcing the current rules. Or stiffening the penalties.
If any team exceeds their limits, suspend the top three execs from the team for a decade.
yeah, because the teams writing the rules would penalize themselves to that extent… right…
overspending some arbitrary limit on 16-year olds with a huge bust-out rate is not, in fact, the greatest sin in baseball, so let’s reign in the fake outrage
Prsonally i’d change it to going over your pool means you’re prohibited from spending anything in the IFA market until you’ve accumulated enough new pool money to cover the difference… basically so the more nuts you go, the longer you have to sit out.
I’d like to hear about a group of owners countering to start a league in Brasil to replace the Venezuelan League.
Expect all 30 sides to invest a million per over three (It certainly could be less.) to get a footing in the country, then plan to move to India or China to follow.
I wouldn’t mind a league in Africa, either. Eventually.
Why not just do a draft like the nhl? Only have 1 draft combining North American and foreign players and they’re all 18 when drafted?
Could do that. Except, Latin players won’t be able to play against US quality-type of players in compound leagues until they’re 21, usually.
I’d rather baseball be better, not more difficult for players to start getting professional training from MLB organization coaches.
tell the owners to invest heavily on establishing school team based baseball in south america. some may call trainers greedy but they are the ones invest their own money to find and train players. let alone provide housing and meals.
there is only one team, last i heard, provides education for advanced players in dominican republic. imagine telling the owners they have to build 10 high school teams, 20 middle school teams and countless little league teams and provide all the equipment and clothing.
I know nothing about hockey, but I’m assuming international hockey prospects from outside US/CAN tend to come up through highly developed, often state-sponsored domestic systems. That’s not at all the situation of Latin American players.
(Correct me if I’m wrong on that assumption.)
That’s just the thing, so many Latin players are in international complexes and signing their first pro contract when American players are in high school. We have an established, organized system here, whereas all they really have down there is what we do now.
The draft is kind of important for competitive balance and I think one way or another it’s gonna happen eventually… but unless it has a good method of filling the role of what baseball does for kids down there, it’s going to be a no-go.
It would be a huge disaster. It would also push American players further from the game. It would also create a bigger gap between the small and large market teams. Teams drafting would be able to splurge on their 1st round and give peanuts to the players probably most in need of the money. American players recourse is college baseball or another sport. International players what’s their recourse? Coaching college players where recruited heavily in Puerto Rican and Venezuelan players and it’s difficult enough to get the english speakers eligible. So where is there protection in this? You’re doing a disservice to all of you tried to roll this is into one draft. You also have to realize the economical differences between Hockey and baseball. Hockey is expensive leading itself to a different class of athletes unlike baseball.
There will never be a true international draft because established leagues like Japanese, Korean, and Cuban leagues will never consent nor should they. There are to many countries involved for one draft.
There’s a distinct difference between MLB teams scouring Latin America for young talent, and established professionals from foreign leagues coming over via posting or just free agency. Players from Japan and Korea and elsewhere over there are increasing in number but still don’t represent a pipeline of talent into MLB. Cuba is a bit different in the hoops players had to jump through to come play here due to politics but that’s clearly thawing – still, by and large they’re signed as professional free agents and really aren’t comparable to Dominican 16-year-olds and how they enter the league.
I was speaking on both sides as to why a true international draft would not occur in the truest sense of an “international draft.”
The complaints come from poor countries where corruption is a common trait, and the draft would protect the players in the long run.
how? they’d be given less money, less opportunity, and less leverage to deal with billion-dollar corporations exempt from even American anti-monopoly laws?
The teams make more money in the system, the players less… who’s getting protected?
Apparently, you think the US scouts are pure as undriven snow. Not all are.
I’d prefer more leagues in more countries Trainers aren’t perfect, but most countries don’t have a natural set-up for US-style travel teams.
Here’s the problem would it really? As of right now the MiLB doesn’t really protect minor league players. They still do not receive minimum wage.
it’s actually quite the opposite, every rule the MLB has regarding amateur American/canadian players is about depriving them of free market protections just to make them cheaper to acquire