Major League Baseball is pushing hard to implement an international draft in the current wave of collective bargaining negotiations with the MLB Players Association, reports ESPN’s Buster Olney. The international draft would be a centerpiece in the changes brought forth with the new CBA, per Olney. The current agreement, which was collectively bargained in the 2011-12 offseason, expires in December.
According to Olney, current proposals have the first 10-round international draft slated for March 2018, and by the year 2021, the minimum age requirement for international draft eligibility would be 18 — a departure from the current system, which allows players to sign as early as their 16th birthday. The league would also operate facilities in the Dominican Republic where international talent could hone their skills before reaching the age of draft eligibility. Under MLB’s proposal, Olney reports that international draftees would receive bonuses that are comparable to those received by players currently selected in the annual June amateur (Rule 4) draft.
The current international signing system has come under great scrutiny, as the unregulated nature of negotiations with teams often leads to corruption. Trainers and handlers for prospects often are able to lay claim to a significant portion of prospects’ signing bonuses and, as Olney writes, at times to extract fees from teams in exchange for delivering talent. He adds that with no testing for international prospects, many teenagers are motivated to use performance enhancing drugs in order to secure a higher signing bonus on their first deal. Beyond that, there have been several harrowing tales of human trafficking to smuggle Cuban players into the country in exchange for exorbitant payments. In writing about this matter earlier this spring, Olney’s colleague Pedro Gomez cited an anonymous player that defected from Cuba within the past few years who said that he would be on the hook for payments to a cartel for the remainder of his Major League career.
As Olney notes, an international draft would be welcome by a number of small- and mid-market clubs due largely to the fact that the current measures implemented in the most recent CBA haven’t fostered the level of competitive balance for which the involved parties strove. The current CBA implemented slots and allotted bonus pools for both the amateur draft as well as international free agency, but only the penalties relating to the amateur draft have curbed spending as had been hoped.
The current international system bans any team that exceeds its league-allotted bonus pool by more than 15 percent from signing an international amateur for more than $300K for the next two signing periods — that penalty was only for one year in the first year of the system’s existence — but that hasn’t prevented teams from determining that the upside is greater than the punishment. To date, the Cubs, Red Sox, Rangers, Yankees, Dodgers and others have gone on extensive international spending sprees in order to bolster their farm systems in one fell swoop. While some small-market/lower-payroll clubs have also exceeded their limits — e.g. the Rays and Reds — the level at which they’ve exceeded international spending limitations hasn’t come close to the levels at which others have over-spent. The Red Sox, for interest, issued a $31.5MM signing bonus to Yoan Moncada (which came with a 100 percent luxury tax, bringing the total to $63MM) despite only possessing a $1.881MM bonus pool that season. The Dodgers, meanwhile, spent upwards of $90MM during that same international signing period (including luxury tax penalization).
Certainly, there are hurdles to be cleared in agreeing to any sort of international draft. Incorporating players from multiple countries, age and identity verification, PED testing/regulation and a number of other roadblocks figure to require a great deal of work, but there are incentives for all parties involved to standardize the means by which teams acquire amateur talent. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has long been an advocate for eventually finding a way to implement an international draft, stating during Spring Training 2015: “I am of the view that at some point, for the good of the game, for the good of competitive balance, we are going to have an international draft.”
Thank god. Hopefully this helps even out the playing field and stops putting big market teams at an advantage since they can afford to gamble on these players.
Good luck vetting true ages from 2/3 of the countries these kids come from. Shouldn’t make it 18. Now rather than these kids all being 16-17YO, they will magically turn into 18 will fake birth certificates backing it up.
Remember Sano, just 2-3 years back up having to give bone marrow to prove HE was.. What was it?? 17 at the time?? It’s STILL a massive problem in Dominican, Venezuela,Honduras, Nicuraqua. These kids can’t prove they will be 18 and MLB can’t vet it either, unless it’s PR and **maybe** mexico, nowhere else in latin america.
Dump the 18yo qualifications and go on.
Most of these kids stop going to school @ 14 and are then trafficked to the buscones/programs, wait till you see what another 2 years on the streets will do, another halfhearted effort fromMLB
Exactly. Well, I don’t know about half hearted. There is no heart involved in this.
This is a disgusting attempt by MLB to save as many pennies as they can. First they cut bonuses to next to nothing and then leave them in slavery for an extra 2 years so they don’t accidentally pay anyone that doesn’t work out.
The union will no doubt sign off because it will get them a few more dollars.
Am I understanding this correctly that instead of big market teams going out and buying every good international player, there will be a draft that would allow other teams to get these players? If so that would be a great idea.
Unrealistic, that is why this so called draft is 10 years in the making, and they are still behind the 8 ball figuring out the details
There is a way to stop the Dodgers, Cubs, and Red Sox from overspending. And I say this as a Cubs fan.
Increase the amount that can be spent internationally by team a bit so that each team knows they’ll be able to spend $3-4 million internationally per annum.
Then, revoke the charter of any team that goes over their limit. Or, kick them out of the June Draft for three decades.
International scouting should be a valid part of all 30 organizations. The jealousy angle needs to go away, somehow. Pushing the eligibility age to 18 will make baseball very much more a “players from America” league more than now.
For some people, for some reasons, that is acceptable…
I’m happy to see this.
I love this idea! So if this passes, then a team could not only get the best American prospect, but the best international prospect as well. Great for competitive balance.
There goes the so called “Free” Market
Free market? The amateur draft has been in place since ~1965, now they’re just talking about putting foreigners through the same system. I’d call an international draft making things fair for everyone, rather than giving foreigners a huge cash advantage.
You’ll make the same whether you’re from Florida, California, Dominican Republic, or Cuba. That’s fair. Getting ~$30m because you’re from Cuba while the top amateur draft pick gets $5m… that’s silly.
It helps the LAZY/CHEAP teams that haven’t invested in South America. PLEASE don’t act like every kid that comes from South America gets a HUGE bonus. For Every Huge Bonus, there are thousands that get signed for Peanuts.
They have the opportunity to make tens of millions of dollars though before they play a game. Americans, Canadians, and Puerto Ricans don’t ever have that opportunity, no matter how good they are.
Supply and demand, right?
American minor league “peanuts” wages are usually gonna be a hell of a lot more than these kids could earn in the DR, with a way higher potential ceiling.
So? What’s your point? Those Americans also had an opportunity to get drafted. Besides, they make the same around the same amount monthly after they sign. Just admit it, You guys don’t like the fact that the “NON” Americans are getting all of that money.
Since when is the start date of the draft related in any frigging way to the definition of a free market?
Reading is Frigging fundamental “eMac”. The “Draft” eliminates the free market.
Time to refill your trazodone, tsolid… if that’s your response to what I said it’s evident you don’t even have the faintest glimmer of an idea what my post was about
I know exactly what I posted. Your comment was that it was luxury to for them to make “Peanuts” in the minor leagues, discounting the fact that “Most” get drafted and get signing bonuses according to where drafted.
Most Americans
Spot on.
I think it’s silly that if you’re US born your earnings (draft slot) are significantly regulated, while if you’re born in Latin America your price is set by the market. There have been cases like that shortstop a few years ago, the US high schooler who moved back to another country where a parent came from, to avoid the draft and be bid on as an international free agent.
I do think that’s silly. MLB is primarily in the US (plus one Canadian team, of course). Many of the stadiums are funded by US taxpayers. You’d think the advantage would go to US natives, but instead the current system puts top US players at a financial disadvantage.
Also it’s a system which keeps small market teams from competing on equal footing with teams with more money.
I don’t see any reason to tie anything to fairness to US (including PR) and Canadian players. The rule regimes involve different actors and developed over time.
Teams want to tamp down/control expenses. The league shares that and also tries to pursue competitive balance in the interest of all teams. Player’s association strongly favors MLB players — you have to earn your way in to get the protection and the dollars.
That results in a systemic tilt against all amateur players, and even non-40-man minor leaguers, who really aren’t represented at all in the process. The traditional amateur market has never rewarded players at a higher price than top draft picks. Both the international market and draft were tightened up with their various signing bonus rules — though the deterrents provided in the former haven’t been as effective as those in the latter.
Should both “domestic” and “international” (generally speaking) amateurs be subjected to the same set of rules? I don’t know. Maybe, if feasible. But it doesn’t matter all that much from the perspective of fairness between those groups — both have their true market value controlled by a collective bargaining process they don’t really participate in. We can debate the merits of the draft, but the idea that foreign players are somehow being unfairly benefited is a bit silly to me. It’s not giving them an advantage over US kids — they all just face different limitations.
The only subset of foreign amateurs that has been able to truly prosper is the group of advanced Cuban players who have come over. But that’s only because the Cuba-MLB link was undergoing a transition period, where the most talented players were only becoming available on an ad hoc basis, in (or within striking distance of) their prime and with true free agency available. Once that dries up and it’s normalized, they’ll go right back into the same general situation as young kids from DR/Venezuela/Europe/etc. (Asia is an entire different matter.)
Bottom line: plenty of reason to call for change in this arena. But I don’t get the critique that somehow these 16-year-old Dominican kids are somehow making out like bandits in the scheme, to the detriment of US HS seniors and collegians. I mean, where does the former group get the power to maintain such a regime? They don’t have it. Really, if you feel the latter group is mistreated, the complaint should be that the system doesn’t afford any bargaining power to either of those groups.
You do realize that prior to the most recent CBA the small market Pirates and KC Royals were spending mega bucks in the Rule 4 draft already and the NYY Yankees, LA Dodgers, Anaheim Angels (big market) WERE NOT right? Boston was about THE ONLY larger market team to consistently spend huge on the draft over the previous 10 years, leading up to the last CBA and that includes the Cubs.
This myth which keeps getting spouted off here by an awful lot of people is nothing but hot air, even more small teams refused to spend pre new CBA.. Houston being a really guilty culprit and Tampa got really hurt on how they would game getting extra 1st round and comp picks by offering arbitration to all their FA relievers each year.
Yup. The Cubs didn’t spend overseas all that much until Theo arrived.
Once the Cubs grasped the importance of getting the most out of opportunities, they started to get better. One of those opportunities was to (as I remember) hire the guy who wrote the rules. And blow through the cap, accepting time in the penalty box as the primary punishment.
The punishment needs to be more severe, or teams will continue to ignore the limits.
Opting for a draft will have blowback.
I’m not sure what. It will be ugly for those that don’t see it coming. Or initiate it.
It’s an “only win” business. The draft will work in that it will equalize, to an extent.
And countries not playing baseball really well now will suffer the consequence of not getting their players to the big leagues nearly as often.
If making baseball the bast sport it can be, the draft is a bad thing.
If the goal is to keep the Dodgers, Cubs, Yankees, and Red Sox from signing everyone, place strict limits, and cancel the charter of any team that exceeds said limits.
But, remember. Draft/sign/develop is the best way for your team, whoever that is, to get significantly better without spending millions of dollars for six months of one dude who might have a terrible season.
Teams would also have twice the incentive to tank! LOL
This change is inevitable, although I didn’t expect it for a couple years. I’ve always wondered how this would affect the teams that heavily invest in certain markets (building new facilities in DR) compared to those that do not. To me it seemed that players that succeeded in those facilities often had unspoken ties and allegiances to those teams for giving them a chance and would be more inclined to sign with them. Adding a draft takes it out of the players’ hand (I agree for the better). I wonder if this would have a negative impact on teams’ future investments into such facilities in certain regions.
A side note, super hypothetical and most likely not to happen, but it would be kind of fun to have this be reverse order as an incentive to win or have the 1st pick be the WS loser or something. I obviously understand the drawbacks and the true underlying intention for having a draft in the first place.
If your team can’t benefit, why build an academy, take kids in and see who’s worth signing when they hit 16? So many Latin players signed with their particular team because of very personal connections with team personnel.
But just because we’ve always done it a certain way doesn’t mean that way is the best way. It’ll be very interesting to see how things work. Perhaps having a more organized, regulated, fair system of bringing these guys into the league will reduce some of the negatives that have always gone with international signings. Why forge a birth certificate or do some of the other squirrely things people have done when you KNOW you’ll have a team there to sign you on your merits?
With the Cuba thaw though, more and more players will be coming up here, and the old system is probably bound to break anyway.
Banning people from being signed (or rather draft eligible) until they’re 18… geez, that must totally disrupt a lot of lives in latin america, where we’re so used to ~16 year old kids being signed.
Should this come to pass, I hope that they can take what teams have done on their own for so many kids down there, and do it in a communal MLB-wide fashion. It’s going to TOTALLY change the way teams scout players in the minors. We’ll have to figure out how they’ll populate the list of draft-eligible players… no idea how that would work.
I am curious how this affects the trade market: eg will slots be tradable and will there be QO penalties and/or bonuses? I don’t see this as a big market/small market evening of the rules I see it as a follow the rules/don’t follow the rules as there are more than a few big market teams that haven’t pulled a red sox and just blown money out to get guys.
Teams broke the rules because the penalties (which were perceived as a deterrent) weren’t a deterrent. Even the Cardinals are blowing away spending limits now.
Eliminating overspending would be rather easy, if that were the goal. Ban international signings for three years. Something with some real teeth in it. Something like that.
As far as increasing the signing age to 18 pretty much admits that MLB wants nothing to do with getting Brasil, India, or any other country interested in baseball. A kid at 18 who’s never played against quality talent, and only then gets to go play in the Dominican League will very likely never reach Double-A, much less the major leagues.
It’s a jealousy game. Teams not very good at recruiting internationally don’t want teams who are good internationally at expanding their advantage. Which means, it takes 23 owners to make baseball an almost entirely USA/Canada/DR/Venezuela/(other teams with really good competition now) league.
As opposed to the NBA, which encourages teams to scour Germany/Argentina/Brasil/Russia/Australia for the best talent they can find.
Better to save a few dollars than have a better product.
I’m with Ben Badler on this. Very. Bad. News.
An international draft will create a lot of complications but I vastly prefer those complications to the disaster of a system we have now.
There will always be complications with people involved. People tend to be easily corrupted.
My question is, do we want more kids overseas playing baseball? Or less kids overseas playing baseball?
This will serve as a disincentive or kids to play baseball. By encouraging teams to expand into (say) Brasil or India, and allowing teams advantages for setting up academies in those countries, would expand baseball. Not bottle it up.
Ownership wants more control on entry into the field. The evil is “those other teams”, not “kids not wanting to play baseball”.
i have not yet decided if i like the mlb’s ideas but if they are going to build facilities for the international prospects, build dorms and provide 3 nutritious meals. and provide education especially for those that don’t make big. it will also benefit them in mlb for the ones that are picked.
but more than anything, provide living wages or conditions to minor leaguers!
23 of 30 owners will never willingly vote to pay a kid in the minor leagues a higher monthly rate.
This is sad, but true.
It’s doubtful that 23 of 30 will aim to make wages for overseas players enough for the third best player on a Brasilian football side (soccer) to take up baseball due to better pay for international players in the sport.
The teams to succeed internationally will do so despite the rules incoming, not because of them.
good luck trying to draft japanese or korean youngsters!
I’m going to make a contrary point here. There is top end spending, and bottom end spending, and if MLB is worried about competitive balance they should consider that the more they try to put a drag on one end, the more they create the possibility of unintentional consequences.
Big market teams spend because they can…but they also spend for top free agents because they don’t always have cheaper alternatives waiting in their farm systems. That inflates those markets, and what you pay top-end talent invariably filters down to the 3 WAR player as well. That makes it harder for the small market teams to compete for just good, useful players.
But big market teams can also attack the small market teams from below. They can afford to make QOs, and amass draft picks. They can afford to deliberately tank to do the same–and even get protected picks from it so they can hunt for expensive free agents the following year–the Cubs have done this, as have the Red Sox. The Yankees made a QO to Granderson after he lost almost an entire year to injury. Not beating on these teams–they have used the rules to their benefits. They can package money with expensive stars and get back younger talent. . Or they can take a salary dump (or draft money) along with young talent. They can even afford to take the contract of an older, expensive player in the offseason, with one year left on his contract, knowing they aren’t going to keep him (because they have someone coming up in another year)–but still offer him a QO.
The point is that the more artificial constraints you put in the market, the more likely it is that teams with economic resources will find a way to game them.
Try less regulation rather than more.
You want to avoid unintended consequences but not having any consequences?
That’s like not having safety belts because some people don’t wear them.
AKA complete logic fail
Thanks for the careful consideration. I didn’t say I wanted no rules. First you have to decide the outcome you are looking for. MLB wanted to drag on salaries and support the lower-market teams. But that didn’t really work out–and they aren’t really compatible goals. Maximum of one QO per team per year to reduce big market advantages. Dump the draft slotting system after the second round. Stop MLB from buying from Congress an exemption from minimum wage laws–start treating Minor League players a little more fairly. Get rid of the MLB-NCAA rule than penalizes the amateur player and forces him to choose between an offer he doesn’t think is fair, or being forced to forfeit eligibility. Get rid of the stupid “no agent, but you can have an advisor…but not” rule. If you really are worried about small market teams, take revenue sharing and put some segregated in a pool for them, so they can bid on their younger talent by making an offer they can afford, then topped up with money from the pool. Be creative–maybe only three rounds of slotted drafting, and then undrafted players can be bid on in the open market, I don’t have all the answers, just some suggestions.
How is the QO system not working? It just takes TIME to work. You have players now who realize that if they are given a QO that it diminishes their earning power (drives down their salary somewhat). You have small/mid market teams that can’t afford the bigger salaries so they give a QO (and they also at this point realize that some players may take one too). Those teams then get a compensation pick. Those picks do NOT translate into immediate success. Draft picks take time. Obviously you don’t even begin to see the benefits from QO’s given by small/mid market teams until those players start having a few years at the majors (not the minors). Maybe I misunderstand your reference to the QO. From my understanding the main points of the QO system was to slow down salary escalation (and if those given a QO are less valuable it is doing that) and offer compensation to the teams that lose a high end free agent (it is doing that too)
I’ll admit that no system is perfect and in regards to a potential international draft it will definitely have all sorts of issues to begin with. I’m not sure whether over the long haul it will be a blessing or a curse to those who are drafted (not even to mention how would it affect players from countries like Japan and Korea who have their own professional league teams)?
southi–a small market team can’t really afford to make more than one QO a year. The Yankees, the Red Sox, Dodgers, etc. can do as many as they want. You won’t hurt small market teams that way.
Mike156, I would respectfully disagree. Small market teams can make as many QO’s in a year that they feel they need to. The thing is that they must really make sure they analyze the market for each of those players diligently to ascertain that the demand is high enough for those specific players to ensure that other teams actively pursue them enough that they won’t accept a QO. Few teams can willy nilly throw out qualifying offers without thinking first of the repercussions of what happens if they accept the offer, what happens if they deny the offer, and what is the most likely outcome. Definitely last year some teams threw out qualifying offers without thinking that a player accepting one was even a possibility. I believe that landscape has definitely changed. In other words giving QO’s is not an issue if the market is such that the player truly deserves one, it is giving out QO’s to lower tier players that will accept them that is the issue.
To be honest I haven’t checked it, but I’d think that the percentage of times that a team has 2 or 3 players entering free agency at the same time AND top tier enough to get a QO would be very low each year of the total free agent pool no matter what size the market.
@Mike156 – I really like your ideas. I’m interested in your thoughts on some things:
1. Why have the QO at all? It seems the unions/players hate it, it does affect player value. At first I had the attitude “Dude, I don’t feel sad for you, you just turned down 15 million and now you’re complaining because you got 14 million for 2 years”. But then as I thought about it I realized, it must kinda of suck if you want to go and play for your hometown team but giving up the draft pick stops them from signing you. Is there a better way to do this?
2. What do you think about just having ONE draft overall, everyone is in the same draft? Is this a timing thing because southern hemisphere teams summer is our winter?
3. I don’t understand the age 18 limit. Any ideas why they picked 18 years old?
4. If an international player is playing in the US, are they considered part of the US draft or international draft? I think it’s the US draft from memory. I mean if this is the case, then in some ways it might stop kids coming here to go to school because they are (in it’s current form) subject to limits but they would get more exposure to MLB clubs.
Southie–on making QOs, yes, small market teams can make as many offers as they want to..but they have to be prepared to take the economic risk of having someone accept it. Brett Anderson, Colby Rasmus and Matt Weiters all accepted. Anderson pitched 11 innings this season, Rasmus had positive WAR but an OPS+ of 76, and Weiters was mediocre. A team like Tampa or Oakland running a $70-80M budget can’t allocate that type of money. However, if you are a wealthy team–you can make a QO to a non-star, like Nick Swisher, or Michael Bourne, and get a pick. I generally just don’t like the QO system. Small number of players, significant distortion in impact for those players.
I agree they have to be prepared to take the risks if someone accepts it…which is why I tried to stress in my reply that they should only issue QO’s when they aren’t likely to be accepted.
I agree that larger market/wealthier teams have more flexibility in their decision making. BUT by their very nature large market teams will always have more flexibility in their decision making simply because they are large market teams with deep pockets…that would still be an issue even if the QO system doesn’t exist.
I agree that because of smaller payrolls a QO constitutes a larger impact for a smaller market team…so I believe it is CRITICAL they really analyze their decision making in regards to whether to extend a QO to any player or not.
Maybe you look at the QO system differently than I do. I don’t think it was ever intended to bring complete balance to the playing field (and I don’t think the larger market teams will ever agree to anything that does that). I only think (from what I have read) that it was intended to offer SOME compensation to teams that lost TOP TIER free agents through compensation picks to the teams that lost them, and it was supposed to help diminish salaries somewhat. In my mind it clearly does both of those things. Could something else do better? Sure there could be something that could address those things better. But I look at the QO more as part of the solution NOT the total solution (and I’ve never seen any indication it was meant to be a total solution).
I understand your points, I truly do, but I think in order for the system to work both teams and the players themselves have to really analyze their decisions better. Once they start doing that then I think some of the controversy around QO’s will disappear.
Yes the Dodgers had the money (because they were a deep pocketed team) to offer Anderson a QO because they decided that with their own situation at the time and their analysis of the market that Anderson if he accepted would still be a good risk for THEM. Things didn’t go the way they wanted and they were stuck paying him a lot of money for no production.
I don’t think that either the Astros or the Orioles thought it was likely at all that Rasmus and Weiters would accept the QO, but they did (and looking back it appeared to me that both were no brainers decisions on the players part. I think that because no player had taken the offers in the past the Astros and Orioles assumed in error that the trend would continue.
In my mind Estrada and the Blue Jays both worked out something to their mutual benefit.
I felt strongly at the time that Desmond and Fowler should had accepted the QO’s because of the combination of their performances in 2015 and the lack of easy to spot matches for them.
I think that from this point forward (since last year some players actually started accepting QO’s) you won’t see as many teams (even larger market ones) extend QO’s except to the top tier type free agents. If teams extend them to just average type players you will see even more and more players accept them. Since the price of QO’s keeps going up and up each season it will help retard even the larger budgeted teams from extending them to non deserving candidates in most cases.
So in closing, while I understand your points I definitely do not see any advantage to limiting the QO to one per team as you suggested. I definitely see no link either between the QO system and a potential minor league draft (besides they would be machinations set up as part of MLB). Thanks for the discussion and for now, I’m satisfied if we just are of different views on the subject.
Deke, thanks for the kind words. In an ideal world you wouldn’t have a QO–it disproportionately impacts a small number of players significantly, and doesn’t have much in the way of benefits.
I would imagine, on 18, the motivator is that it’s the age one graduates from HS. I think MLB does not want to be recruiting kids out of HS without them graduating. Just speculating on that.
One massive draft is interesting, but I wonder how you handle all the slotting, and the extra competition probably reduces overall salaries. I doubt the union would love that.
I think once you are in residence and playing in the US (like at college) you are subject to “regular” draft.
Thanks–you make good points.
Point is well taken – the problem is that an unregulated system is geared toward equality of opportunity from a financial standpoint and less towards equality of opportunity from a on-field performance standpoint.
He’s right about more accurately defining the evil you’re tying to stop.
If the evil you’re trying to stop is “those darned Red Sox/Cubs/Yankees/Dodgers sign all the international talent, fix that.
Put in a reasonable spending amount per year ($4 million per year?), and ban any executive in the front office of any team that overshoots that number for three years.
This way, teams can invest internationally, but nobody will break the limits. Like financially conservative teams like the Braves and Cardinals are doing now.
It seems 23 of 30 owners want to stop international development from being a key aspect of the game. Very sad.
The premise that this is an attempt to “stop” what’s been pretty much the second biggest pipeline of talent for several decades is a huge stretch.
Stop was probably the wrong word. Slow it to a crawl, as compared to now, would have been a better term.
I want baseball to be the best sport it can be. Limiting development won’t do that.
The current system is definitely flawed. All the teams mentioned as going over their allotted draft pools are big market teams. The penalties aren’t stiff enough to make the playing field equal for all. The system in Latin America as it stands now is nothing more than glorified human trafficking. The current academies you read about are for a specific organization’s prospects to hone their baseball and cultural skills enough to warrant coming over to the states. Each organization is allowed a certain number of Visa slots for foreign players. The academies allow these organizations to sign as many foreign players as they want and “weed” them out to see who earns the visa slot. If there is a draft, all teams will have a equal opportunity at the best prospects and not just the teams with the biggest wad of cash.
Again, why reward teams that make no effort in and spend NO money in Latin America? Cincinnati signed Chapman, A’s signed Cespedes. Explain that?
If I have $20 million budget for scouting because I am small market team and you have a $50-75 million because you are a large market team, where is the competitive balance? You named two good examples, I could name 50 examples in the last 5 years where large market teams had a clean sweep of a entire yearly class of elite prospects.
Expand the Budget, have better scouting. These owners are Multi millionaires/millionaires, so they shouldn’t get help for not investing in Latin America Facilities
If the goal is to prevent three to five teams from sweeping the international sweepstakes, up the ante on the penalties.
Ban executives for life if they exceed their limits. Then, the excesses would stop.
Cincinnati Reds signed Aroldis Chapman and Raisel Iglesias out of Cuba. The Reds chose to outbid other teams on well known top international free agents. Why didn’t other teams go higher? I don’t know. The Reds just chose to use their money that way, I don’t think it’s superior scouting or a stronger commitment to Latin America, it was just a choice of who wanted to gamble the most. Unfortunately, the Reds only have the cash to do such a thing every few years.
I feel like an international draft would give all 30 teams a fair shot at top guys, spreading out top talent relatively evenly (although high failure rates of prospects, of course) among teams. Like in the regular draft, there are benefits to good scouting and choosing higher.
Do you actually think that most teams don’t invest in international players?
Do you actually think that established Cuban free agents are in the same category as just about everybody else?
You know who’s been scouting well recently? Internationally and stateside? Cleveland. That major market team.
With all the money in the game, an owner/front office can commit more to scouting than they do. Will they commit, and do so effectively? That’s up to them.
They’re some small market teams with academies in Latin America, plus international scouts that get after it. Some teams choose not to invest much, so they will be rewarded with an international draft. Americans went decades with Uber signing bonuses and ML contracts before ever playing a game, why can’t International kids keep cashing in on the FREE market?
1. Normally, shouldn’t the players also favor a draft since the current system takes away money that might otherwise be used on payroll?
2. Why do they need two drafts if everyone is 18?
3. There will be some bleak drafts when they raise the age from 16-17 and from 17-18 (the best players will likely have been drafted the previous year).
This is mostly about cost control for the 30 team owners and not much else.
Also, why can’t they put everyone in the same draft?
because the foreign kids wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance of sniffing the big money
american high school baseball far and away beats any level of amateur competition you’ll find overseas. so what GM is going to burn a 1st (or 2nd, or 3rd…) round pick on some 4-5 year project who’s never faced quality competition? the kids that are IFAs now would be relegated to the much later rounds where the signing bonuses are a couple thousand, if that
and once that kid gets drafted, he’s got absolutely no negotiating leverage because his choices almost universally boil down to take whatever the team who now owns his baseball rights offers, or go to work as a fisherman. or if they’re lucky, land a job in a hotel.
sure, the owners get to save a buck…. but the players in question get shafted big time. They’d be better off picking up a soccer ball than a baseball because then they’d at least have options.
humane conditions for minor leaguers before mlb does anything else!
23 of 30 owners don’t want your Advanced-A RF to make enough in the 5 month season so he doesn’t have to work at a CVS as a cashier in the winter.
I wish they did.
they need the money to give to publicity stunts like Tim Tebow….
It’s about time. But they should take it one step further and include the international players in the June Rule 4 draft and then allocate additional slot money.
Some comments above mentioned that TEAMS are less likely to invest in facilities in these countries, but as the article states MLB would build an academy in the DR. Let’s face it – teams make these investments to lure players to their organization, not out of the goodness of their own hearts.
The MLB has already developed a number of youth academies in the U.S. and has more in the works. I’m sure they’d continue to expand upon this throughout the world. FWIW, I just wish MLB would not just focus on urban locations and make it available to players of all income levels.
I’ll go there with you on this.
Let’s take Brasil. They have a baseball heritage, and probably have more players capable of being legitimate pros than most people would guess.
If “MLB” is in charge of upgrading Brasil, they’d…..
1. Wait until they get a list of 50 good players in the country.
2. Get them to a showcase event.
3. Take full credit for the fact that some got selected, and sent to the Dominican League. Where they likely washed out, since they weren’t drafted until they were 18.
4. Said “Whaddaya want me to do?”
Whereas, if teams were encouraged to open academies in Brasil, and all 30 teams were given international spending exemptions in the country for 36 months, teams would find and develop talent in the country, realizing that they specifically could benefit from it.
Permit teams eight-to-ten international contracts in Brasil between $100,000 and $300,000 per each of the three seasons, without IFA penalty.
Then, scoot to India or China the next three years.
Which method gets more Brasil/India/China talent to Triple-A quicker?
A. Not true. The MLB Academies are an outreach program. MLB is not waiting around for players. In fact, MLB Academies are designed to both introduce kids to the game and develop players.
B. Once you start getting individual teams involved with development of undrafted players it opens doors to corruption. We’ve already seen that happen.
Frankly, I want to see MLB do a better job of developing players right here in the U.S. The urban youth program is a good start but they need to be expanding to the suburbs as well. Youth baseball has strong registration levels up until 10 or 11 years old and then plummets. There are a lot of factors that go into this and I won’t bore you with my opinions on those. But there are a lot of average ability kids that love the game that end up quitting between 11-15 years old.
These kids are not the future college or MLB players, but they are the maturing fan base that will eventually buy tickets.
I could care less about baseball getting into India, China, et al. Let those countries develop their own programs. America doesn’t need to shove it’s nose into every corner of the world.
and in about 2 months this idea will be something they hope to address is the CBA after this one, because every other international baseball federation on the planet will say ‘thanks but no thanks’ to signing up for a system that limits the earning potential of their own citizens…
which, incidentally, is the same reason Bud Selig never got any traction on this idea either…
This isn’t about cost control, it’s about not having the league’s second-biggest pool of talent feed into the league through such an uncompetitive and often unethical system.
Read about how the business of baseball worked and how players came into baseball before the expansion era. It’s in so many ways exactly how it has worked for international players for a long time and something has to give.