MLB committee to study international draft

One result of the new collective bargaining agreement of Major League Baseball is the formation of a committee that will determine whether baseball should have an international baseball draft. The committee will consist of Sandy Alderson, Tony Clark, Andrew Friedman, Stan Javier, Rob Manfred, Kim Ng, Rick Shapiro and Michael Weiner. Many facets of baseball are represented as Clark and Javier are retired players, Alderson is the Mets GM, Friedman is a Rays VP, Ng is from the commissioner's office, Manfred is the MLB executive VP, Shapiro is from the player's association and Weiner is the union head. Manfred and Weiner are the co-chairs. Their first meeting is set for January 15, 2012.


The major issues involved start with whether international amateur players should be subject to a draft or remain under the current system where they sign as amateur free agents. If it is determined that they should be subjected to a draft it would then be decided whether they should be part of a single worldwide draft where they would be included in the draft held in June or drafted in a separate international draft. Players from Puerto Rico are currently part of the Rule 4 draft in June so it would need to be determined which draft they should be in if there are two drafts. Standards on how to deal with Cuban players would also need to be set. Establishing the age for signing international amateurs is another issue.


I believe that the international players should be in their own draft since they CBA already established a new system of allocating funds for international players. Starting next year each team will have bonus pools of only $2.9 million to draw from to pay all their new international players. Then starting the following year the bonus pools will be allocated in a range of $4.5 million down to $1.7 million starting with the team with the worst record and going in order from there. Since that financial system will be in place it makes sense to have a draft that corresponds to it while the other draft will have a different bonus pool to draw from. 


Currently some teams heavily rely on their international scouting and free agent signing as a cost saving alternative to pursuing high priced free agents each year. Those teams may initially balk at the new system but in the long term it should help even the playing field. Two drafts with the same draft structure of drafting worst to best could help struggling teams stock their farm systems and improve the Major League club faster than the current system.