This is the next in a series of articles that deal with the upcoming major league baseball collective bargaining agreement negotiations. The first few entries can be found here, here, and here.
The first four rounds of the MLB Draft takes place today. Rounds five through twenty will happen tomorrow.
Draft History
From 1998 until 2011, the MLB draft was 50 rounds, meaning 1,500 kids had the chance to hear their name called (or at least have their phone ring). From 2012 through 2019, it was reduced to 40 rounds. But, again, that made it possible for 1,200 young players to be selected.
In 2020, Covid forced the draft to be reduced to five rounds, as most high schools and colleges had their seasons cut short, so there was considerably less recruiting. When a sense of normalcy returned in 2021, the draft went to 20 rounds, where it sits today. Said differently, in a decade and a half, the number of players selected in the MLB Draft went down by approximately 40%.
As with many of the other proposals baseball’s owners have made in the lead up to the expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement, they would like to severely curtail the amateur draft and institute an international draft. Let’s look at the latter issue first, as it seems to be considerably less contentious.
International Draft
The players and owners nearly agreed to an international draft back in 2022. It was the last issue before the new CBA was signed, and so it was punted for four months. If the players would accept the international draft, the owners would end the qualifying offer system. When neither side would budge, the status quo remained. In fairness, there is something oddly asymmetric about having amateurs in the United States treated differently than those born and playing in other countries, and the fact that the union was open to the concept five years ago lends credence to the belief that they might be open to it this time around. Unfortunately, there are no foreign-born players on the MLBPA’s negotiating committee, so their voices may not be heard at the negotiating table.
Domestic Draft
As for the domestic draft, MLB wants to again reduce the number of rounds – to 12. This would be a reduction of 76% from as recently as 2011. This would mean 240 less players drafted vs. the current system. The owners also want to eliminate high school players from the draft. The league reasons as follows:
“Over the last several years, college baseball has undergone a remarkable transformation. Today’s top programs provide players with resources, competition, and national exposure that were unimaginable a decade ago. By creating a draft system centered around college-aged players and making most college players eligible one year earlier, more players will benefit from both a college education and an elite development environment while reaching professional baseball — and ultimately the major leagues — more quickly.”
What the above statement elides is that college programs are built to win first, generate revenues second, keep coach’s jobs third, with player development somewhere down the list of priorities. Throw in the ever-changing issue of NIL and the transfer portal, where players move from one program to the next on an annual basis, plus the owners offering draft eligibility one year sooner, and what you are left with is the ability for players to truly be developed and coached up at the college level has been minimized, not expanded.
Under the rules proposed by the league, a player would need to be 20 years old by September 1st, and at least two years removed from high school to be eligible for the draft.
Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr., future Hall of Famers Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, and Juan Soto, recently-selected Hall of Famer Andruw Jones, and early front-runner for National League Rookie of the Year Konnor Griffin all made their major league debuts at age-19. Under the new system, the fans would be denied the pleasure of their skills as these players would have to go to college (Harper did go to junior college for a year) and wait until they were twenty to be drafted, let alone make their big league debut.
Bonus Pool
Further, the bonus pool available to sign amateur players would be reduced from roughly $360 million to $200 million, and each draft slot would be subject to a “hard” number. Under the current system, teams have their allotment of draft pool money, and can move it around as they see fit and can negotiate with players to make their dollars go farther, convince a kid to join the organization rather than go to college, and/or give them a chance to sign a player with more money in a later round. None of that would be allowed under what the owners have proposed.
The owners claim that offering a twelve-round international draft with $200 million available actually puts the players in a better position. But that does not account for the gap in the two drafts, as MLB would like to impose this system domestically for 2027, meaning at least $160 million less for American amateurs, while the international component would not kick in until late 2027 or early 2028. If agreed, hundreds of millions of dollars that would otherwise go to young kids will remain in the pockets of the owners.
Salary Cap
The main thing remains the main thing, and that is the salary cap. It may be that the owners are throwing out a bunch of extreme ideas simply to trade them down the line for what they really want. It may be that the players concede some of these smaller issues – although with massive financial ramifications – to win the salary cap war. This debate, and these negotiations, are far from over.
