The New Collective Bargaining Agreement Is An Abomination

Since it informs the discussion, MLB has said the expected “pools” for the top 10 rounds will be about $4.5 million to $11.5 million (depending on where you pick, and how many picks you have).

How although other pro sports are out of touch and so is college football that baseball has to be the most out of touch with reality.

It’s clear that his motives benefit the owners first. He could care less whether Pitt or KC have a fair playing field, so long as he and the owners get their billions.

I think the most important part of this piece is that there is no question players that play both Football and Baseball in High School will now choose football. It is all about what I can get, who can offer the most.
 Spot on about the union. They take care of there own with blinders on.

Your point about players going to the NFL speaks volumes because it not only affects the Cubs but baseball as a whole. What drives a lot of the bonuses for draft picks is that teams have to convince an athlete to pick the minor leagues over taking a scholarship to play college football or basketball. Now more of those kids will be going to college football or basketball instead which means the overall quality of baseball will decline.

This CBA is so bad for baseball it’s not even funny.

is that this new CBA completely screws Billy Beane and Oakland. Not only does it eliminate the comp picks he was getting for relief pitchers, but it eliminates and opportunity for them to be aggressive in the international draft.

The Cubs are going to be OK on this. It’s bad for baseball and I hate it, but the Cubs will do OK. But Oakland is completely hosed, now and forever. They better get a new stadium, paid for by the other 29 owners, for this.

Well I suppose the issue of signability with some guys will be a lot less dramatic, or just more concrete for lack of a better word. If a Josh Bell doesn’t go on day one, you know he’s going to college. You know there is a floor (more or less) for a lot of these questionable sign /struggled in spring prep players.

And who takes advantage of it first.

The non-discrimination clause now includes sexual orientation. So that’s good news for all the open homosexuals in the sport.

The wonderful photo of Bud and the boys is great isn’t it? The will tout “Labor peace” “Who would of thought MLB could and the Players Association could hammer out another deal for 5 years?” This story won’t find many front pages in the sports sections.

what loopholes teams/agents will concoct.

and then this happens

I know political discussion is not enjoyed here, so I’ll limit my post to a few simple questions and comments.

I agree that a luxury tax should mean $$$ and not draft picks. After that, I started to disagree with the emotion in the OP.

So under this new CBA, we can’t pay a Josh Bell $8mil to not go to college? Is that bad?

We can no longer give lots of money to kids that live outside the U.S.? We could still give them something though, such as the opportunity to come here and play professional baseball. If they’re good enough, they’ll trump “minimum wage” and likely the average annual income of most American families over their lifetime.

I suppose we could see an impact on talent or parity. I would argue that baseball has never had either of these outside the random luck of the game. This is a separate issue.

Lastly, there have been many a late inning where I thought that Shark should be playing football. Just sayin.

I’ll be looking for my “political chatter warning” email later today. Pardon me in advance, I’m just sharing.

I’m going to wait and reserve full condemnation. I’ve already been vocally against this, and I agree with all of Josh’s points in his post.
Biz of Baseball has some interesting new info that changes things a little.

UPDATE#2: As part of the new Lottery within the Draft, some picks can now be traded

The picks for the new Competitive Balance Lottery – which represents a small number of picks – are assignable (tradable). The Competitive Balance Lottery will be active for 2013. There will only be certain times of the year when those picks can be traded.

For the Competitive Balance Lottery, it’s six picks after the first round and six picks after the second round.

UPDATE: Here are more details around how the Signing Bonus Pool works within the Draft:
The range of the Signing Bonus Pool is from $4.5 million-$11.5 million.

The more picks a club has, the larger the pool becomes that the club will have to work with.

The size of the pools will standardize more from club to club after next year’s class of free agents.
    
The size of the pools will be dependent on the number of picks a club has in a given year and where those picks fall within each round.

A club with the first pick of the Draft will have the largest pool.

if this is what comes from harmony.

Is Donald Fehr still available?

BTW, and I am not a lawyer, so I may be wrong – I am certain that an international draft would be considered invalid here because it would be illegal in the European Union. Professional sports organizations in Europe have lost a series of cases in European courts concerning rules, from and by various leagues, limiting a player’s ability to chose where she/he wants to play. The regulations were struck down due to European labor laws. I think the same would apply to a draft.

If I’m an owner, I tell my staff to identify every player who isn’t likely to accept slot but will go to college instead. Then I would draft as many of them as I could and pay them all as much as I feel like paying. Even if I had to lose 5 draft picks the next year, I wouldn’t care, because the players I’d be drafting in rounds 6-20 would be guys who could easily be 2nd-4th round picks without slotting.

Even years: draft like crazy
Odd years: take the draft mostly off.

Rinse and repeat.

Talented high school players are going to choose college.

Why is this? Wouldn’t a good player choose to go into the majors?

Additionally, teams are only going to be able to sign kids from an established data base. Essentially, if you want to sign a Dominican or Venezuelan kid, you’ve got to tell the other 29 kids about him first. In theory that should raise bonuses because it should create a bidding war, but remember, everyone’s budget is capped. No one is going to be able to go over a certain amount without losing draft picks. In theory, I suppose, a team could put all its eggs in one basket and give a huge bonus to one player and not sign anyone else, but that’s a recipe for disaster. In a best case scenario, then, players will sign with the big name teams that they’ve heard of, such as the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox. In a worst-case scenario, corruption and under-the-table payments are going to be everywhere. I think the second scenario is more likely and these kids are going to be even more at the mercy of the buscones who connect players with teams.

I don’t undrestand this entire paragraph. Why would a player be more likely to sign with NYY if there are greater monies coming from another team?

Thanks.

Dan

really hard to be upset with the fact that 16 year old kids from the Dominican Republic are going to get less money. These kids are from a country where the average income is $8,000 a year, and they’re being given 6 figure signing bonuses.

Supposedly, they were one team that abided by the slot recommendations and wanted penalties.

I get Josh’s arguments, but I’m also not sure I care as much. I won’t mourn for a second if the Royals and Pirates are contracted.

…Prince!

Josh or anyone else, do you know what control major league teams have over minor league conditions? I assume minor league contracts are standardized in some way, or could an MLB team pay its minor leaguers 10%, 20% more to make forgoing college to play in the minors more appealing? Do the affiliates themselves contract with and pay the players?

Salaries aside, could the Cubs for instance guarantee their minor leaguers better travel accomodations, meals, benefits, etc. to make entice kids to sign rather than go to college? Similarly, I wonder if college tuition guarantees are going to be included in the draft bonus pool or limited in any way?

1) Playing college football or baseball or another sport is over-rated when you have a chance for real monies given not all scholarships cover 4 years of tuition I believe. And there’s no guarantee post-college that player will play in the NFL. Can we offer to pay college tuition for players too and not have it count against the cap? Or is this an IRS type of situation where that is considered “income?”

2) This helps big pocket teams like the Cubs or Red Sox or Yankees since we can afford big cost free agents.

3) Can we buy those new compensatory picks from the low-revenue/small market teams?

4) And most importantly, I see a scenario where a large market team just accepts the fact they will never have 1st round picks, pays everyone over slot and pays the tax. Then, seeing this, prospects will threaten teams in the 1st round that they will be ‘expensive’, letting the big clubs pay for them in rounds 2 or later. It pretty much urinates on the system as intended, but it is 100% within the rules as far as I see. This is definitely an approach the Yankees could take, and the Yankees now also benefit from not having to give up draft picks for opening up the pocketbook for the best available FA of the year.