Major League Baseball on Thursday proposed massive changes to the way baseball players become professionals, including hundreds of millions of dollars in reductions to the signing bonuses teams pay to amateurs annually and the elimination of high-school draft picks.
For the first time in this round of bargaining, the league has also proposed an international draft, an expected development after the sides made some progress on that concept in the 2021-22 negotiations.
The Players Association balked right away, saying in a statement Thursday the league’s proposals “are flat out bad for baseball” and “would cripple the next generation of players and damage the future of our game.”
But of all the changes the league proposed, an international draft might have the best chance to eventually become reality in some form. MLB’s labor negotiation is still in its early stages, where the sides put forth large requests that will be whittled down over time.
The league is proposing both the domestic and international drafts would go 12 rounds, and that each draft would come with its own $200 million signing-bonus pool and hard slots, where an inflexible amount of money is tied to each pick. The current domestic draft lasts 20 rounds and does not have hard slots, which allows players to negotiate sums above or below the amounts assigned to their pick.
Domestic amateurs received about $402 million last year and international amateurs about $197 million, and this year again, teams will pay close to $600 million in combined bonuses. In Thursday’s proposal, the league is looking to reduce their overall outlay for amateurs by at least $200 million each year.
But, according to the union, the reduction in overall signing bonuses would be $400 million for the first year of the contract, because the league is proposing to skip an entire class of international amateur signings, with only six international drafts taking place during the league’s proposed seven-year agreement.
Teams incur costs for every player they sign, and the league office appears to be trying to usher in a system that brings in fewer players, as well as players who are ultimately more reliable investments. According to MLB, six percent of international signees reach the big leagues, and 44 percent of all players signed from abroad are released within three years.
Starting with the 2028 domestic draft, the league wants domestic draftees to be at least 20 years old by Sept. 1 of that year, and will require them to be at least two years removed from high-school graduation.
MLB is also raising the signing age for international amateurs by a year: currently, they have to be 17 by Sept. 1 of the year they join a team. Now, they’d have to be 18.
“Over the last several years, college baseball has undergone a remarkable transformation,” MLB said in a statement. “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.”
In response, the union said that barring high schoolers as well as junior-college players — another group that would be significantly affected by the age-20 requirement — would “destroy fundamental player rights.”
Player agent Scott Boras said by phone Thursday that MLB’s proposal served to effectively delay when top talents could become free agents. He also positioned it as an affront to the club personnel who work to find and develop younger players.
“The commissioner’s office has issued an edict to all major-league franchises, development staff, coaching and scouting staff, that you’re frankly not worthy of choosing and developing talent,” Boras said. “It’s bad business.”
Were MLB to successfully reduce the number of draftees, over time, it could follow that MLB would want to reduce the number of minor-league affiliates it partners with: fewer players could mean fewer teams to support.
But, at least as a part of this specific proposal, the league said Thursday it will not seek to cut the number of affiliates from the present 120. Each minor league team is on a 10-year contract that runs through 2030.
The players expected something like Thursday’s proposal would be coming.
At the outset of formal negotiations in late May, the league proposed bringing a salary-cap system to MLB, a particularly divisive issue for players that could lead to a lengthy labor fight. Owners are expected to lock out the players in December, when the current 2022-26 labor deal expires. The 2027 season could be in jeopardy if talks don’t progress by next spring.
While MLB didn’t specify it directly in its initial cap proposal, the Players Association inferred that as part of that change, the league was going to “drastically reduce or eliminate amateur entry compensation, both domestic and international,” as Bruce Meyer, the interim head of the MLBPA, put it earlier this month.
MLB is proposing to allow teams to trade draft picks in both drafts. In the domestic draft, picks could only be dealt for the next upcoming draft: i.e., 2028 draft selections could only be traded after the 2027 draft.
In the proposed setup, teams can’t deal away first-round picks in consecutive domestic drafts, and teams can’t acquire more than three additional selections within the first three rounds of a given draft (on top of their original picks in those rounds).
MLB is proposing to reduce the number of teams subject to the draft lottery, to four from six.
One thing the league has pushed for in the past and is reviving again here: mandatory medical evaluations before the draft.
For the international draft, most picks could be traded but the league says there will be “certain limitations.”
The international space
Like all of baseball’s labor negotiations, money sits at the center of talks over the way amateurs turn pro. But the international amateur space is unique in that it is probably the most serious piece of baseball’s collective bargaining agreement.
The entry system for young foreign players profoundly affects people who sometimes have little means and few advocates in their corner.
“It is long past time to reform the international-amateur system in ways that would address longstanding challenges and benefit future players,” MLB said in a statement Thursday. “The enhanced transparency of the international draft that we are proposing is a common-sense step forward that best addresses the root causes of corruption in the current system.
“Our vision for the new international system reduces the pressure on young athletes by giving them the chance to grow and develop, keeps kids in school longer while they pursue a career in baseball, and creates more playing opportunities for the older players who are left behind in today’s system.”
Club officials have sometimes reached verbal agreements with young players from countries such as the Dominican Republic years before they turn 16, the age at which they are technically allowed to sign (so long as they reach 17 by Sept. 1 of a given year).
Young players also sometimes have to pay their trainers exorbitant fees.
A draft would largely put an end to those so-called “early deals,” although it’s less clear whether a draft would solve predatory financial arrangements players enter into with handlers.
MLB says that as part of this new agreement, it would work with the Dominican government to establish these protections:
- A code of conduct for independent trainers with appropriate penalties
- The prohibition of any individual or firm from purchasing an interest in the player’s future signing bonus or salary, or loaning a player or his family money with the player’s future signing bonus or compensation as collateral.
- Implementation of a lifetime ban from the baseball industry, and criminal penalties, for any person who provides performance enhancing substances to a player.
- A requirement that players who reside in an independent trainer academy prior to age 18 must remain enrolled in an education program.
How seriously MLB has, to date, tried to reduce corruption internationally has been debated in the industry.
The league and the clubs generally favor draft systems on economic grounds, because they restrict competition for talent. Because MLB would prefer a different system, some in the industry believe the league is not heavily incentivized to police the current one.
While there have been some high-profile cases in the last decade where the league has disciplined teams and individuals for wrongdoing in the international space, such punishments have not been frequent.
A revived fight
Back in 2022, Tony Clark — the former head of the union who was pushed out this spring amidst scandal — put much of the blame for the league’s international woes on the clubs.
Rob Manfred, baseball’s commissioner, responded later that year.
“We have spent literally — literally — millions of dollars investigating allegations of misconduct, we have disciplined clubs,” Manfred said in 2022. “It’s easy to say that it’s people that cut the check, that they’re engaged in corruption. But, you know, somebody’s taking the check, right?”
During the last round of bargaining, the international draft was treated differently than all the other components of the negotiation.
When the sides agreed to the 2022-26 CBA in March 2022, they decided they would settle everything except the potential introduction of an international draft. Instead, they kicked the can down the road by a little more than four months, to late July 2022. But they couldn’t reach an agreement.
The league was willing to end the qualifying-offer system in free agency if players agreed to a 20-round international draft. MLB didn’t address the qualifying offer in Thursday’s proposal, but a similar offer to eliminate the QO could well come later.
The qualifying offer can be a drag on player markets, because it requires teams that sign free agents to also give up draft picks — a potential deterrent for buyers that the players would like to get rid of.
But back in 2022, the sides were far apart on the amount of money that would be paid to international signees as well as other parts of the system. The gap between the signing-bonus pool the union proposed ($260 million) and the one the league proposed ($191 million) was close to $70 million.
The league also wanted a $20,000 bonus limit for players who were not selected in a 20-round draft; the union wanted $40,000. They disagreed on how to handle players who were drafted but did not ultimately sign, and whether teams could go “over slot” for individual players.
They also had different visions for the scope and power of a joint committee that would be focused on the wellbeing of international players.
But the fact that the league and the union were both on board with the general idea of an international draft during the last round of talks was still a notable development. It suggested that in this negotiation, it has a better chance to get over the finish line compared to other potential changes.
