With ESPN's Buster Olney on vacation, Scott Boras stepped in as a guest blogger for ESPN today and wrote about his take on the new collective bargaining agreement, specifically the qualifying offer system and draft pools. Boras writes that the qualifying offer system is flawed because it punishes veteran players for having strong years. Veterans who receive qualifying offers but are on the wrong side of 30 are punished due to the "artificial scarcity" of draft dollars. Boras also tackles the hard slotting system and how he feels young American talent is punished under the new CBA in his blog, which is an excellent read. Here's more from around the league…
- MLB owners are meeting today to discuss a massive expansion of instant replay in Major League Baseball, writes Bob Nightengale of USA Today. The proposed expansion would make replay available on virtually every aspect of the game with the exception of balls and strikes, but it would also be costly to implement. One executive said the start-up fee would likely be $25-40MM.
- Alex Rodriguez has to be extremely careful if he brings a federal lawsuit against MLB, writes Tom Harvey of the New York Daily News. If the Yankees veteran goes through with it, he'll be forced to address his allegations of drug use and his link to the Biogenesis clinic.
- Mets reliever LaTroy Hawkins was convinced two months ago that this season would be his last, but the 40-year-old now sees himself pitching in 2014, writes Anthony DiComo of MLB.com.
Zach Links contributed to this post.
