Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have reached an agreement on the framework of a delayed and shortened 2020 amateur draft, ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel reports (Twitter thread). The notable changes would include pushing the draft back from early June to sometime in July, cutting the event to anywhere from five to ten rounds and partially deferring the payment of signing bonuses into the 2022 season.
Obviously, lopping off 75 percent of the rounds would lead to a vast number of undrafted amateurs — high school, junior college and four-year university students alike. McDaniel notes that there’s been discussion of a maximum bonus for undrafted players, though the $10,000 figure that’s been floated would likely bring about a dramatic uptick in the number of prep prospects opting to attend college and in the number of college juniors returning for a senior season.
The ramifications of such changes are numerous. The 2021 draft class would be immeasurably deeper, and the influx of high-quality college freshmen will in some ways flood college programs — perhaps leading to an increase of players selected out of the Division-II ranks of the NCAA. Many college seniors only sign for $10K as it is, so the financial component of those limited bonuses might not have a substantial impact, but it’ll nevertheless be atypical to see those players effectively create a secondary pool of free agents. As for high school prospects and college juniors who’d typically sign after the 10th round — those players regularly receive $100K bonuses, so the proposed $10K limit would have a far greater impact on their decisions.
Changes to the draft have seemed inevitable for some time now. The event was moved to Omaha in hopes that it would coincide with the College World Series, but the COVID-19 pandemic has wiped out the College World Series and the college and high school baseball seasons across North America. Prospects who command six- and seven-figure bonuses won’t played in front of scouts in months by the time the draft rolls around, and owners have expressed hesitance about paying out the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of combined signing bonuses at a time when the revenue streams of their respective clubs have effectively dried up.
The draft is one of many, many elements being negotiated between the league and the union, with other key points of interest including player salaries, service time, a delayed/altered schedule and the likely expansion of rosters as teams hopefully resume play at some point later this year. Of course, MLB and the MLBPA are also discussing the manner in which they’d be forced to proceed in the event that the 2020 season has to be canceled entirely. The two sides have been exchanging proposals for weeks, and all indications have been that they’re working toward an agreement but still hammering out the specifics of the arrangement.
Man mlbpa and mlb are screwing college kids ht
No one is getting screwed. I feel badly for the players but this is just a strange time.
College baseball is going to be stacked the next 3 years if they go this route.
They may end up doing this forever.
Uh huh.
I think Junior College baseball might be stacked for one year. Get a chance to improve your stock and go back into the draft after only one season would be my preferred route.
That is the point of all this. For some time MLB has wanted to limit the number of minor league teams and turn over all the expenses of paying those players to colleges. This will end up being permanent with just 10 rounds in the draft.
The prophet Koamalu has determined this will be permanent! No one dare question our fair leader!
Chill man. He can have a viewpoint.
Chicken burgers!!
(yawn)
seems kinda silly to cut the number of rounds, especially if youre allowing for more UDFAs. high school players better be allowed to sign as UDFAs as well with this framework to keep it fair for them though.
If they are sticking to their plan of eliminating 40 some minor league teams as soon as next year, you really have to limit the draft to these types of numbers.
Otherwise you will have so many more minor league players than you can use that we would end up seeing a great minor league purge of players as soon as just 1 year from now, many of which will have never even gotten a chance to play for the teams they were selected by
Good post. Never thought about the points you brought up.
The proposal also included cutting back the number of rounds in the draft to account for less teams, if I remember correctly. Nowhere near this drastic though, this is kind of crazy. The current PA is really screwing over the potential future members here though. I wonder what they gain by agreeing to this, (i.e. less cuts to their own salaries) by agreeing.
theyre not cutting minors teams that soon. there is still little consensus on that topic, and the MiLB teams themselves are against it.
I agree there is no consensus, and of course the clubs that would be eliminated were not happy about the idea of being eliminated. But I can definitely see it as a possibility of happening as soon as next season.
The economic situation in place right now alone increases the possibility greatly. Because of the pandemic, there is a fair possibility some of the clubs in question may not even survive as is. Even if baseball begins again, the likelihood we see much of a minor league season is fairly slim. So it will already be a near, to maybe even complete loss of a year for non ML clubs, and that is devastating to already low income low minor clubs in question.
And with Manfred wanting this purge to happen so badly, he can basically force it into place by things like limiting the number of players taken in this lost season.
May not happen in the end, but if there was ever an ideal time to force his way, Manfred has it right now
They are def contracting and soon, they will prolly stagger it starting this year- These teams take a net loss in revenue in a regular year, this is going to be doomsaday for them – There just isnt the demand to watch Minor league baseball/nobodies going
MILB had record attendance in 2019. The demand for MILB has never been higher.
I felt going with a 20 round draft this year would of been fair. A 5 round draft is unacceptable!
Unacceptable? Who are you, the king? You are going to accept it. There is no other choice other than walking away from the sport. And even then, it is still going to happen that way.
*Bursts out laughing*
Our favorite blowhard HiFlew posts a serious reply to a clear joke! You are a little Cuckooo! Cuckoooo!
You love just taking shots at people. Are you unhappy brah?
The draft really only needs to be about 20 rounds.
Also there is absolutely 0 reason for teams to be crying poor over capped draft pools.
What did you spend the 7-12 Mil dollars you know your franchise needs every season for draft picks on? (besides hookers)
I agree with both statements.
There’s no reason to have 40 rounds in a draft, that’s ridiculous.
Secondly, I’m not one to attack the billionaire owners, I’m a proud supporter of capitalism, but seriously? A cap of 10k instead of 100k for drafted players? Seems ridiculous.
I am incredibly upset with this. I’ve always been the first to defend the owners over the players. After all…. they carry all the risk. But then this situation arrives which is the definition of assuming the risk of ownership. And the owners find a way to save money instead of taking a sound business owners responsibility. Disgusting
Gotta keep everyone happy, especially Tclark
I would hate the cutting down of MiLB teams. Some towns that’s all they have. Besides you’ll lose so many fun and creative nicknames.
It’s one of the more backwards ideas I’ve ever seen considering the league is panicking about their inability to attract new fans. Eliminating clubs who have ML affiliation, which spread fanbases across the otherwise baseball-less swatches of the county, accomplishes really nothing more than dramatically lowering the games fan totals.
But Manfred has his grand ideas, almost none of which benefit the game, so what can we do?
Easy fix, where people come, they stay open,where not, they close-
Ive worked for a minor league team, most times there are 500-1000 people there and 40% of them are on some kind of discounted group tickets if not free
Not a Manfred supporter but contraction needs to happen here, these guys literally cant keep the lights on
NOT THE TRASH PANDAS
Keeping in mind that the MLBPA has only the slightest reason to protect amateurs & new draftees. It effects the owners way more than their true representees – Major Leaguers. Outside of MLers, the MLBPA shows scant interest in representing players. Ask overseas signees (who had their lucrative bonus system bargained away) or minor leaguers who’s starvation wages have been ignored by the Association (and its players). So if I were subject to the 2020 draft, I’d expect to be screwed over royally, if sacrificing me gets MLers anything in return.
Why not lower the amount of bonus money but then pay them more in the minor leagues? Players cold wind up with similar amounts of money but they would earn it over a little longer period of time.
$10 thousand bonus is ridiculous. Lack of money the 1st 4-6 yrs is pretty much why the athletics lost Kyle murray to the NFL. The players union needs to do more for amateurs and minor leaguers, the guys in majors get plenty already $2800 per game minimum, while minor leaguers are living with their parents and looking for income in the off season. And logic says if u raise their floor, the ceiling goes up with it.
How about lets eliminate one level and spread the excess money over the rest-
Lets be honest some of these guys need help anyway as to “when to hang them up” Its probably a blessing in disguise for them
People dont support minor leagues just as much as the owners …its not a product thats in demand by anyone
No need for 2 sport players to choose baseball. Go college football, basketball, or lacrosse.
Lacrosse? Really?
The owners have plenty of $… deferring defer bonus ruin the game . Unreal
Deferring draft bonus ridiculous