I think an international draft could be good. This is still setup as a way to limit costs though. Remember that the current international pools were already set at an artificially lower level than the draft. While these slots are a bit bigger than the past couple of years, they are still lower than regular draft slots (even if you scale them a bit differently since there is less talent in the international draft than the domestic one.
Then there is the undrafted free agent question. The regular draft had a $125K limit on undrafted players (and post 10th round players) before taking it out of the pool. Now MLB has forced a $20K limit the last couple of years because of the "pandemic" though remember this is taking money out of the hands of the players that need it the most (not the top picks). MLB wants this $20K limit as part of the international draft. Why should an international free agent get less than a regular draft undrafted free agent.
There is a way to do this right. Some ideas:
- Limit it to 10 rounds
- Only have slots for the first 5 rounds
- Top slots should be close to the ones in the regular draft though they could scale down differently (less talent)
- Slots = pools as in the regular draft
-Players after the 5th round can get up to $125K before they apply to the pool. Same with undrafted free agents.
- All slots (and that $125K limit) increase at the pace of baseball revenues (one could scale it with regular inflation too, but the main point is that these slots will increase more slowly than revenues unless their increase is negotiated).
- Players must declare for draft, submit to MLB physicals, paperwork, etc. like a draft combine
- Players cannot sign as free agents without going through that process
- Unsigned players can sit out a year and become free agents (still subject to that $125K limit but able to go to any team)
- Accommodations need to be made for smaller countries (MLB clinics, physicals in country, etc.) so those players are not at too much of a disadvantage.
- Set age 17 as the eligibility date, not age 16 or 16.5 like we have now.
- Increase MLB support for prospect leagues for that extra year
MLB is using this as a bargaining chip to save money when in reality they could use it as an incentive to get better players in the game with more transparency.
