The two sides are reasonably close on changes to the draft. Like their NBA brethren, the MLBPA seems willing to sell out future members as a bargaining chip for the current ones. I have a real problem with this, but then again, I have a real problem with the draft, which denies the top talent entering the industry the right to negotiate market-level compensation for their services, while simultaneously taking away their bargaining rights for eight to ten years. Adding a "slotting" system like the NBA has would only make the problem worse, but that's the direction in which they're headed.
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That said, making players outside the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico subject to the draft is a net positive, in that it ends the silly dichotomy between an 18-year-old kid from Miami and an 18-year-old kid from San Pedro de Macoris, wherein one has no negotiating rights and the other can deal with 30 organizations. There may be a small effect in that it makes current non-participants in international development more likely to get some of that talent, but the impact of the current, free-wheeling system on the game is vastly overstated. Big-money foreign signings have been a failure more often than not.
It's unfair, but it's unfair to everyone. If there has to be a draft--and the MLBPA isn't fighting the notion--than having everyone be subject to it is the best way to go.
THIS is why everybody -- and I mean everybody -- hates Yankee fans. This guy writes a lot of really, really good stuff for www.baseballprospectus.com but then you see something like the above and you have to wonder what planet he's on.
I mean, getting rid of the draft... unbelievable. How you can have that opinion and not realize that there is a difference between a pitcher leaving LSU and an engineer leaving LSU due to the fact that the kid in the first place is ENTERING A GAME with a host of rules to keep things "fair" is just outright shocking.
The guy did say he was leaving the site the other day which, frankly, based on his views on the draft is something that ought to have been demanded of him. Wow.
Anyway. I learned about the site earlier this year and wanted to pass it on if, inexplicably (like me) you're still somewhat of a fan of the game even if you really don't want to be.