Negotiations between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association continue for the next collective bargaining agreement. Today, MLB proposed significant changes to the draft. J.J Cooper of Baseball America was among those to cover the developments.
The league’s proposed framework would be a significant drawdown of the way the draft has operated for years. High school players would no longer be eligible to be selected. In fact, anyone under 20 years old by September 1st of the draft year would not be eligible, so that would take many college and junior college players off the table as well.
The draft itself would be dropped from 20 rounds to 12. The current 20-round format is already a significant reduction, as the draft has been much longer in the past. It was 50 rounds through 2011, when it was dropped to 40. That length lasted through 2019. Another notable element of the proposal is hard draft slots, meaning a drafted player would have no ability to negotiate his signing bonus.
Teams would also have more freedom to trade picks. Currently, only the Competitive Balance Round picks can be traded. Under this proposal, all picks could be traded, with a few restrictions. A pick could not be traded until the prior draft has taken place, so picks can’t be traded years in advance. A team would not be allowed to trade a first-round pick two years in a row. A team could not add more than three picks in the first three rounds of any individual draft. Trades while the draft is actually taking place can only be made until the first round has been completed.
The Competitive Balance Round picks would be eliminated. That aligns with the league’s salary cap and floor proposal with shared league revenues. Those picks currently exist to provide a boost to the lower-spending clubs. Since the goal of the cap-and-floor system is to eliminate financial imbalances between clubs, the need for those picks would theoretically be eliminated as well. The lottery would also be altered as there are different rules for revenue-sharing payors versus payees.
A common theme of the proposed changes is cutting costs for big league clubs. In terms of costs directly associated with the draft, fewer rounds means fewer signing bonus to pay. The hard slot values also provide the teams with cost certainty.
Less directly, the rules would limit the upside of certain players, as it would become harder to approach or reach free agency at a young age. For instance, Konnor Griffin was drafted out of high school at the age of 18. He made it to the majors prior to his 20th birthday and would have been on a path for free agency in his mid-20s. That would not be possible under this current system. The trajectory gave Griffin enough leverage to secure a nine-year extension worth $140MM, a record deal for a player with just a handful of days in the majors. (Though Kevin McGonigle would get to $150MM one week later.) Cooper lists Mike Trout, Álex Rodríguez, Mickey Mantle, Ken Griffey Jr., Bryce Harper and Johnny Bench as other examples from the past of guys rising to the majors as teenagers.
It would also probably lead to other indirect cost savings. The proposed setup would effectively outsource player development of younger players to colleges. That means big league teams would probably dedicate fewer resources to staffing at the lower levels. Teams cut also cut corners when it comes to scouts, as scouring the continent to see high school players would no longer be as important.
The proposal would also include an international draft, which is something not currently in existence. Players from outside the United States, Canada and U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico are currently free to sign with any club if they are going to be 17 years old by September 1st of the signing year. Each team has a hard-capped spending pool in the range of $5MM to $9MM, so no one gets more than a few million.
Under today’s proposal, players would not be eligible for selection until one year later, the year in which they are 18 prior to September 1st. An international draft was discussed as part of the last round of CBA negotiations but ultimately didn’t get agreed to, so the pool system stayed in place. In previous proposals, the international draft had significantly smaller pools than the domestic draft. This proposal would see them lined up, though that would be done by reducing the domestic pools.
Given that the measures would cut the amount of spending going to players, the MLBPA is unsurprisingly opposed. The union released a statement saying that the new rules would lead to a $400MM drop in player compensation just when comparing the 2026 draft/pool systems to what the league is proposing for 2027, as well as a loss of over a billion over the next five years.
As with all proposals made this early in the process, it’s worth pointing out that there’s still a long way to go and most things that hit the table won’t come to fruition. The current CBA runs through December 1st. When the last CBA expired, MLB locked out the players. That lockout lasted over three months, going over a week into March. This far out, both sides are going to stake out positions that they know the other won’t accept. Over time, the sides will each back off some demands as the negotiating process plays out.
Photo courtesy of Kirby Lee, Imagn Images
