Details of International Draft Proposal Emerge

Thanks Jeremy.  Great article.  Like virtually everyone else I love this idea.  The international arena is one of the shady aspects of MLB.  When you have kids growing up in tough financial situations, it is SO easy to take advantage of them and use their dream of playing in the bigs to induce them into lousy relationships with supposed agents.  I think the details could be worked out--the idea is great.  

The rules are being put in place to level the playing field between teams and avoid damaging MLB's reputation as international scouting and tactics become more aggressive. It's that simple.

4 hours ago, Trov said:

MLB teams have exploited international kids for years.  Yes, some kids get huge sums of money, but most of the time that money is taken by corrupt people if the kid does not get out of the country.  These kids are brought to baseball academies owned by teams where the kids are taught basic English and baseball.  They do not learn anything of real educational value.  For the lucky few that emerge and get signed even for just 6 figure deals do hit the jackpot, but most of the kids never get signed or sign for only 5 figures move to US and get used in the minor leagues because it is either do that, or manual labor in their home country because they passed up all possible education because they had athletic promise.  Is it a better life than if they went to school, I cannot answer that.  However, MLB has tried to put the spin on their academies as some great thing they are doing for the country, but the money they spend there does not get spread around it stays with very few people. 

Sure, without them some of these kids would never get found and never make it to MLB earning millions to help give back to their country if they want to.  However, there is a very dark side of these as well. I hope with the international draft there will be less of this, but most likely not. 

So what you're saying is... it's horrible these families are receiving life alterning money and their teenagers are going to an academy which gives them some limited education and safety because MLB could single handedly alter the economic conditions of entire large countries. 

Got it.

Aside from that, your position would probably benefit from some research.

https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-path-to-the-sugar-mill-or-the-path-to-millions-mlb-baseball-academies-effect-on-the-dominican-republic/