Passan: No international draft for 2014

Via Jeff Passan: MLB is expected to announce they will not implement an international draft for the 2014 season later today. In fact, talks will be tabled until after the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires in 2016. The owners have been pushing for a worldwide draft for years now in an effort to keep costs down, and at one point it seemed like one could be implemented as soon as this year. Thankfully, that won’t happen. This is good news for the Yankees despite their small international spending pool.

In other news, Ben Badler reports Mariano Rivera and Robinson Cano are two of more than 150 Latin American players to sign a petition against an international draft. Miguel Cabrera, Felix Hernandez, Yoenis Cespedes, Carlos Gonzalez, Yadier Molina, and Carlos Beltran are among the other signatures. Molina and Beltran stand out because they’re Puerto Rican, and Puerto Rico is already included in June’s annual draft. The petition was put together by four prominent agents for Latin American amateur players during Spring Training. It was then sent to the MLBPA, which must agree to an international draft.

Need Pitching & Hitting (but mostly hitting)

Given this news, if there is a strong IFA class this year, it would be nice to see the Yankees blow through their small cap and acquire as much talent as possible, especially since the penalties for doing so will be somewhat stiffer starting next year.

Not that I expect that to happen.
vicki

it’s great to hear about the petition. i’m not surprised by the involvement of puerto rican players; they saw what inclusion in the amateur draft did to baseball on their island.
viridiana

A small defeat for Selig and his transparent agenda to handcuff the Yanks. If Hal is smart, he will use this crack in the door to spend big on international free agents this summer since (as best I can tell) there is only financial penalty for going over Selig’s stingy allotment.

And why anyone in Latin America would allow the travesty of a draft with draconian spending limits is beyond me. But I guess Bud thought he could impose it and was somehow thwarted.
- Need Pitching & Hitting (but mostly hitting)
  
  They’d also lose the ability to give any IFA bonus over $250K next year if they exceed this year’s cap by more than 15%.
viridiana

Might be worth going over big one year, even if that mean limits the next. Doesn’t seem to be difference between going 15% over or actually doubling or tripling cap (just a dollar tax on the overage). Better to spend big on talent one year than limit spending both years by staying within caps.

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