Badler: MLB eliminating $300k from international spending pools

January 2, 2014 by Mike Axisa 21 Comments

Via Ben Badler: MLB is essentially eliminating $300k from each team’s international spending pool beginning with the 2014-2015 signing period. Since the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement was implemented, each team was given six $50k exemptions (don’t count against their pool) to use for international amateurs, but those exemptions were eliminated. Apparently this was written into the CBA.

Teams have not yet been given their international pool for this summer — that won’t happen until April — but we’ve already heard the Yankees plan to spend over their pool and deal with the penalties, which include a tax and future bonus limitations. The six $50k exemptions don’t sound like much, but they do add up. The Yankees have a knack for finding cheap young players in Latin America — SS Thairo Estrada, who is one of their better prospects, signed for $49k in 2012 — and losing the exemptions means they’ll either have to deal with more penalties and/or toe the signing pool line more carefully in the future.

Buhner’s barber

Good! Those Dominican teenagers were living a little too high on the hog for my liking. That’ll teach them to try to change their lives and the lives of their family with what might be a once in a lifetime opportunity.
- Preston
  
  It’s silly with all the money currently in baseball that these young kids can’t get more of a share. But nobody is fighting for there interests. The owners always want to pay less and the union works for players who are in the league, and withholding money from the draft and IFA drives up FA prices as the one place remaining for teams to splurge.
- Ralph
  
  Living a little to high on the hog for ur licking !!? What is that supposed to mean?
  - Jorge Steinbrenner
    
    I’m having more trouble understanding your translation although, somehow, I’m now hungry for pulled pork.
Dennis

Yankees interested in Tanaka- new posting system is created to screw the Yankees as much as possible.

Yankees plan to spend big internationally- MLB creates new shit yet again.

MLB needs to hop off the Yankees.
- AllyinCt
  
  +1
lou

Why don’t they fix the team that finishes last “doesn’t” get the #1 draft pick. It seems they want to fix everything and try to put a cap or a rule on everything else but that.
TheEvilUmpire

This will just push more and more Latin American kids into different sports and away from baseball. Greedy owners, don’t cry to me when your cheap Latin American talent pool dries up in a couple of years…
- Jorge Steinbrenner
  
  I’ve always said we need more guys named Melky in hockey anyway.
  - gageagainstthemachine
    
    I remember the first time I ever heard the name Melky was in a Wyclef Jean song. Nothing significant about this comment reply. Just had to say that.
    - Jorge Steinbrenner
      
      Which song? I loved him through the first two solo albums.
      - gageagainstthemachine
        
        “It Doesn’t Matter” featuring (ugh!) The Rock and “Melky Sedeck”. Which is actually the name of his hip hop siblings duo group. Not sure if they ever made much of it on their own if it wasn’t associated with the Refugee Camp or Wyclef himself. Oh yeah, to answer your question it is on the album: “The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book.” An okay album with a few memorable numbers but too “Americanized” into mainstream hip hop (in my opinion). Was happier when he released “Welcome to Haiti: Creole 101” and kind of got back to his roots. I haven’t bought anything more recent than that one.
Baked McBride

Aye Chihuahua! Dios Mio!
http://www.retire21.org/ first name only male – Retire 21

I fail to see how this helps owners. It seems as if these decisions benefit current players more than anyone else. Same with the new posting system.
Pat

While on the International subject. Why should there be an international draft? The other 3 major sports only have 1 draft. Why should baseball have 2 separate drafts? They should include the international players as part of the college/high school draft.
- Havok9120
  
  What age can they enter? Same bonus rules? Why? How does getting residence play into it? Will scouting and recruitment work the same way as it does now or will the two systems need to be merged somehow? What incentives are you offering the owners to agree to the change? The players?
RetroRob

Love to know the reasoning behind this. Let’s screw over those 50K pick kids living in poverty. Amazing.

I’m really not sure who this will benefit. The owners get to save 300K. Does this mean a team can’t sign any player if they exceed their limit? No ability to sign an international player even if there are open spots in their system?

The Yankees strategy seems pretty clear. They loaded up on three top draft picks last season in the amateur draft. They’re getting no top picks this year as they signed free agents with QOs attached. To make up for what they’ll lose in the June draft they plan spend big on International signings, going over the limit to compensate. There were some who conjectured if it might even make sense for some teams to spend really huge every other year on international players as opposed to following the system every year. Maybe the Yankees plan to find out…that is until MLB closes that “loophole” too.
- Jorge Steinbrenner
  
  This. It’s goddamn insane.
- Need Pitching & Hitting
  
  Teams can give unlimited #’s of bonuses up to $10k.
  Previously, they could give 6 of up to $50K, and unlimited of up to $7.5K.
  
  The penalties for exceeding the cap in future signing periods are stiffer as well. Previously, going way over slot only resulted in signing bonus restrictions for the next season.
  Going forward, if a team exceeds their allotment by over 15%, they won’t be able to offer any bonus over $300k for the next 2 signing periods, so it would have to be an every third year approach if they were to use that strategy.
leftylarry

Yea, what a tough break for the Dominican kids.

How will they afford the roid’s and other drugs they take for their unfair advantages going forward?

Next thing you know we won’t be signing them until they are 18 or until they’ve been to college like everyone else. LOL.
- tim815
  
  Which would be really productive for the international player. Never play in a proper game against American competition regularly until you’re 18, the start in the Dominican League.