Comments on: Selig Again Comes Out Strong For Slotting

By: Bill Armstrong

Bill Armstrong — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:32:29 +0000

Baseball must negotiate for Revenue Sharing and a salary cap. Without this all else is of not significance. As a fan of baseball I doubt if MLB has the intestinal fortitude to hold out for this. They will lose their fan base if they don’t get this in one form or another.

By: A. Sale

A. Sale — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:46:53 +0000

Dont most sports with hrd slotting have players that “declare” for the draft? I presume that if you declare, you would pre agree to a slotted price. It also seems that once you declare, you lose your college eligability. I dont know this, but I have heard it discussed.

By: daniel

daniel — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:45:06 +0000

dittos here I agree with phil. Bud stay out of the mlb draft. Players will be going to college, instead of signing professional contracts and developing there instead of in the minors .

By: Phil

Phil — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:59:41 +0000

An international draft, or a single draft of all players is probably a good idea. However, when it comes to hard slotting, Selig again shows that he does not understand the consequences of that decision or what is in the best interest of MLB. Top draft choices paid above slot have been proven on average to be a good deal for MLB over the long haul.

Hard slotting is a gift to College Baseball since it will deprive MLB teams of the ability to lure smart high school and college players before they graduate. Might as well forget scouting much high school talent. Saying that there is an MLB scholarship program is disingenuous since that program is notoriously not student friendly and it comes without the great academic support that colleges provide to their student athletes.

By: Billy

Billy — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:23:13 +0000

Slotting exists where their are league salary caps and revenue sharing between clubs in place. If MLB is willing to tackle these issues, then slotting might work. It’s a piece of the puzzle, but won’t work well unless a comprehensive solution is reached.

Slotting alone will push more high school players to college if the compensation is artificially low, and shift the emphasis more to college as the developmental league than it already is. Also, you will see more juniors stay for their fourth year in college because they won’t necessarily be losing anything–it’s slotted–by staying an extra year and completing their degree.

Who will represent the high school players? Huge conflicts of interest exist with the MLBPA doing that, because they are there to maximize exisitng players’ revenue. Interstingly, in the NBA and NFL, the drafted players become part of the union. That does not happen in baseball, so who represents the high school players in this negotiation?

By: estuartj

estuartj — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:32:41 +0000

This shouldn’t be a hard sell to the MLBPA since the current system hurts veterans marketability with compensation picks for FA. Also, capping rookie signings would theoretically make more team funds available to FA & Arbitraton Eligible veterans and thus raising salaries (not a straight line equivilence, but one would expect it to be a contributing factor).