CBA Negotiations

[DonBarclay]

Some of the recent MLB proposals have the potential to really hurt the Brewers in some areas that they excel at. Largely, they’ve built up the organizational strength through savvy navigation of the draft pool money (Pratt being a prime example), a great hit rate in international players, and trading veterans at the right time. A few items from the recent proposals severely threaten their ability to maintain their edge:

1. Draft reduced to 12 rounds. 

2. High school players are no longer draft eligible and requires 2 years of college.

3.Draft becomes hard slotted - no more drafting lesser players high to save slot money for high level, low propensity to sign players later. 

4. International draft - will get less of the Chourio, Made, Pena, etc. type players. 

5. Salary floor - the Brewers will almost certainly hover right at the floor. Making trading off higher priced veterans a potential challenge. If the floor must be maintained for the full season, they’ll need to give out more extensions to young players and/or have/keep higher priced veterans to mix with the lower priced youngsters. 
 

I can’t help but wonder how these potential rule changes may color this year’s trade deadline as well. Put aside the potential lockout, I would think that a club like the Brewers may be very hesitant to deal minor league depth knowing that it will become harder to replenish.

Short term, they’ve built a great system that will keep them competitive for years to come. Long term, hopefully Arnold and company can find new roster building advantages to exploit, because the current ones are about to get much more difficult to execute if some of these proposed changes are adopted. 

 

[Brian]

Here is a CBS Sports article on it also.  

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-draft-proposal-high-school-international-cba-negotiations/

[rickh150]

If local TV money is pooled, the other stuff is minor.  We could still excel at building a minor/major league roster with now added $ to extend even more players.

[Underachiever]

The proposal to ban high school players is stunning. It sounds like MLB would like the colleges to take on the development costs of young talent. The article cited how colleges "have made college baseball an increasingly important pathway that is producing major league-ready talent at an accelerated rate." Is MLB jealous that the NFL has a ready-made minor league and they don't? There aren't enough college baseball programs to take on the additional players and give them playing time for their development. And if the UW is any indication, I don't see schools adding baseball anytime soon. 

MLB seems to be telling us that colleges, with their aluminum bats, limited seasons, and practice limits, will do a better job at refining talent than if the player makes baseball a full-time job in the various Rookie leagues, A ball, etc as they do now. I don't buy it.

And the international 18-year-olds would be eligible for the international draft, so I guess they would still go through what's left of the minor league system? Because they aren't going to college.