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Friday, August 12, 2005 |
MLB Floats Big Changes To The Draft, Minor League Structure
Via Baseball America, a bunch of changes possibly coming to the Rule 4 (June) Draft. Those relevant to the Angels and Dodgers follow:
- A hard signing date some time in August starting with the 2007 draft. No more yearlong holdouts for Boras clients.
- The draft will be pushed back to the end of June starting next year.
- The ASL and GCL will cease to exist after this season.
- "There is interest in establishing an MLB-sponsored predraft scouting combine." Not sure how that would be different from what goes on now, because there's a MLB-wide scouting pool now for teams that can't afford it.
- "The Pioneer League will be regarded as the same level as the New York-Penn and Northwest leagues (right now it's a step below), so all three leagues taken together will provide 30 short-season affiliations."
- "The short-season schedule will begin and end earlier than it does now, likely running from May into August rather than June into September, and will lead into a mandatory instructional league program that will run for at least six weeks."
"The ramifications of these changes could reach very far," an agent said. "It should help indy leagues. It should really help college baseball. If I'm a high school guy, and I'm not going to get much out of my first year, and then my second year I'm still in short season, maybe I'm more inclined to go to college now."More reaction on this from Dirtbags Baseball.
Update 8/13: Still more on this from FutureAngels:
Fewer draft rounds would ... mean an end to the Angels' "high-risk, high-reward" draft philosophy. You probably wouldn't see them drafting Nick Adenhart in the 14th round, allowing him two years to recover from "Tommy John" surgery while pitching in the Arizona developmental league. They probably wouldn't risk a draft pick on Mark Trumbo, already committed to USC. If the draft-and-follow rule disappears, forget Stephen Marek being selected in the 40th round....
We all know about the year-long haggle to sign Jered Weaver. What if the draft was indeed pushed back to late June, the Angels select Weaver, and by August 15 he remains unsigned?
If I'm Jered, off I go to independent ball. How much do you think the St. Paul Saints, arguably the most successful operation in independent ball, might pay to put Weaver on their roster? Or he might go off to Japan, which pays handsomely for talented American imports.
Comments:
I believe that a "co-op" league is a combination of players from differnt teams, sorta like the Arizona Fall League. I've heard that Tom Kotchman started out managing "co-op" teams way back in the early 1980's. Of course i might be totally wrong about the definition.
# posted by 
: 8/12/2005 11:50:00 PM
: 8/12/2005 11:50:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
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