Dominican prospects protest reform

[Invader3K]

I wasn't sure where exactly to put this, so feel free to move if needed. I found it pretty interesting, though.

 

Dominican prospects protest reforms.

 

Last Wednesday, over 800 prospects, coaches, and scouts gathered outside

of the hotel of recently appointed MLB Dominican baseball czar Sandy

Alderson in the Dominican Republic capital of Santo Domingo. Alderson

joked to local reporters that he should have brought lunch for the

crowd, but those in attendance, stationed behind a police barricade,

simply wanted to make sure Alderson heard their three-word chant: "No

al draft." No to the draft[/i].

[colbyjack]

That for sharing that link. It is a fascinating subject, and one of so many reasons why implementing a world-wide draft is so much harder than people think. I think tieing in Japan and other countries in Asia is going to pose a lot more difficulties than the Dominican.

 

There are some interesting comments towards the end of that story that echo a lot of what I hear in covering baseball at the amateur level. There are a lot of people in the United States who are upset that there are so many Latin American players in minor league baseball, as they cite that this is taking jobs away from kids born and raised in the United States. This is also tied into the lack of African Americans playing the game, since so many teams invest so much money in scouring the Dominican Republic and Venezuela for talent, but there isn't much of an effort to build camps in the inner cities to try and draw kids to baseball. While it may seem as though the only thing you need to play is a glove, spikes and a few bats, it's not a cheap sport to play.

 

Basketball to inner city kids in the states is similar to what baseball is to young Latin Americans. I don't blame the Dominicans from being upset about this. It is there one chance to hit it big, and it motivates them to work hard to try and make it as a player. Subjecting those players to the draft would take a lot of money out of the equation. As noted in the story, that motivation has been lost in Puerto Rico.

[Tedaldtada]

The baseball draft is so screwed up it's almost unfixable. The only way is to revamp from top to bottom. I have no idea where to start.

[Invader3K]

Definitely will be a difficult problem to fix. At the same time, the idea of some agent probably taking advantage of these kids and getting 40% of their pay is also pretty slimy.

 

As far as inner cities in the US, it seems like MLB has made some efforts in those regards. I just don't know if it's anything to really lament that much. If they would rather play other sports that are more accessible, like basketball, is there really any way to get around that?

[colbyjack]

MLB has made some efforts, but not the individual teams. They go out of their way to pour a lot of money into their Dominican and Venezuelan camps, but they don't spend nearly the same amount of money domestically on such facilities. They leave that up to the individual schools, legion programs and even scouting/showcase companies such as Perfect Game. You need to get to these kids when they're really young, as most ballplayers, in any sport, usually have been playing the game competitively for most of their lives.

 

I'm not making an argument for one side or the other, just sharing some of the complaints that are out there. Domestically it is somewhat of a similar argument to people that refuse to buy a Toyota or a Honda (or whatever foreign-owned car company) and will only buy Chevy, Dodge, Ford, etc.

 

I don't think the baseball draft is really screwed up, as I like it because it is so unique. The biggest part of it that is messed up is the free agent compensation in which the rich teams just keep getting richer for the most part. Every team has the opportunity to spend as much as they are willing and able to, and enough small market teams out there have proven that you can build a good organization the way things are currently set up. Look no further than the Twins, or the A's from a few years ago, or even the Brewers. Sure, the Yankees and Red Sox are at an unfair advantage, but that is true for any part of scouting and player development (not to mention free agency, trades, etc.) given their seemingly endless resources. And who is the last homegrown star the Yankees have procured from within? Chamberlain and Hughes I suppose, but even those two haven't lived up to the usual lofty billing Yankees prospects receive.

 

I personally think the worldwide draft is a bad idea from the simple standpoint that it is a logistical nightmare for whomever that tries to make it work. If anything, try to put a hard cap on how much one team can spend on international free agents, possibly taking the average of what all 30 teams are currently spending. Make it a yearly average, so if the Reds sign Chapman to his $30 million dollar contract over X amount of years, that limits what they can spend during the length of that contract. If you put that into place along with a hard slotting system into the draft, you are directly managing how much each team is able to spend in an attempt to level the playing field.

[Tedaldtada]

Colby, Robinson Cano is homegrown I think.

 

Anyways, I don't like how picks aren't tradeable. I also kinda wish that a kid can only enter the draft once. Letting Bryce Harper jack up the price on the Nationals because he can re-enter 3 more times is ridculous. You could still declare after HS, but you couldn't pull a Matt Purke, and head off to school with the reasonable assumption that you will get drafted again. If you want to go to school, then don't declare for th draft. I think we would see many more young kids making smarter decisions if they only got one chance at it.