Proposed changes to MLB Draft

Economic Changes:

Slotting Bonuses - this has been done on an informal (soft) basis, may be made more formal (hard) going forward. May only apply to the first five rounds with exceptions for multi-sport players, who have more leverage.

Drafting International Players - some sort of clearinghouse to verify players ages in Cuba and DR could complicate this, but an area that would put foreign players on somewhat equal footing with their American counterparts and may curb some of the abuses seen in Dominican Republic with agents and baseball academies in that area.

Capping Signing Budgets and Trading of Draft Picks.



Operational Changes:

Moving the Draft to after the CWS - currently held the first week of June -- before the CWS -- may be moved to the end of June. The colleges need early clarity for recruiting.

Possibly, MLB could arm twist the colleges to adopt composite bat standards that more closely mimic wood bat performance in order to better evaluate hitter / pitchers.

The pros would like to see pitchers operate under stricter pitch counts, perhaps formalized.

In return, hopefully the colleges could arm twist the NCAA to allow for a higher scholarship level for men's baseball. Title IX considerations now seem to be pinching men's programs up and down the line at a time when the is little or no discrimination against women's programs.