[SPEAKER_00]: Hello everybody, special edition of the Baseball America draft podcast this week, because we're a little bit late coming out with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were busy yesterday news obviously broke yesterday at Baseball America.com that MLB has made a brother significant.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say a very expansive sweeping.
[SPEAKER_00]: proposal to completely overhaul amateur talent acquisition.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would put it that way because there's the draft, domestic draft and changes to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a proposal for an international draft.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's changes to eligibility rules.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's changes to signing bonuses and a significant reduction in that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we wanted to on this episode of the podcast kind of
[SPEAKER_00]: look through all the kind of the different avenues of this, Carlos spent much of the afternoon texting and talking to scouts and front-outs officials.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later on the show, we'll have Jacob Rudner, we'll be talking, we're going to cover this from all the different areas.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Carlos, great to see you as always, and kind of just to jump straight into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You talked with a lot of people yesterday.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was, there's a piece up at baseball america.com where you'll get even more of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you were going to summarize the overall reaction to this, whereas when I talk to Jacob, college coaches are like, hey, this sounds great, every, every high school prospect in the country goes to college.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sign me up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say for an office officials, may have a little bit more skepticism about this proposal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, let's say the general take away from most of the people that I talked to, and I do want to say most because there is there's some outlier opinions, but the general sentiment was one of overwhelming negativity and if you that this would be bad for baseball.
[SPEAKER_02]: professional baseball.
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously when I'm talking about baseball, I think the Scott technology would be good in terms of sending talent to college.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the view that I got expressed to me really consistently was there's a lot of skepticism about often.
[SPEAKER_02]: floating player development to college baseball, there's a lot of frustration with the idea that the league wants to prevent teams from developing players and choosing the sorts of players they might want to take chances on.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is this confusion from scouts, kind of wondering, who of the ownership group
[SPEAKER_02]: even wants this change because there's a sentiment that drafting high school players is actually an area where small market teams can compete.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'd say it was very negative in general.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's also a sense that it's just unrealistic and I think there is still some hope from scouts that this won't actually come to pass or happen, but that is kind of my broad take away
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, just if you are, somehow this is podcasts and you haven't seen any of the, everything else I'm going to give the, this is from the outside of the atmosphere view of this to try to summarize this in a minute, the proposal that MLB laid out would eliminate high school draft the eligibility, all players to be eligible for the domestic draft, I keep saying that because there will be an international draft in this too, the domestic draft that's US and Canada.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are played.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess what Puerto Rico's part of the U.S. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, it's the, you know, it's, it's technically any U.S. island as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, which has happened before, uh, but, um, you know, Drafty, but, uh, it's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So any player for the domestic draft would not be eligible until two years after their high school class, whether they graduated or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to have a diploma or a GEDDB eligible, but that class two years
[SPEAKER_00]: And before we've had the rule where you have to be 21 or three years of college, this will be, you have to be 20 by September 1st of the draft year, and have had two years.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in the case of an Eli Willitz, if Eli Willitz had been in this situation in this system, he would have to wait three years of college because he would not be 20 by the time of that, by the eligibility time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the big picture thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the other big picture thing
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you say, well, why would the owners be for this?
[SPEAKER_00]: One part of this proposal effectively would remove 400 between the international draft and the domestic draft.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shouldn't even say 400 million dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: The proposal would remove, I should, the better way to put it is is,
[SPEAKER_00]: over 200 million in bonuses in current terms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that's going to go up again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last year, 401 million is what we have the draft spending at.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that does include non-drafted free agents, but that's part of the system and that would be part of the system and this do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're proposal to go from 401 million spending last year, which will be more this year,
[SPEAKER_00]: to 200 million, hard-slotted, and a 12-round draft.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then if you're not drafted and you want to sign, you can sign for $10,000, which is also a dramatic reduction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, you're correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: Less than 10% of what you can sign for right now as a non-draft free agent.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the problem is 150,000 until it counts towards your bonus pool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, but yes, so that's a significant reduction.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could right now still sign for 175, 200 if the team had more bonus pool.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this scenario, it would be 10k, what about 105?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a note?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's 10.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing else.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and that is the point I should be clear of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when I say that it would be 200 million there.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's every year, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the last time that the draft have spending of under $200 million, you have to go back to 2010.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to go back to,
[SPEAKER_00]: two systems ago, basically, from this proposal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, if the current system was maintained in the way that the calculations are done, it's really, that's underestimating the amount that'd be taken out of it, because
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, it's 200 million now.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you said seven years from now, it would probably be, again, this number is going to go up as well, but considering how low that number is, even if you said we're going to put a 8% rate of growth on it, 8% of 200 million and 8% of 400 million, you're.
[SPEAKER_00]: That gap widens every year, but let's just say 200 million each year, that's $1.4 billion over the course of a CBA that would be taken out of amateur bonus spending and domestic draft.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a dramatic reduction.
[SPEAKER_00]: 12 rounds hard-slotted, you could trade draft picks, and there would be no, the draft flower would be shortened to four picks from six,
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this is part of the proposal with the cap and floor system and all that, it would also eliminate competitive balance picks, it would eliminate the distinction between lottery picks for revenue payers versus payors and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, that's the very broad strokes of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the most important thing that we should probably dive into, the most significant part of this, the thing that would be the most significant thing I think since the draft was instituted.
[SPEAKER_00]: 65 and I got that wrong on a video yesterday, 66.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's stupid on my part.
[SPEAKER_00]: 65 is no high school eligibility and you've already touched on this, but it basically it would take what has been a I would say a steady trend which is
[SPEAKER_00]: We went from teams would take a number of flyers on, you know, how a 40 round draft, you would take flyers on developmental high school players.
[SPEAKER_00]: We went 20 round draft.
[SPEAKER_00]: The brewers are still really good at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are other teams who do it well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we saw a reduction in number of high school players drafted.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, what we haven't seen is a reduction in the number, like the first five rounds of draft.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the cream of the crop, especially on the position player side, goes pro out of high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, every year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would just lay that out to you, it's like, in this it would say, nope, that those elite talent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm no longer that eligible.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this is where the biggest animosity came from, from the scouting community, because you laid this out in a number of your, I think in your initial video that was on YouTube about just where the elite players and the game come from, where the most expensive players and the game come from, they are players by and large who are signing as teenagers into pro ball, whether that's from the domestic draft, whether that's as an international free agent.
[SPEAKER_02]: they are the elite young players who are the outliers who make the major leagues as teenagers at 2021 years old and then because of that go on to hit free agency at just an unusually young age which is then rewarded in huge free agent deals and obviously from the team's perspective if you're going to just artificially put a cap on players in the domestic side signing at age
[SPEAKER_02]: qualifying for both of those, um, you are just basically forcing out that player profile.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think from the the scouts perspective, it's both.
[SPEAKER_02]: a question of why would you want to take those elite players out of the game of baseball out of Major League Baseball there is some frustration that Major League Baseball would just want to give those players to college baseball and on the scouting side it's like hey we're competing with college baseball for these players we don't view college baseball as a
[SPEAKER_02]: a development like an off-loading the development.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what this is about, essentially, scouts kind of despise that because, again, they don't, they don't really trust the colleges to have the incentives to properly develop the players.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are real questions about playing time, there are questions about pitch usage and overuse for pitchers.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are all sorts of those, like incentives, questions on the development side.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the other element, too, that I think was interesting,
[SPEAKER_02]: It is one scout put it to me like this and I was read one of the quotes and there are a lot of really colorful quotes in this piece I did you tend to get that when you're you're soliciting quotes from scouts One person said it's incredibly pennywise and pound foolish high school players are probably the best deal in the entire sport You look at the history of the game Hall of Famers and all stars they usually come from the high school ranks
[SPEAKER_02]: He mentioned guys like Cold Emerson, Connor Griffin, Kevin McGonagall, Connor Griffin is probably worth 300 million on the open market.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said they're getting him for 140 million.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cold Emerson is probably worth 200 million and he's getting 90 million in these early extensions.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said these teams aren't stupid.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're getting a good deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in addition to just like the frustration about not having those players in baseball,
[SPEAKER_02]: The scouts are also kind of looking around and being like, yeah, we understand it's cost savings, but like, don't you realize how valuable you're getting these players on deals, like small market teams, like the pirates, like the brewers, like the rays, are able to get advantages and get elite talents if they can succeed in scouting and developing these young players.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think there is just some idea that like, just like confusion as to why you wouldn't want that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was fair to say with this that if you went to a fully college system effectively, you reduce the...
[SPEAKER_00]: you kind of push everyone a little bit more towards the middle because Dr. Thur would not still be scouting.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the challenge of scouting, and this is one of the things that I'll be said in the proposal, is like the hit, the hit, miswrite on high school players is higher than the hit, this right on college part, which makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have pictures get through the injury nexus of their late teenage years.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have hitters who go to college and say, oh, we thought that guy would develop as a
[SPEAKER_00]: You could split that completely around what Scouts are saying and say that you're taking away our skill at identifying the pirates identifying when not everyone was like, oh, Connor Griffin's going to really be able to hit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're absolutely teams out there who are like, I love all the tools, but I don't really believe in the back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then identifying that and then drafting him ninth overall.
[SPEAKER_00]: is one of the biggest success stories the Pirates have had in the 21st century.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, like whatever he ends up being, like that is one of the best success stories they've had.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you push everyone to college,
[SPEAKER_00]: there are less opportunities or teams to kind of break away from the pack.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to go back to your other point, when I think it is important, and we're gonna talk, we have to talk to Jacob about this too.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I would say from a scouts perspective, I do think that another aspect of this that you really touched on is, even in this, I would say that there's already a very big difference between
[SPEAKER_00]: the focus of college baseball and the minor leagues.
[SPEAKER_00]: The minor leagues is about development.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And no one gets fired.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no such thing as a minor league manager who does a great job of developing players in a year, but they don't win.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, well, I'm sorry, but we got to let you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that that curve was really good, but you didn't win.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think those guys, you could have top talents.
[SPEAKER_00]: who do not play for an understandable reason, which is, yeah, this guy's going to be great in five years, but I've got to win now, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do think a two year window might even, before they're eligible, might even kind of compress that a little bit more, because you may not get that payoff in year three for pitching the freshman.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there was, there was a lot of emphasis of exactly those points about the fact that in this situation, we're asking college coaches to act in the best interests of the players and some scouts pointed out that's not always the case either because they're hiding players, they're redshirting them, they're limiting in their exposure because they want to keep them in the program for longer, which does happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or the fact that they are not going to be putting the best position to develop because as you said,
[SPEAKER_02]: the way college coaches make money is by winning games, they're incentivized to put the best players on the field who can help you win today and that is increasingly becoming 22 23 24 year old college players.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a concern about where the playing time is going to come from these elite players.
[SPEAKER_02]: Baseball is such a skill oriented sport.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like the NFL where you can just outathlete people but young elite players need reps, particularly hitters, they need
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think there was also some pushback on the idea that if Connor Griffin, if Seth Hernandez, if these players go to college, they will necessarily follow the same path that they've taken in trouble.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is definitely not the case.
[SPEAKER_02]: These players could easily go to college, struggle early, get more limited playing time, and then don't take the strides we saw with Connor Griffin with his swing.
[SPEAKER_02]: When he is
[SPEAKER_02]: basically hitting every single day.
[SPEAKER_02]: His full-time focus is on getting better as a baseball player.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no classroom component.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think one other element of this as well that Scouts brought up was that and I appreciate it that there were a number of college coaches Jacob talked to as well who pointed this out.
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is essentially forcing players
[SPEAKER_02]: through a college route when college, it is not necessarily the best path for every player.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are gonna be a number of players who are not ready for the academic side of a college environment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was interested in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have no interest in it at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was also talking to scouts who mentioned the,
[SPEAKER_02]: just players who are coming from maybe poor backgrounds, who are just not gonna be put in an environment where they are gonna be comfortable or have success at college in element of black players, minority players was something that was brought up, like, hey, in pro baseball, there are a lot of other minority players and players who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and there is the sense that for some of those players, that is a better environment for them, both to become better as baseball players,
[SPEAKER_02]: off the field as young men.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that there's just a lot of frustration with the idea that you're forcing in Avenue that maybe is not not best suited for players.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's you just hit on a very interesting like, and again, there's a lot of this that we'll emphasize this is a proposal the MLBPA came out quite strongly against this proposal is possible that this will be, you know, DOA is possible some aspects of this will be adopted is possible that
[SPEAKER_00]: you know a significant part we don't know we this is we are yet we are at the you know if this is a marathon we're at like we're not in the top first five miles right negotiation right like there is much much to go many many many miles ahead but to your point in a two years to be eligible system but in a system also though that's 12 rounds and really is structured to say
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jacob makes a point, we'll touch on this later with Jacob as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: The structure of this is one where if you aren't an elite prospect going, we don't know what the slots are going to be, but we know that if you go from last year, it was about 13.7 million per team spinning in draft bonuses to 6.7 under this for the whole draft.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that if you get
[SPEAKER_00]: no matter how that math works, the math only works to say that if you get to about the fifth round, your bonus amount is going to be pretty small in the world of what we've gotten used to, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's hard slotted.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a sophomore and they're like,
[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna take you in the fifth round.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could absolutely see players who are like, don't take me on not gonna sign one sign.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a good gig here and by the way, if I have a better year as a junior and you draft me in the third round, I don't get a haircut because I've thus negotiating leverage than a sophomore, they still a hard slot.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you draft me, if you say you're gonna be a fifth round or as a junior and you say don't draft me in the sixth round, I'm not gonna sign.
[SPEAKER_00]: as a 20-year-old, but you take me in the third round, you don't get to give me your senior, here's 100K.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to, you have to draw, pay that player as much as the player above him or below him who's a sophomore.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the system as they proposed it would very much push all but the most elite prospects to stay in college.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to go to your point,
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think that there's very puzzled that that scenario, it doesn't mean that the LSU's of the world would not go after the Connor Griffins, the Kevin McGonagall's.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, I could 100% see a scenario where I'm trying to think of that second, that next tier, the player who, who right now is, let's go to like the,
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's go to like the second round, the late second round.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, like Dean Moss, right, like Will Hines from last year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like guys like that, Johnny, Johnny Slowinsky, those guys, I can see those absolutely,
[SPEAKER_00]: not being the guys who get pursued even those those are elite prospects but being like our best way to win 34 player roster capped not 55 to play 34 34 player roster our best way to win is is going to be we're going to have a lot more 20 21 22 year olds uneven the best teams in college baseball because a slightly less
[SPEAKER_00]: in general is probably going to help you win more games than a incredibly tools the 19 year old.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that would go back to what the scouts are saying there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the other element that is interesting that I want to touch on here when we're talking about like the scouting perspective is like the potential impact on how scouts would operate under this system.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think maybe the biggest point of confusion that I've seen from people who are digesting this proposal with the 20 rounds to 12 rounds
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I think there is a sense that like, oh, because it's 20 rounds to 12 rounds that will be fewer players coming from the domestic draft, and I guess we should say non-drafted scenario, but I think what was key for scouts who wanted to take a silver lining view of this proposal, which to be clear was a very outlier opinion, but I did hear it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some scouts said, hey, the fact that they committed to not removing future minor leagues means we still need the same number of players in pro ball.
[SPEAKER_02]: And just because those players won't be drafted, you still have to sign those players.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so from the player perspective, the bonuses are obviously significantly shorter.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your non-drafted free agents go from 150 max without hitting
[SPEAKER_02]: the bonus pool to 10k and then I did hear from some scouts who said, hey, this, this now makes me a difference maker for a team.
[SPEAKER_02]: When it's hey, you're only getting 10k from every team.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not how much money are you getting offered.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's which scouts have put in the work on the ground to communicate and educate to players and make them feel comfortable.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey,
[SPEAKER_02]: Our organization can do x, y and z for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to get better in our organization.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have comfort with me as a scout and evaluator.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been watching you for years.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there is
[SPEAKER_02]: maybe one glimmer of hope that like this could maybe add more value to amateur scouts at the same time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think a natural tendency from scouting departments and a number of teams would say, hey, we only have to draft 12 rounds now.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not drafting any high school players.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've already taken a very model heavy and a literally heavy video heavy evaluation strategy for college players.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are a lot of areas that are not college heavy.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can cut back on our scouting staffs and those areas.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can go really heavy with stats on the college side and we'll be able to cut scouts.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think pessimistically, that is probably the route that most teams will take.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really showing the dollar sign on the muscle here in the back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was really back not watching the video, but dollar sign on the muscle.
[SPEAKER_00]: I bring that up because
[SPEAKER_00]: There is to take the positive and the negative.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the positive side is 100% true.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was what scouting used to be, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, if you are an area scout in 1955 or 60 or 48 or whatever, if your team is only offering 10,000, and which by the way, we say 10,000 now.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were getting more than that in 1950.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, which is insane.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just put it in perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: A $10,000 bonus to try to land a top prospect, or even a good draft prospect, a good prospect, what a draft, there was a draft, the draft was the rule five draft, that was the only draft, the real draft was the draft.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, I joke, but, but, but if everyone was kind of similar what they were offering, often players would sign with the team of the scout who they felt a real connection to, and at that time,
[SPEAKER_00]: the scout and the player were more intertwined also from a standpoint of the scout was your advocate in the organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you plot, they would often meet in the off season, check in, even during the season sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, but in that scout was kind of like, hey, Johnny's really taking a step with this or whatever, those relationships are very important.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that part would be true here, but that would be very much true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think wise teams in this would obviously spend more money.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would start scouting these players in high school, because you would have a much longer under these players.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one team to vote, this is our ability to hack.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the smart teams would still continue to really emphasize scouting the high school players because again, in this scenario,
[SPEAKER_02]: the way you're evaluating your college players and politically changes pretty significantly.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're going from most players, have three years of track record to now it could be two years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, also all the elite high school players are getting into college every year.
[SPEAKER_02]: That really changes the makeup of playing time and college.
[SPEAKER_02]: For many players who are draft eligible, you might be looking at a single year of performance data.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there would be a scenario where a lot of the performance data that teams are looking at gets quite a bit more noisy.
[SPEAKER_02]: and teams could have a competitive advantage by scouting up the high school players and creating really thorough backgrounds on what they were like in high school how they've changed.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're a team who's slacked on that area and you're purely looking at a single year's performance data, it may be an area where you could feel comfortable, but get fooled.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know again, some of these are like scouts looking for silver linings, hoping their organizations would be the orgs who would continue to invest in scouting, but I do think the natural takeaway of this is like, hey, if no high school players are being scouted,
[SPEAKER_02]: Expensive boots on the ground requirement to scout players are the high school players compared to the college players that I do think the natural tendency would be hey we can shrink and save a little bit more money on our scouting staff because they're just fewer demographics we really need to go out and hit on the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: Other thing that strikes me that I think would be significant in this is if if you go to an all college drafty scenario system.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to have like, it's funny, but in that scenario, we'll actually have teams would have less would that data insight than they do for the high school players.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the high school players, now you get a pretty good summer look at best on best with the hitters hitting with wood.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, would we maybe should put in quotation marks of these days, because we have some of the things we have, but correct, in general.
[SPEAKER_02]: And last, you know, if as long as you're not shooting in light, there is a significant difference in evaluating a pure hitting ability of a hitter with metal bat versus wood bat.
[SPEAKER_02]: The margin for error, barrel feel, you don't get a great sense of that, and you can be fooled oftentimes with college performance, given the offensive environment
[SPEAKER_02]: and just how different hitting is with a metal bat or so would bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think people intuitively know like the ball goes further off the metal bat, but there are far more miss hits who are hit for home runs doubles, triples into the gap in college with metal bats that you will not have, you will be more punished with wood bats and I think being able to get a feel for that pure hitting ability is we'll be more challenging if you're only looking at college players with
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I want to make this point, it used to be you would say, oh, that's not a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the summer's for, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I just said the words best on best.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is almost other than USA baseball a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's very little best on best where top tier pitchers are facing top tier hitters with wood bets because, and by the way,
[SPEAKER_00]: in a world that still has free transfers and now two years of eligibility before draft eligible, I would say even more so, we hear all the college coaches now say.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no possible incentive that makes sense for me to encourage, especially my pitchers, to go play summer ball.
[SPEAKER_00]: If your pitcher goes play summer ball,
[SPEAKER_00]: you kind of know that your chances of that picture are coming back on camps.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do not care what program we're talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: They go down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there may be a push pull or a player's like, I'm still gonna go play college.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is maybe, I'm gonna play tag.
[SPEAKER_02]: This gets exactly back to the initial point of like, this is the player development system.
[SPEAKER_02]: You wanna push every player to a system that disincentivizes players going out and playing with wood.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a great look for developing hitters for developing arms who need more reps.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just this is not it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It did strike me this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a draft this year where and maybe it's just you push back.
[SPEAKER_00]: You you go the draft for us every year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot remember a year where I feel like that we have less wood bat record with the
[SPEAKER_00]: there is like it used to be like we are not that far removed from where if you said oh okay what's their wood bat record and it would be like this is what they hit the north woods league after the freshman year this is what they hit the cape in their softboard and yeah for the softboard year and now here they and here's what you say baseball time as well right and also when you saw that you knew that that was
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't ask high quality pitchers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those were high quality arms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's like this is what they hit in their one week in the tape.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what they hit in their week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you have a baseball?
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, what did they hit against in the Kate or in the Northwoods League?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like pitchers who will not play.
[SPEAKER_00]: at major programs.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll not get on the mound at major programs during the fall during the spring, because that's the pitchers who are now allowed to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pitchers who are allowed who are
[SPEAKER_00]: encourage to go to summer ball now, are the ones who either A, they are so far away from contributing that you're like, the risk is worth the reward if they know it and B, it's players who are going somewhere else and need to showcase themselves to get those offers.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the amount of like, oh, I saw a first round arm next year on the mound facing these guys with wood.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is an artifact of an earlier age, and there's nothing in this that would necessarily encourage changing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as you said, hitting with metal is not the same as hitting foot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And pitching to metal is not the same as pitching to wood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you do not get rewarded for solving off a hit or coming in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although we do see now a couple of other things.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you generally, there are a lot more hits on a hitter who lost the battle, but just kind of got the bat on it with a metal bat than there is with wood.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've already gone 30 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: What else have we not covered?
[SPEAKER_00]: That was significant in your conversations.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that it was significant, but I will say almost everyone who has commented on the addition of draft pick trading is cool with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's maybe the one element of this proposal that everyone seems to be either indifferent to or have an actual positive opinion on.
[SPEAKER_02]: People seem to get excited about the idea of pick trading.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was one kind of at the end where it was like, if you bother to comment it, you were generally pretty okay with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the pick trading would obviously come with the hard slotting system that was proposed.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the key point here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think that like, regardless of what happens, I think a lot of this is probably unlikely to actually come to pass.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think that there there seems to be a realistic path to a hard-slotting system of some capacity that includes pictrading to make the draft more, I think approachable for fans while still retaining a lot of,
[SPEAKER_02]: the ability to to be strategic on your board from the team's perspective.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that maybe is in one element of this that we'll actually be able to see in the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although you just hit on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I don't think the PA had the MLBPA.
[SPEAKER_00]: The player's association has no problem with there's more pictorating.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think the MLB it's hesitant to it has always been if it's a hard slot of the system they're fine with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: If it's not, it does also feel like they
[SPEAKER_02]: constraints on how much they would allow teams to trade that I feel like from the MLB side there is like a headsets into like we don't want to be in a scenario where one team has traded like all of their first on picks for the next five years so there were some constraints they basically they want to put constraints on terrible owners
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Terrible owners, Terrible GM's.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, which is a reasonable thing because that is come about because there was a time in the MBA in the 80s where literally they had to put these rules in place because there was an ownership group.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was the 76ers, but I'm soft-topped my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was like trading away all their picks for terrible players because they were idiots.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so yes, there were restrictions on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to to explore this out to people who don't follow it, that's closely.
[SPEAKER_00]: if you say, well, why do they care?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do they not want picks to be traded?
[SPEAKER_00]: Generally, if you don't take away our slots, their concern is that if you allow free trading of picks,
[SPEAKER_00]: that certain, they forget, they don't want players to have a whole lot of power in the draft.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their worry is that there would be elite players who could basically put out a number in a non-hard-slogged system that
[SPEAKER_00]: would help engineer certain teams to land they play rather than other teams.
[SPEAKER_00]: And whether that is true or not, that's been their concern.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I don't know if you would see free trading of picks.
[SPEAKER_00]: The system, the draft system state as it is right now, but they're quite willing to let free trading of picks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if they would be as open to it in a non-hard slug.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do think that that's something that fans, and I will say with this, the one other thing that I will say with all of this is to, there is an underlying part of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Scouts understandably have a lot of concern with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is another underlying part of this, which is,
[SPEAKER_00]: that I would say that MLB clearly in this also wants the MLB draft to be a bigger deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if you say, what are their motives for this?
[SPEAKER_00]: We brought up the offshoring of development to in some ways, to entities that you do not have to pay.
[SPEAKER_00]: We brought up that this would reduce bonuses.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also would say,
[SPEAKER_00]: There is, I believe, on MLB's part, part of this proposal also is that they want, they look at the NFL draft, they look at the NBA draft, and they're like, we want that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want it to be something where every player who goes in the first round is much more of a household name to the average baseball fan, where
[SPEAKER_00]: which we're getting there.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, we are getting there like we're playing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels like they are trying to grab the attention that comes to the NFL draft that that is there by virtue of college football being such a dynamic powerhouse of an entertainment product and they're just saying, Oh, those drafts are college only if we do that will net the same benefits, which I think is like
[SPEAKER_02]: putting the car before the horse in some ways, but it definitely is clear that like they think, if it's just college only, it'll be more approachable.
[SPEAKER_02]: The players will be more visible.
[SPEAKER_02]: There will be a shorter ETA from all the players who are drafted to the majors, so there will be this tighter pipeline, which is true.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're only drafting college players, you're gonna see those players quicker at the major league level.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I do think, again, this was expressed to me as well by Scout Stairs.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a little bit of frustration that,
[SPEAKER_02]: that the scouts think that MLB is just copying pasting from a lot of other leagues when they don't necessarily think that always translates and I think the biggest difference is obviously like for a high school football player, it is a legitimate danger to you to go from high school to the NFL where that's not really the case in baseball.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where again, again, these things we don't know, but I would see that there is a certain logic to the fact that if, like again, to take the example, the guys we keep using, but if, if Connor Griffin was the star short stop at LSU who's doing these unreal things in Omaha.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, oh, you know, we're sitting here we're rolling into this draft and the white sucks are picking one one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And their fans are like, if we draft Connor Griffin, he's going to be our probably in that case center field or maybe, or he's their short stop at Colson and Gummer moves whatever, but he's going to be there opening day 2027.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess my pushback would be, is that worth losing?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, what Pirates fans have gotten with Connor Griffiths?
[SPEAKER_00]: I got.
[SPEAKER_00]: You do understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm, again, the thing I will say with all of this is, people keep asking what's your opinion on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: My job, I feel like I'm, I am from, I am from, I am an relic of an earlier age.
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up.
[SPEAKER_00]: doing this at newspapers and places like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my answer to that is,
[SPEAKER_00]: It is my job to under-try to understand every aspect of this, the pros and the cons of all of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I feel like my job is, if I'm reporting on this, if I'm talking to both sides, it's not that I'm coming in and I'm waving the flag of one side in this and saying, you guys are great, you guys are really, it's something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to fairly portray what both sides are saying, and then poking,
[SPEAKER_00]: out pointing out like they're saying this, but they're leaving out as this as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I would say with this is that's MLB's view on this is, hey, this would make the draft more interesting, creating a draft picks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's a household name if college baseball continues to grow all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: To the point that you just made, it is 100% also true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Taking away, we talk about kind of a griffin.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll do another one to kind of wrap up this segment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Taking away mic crowds, rookie of the year, second in the MVP voting, and probably should have won the MVP year.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's to me, that is something that losing that, losing Mickey Mantle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I know that that's before the draft over existed, but ooh.
[SPEAKER_00]: losing kangryphi junior going from the draft to the big leagues in the blink of an eye, Alachrod Regas.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some, and you can say, these are the ultimate outliers, a hundred percent true.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, one of the most fascinating and joyous things as a baseball fan to have is when one of those comets screams through the air.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way,
[SPEAKER_00]: Mike Trout, there's something joyous and fun about the teenager, the 20-year-old who's already able to match width with the 35-year-old veteran, because as much as you can say, they're going to have a long, long, long career ahead of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The joy of thinking of what is this player going to be?
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I watching King Griffy Junior?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this going to be one of the greats of all time?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm watching Mike Trump.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this going to be one of the greats of all time?
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I watching Connor Griffin?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this going to be the greats of all time?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's different than, oh, this 22 year old showed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He seems like he's pretty good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if that player has Paul schemes is amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Paul schemes,
[SPEAKER_00]: is like the more normal progression.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Connor Griffin shows up as a teenager, when Juan Soto shows up, that's more fascinating, I think, as a baseball fan, because you know how hard that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know how unusual that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are losing something, obviously, if you take that away, in addition to like, the one other thing I want to point out what this is, is try to write this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The point is that you made early on is very true.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you keep the current big picture free agency system, if you do,
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is why the PA would be utterly understandably against this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are taking hundreds of millions or billions of dollars out of free agency because it is not something.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not something where if you just push all these players back, they're they've used back a year or two years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, but they're still the best players in the game, so they're still going to get same contracts.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you took any player
[SPEAKER_00]: in baseball right now and you said you will be a free agent going into your age 26 or your age 27 season and you take that same player and you say you will be a free agent going into your age 29 or your age 30 season MLB teams will be way less interested as they should be they're not idiots a 30 year old player has much less value to give you in that free agent contract than the 26 year older the 27 year old now but I bring this up just to also point out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The flip side of that is, if you are
[SPEAKER_00]: doing this, if the PA was like, we think that this is a fine idea, they did not.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if they did, it would have to come with, if you were the PA, other changes were like, hey, if we go to an age-based free agency system, where, yes, if you get drafted as a senior and you're 23 and you reach major leagues as a 25, it doesn't really matter for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Witt Maryfields of the World aren't screwed anymore,
[SPEAKER_00]: a late debuting player means you'll never hit free agency at a time where you're economically valuable.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you said we're going to be every player is a free agent when for their age 28 season.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that would go away, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that would be then that no longer would you be able to say, oh, this is a plan that is designed to drive down salaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are ways that again, every little complex piece of this changes if the system changes in other ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I do want to say like when people like the same way I will say this is like okay the other thing I know this is gone way longer than we want it to, but it's about but the other thing I'll point out is you bought it up the 120.
[SPEAKER_00]: For one okay we spelled that out like really high up in the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a very significant part of this is that MLB came out and said,
[SPEAKER_00]: we have, they have an MLB collective PA collective bargain agreement to be done in the next couple years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they have the professional development license, the PDLs with MLB owners that is set to be a negotiation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those licenses end after 2030, and I mean, so there'll be negotiations 2030 going to go into the 2030s.
[SPEAKER_00]: They explicitly stated this proposal that it is not
[SPEAKER_00]: they are not going to reduce below that 120.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if there's expansion, it could be 120, eight or whatever, but they're not reducing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not cutting out low eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not cutting out high eggs.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not cutting out the FSL.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not cutting out the colleague.
[SPEAKER_00]: All that.
[SPEAKER_00]: They said this in this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And people are like, well, what do you trust them?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, okay, I'm going to start with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: When they cut 40 teams back in 2020, they didn't hide it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't say, oh, we're gonna keep all the teams in the last minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, they said all the way through this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's where we're gonna do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's why we wanna do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't, like, when you say, I don't trust them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: They didn't trick you last time when they did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So politically and someone then said to me, no, but I don't trust him because they also said they were going to go to the best stadiums.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they didn't go to this stadium, this complex, the new Northport complex.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, no, the brave didn't want to be in the FSL.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not going to make them go to the FSL things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I would say with all this is, by stating that publicly and explicitly, I will say politically,
[SPEAKER_00]: There could be a new commissioner, by the way, also before the 2030.
[SPEAKER_00]: Politically, it would be other than there's another pandemic or something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be very, very difficult now for MLB to change on something that they have already said.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, they did not do that in 2019, 2018, 2020.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't say, all teams are safe and then change it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They for a year.
[SPEAKER_02]: said and you're very consistent in trying to reinforce and until people why it would be so unlikely that another minor league level would just be taken away and the reasons why it seems unlikely so I appreciate that and it is nice to see this is the stated intention from MLB side here.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one thing I will say with this that we do not know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is to be honest, like this is much more of a minor degree.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, MLB runs the complexes, the A, as Arizona Complex League for a Complex League, they can reorganize that in whatever the way they want.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always talk about ticket buying minor league teams, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you said the ACL has just become the summer long instructional league, we play the games, but they're not official records or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: The impact of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I'm not saying that MLB's going to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying that's much different than saying we're going to lock off low-way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're said they've come out and said they're not doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not going to reduce the four levels of the miners.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is funny how many people you've gotten it and I've gotten it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, well, that doesn't even make any sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: So 12 round drafts, you can't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like,
[SPEAKER_00]: one almost no one drafts and signs every player that signs every player they draft right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It happens, but the vast majority of teams draft several players, 11th round on that they don't sign.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're not talking, we're going from 20 or 22 to 12.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going from 18 to 20 to 12.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as you said,
[SPEAKER_02]: there's no restriction here like and every year people should look at our non-directed free agent tracker most teams beyond whoever they're signing are just signing non-directed free agents regularly that would continue to happen there would be more prominent players who were selected in that capacity for significantly cheaper so yeah the volume of players coming in wouldn't change material under this proposal.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, okay, I know that covered a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to wrap it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a big phone call.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you got to stop to do it too.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that is our look at the draft.
[SPEAKER_00]: After this break, I'll come back and I will talk to Jacob and we will look at it much more from the college perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll do that right after this quick break.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm now joined by Jacob Rudner, our college baseball expert extraordinaire.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's in Omaha, he's at the College World Series.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gotta be honest, I kind of ruined his off day.
[SPEAKER_00]: His Thursday off day because with this story, pretty much I would say that Jacob spent the entire afternoon since then talking to coaches, talking to athletic directors.
[SPEAKER_00]: But with that,
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll just basically hand it over to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the feedback you're getting from coaches, you know, athletic officials?
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that just my guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've talked to a couple of coaches, not nearly like you have.
[SPEAKER_00]: My guess is that if there is a group who's going to be most positive about this,
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be the college coaches who you're saying, oh, by the way, now when you recruit a player, he will, we 100% guarantee, if this proposal was adopted, he will get to school.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, of the 60 coaches who I've talked to and the 10 more league administrators and the 10 athletic directors and the...
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not joking, I saw this phone.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I showed JJ and I would say another 30 assistants
[SPEAKER_01]: The feedback has largely been very good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that this is kind of the one unique space when it comes to the conversation about how everybody feels about MLB's proposal.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the one demographic that's probably pretty happy with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They view this as a boon to college baseball.
[SPEAKER_01]: They think that this is what pushes college baseball from growing in popularity
[SPEAKER_01]: exploding in popularity because it takes the sport from very different from a draft perspective and amateur kind of pathway perspective relative to other major American sports to a little bit more of a similar situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not necessarily the instant gratification of the NFL or the, you know, NBA where you go and you draft somebody and that player is instantly capable in some cases of
[SPEAKER_01]: But it does kind of centralize the pipeline a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that there are a lot of fans that look at baseball and view the lack of centralization as a barrier.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the point that a lot of these coaches have made is college baseball is already as good as it's been in these guys mind ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is the peak of college baseball's popularity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now imagine what happens when you see
[SPEAKER_01]: guys like Grady Emerson and Brody Bumilla and Trevor Condon some of the guys who we will hear at the top of this year's draft guaranteed no doubt playing college baseball for no fewer than two years and in some cases like Eli Willets playing college baseball for three years because you have to be 20 by the time September first rolls around of your draft year and there are some guys
[SPEAKER_01]: It's rare, but there are some guys who will not meet that criteria, and so they will have to play three college seasons before they become draft eligible.
[SPEAKER_01]: That being said.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is some skepticism from the mid-major level, from the low-major level, about how this will impact the competitive balance in college baseball, how it will impact resources, resource alignment, and whether or not it is sustainable,
[SPEAKER_01]: for some programs that are already having a hard time maintaining and funding and filling their baseball programs because of I.L.
[SPEAKER_01]: because of scholarship a lot meant because of just pure resources when it comes to paying coaches when it comes to facilities and the costs that come with that and when you have to start
[SPEAKER_01]: getting in the game a little bit more for the top-type players.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this won't necessarily apply to the real low majors of the world because those teams didn't have access to the top to your high school player previously, but this does create a real log jam when it comes to the numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that there are coaches that are wondering if this is to pass.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you put together a roster?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you put a lot of eggs into the high school basket because there will be some real premium players that are now going to be entering the college baseball pool?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you still invest a lot in transfer portal type players and try and put together an older roster?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it the young superstar or the more grizzled veteran that ends up being better for your team and the other side of this is,
[SPEAKER_01]: Pretty much unanimously, coaches view this as positive for their players because a fixed slot system benefits enormously, the older junior and the senior player.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because basically, it puts you in a position where you can't be taken advantage of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are a lot of coaches who offered feedback today, who basically said, my senior who decides he wants to come back because he doesn't like his value,
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe puts together a year like a Ruger Reo-Hoss and does a Ruger Reo-Hoss or a Judd Unimark or any of these types of players who maybe would have garnered consideration in the earlier round Judd Unimark support example, but Ruger Reo-Hoss is a really good one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do those guys benefit from this tremendously?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the answer is yes, because if you do play your way and to third ground consideration, you are no longer the money saving senior sign, you are now the third ground pick with a fixed lot value.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for some players who maybe aren't ready to go and maximize their draft value, there is an avenue to being able to come back to school and still getting what you're worth, depending on how well you play.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, okay, I will push back, but I will point out some other parts of that, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is, there are also the, like, in the MLB proposal, the amount spent on the draft will be cut in more than half, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we don't know what those slots will be, but like if each team's pie, all of a sudden on average is going to be like $6.7 million for first round through 12th.
[SPEAKER_00]: by inference, yes, a senior sign may do better, but a lot of juniors are gonna do potentially worse also because they'll be interesting again, we did there are after effects we don't know because as I see it, this system, again, has proposed the start of the negotiation.
[SPEAKER_00]: The MLBPA has already come out and said, we're not a giant fan of this proposal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm being actually they they went much further and much stronger than we're not.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is terrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is terrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically.
[SPEAKER_00]: So okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: However.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we don't know is kind of how this would line up, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because in my mind, in my guestimate on day one of this,
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say probably 65%, 70% of the picks will be sophomores, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, because, maybe that's too high.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like my idea being the top, the cream of the crop players, who went to college, but would have been under the old system, drafted and signed out of high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those players, if they perform as expected, are 100% going to get drafted and drafted high, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I would say there's going to be juniors who
[SPEAKER_00]: will be, I think, a mixture of playing things, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The transfer, the Owen Halls of the world, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The transfer who started a small school, now's performing at a larger school, the player who didn't transfer, but is cad performed in, like, okay, he did it again, we're gonna draft that player.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's gonna be a good group of these players.
[SPEAKER_00]: But with it being 12 rounds, 360 players roughly, no competitive balance picks either.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's just say, 360 picks.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing about this though is that the system is very much, and this is where your point that you made, I think is kind of fascinating, is with roster construction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, if those are never adopted, the system was set up that maybe even by the later rounds, you're gonna be like, don't draft me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't wanna go out yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, if I'm not gonna make 150k,
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but maybe that's what a late round, you know, the 12th round is we don't know yet or I'm not going to make 200 k I can do you know in some cases I can do better than that by coming back because again to your point if you get drafted higher than next year, it's fixed lots it's not something where you're like I'm not going to go shading leverage so there's that where you're like don't take me in the 10th I'm going to stay and.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can do as well, financial error close to it, get close to my degree, all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the system also, if you're not drafted and you want to sign, it's 10K.
[SPEAKER_00]: So 10K is a number, like, the old system is you're in six figures, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: As an on-draft of free agent, you can get six figures.
[SPEAKER_00]: 10K is a number that's single almost designed to be like,
[SPEAKER_00]: do not come out, do not do this until you have exhausted every minute of your college eligibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you and I both have talked about, there's going to be a have and have nots here, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the one thing that I do think that we tried to push back and explain to someone, but I think that there is an unrealistic perception out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: among many that oh there's 34 scholarships now so everyone gets full scholarships and oh there's NIL so everyone gets NIL and the reality of it is is that there is a very small and distinct group of power clock teams.
[SPEAKER_00]: who are at 34 or close to 34.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is a small group of players who are getting, I'm not saying any NIO, but significant NIO.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you get down to 10K, there are a lot of programs who can be like,
[SPEAKER_00]: come back for another year.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can do better here than what you're, because those were gonna be the players who are going to be incredibly valuable to their college teams, because that's gonna be the less toolsy, talented, Saturday Starter who's been doing that for you for two years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or it's going to be that catcher who was your number two catcher as a softballer, and then your starter is a junior and could come back for a senior year kind of got.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those players, you're not gonna have any questions saying this is one of the best players on my college team.
[SPEAKER_00]: whether the draft feels that way about you or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where it's like, like you said, this raw stick is structured that he's gonna be fascinating because you're gonna have this wave of players who get in and then get out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And with transfer portal, I don't even, the three years before eligibility has actually kind of set up pretty well for that with transfer portal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Players who go somewhere as a freshman, it doesn't work out.
[SPEAKER_00]: They transfer somewhere else as a sophomore, get established, and then really emerge as a junior.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or the player who was not recruited out of high school plays with a freshman a little bit somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: really emerges as a sophomore transfer.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, or stays there as a junior, we often see a leap between the sophomore and junior year.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the things going to be fascinating with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is how often do teams draft players before that leap or how often do they draft players and wait for them to have that leap?
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that there are also really fair questions about,
[SPEAKER_01]: how the elite player gets distributed in addition to everything you're saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are concerns among college coaches about equity in terms of being able to afford on the NIL side.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of the elite players will not be coming out of high school and going to college and whether or not that will even further funnel talent to the top because NIL, to your point, yes,
[SPEAKER_01]: a lot of team, not a lot, but a fair number of teams can afford to out pay your $10,000 on draft and free agent bonus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not a lot of teams are going to be able to afford a high schooler.
[SPEAKER_01]: who used to be of third or fourth or fifth round value and of course higher than that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in that range, we're talking about some really advanced players that in this current model are probably not getting the campus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some will, a couple will, Jack Bower got to campus, but there aren't a lot of Jack Bowers out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of these guys intend to sign when they have
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are programs that worry that the competition to land those players will so massively inflate their NIL value that only a handful of teams, three, four, five teams will realistically be able to get their hands on the top crop.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, and this is where this gets fascinating, though, is that Jack Bower is a perfect example of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm using him as an analog for a lot of these players.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see a lot of extremely talented elite draft prospect pitchers, but who are not ready to really significantly contribute his freshman, and
[SPEAKER_00]: it will really be fascinating to see how that kind of as to the economics, because under the current system, you kind of understand if you're a big program with, well, very well-funded, that you are effectively
[SPEAKER_00]: living with the understanding that this is a player who's going to be sparsely used as a freshman, who's going to, again, I'm not going to use Bauer as example, particularly, but this type of player is going to be very well compensated, scholarship wise and NIL.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're one, it's not, you are going to be, if you describe this as, you know, the cost benefit ratio, you're going to be very underwater in it as far as what you're putting out versus what you're
[SPEAKER_00]: That equation, though, makes a lot of sense for teams right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you say, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're two, they're going to be a real contributor, not going to be our ace, probably, but a real contributor.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're either going to be an elite reliever or they're going to be an up and down inconsistent starter.
[SPEAKER_00]: But wait till you're three, because that's when this is all going to come together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this picture's really going to like carry us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that equation changes a lot if you could lose that player after year two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that player's gonna be a lot more expensive to acquire, like you said, do land as a recruit, than a much more polished, but less alluring draft prospect, who's ready to contribute in some way in year one.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's gonna be an interesting part of this equation as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one thing that I found really interesting that is very much related to this is that there were several
[SPEAKER_01]: high major coaches in particular, who pointed out that, you know, for all the concern that some of the mid major and low major guys expressed, this will force some really high level talent down the food chain a little bit in areas that we wouldn't have seen previously.
[SPEAKER_01]: average, good, great level talent.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have an opportunity should this come to pass to rope in a level of player that they otherwise would have no access to.
[SPEAKER_00]: One thing with this that we also need to point out is, again, proposal, gonna keep saying this, this is a proposal, but,
[SPEAKER_00]: We are now just really hitting the actual roster limit, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We have seen the expansion to 34 scholarships.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we have the 34 roster limit, really hitting for next year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: when you're talking about what you just said, that's where this is really gonna come into play is that, yes, okay, I hear it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been in those meetings, I sat with you at the ABCA, where coaches were talking about how are we ever going to do fall ball with 40 or 45 or 50?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you do get into games and no one plays 34.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, well, yeah, I also think it's important to state,
[SPEAKER_01]: 34 is coming into effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, 34 is coming into effect in this current system.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really important to to mention here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: The 34 man roster limit exists in the high school players are eligible 20 round non fixed draft bonus era.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a boom to college baseball.
[SPEAKER_01]: The product will get better.
[SPEAKER_01]: But 34 is not going to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because where do the players go?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, not everybody is cut out to be a juicone ball player.
[SPEAKER_00]: For two hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a huge point that everyone says, oh, there'll be more good juicone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will tell you right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are players who are wired to do it and thrive, and there are other players who will run home to mom and week one.
[SPEAKER_01]: far more players are not wired to go to Juco than are far more players are not wired to go play division three baseball where you do not get this is important division three rules stipulate that you cannot get athletic compensation to go to school you can be on scholarship for the merits of your academics you can earn scholarships because you are you know there are a
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, cultural type scholarships, there are a number of grants that are very important for division three, but one thing that does not exist is the athletic scholarship.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are families that will be priced out of playing college baseball because they will not be able to afford to send their kids to division three.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of this is to say, and this is super, I mean, if there's one takeaway from all of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's that for every coach that has said that this is beneficial to college baseball and that is excited about the potential for the high school athlete to have to get to school.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are an equal number of college coaches who pointed out it's great but it's great but we are going to force families into bad situations.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's great but we are taking opportunities away from kids and here's another one.
[SPEAKER_01]: John Savage, John Savage, UCLA said coach insisted by the way because he's the best that his quotes be on the record.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wanted his name attached to what he said.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are players, Tim Corbin, same thing, except the same thing as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are players out there who are not built for the college game.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are kids who are simply ready to go play pro baseball and as John Savage put it, I just want to read his quote because it's so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: What happened to the American dream for America's pastime?
[SPEAKER_01]: If a player is good enough to sign after high school, he should have that opportunity.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he went on to continue to say, there are a lot of guys who just don't want it, who don't want college.
[SPEAKER_01]: And to force them to not have to go to school, does not resonate with everybody?
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, I will point out to give both sides of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are not required to go to college to be draft eligible.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can find a job in indie ball and I'll tell you right now, you won't because you're not good enough and 18 year old, you better be, okay, if Connor Griffin wanted to go play in the ball, yes, he would be good enough, but I'll tell you this, if you're thinking about going play in the ball and you weren't a first drum pick, you're not good enough because you're you're not good enough to play with 25 year olds, 24 year olds who have gone through all of the college experience and are just physically.
[SPEAKER_00]: more experienced, bigger, stronger, all those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so you can go any ball, or you could go like summer college league, but not play during the season, work, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are other opportunities.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they're going to be much more limited.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other point that I wanted to make on this is going back to the misconception that there's 34 scholarships all over the place.
[SPEAKER_00]: The vast majority, the vast, vast, vast majority of division on colleges are not
[SPEAKER_00]: at 15, more than 15 right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: We both, you and I get, we don't have the full number, but I would say that you have about as good as good idea about this as anybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is of the 3008 schools, there are 3008 division one schools that sponsor baseball, I would estimate that some are between 215 and 250 even are dealing with, let's say, 15 or fewer scholars.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a first round pick and the old system, if this system came to be, you're gonna have full rides that you're choosing between.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're that 12th rounder, if you're that $150,000, $18,000 flyer who's us outlikes,
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have opportunities to play.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have a question about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The very safe scout who would have seen you and recommended you for the draft is probably going to help you find if you want somewhere to play.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I can't promise that's going to be a full ride.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't promise that
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to go to where your point from a situation where under the old system, you would have had $150,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after tax is still, if you are in a difficult financial situation, game changing money, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, 90K, 75K, 80K, plus,
[SPEAKER_00]: a full scholarship, by the way, and MLB can point out that not every player takes advantage of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you sign out a high school, the opportunity is there when you are done, whether you choose to take the advantage of it or not, but you will have a full scholarship, college scholarship for four years, once you are done playing baseball under the current system.
[SPEAKER_00]: You go from that where you are making money.
[SPEAKER_00]: And playing baseball to where it is possible that you will now be in a situation where you are the only way you can keep playing is is that you are taking on student loans and that kind of financial situation or whatever to try to figure out a way to continue to play and you are net negative income at the start.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll read another quote because I think some of the things that some of these coaches say are so like we can't you and I can't do it justice trying to summarize I just want to read this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it come to a point where some of the best high school players are going to end up at non-power schools for fear of competing against old guys on rosters and old leagues even more so than it already is, but on the flip side of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we continue to sign the top high school talents in the country because more of them are coming to school, how does that impact what you do in the portal and who gets what kind of opportunity?
[SPEAKER_01]: it just got really hard to get drafted in general and almost impossible for the second tier high school player and most definitely the quote unquote good college player.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love the two-year draft eligible thing, we've wanted that we being college coaches to happen for a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But does it even matter now since the draft is only 12 rounds?
[SPEAKER_01]: Soft more drafts would make it easier to get the high profile guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now, if you're not a first rounder, you're not going to come to school anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's super fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a squeeze that gets put on the players in some way shape or form, and squeeze on opportunities in some way shape or form, kind of no matter how you cut it, and I almost think that it's worth saying that in any scenario in which the draft gets shortened, I think all of this ends up being a problem anyway, even if the high school player stays eligible, because there is a back of the draft type high school player that maybe signs right now that doesn't
[SPEAKER_01]: sophomore eligible college player that signs now towards the back of the draft that doesn't sign into this current system.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think in conclusion, one thing that will be really important is to just kind of see how this unfolds.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was another point that a lot of these coaches made is like, do we don't know enough yet?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's too many what is that are tied to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I will, this is the provider wrap up this segment of this, which is especially because
[SPEAKER_00]: I can, one of the few things that I feel like I can guarantee, the exact MLB proposal as proposed will not be adopted wholesale.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like now, are there aspects of this that could end up in the next TBA?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, very possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is a negotiation.
[SPEAKER_00]: The MLBPA will be making their own proposals.
[SPEAKER_00]: The two sides will go back and forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: they will absolutely have disagreements as we already know from the statements today about aspects of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously the PA is not going to, they've already made it clear that they are not looking favorably on the idea of MLB slashing roughly $400 million out of a amateur talent acquisition.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will slay that number out.
[SPEAKER_00]: $200 million in current dollars, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the 2026 draft will see more than 401 million in spending.
[SPEAKER_00]: But last year's draft, 25, it's a 401 million.
[SPEAKER_00]: And MLB's proposal will be 200 million for the domestic draft.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's already more than 200 million cutting it more than half.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it'll go up this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: On top of that, the international side, which is not the college part, but on the international side, the international draft would be not would basically eliminate under this CBA, next January signing period, so which also ties into the fact that they would have players be older, international players be older before they would be in the draft, 18 instead of 17.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what you would effectively do is eliminate one signing class over the life of the next CBA,
[SPEAKER_00]: last year's international class received about $200 million in signing bonuses.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you would go from having seven of those classes in a seven year CBA to six of those classes in a seven year CBA.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's another 200 million out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that would be 400.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be
[SPEAKER_00]: four tens of a billion dollars that would be removed from the amateur towel acquisition system.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, that's in one year, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So obviously, if you have $200 million next year, which is a low amount in draft bonuses that has been handed out in the draft in any year since 2010.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then next year's, let's say 210 million, well, that's still gonna be another 200 million.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you add it up, if you just say that on the draft, the domestic graph side, over a, if it's a seven year CBA, that would be removing $1.4 to $1.5 billion from amateur talent acquisition budgets, draft budgets.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's something that the PA obviously is probably not going to be particularly favourable about.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have more about this at BaseballAmerica.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll have more about this that we'll talk about on the podcast as well, but thank you for your time Jacob.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that covers what the ramifications could be for this on the college side.