Image credit: © Brett Davis-Imagn Images
MLB offered up the first post-opening round proposal in collective bargaining, and it is the culmination of a number of ideas that the league has been pushing, to various degrees, for decades now. The introduction of an international draft; cutting back on spending for domestic amateurs; further deemphasizing the minor leagues, and offloading a not-inconsiderable percentage of its developmental role to college baseball and its own coffers; further gutting free agency and the money to be potentially made off of it. Unlike with a salary cap, where plenty of fans and some media members have been thinking that maybe it’s the answer for some problem somewhere, this proposal is clearly, obviously designed for nothing beyond saving a buck.
