AP source: MLB amateur draft facing big cuts

NEW YORK — Major League Baseball will cut its amateur draft from 40 rounds to five this year, a move that figures to save teams about $30 million.

Clubs gained the ability to reduce the draft as part of their March 26 agreement with the players’ association and MLB plans to finalize a decision next week to go with the minimum, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press. The person spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because no decision was announced.

There will be just 160 players drafted, by far the fewest since the annual selection started in 1965, and the combined value of their signing bonus pools is $235,906,800. The amount of signing bonus pool money eliminated is $29,578,100.

Teams made the move with the season delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and the sport trying to cut expenses to cope with revenue loss.

“Particularly given the negligible economic impact to what’s already a cheap acquisition cost, this approach is grossly shortsighted,“said agent Jeff Berry, co-head of CAA Baseball. “To drastically reduce opportunity and talent and talent pools, it stunts growth and diversity at all levels and is really a self-inflicted sabotage of the longterm health and popularity of the game.“

The start date of the draft will remain June 10 and the deadline to sign likely will be pushed back from July 10 to Aug. 1, the person said. The draft will be cut from three days to two.

As part of the agreement with the union, slot values to determine signing bonus pools will remain at 2019 levels and players passed over in the draft are limited to signing bonuses of $20,000 or less. That might cause more high school players elect to go to college. And because of the NCAA’s limit of 11.7 baseball scholarships, the change may lead to more prospects attending junior college.

“You can’t afford to live when you sign for $20,000 in the minor leagues,“agent Scott Boras said. “They also may develop in college to be first rounders, which is the category we’re looking for. So so it gives you more opportunity to have more first rounders.”

Berry said the decision was part of “furtherance down that slippery slope of diminishing the value and the importance of players.”

“For any ownership group that supports this course of action as advisable or, frankly, is so cash-strapped that this mid-six-figure savings is a financial necessity, they should do everyone a favor, including their fellow owners, and sell their franchises,“he said.

All but six of last year’s sixth-round picks signed for $200,000 or more. Chicago Cubs catcher/first baseman Ethan Hearn had the highest bonus of the round at $950,000, deciding to sign rather than attend Mississippi State.