Mark Appel, the Pirates’ No. 1 pick and the player some believed was the top pitcher in the draft, remains highly unlikely to agree to Pittsburgh’s $3.8 million offer as Friday’s 5 p.m. ET deadline approaches.
There is nothing to indicate Appel is about to change his mind, and the Pirates are believed very unlikely to raise their offer because it would mean the loss of a coveted 2013 draft choice, so the somewhat slim hope for a deal may rest on some sort of intervention by MLB higher-ups, or the ability to prove a flaw in the rules or how they were followed by other teams. There is no accusation or thought the Pirates did anything wrong.
Appel, the right-hander who surprisingly fell to the eight overall pick in the draft, would return to Stanford in the fall to complete his degree if nothing can be worked out.
The Pirates have spent more than just about any other team on drafted players the past couple years, but under the new system their total allotment to spend on draft choices was only $6.5 million. Since they spent $2.7 million on all their other picks, they are left with $3.8 million for Appel, assuming they aren’t willing to surrender a ‘13 pick.
The new system, designed to curtail wasted spending on draft choices, was orginally met with disdain by some agents who believed the best players may be needlessly hurt, and while MLB officials have seem pleased by the new rules and their effects, they have said they want to wait until the July 13 deadline before making final judgment. One MLB official said he has sensed some “grumbling” from the union side over the Appel case.
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1. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Griffin (Vlad) Posted: July 13, 2012 at 02:45 PM (#4181893)I hope not. I guess we'll see.
What does not appear in this article? "Appel was unavailable for comment," "Appel did not respond to requests," etc.
At this point I can't read Heyman saying "His adviser, Scott Boras, declined comment Thursday," without noting that it's entirely possible Boras commented on Friday. Heyman could have worded it this way specifically to give Boras plausible deniability that he'd prompted this article. That's how much credibility Heyman has regarding Boras clients now.
I'm with #2.
I wonder if you could get all the 1st round picks to agree not to sign for slot. It'd be hard (and probably a bad idea for the lower half of the first round) to get kids to give up a year of prime development and the first real payday they'll ever see. But since the MLBPA essentially refuses to represent non-MLB players, they'd need to do it themselves.
Really even that would probably be ineffective, because I think the owners could deal with one lost class, and then you've doubled the supply for the next one. You'd have to get them organized even earlier than this, before the draft.
I think in 30 years we're going to think of the treatment of prospects much like we think about the reserve clause today.
That's not quite right. If they go over, they pay a tax, as long as they don't go over by 5%. You only lose a pick if you are over by 5%, so it seems there's about 325,000 room to negotiate there.
Edit: I guess that wiggle room is already accounted for in the 3.8 offer, as his slot is only 2.9 million.
Can you still do the St. Paul Saints year and then go free agent?
Only if you go undrafted after that year in indy ball.
You don't say?
Giolito signed with the Nats for $2.925 mill
Mets did not sign 2nd rounder Teddy Stankiewicz
Padres sign 40th round Terrance Owen, a QB for Toledo
If "we" is a handful of people on this board, we're probably there already. If "we" is baseball fans at large, I can't see it. The draftees who becomes stars are going to make nine figures; who's going to remember their first contract? The ones who bomb out ... well, to the general public, they weren't any good anyway, so why lose sleep over them getting a "mere" couple million in their one shot at a payday? (Hell, that's the main reason why you'd likely find that professional sports fans as a whole support draft slots ... there was a pretty big groundswell for them in the NFL.)
Sure, there will be some kids who get injured or flame out and lose a few million in this process, but that's not going to resonate with the general populace like all-time greats having to work day jobs in the offseason.
Totally different. The logic there was that deals for top draft picks had gotten so out of control that they were impacting teams' ability to sign veteran free agents. I'm not enough of an expert to know how true that was, but it's certainly plausible.
And with the Clarett (?) case, it's hard for me to see a legal basis to challenge it.
EDIT: I should add that the most likely scenario is that the union decides to push this cause. That's possible but as long as most of the money saved on the draft finds its way into union members' pockets, the union won't have a problem with this. Anyway, there will likely be some tweaks over the next few years, especially if a Strasburg or Harper or Prior goes unsigned, but I think the general system is here to stay.
More like the top draft picks were getting more than even the highest paid veterans in the NFL, and that was pissing off the NFL players, but not necessarily the NFLPA. The only thing that impacts a team's ability to sign players in the NFL is the salary cap.
The public didn't give a hoot about player salaries back when they did have to work day jobs in the offseason. Believe me, I know, I was there.
But then I decided that, although maybe phrased oddly, the original poster wasn't necessarily saying it would be public sentiment that would change things. Not that they think about it but most fans now would view the reserve clause as an anachronism I think. Not as big and unjust an anachronism as the color barrier but nobody's openly expressing nostalgia for the reserve clause.
The Clarett decision kinda surprised me (again, I'm not a labor lawyer so maybe it shouldn't). And I wonder if there isn't wiggle room in baseball -- most baseball draftees do not immediately become members of the union so could one argue that, in baseball, this is not "controlling entry to the profession" (or whatever the phrasing in Clarett was).
I have never really thought of the Yankees as crazy over-slot with their first round picks, certainly not on a level as the really aggressive teams like the Royals or Tigers. They gave Slade Heathcott double his slot value (for some reason), but Cito Culver was right at slot and Bichette and Ian Kennedy only got somewhat more than slot money. And then of course Gerrit Cole simply didn't sign. There was Brackman of course though...
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