International Players/2020 Draft

[Guardians]

A couple things we will need to decide in the next few months for everyone's consideration.

Issue: MLB's July 2 signing period was moved to Jan. 15, 2021 due to COVID. The effect on us is that we typically draft starting Feb. 1. With only two weeks of time to sign, that could mean that some portion of players don't become eligible for the draft. Additionally, our rules (posted below), state that players who sign during the prior calendar year are eligible for our draft. There are still a slew of international players (non-J2...the Cespedes/Darvish types) who have not signed and may not sign in the next six weeks. So, I think we have a couple issues to work out to make sure players are properly drafted vs. signed.

Rule: Players subject to the draft will include any amateur player who has been signed by an MLB organization during the prior calendar year, whether through draft or international signings. (EXAMPLE: If a player was signed to a contract during calendar year 2018 but had not been signed to a contract prior to 2018 then he is eligible for the IBC 2018 draft, which is held in February 2019). Any players not subject to the MLB International Free Agent pool (such as professional players from Cuba, Japan, Korea and Mexico not affiliated with an MLB organization prior to the previous calendar year (2018 for the IBC 2018 draft) are eligible to be drafted. If the player does not officially sign with an MLB organization prior to the beginning of the IBC draft, they are not eligible to be drafted until the following year.

Discussion:

I think we need to consider a March 1 draft date to provide extra time for the J2/now Jan. 15 signing period as well as MLB-eligible Cuban/Japanese/Korean players. That will help make sure we have a robust international pool for our draft.

Second, based on my reading of the rules, players are going to be signed after Feb. 1 that probably shouldn't be drafted until 2022 and shouldn't be eligible to be created as free agents. I think that's going to be tricky for us. There will be 16-year-olds who sign but not in time for our draft but really should be left for the 2022 draft. Regulating it may be tough, so I think we need to consider some type of interim rule that covers this issue that COVID has caused.

Open to discussion for ideas/thoughts.

[Padres]

With Zips projections starting to come out we should probably clarify that any player subject to the upcoming IBC Rookie Draft (for example, Crocket and possibly a few international players rumored to be posted) are not included in the Zips bidding draft regardless of if they receive a projection ...

[Guardians]

I think the zips rules I posted clarified that, but we'll handle as they come up.