THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

This is something I have always argued about. There are people here in DR who claim that a draft would significantly reduce the quantity of prospects getting signed, and that we may be headed in Puerto Rico`s direction. But I agree with Sandy Alderson`s statement in that both countries have different social and economic situations, and it is very unlikely that Dominicans boys would turn away from baseball if they are force to enter an international draft. The only affected party in a draft would be the buscones, since they are the ones benefiting from the free agent system that awards big bonuses, from which they take a major cut.

"The only affected party in a draft would be the buscones...”

The players would make millions of dollars less. Pretty sure that is a big issue, regardless of the “different” economic climate.

Yes, there’s no doubt top prospects are going to get less money in a draft, but that does not mean top athletes in the DR are going to choose another sport or would prefer getting a degree, like it’s happening in Puerto Rico.

The top players are already going to get less under the new CBA.  IN addition to the draft slot pools there is a specific allocated pool for international players.  For the next signing period it’s going to be 2.9M per team.  After this first year it’s going to be team specific and based on market size and winning percentage I think. 

Now teams will be able to trade cap space and we’ll have to see how that works, but this past year several international players received bonuses for more than 2.9M.  I doubt a team is going to blow it’s whole international budget on a single 16 yr old kid.  Even without the draft there is huge new pressure on bonuses.

In regards to Alderson’s point that’s reinforced in post #1, the decline in Puerto Rican players has to be about more than just their inclusion in the draft because at the same time Canadian players were added to the draft and there are more quality prospects coming from Canada in the draft era than before.

i’ve also got to believe that there is more going on than merely a draft/no draft switch that’s been flipped that’s caused the decline of interest in baseball in puerto rico. i can easily believe that including the island in the draft did nothing to help the situation, but there is no way its as simple as some people are making it sound.

i especially got a laugh out of that Bernier guy saying the problem is they can’t build more baseball fields because the island is full. sure, it’s densely populated by US standards, but still less so than New Jersey.

don’t really know what the answer is either, if there is one. MLB could do more to beef up the academy it runs, but it doesn’t look like theyve gotten much of a return on that investment, so theyre probably reluctant to pour any more money into it. most likely it’s just PR’s MLB players/total population ratio drifting back down to typical levels of US states. PR has close to the same population as Oregon, Oklahoma and CT. according to this

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/birthplace.php?y=2011

the # of players in 2011 by birth was PR 32; OR 17; OK 12; CT 9. Doesn’t seem like there is much of a crisis going on from that perspective.

this post also shows that PR is still doing well representing itself in the majors.

http://threetwocount.posterous.com/which-country-has-the-highest-percentage-of-m

i guess when you only compare PR to the DR, which has 3 times the total population, btw, it doesn’t look so baseball crazy. but then, no one does.

i suspect the draft inclusion and the proportional decline in players is much more coincidental than causal.