Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Union have been releasing some proposals for the new collective bargaining agreement, as the old one is set to expire following this season. The proposals have been extreme and unlikely to end up in the new CBA, but a recent idea could end up impacting college baseball in a positive way, in the unlikely scenario it makes it in the final cut.
Kiley McDaniel and Jeff Passan of ESPN reported that MLB owners want to disallow high school players from being eligible
for the MLB draft, among other things, outside the purpose of this discussion. They write:
High school players would be ineligible for the domestic draft and need to be at least two years removed from graduation to be selected
The domestic draft, currently 20 rounds, and international draft both would last 12 rounds
College baseball, which MLB in a statement called “an increasingly important pathway,” would receive an influx of high-end talent annually and serve as a mandatory stop in the domestic development pipeline
The proposal itself is pretty straightforward. All high school players need to wait at least two years to be drafted by MLB teams. This will result in most of those players attending college or junior college, although perhaps some will go to play somewhere internationally. However, if the NBA is any indication, that will be more the exception rather than the rule. Also of note, with a smaller draft, fewer players will be selected, which means players who were projected to go in the back half of the draft will opt to remain in school to continue their baseball careers. They wrap it all up by summarizing that the college level will become mandatory and increase the talent pool for those programs.
That selfish decision by MLB owners is obviously where college baseball programs can benefit.
With more talented high school players attending college to play baseball, the overall talent pool of college baseball gets better. Similar to football and basketball, the top programs will benefit the most, with the rest of the talent trickling down, but it should benefit everyone.
Teams like Oregon State will still secure many of the top players out west. However, the higher the number of great players available, the more likely it is that more of them will come to programs such as San Diego State, Nevada, or Grand Canyon. It could bring the overall level of talent up in the Mountain West or Pac-12 conference.
While it’s true that if the entire D1 talent pool increases for baseball, then the gap between top programs and mid-majors will still remain. That being said, if the mid-major programs get talented players who aren’t the stars, the ones who are often going to college out of high school regardless, they may be less likely to get drafted in this proposed system. Or at the very least, less likely to get drafted until their junior or senior seasons. If those players use most of their college eligibility, it could lead to better teams and better competition in the Mountain West and Pac-12.
Again, there is no sense dwelling on this because of how unlikely it is to happen. But what would end up being a loss for minor league baseball could end up as a significant win for the mid-major college baseball programs out west.
