An international draft could be here sooner than you think. And it’s still a terrible idea.

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Eric Fisher of Sports Business Journal reports that Major League Baseball and the MLBPA are negotiating to institute a worldwide draft as soon as June 1.  This in response to a provision in the Collective Bargaining Agreement that would impose additional restrictions on how much teams can spend on international signings.

And, as we have long maintained in these parts, an international draft is a bad idea, its actual motivations — often claimed to be a matter of competitive balance — have nothing to do with competitive balance at all and the entire MLBPA-MLB negotiation is being conducted without any input by or voice of those who will actually be affected by the draft.

International signings cost a fraction of what teams pay for free agents and, in most cases, what teams spend for bonuses in the Rule 4 draft as currently constructed. They even cost less than the baseball operations budgets of most teams. Meaning executives, coaches, scouts and coordinators’ salaries. International free agency, as currently constructed, does nothing to keep so-called poor or small market teams out of the game. To see so, one need only look at the two highest profile international signings: Aroldis Chapman and Yoenis Cespedes, who went to the Reds and A’s respectively.

This is simply about cutting a cost at the margins in a way that is easy and makes baseball teams feel good. And the MLBPA will acquiesce because some 16 year-old kid in the Dominican Republic is not in the union and, hey, if he gets a little less, thinks the 30 year-old union rep, maybe I’ll get a little more next winter.  Meanwhile, the incentives for teams looking for and developing talent on the international market are greatly diminished. Because, hey, why should the Dodgers invest money in young players when they might get signed by the Giants?

Drafts restrict the talent pool. It’s as simple as that. By imposing an international draft, baseball is saying it’s totally cool with that.  Which is nuts.

Dodgers place pitcher Noah Syndergaard on injured list with no timetable for return

dodgers syndergaard
Katie Stratman/USA TODAY Sports
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CINCINNATI — The Los Angeles Dodgers placed pitcher Noah Syndergaard on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a blister on the index finger of his right throwing hand.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the timetable for Syndergaard’s return is unknown despite the 15-day designation.

“The physical, the mental, the emotional part, as he’s talked about, has taken a toll on him,” Roberts said. “So, the ability to get him away from this. He left today to go back to Los Angeles to kind of get back to normalcy.”

Syndergaard allowed six runs and seven hits in three innings against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night, raising his ERA to 7.16.

Syndergaard (1-4) has surrendered at least five runs in three straight starts.

Syndergaard has been trying to return to the player he was before Tommy John surgery sidelined him for the better part of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Roberts said Syndergaard will need at least “a few weeks” to both heal and get away from baseball and “reset.”

“I think searching and not being comfortable with where he was at in the moment is certainly evident in performance,” Roberts said. “So hopefully this time away will provide more clarity on who he is right now as a pitcher.

“Trying to perform when you’re searching at this level is extremely difficult. I applaud him from not running from it, but it’s still very difficult. Hopefully it can be a tale of two stories, two halves when he does come back.”