pinstripealley
Mexico City, Mexico - April 26: Major League Baseball Commissioner Robert D.
Manfred Jr.
speaks to Kwanza Jones and Jose E.
Feliciano during Game 2 of the MLB World Tour Mexico City Series between the San Diego Padres and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Alfredo Harp Helu Stadium on Sunday, April 26, 2026 in Mexico City, Mexico.
(Photo by Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images) By now most fans know that MLB has proposed a significant overhaul in the Rule 4, or domestic, draft.
It would make high school players ineligible and college players eligible after the sophomore year instead of junior, reduce the draft overall from 20 rounds to 12, and cut the bonus budget by more than 30 percent.
There are numerous knock-on effects of this, secondary and tertiary fallouts that we can anticipate and bemoan their coming.
Its funny that I wrote about the MVP field yesterday Bobby Witt Jr.
would finish first or second in balloting if the vote were held today, and he was drafted out of high school.
Konnor Griffin, the graduated consensus top prospect in baseball, high school draftee.
Gunnar Henderson, Mike Trout, Madison Bumgarner, Alex Rodriguez, Mel Ott ...
the history of baseball is littered with examples of greatness as teens or 20-year-olds who didnt need college seasoning.
Why make Mike Trout, famously underscouted, play two years at Pitt before he can join an MLB organization? The impact this would have on free agency is perhaps most profound.
It would be virtually impossible for a player to reach the majors before his age-22 season, meaning he becomes a free agent after his age-28 season.
I think the league may dangle some service time changes in CBA negotiations to cleave a gap between younger and older players in the union, but keeping the six-year system as it is means players will be at the end of their primes when they hit free agency.
Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani got their contracts when they hit the open market at 30 and 29, respectively, but they are not the model example.
The younger you are, the more youre going to make, and MLB deliberately engineering an ever-older free agent class increases downward pressure on those earnings.
Not to mention you incentivize players signing extensions early, when players see a modicum of a salary bump than MLB minimum but you still have Ronald Acuna Jr.
making $12.5 million a year as a 28-year-old.
Most of all, we see MLBs continual attempt to control all of baseball itself, not just the federally-protected, Supreme Court-ratified monopoly they enjoy over the top flight of the sport.
This has come in waves, from thinning out the minor leagues after 2020, making broadcasts harder to watch than ever, and seemingly being fully committed to missing games in 2027 when the collective memory of anyone who was around in 94 knows how dark an idea that is.
The more that MLB constricts, contracts, and breaks faith with its most faithful, the more we can start to see that its been late-stage capitalism all along.
This thing that I love with all my heart, that I commit ridiculous amounts of time and brain space why do I have Aaron Judges career OPS memorized? Why? is a black hole, a maw so dense that no dollar will be able to achieve escape velocity.
For a moment in the spring I was hopeful that Rob Manfred would start to worry about his legacy.
Hes coming to the end of his term with a work stoppage on the horizon, and while he is a very effective, and very well-compensated, heat shield for a 30-man country club committed to spending ever less, hes still a man.
Legacy should weigh on the minds of the ambitious look no further than the Presidents fervent desire to put his name on everything he possibly can and I had a hope for just a little bit that that weight would motivate Manfred to care about baseball, the small b that isnt in the acronym of his employer.
But I dont know if its possible for Rob to care about small-b baseball.
Hes certainly not incentivized to care about it, the proverbial general trusted with a weapon his livelihood depends on him using..