A long-lasting standoff between Free Agency and the draft seems to be reaching its end. Since the early 1900’s MLB teams have signed free agents out of Latin America, starting with Cuban Players Armando Marsans and Rafael Almeida debuting for the Cincinnati Reds in 1911.

Teams started getting enamored with cheap imports, and scouts started trolling through Cuba “plucking talent” (essentially kidnapping), with the Washington Senators one of the teams truly leading the way by the 1930s. Five years ago, I wrote about many baseball’s histories with Cuba, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, highlighting their entry to the Major Leagues.

When the color barrier was broken, Minnie Minoso led the way as one of the top players coming out of Cuba, and then the floodgates opened. Juan Marichal and Roberto Clemente led the standard of international free agents that came and graced the Major Leagues with outstanding play. But with that came risk, as teams started lining their Minor Leagues with kids getting younger and younger, and a new arms race began of signing athletic children as soon as possible.

A story of caution, was Jorge Lebron, a player signed by the Phillies in 1974, who joined the organization at the age of 14 and was just too immature to play. During that time, he was called a huge star, but he just wanted to play and be a child.

The bigger story was Jimmy Kelly, a 13-year-old Dominican shortstop signed by the Blue Jays in 1984, who was too young, and couldn’t handle the pressure of being a professional athlete. After Kelly, MLB adopted the rule to sign players after they turn 16, and named it after him.

Towards 1987, teams started ramping up their prices for Latin American players, and started making academies in both Venezuela and the Dominican Republic. Fangraphs chronicled the expenditure on free agency, with a total of 344 players signed for $974,850.

Teams started trying to find the “next best thing” in every country, with top players signed and starting to receive seven-figure contracts by 2000 as teams were one-upping each other until the league started pushing back on them.

MLB pushed the International Free Agent Pool, which was circumvented when the Red Sox signed Yoan Moncada for $31.5 million and didn’t care about spending another $31.5 million in taxes. The Yankees blew through their pool and had a spending spree in 2014, (which ended up giving them not much in overall baseball value). As these deals started coming in, other teams started to wonder, “How can we compete with that?”

The next Collective Bargaining Agreement in late 2016 sought for overall caps. Teams could trade for money, but the overall payments were hard-capped, unless under $50,000.

In 2016, teams spent $210,356,500 on 804 international free agents. In 2017, though, the 30 teams spent $148,540,500 on 800 players, which meant the cap curbed spending by more than $60 million.

But this made an ethical dilemma for scouting directors: teams are agreeing to contracts with players younger and younger to get the guys they’ve scouted, as Baseball America explained last month. Players that are agreeing to contracts at ages as young as 12 or 13- even younger than Jimmy Kelly. International Showcases showed players three years from now, not the ones in the next year.

While there were once arguments about the care and money situation for these kids, it evaporated due to to the new rules as money had to be kept down on teenagers. These are children starting to go through puberty that are agreeing to five-to-seven-figure deals. The trainers and the international directors, who were once opposed, are now conflicted, now that we’re pulling back into Kelly territory. I was personally very against the draft, but this new field puts too much pressure on children who should be doing something other than focusing on baseball.

Okay, historical stuff out of the way. This brings us to Wednesday, where Baseball America reported that the Owners and Union were talking about free agency for young international prospects finally coming to an end and instituting an IFA Draft with the possibility that it could come into play as early as next season or in 2021.

Concepts are being considered, wherein this current one, slot guidelines are going to have a hard cap. If a player is drafted, and the slot is $3,340,043, the player will have to sign for $3,340,043 and no higher. Another concept will do away with tanking for picks. Instead of the worst teams getting the top pick, it will go by division.

For instance, in one year, the National League East will be at the top, with the Marlins, Mets, Phillies, Nationals, and Braves getting the top five picks, and then it will go to maybe the NL Central or AL East and go down the line from there. These are just ideas and concepts being considered at the moment, but it looks like they will be wanting to limit bonuses and make sure that teams no longer tank for picks.

While many teams and scouts agree, here’s the rub. The development system has to change. Showcases and earning rapport with trainers early on in the player’s training was the way the system worked for a few decades now, and if the way players are signed changes, so does the way they are trained. Stay tuned as things will get interesting when this new system is integrated.