Selig Wants Baseball to Add ‘Competitive Balance Draft’

The worst eight teams in baseball would be able to select players from the top eight in a new “competitive balance draft” proposed by Commissioner Bud Selig.

The teams with the eight highest winning percentages over the previous three years would be able to protect 25 players apiece in the draft, according to a 37-page memorandum sent to teams last week and obtained by the Associated Press.

Only the teams with the eight lowest winning percentages over the previous three years would be allowed to make selections, and they could select only one player each. The draft would take place annually after the World Series but before the end of the winter meetings each December.

Because the teams with the worst records are often the ones with the least money, they could attempt to draft high-salaried players and trade them to wealthy clubs for younger and less expensive talent.

Selig told his staff to present the proposal to owners for approval when they meet in Phoenix on Jan. 17-18.

Owners also are being asked to vote on a variety of rule changes, many of which the Major League Baseball Players Assn. may challenge:

* Making all players around the world subject to the June draft, which would eliminate much of the ability of Cuban defectors and young Dominican stars to command huge signing bonuses.

* Changing the eligibility for college players in the draft from players in their junior seasons to those in their senior seasons, taking away the leverage of players who threaten to return to school.

* Forcing all draft picks to sign by July 15.

Agent Tom Reich said the changes were tied to the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement next Oct. 31.

“This is labor dispute foreplay, firing shots across the bow,” he said. “This is the kind of stuff that has gone on forever.”

Owners also are to vote on eliminating draft-pick compensation for teams losing free agents, part of the settlement of the 1981 strike.

Another rule change would prevent drafted players who aren’t offered contracts by clubs from becoming free agents.

Other changes would allow teams to trade draft picks, which is allowed in the NFL, NBA and NHL, but not baseball.

Owners also are being asked to allow teams to use any players from their organization on their postseason rosters, not only those on Aug. 31 active rosters and the disabled list.

General managers again recommended owners ask the union to change the rules for breaking a three-way tie for a wild-card spot that includes two teams tying for a division title.

Under current rules, teams tied for the division lead meet in a one-game playoff, with the winner advancing and the loser eliminated, since its winning percentage would drop below that of the third team.

General managers want the loser of that playoff to meet the third team in another one-game playoff for the wild-card berth.

While shifting the nonwaiver trade deadline from July 31 back to June 15 was discussed, no change was recommended by the commissioner’s office.

Miscellany

With the Winter Olympics less than 14 months away, Salt Lake City officials are trying to find tenants for 18 boarded-up buildings downtown. Low-interest loans are available to enable existing and new businesses to make improvements. City officials hope Salt Lake City can benefit from the Olympics just as Atlanta did. Parts of Atlanta that had been crime-ridden before the 1996 Summer Olympics now are thriving with business and housing developments.

Heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis is contemplating retirement but first wants to fight Mike Tyson, he told British Broadcasting Corp. radio Sunday. Lewis thinks the fight, which has not been scheduled, could take place in the middle of next year.

Frankie Andreu, a teammate of two-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, retired from cycling and will become the American director of the U.S. Postal Service team. Andreu, 34, from Dearborn, Mich., has raced for 11 years as a professional in Europe and has competed in the Tour de France nine times.