Draft Could Be a Sign of Things to Come

Major league baseball’s annual amateur draft will take a historic turn today when Canada’s Adam Loewen and Jeff Francis are selected in the first round.

The left-handed pitchers, both from British Columbia, are projected to be among the top 15 picks in the 50-round draft, the first time two Canadians will be among the first 30 players chosen overall.

The growing presence of the Great White North in the draft is the latest example of the continuing globalization of America’s pastime. Today’s events, however, are probably only a harbinger of things to come for a draft that has been, for the most part, an all-American affair since its inception in 1965 when Arizona State outfielder Rick Monday was selected with the first pick.

But future top picks seem as likely to come from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic ... or Sapporo, Japan ... or Sao Paulo, Brazil, or even Siberia.

Major league club owners and the Major League Baseball Players Assn. both have proposals on the bargaining table related to a worldwide draft. Among negotiating issues, the draft ranks well behind a luxury tax on high payrolls and increased revenue sharing among the owners, but each side has a stake in its implementation.

Owners are fed up with paying multimillion-dollar bonuses to both domestic draftees and foreign free agents. A majority of owners also believe that big-budget teams such as the Dodgers, New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves have left an unlevel playing field for procuring international amateur players.

“It’s become a bidding war for the upper-echelon players internationally, and most teams cannot pay the price,” said Kevin Towers, general manager of the San Diego Padres.

The union’s interest in a worldwide draft is viewed as largely symbolic, a potential bargaining chip in what historically have been acrimonious labor negotiations. The players also may have a vested interest: Dollars not spent on unproven talent could be pumped into big league salaries.

Scouting directors agree that, when it comes to the draft, this year is possibly the start of a new world order when it comes to identifying and signing international talent.

“We need to have the competitive level come back to earth,” said Duane Shaffer, senior director of scouting for the Chicago White Sox. “You have to spread the talent around evenly and let the best people put together the best team.”

The draft, held each June, currently covers players in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, though foreign players attending U.S. schools are also eligible. Players can be drafted during their senior year in high school, while attending a junior college, after their junior year at a four-year college or if they turn 21 within 45 days of the draft.

That has not stopped scouts from finding and signing global talent.

According to figures released by the commissioner’s office, of 849 players on major league rosters or the disabled list on opening day, 26.1% were born outside the 50 United States, an increase of nearly 6% since 1998. The players came from 15 countries.

Nearly 50% of the 5,781 players signed to minor league contracts were born outside the continental United States. Some 2,865 came from 31 countries, including 1,536 alone from the Dominican Republic.

The success of foreign players such as reigning American League most valuable player Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners, the Olympic Games, satellite television and the Internet all have helped the game grow internationally. As the growth continues, so will the talent pool available to major league teams.

“I’m a believer that in 10 years or less, China is going to be involved,” said Chuck McMichael, an Atlanta Brave scout who has been involved on the local, national and international level for 22 years. “Within five or less, Europe is going to be heavily involved.”

Baseball, fearful of losing its antitrust exemption, was the last of the four major professional sports in the United States to adopt a draft. The National Football League was the first in 1936, the National Basketball Assn. next in 1947 and the National Hockey League held its first draft in 1963.

In absence of a draft, baseball owners agreed to a bonus rule in 1946 to discourage and penalize teams for shelling out big dollars to sign amateur players. It was scrapped in 1957 because teams found creative ways to sidestep the rule every time it was modified.

In 1950, the Pittsburgh Pirates made Lomita High graduate Paul Petit the first $100,000 bonus baby. In 1961, the Pirates again set a bonus record by giving Long Beach Wilson shortstop Bob Bailey $175,000.

But the watershed moment in pre-draft history came in 1964 when Rick Reichardt, a football and baseball star at the University of Wisconsin, signed with the Los Angeles Angels for $205,000. In that same year, according to draft historian Allan Simpson of Baseball America magazine, major league teams spent $7 million to sign amateur players--more than they spent on major league salaries.

The next year, when owners finally decided to move forward with a draft, they achieved a short-term victory of sorts when the Kansas City Athletics selected Monday No. 1 out of Arizona State and signed him for $104,000.

Bonuses increased relatively slowly until 1978 when outfielder Kirk Gibson signed with the Detroit Tigers for $200,000. In 1989, Louisiana State pitcher Ben McDonald signed with the Baltimore Orioles for $350,000 and John Olerud, a pitcher and first baseman, received $575,000 from the Toronto Blue Jays as part of major league contracts.

Pitcher Brien Taylor was the first player to break the $1-million mark when he signed with the Yankees for $1.55 million in 1991. Pitcher Kris Benson got $2 million from the Pirates in 1996 and third baseman Pat Burrell received $3.15 million from the Philadelphia Phillies in 1998 as part of an $8-million major league deal.

Last year, signing bonuses for first-round picks ranged from the $900,000 that the St. Louis Cardinals paid pitcher Justin Pope as the No. 28 selection, to the $5.15 million that high school catcher Joe Mauer received from the Minnesota Twins as the No. 1 overall pick. Mark Prior of USC was selected No. 2 by the Chicago Cubs. His $4-million bonus was less than Mauer’s, but his deal included a major league contract that increased the worth of the pact to $10.5 million, the most by a drafted player in history.

Meanwhile, bonuses paid to foreign players also have increased.

“When I first started, you could still sign players in Latin America for $3,000, $5,000 or $10,000. If you got into $20,000 or $25,000, it was a pretty big money,” said Jeff Schugel, the Dodgers’ director of international scouting. “Now the low end is $25,000 to $50,000, and the high end is as much as they are getting in the high rounds of the draft.”

The Dodgers, who have a staff of about 20 full- or part-time international scouts, did not have a first-round pick in last year’s draft, so they took the money that would have been spent on a domestic player and signed 16-year-old Dominican shortstop Irvin Joel Guzman for $2.25 million. In April, the Dodgers signed Dominican pitcher Jonathan Corporan for $930,000, although the deal could be voided because of questions surrounding his age.

To curb that kind of spending on free agents, the owners are proposing one 40-round draft that would include amateur players from every country but Cuba. Any player not selected in the draft would be a free agent eligible to negotiate with any team. Those already playing in professional leagues in their countries would not be eligible and would continue to go through a posting system as Suzuki of the Mariners and pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii of the Dodgers did in Japan.

The union proposal calls for two drafts--one eight-round draft for amateur players from the United States and one eight-round draft for amateur foreign players. Players not selected could negotiate with any team.

“Our proposal is pretty simple--it would give all clubs equal access to the best talent in the world,” said Rob Manfred, baseball’s executive vice president of labor relations. “The union proposal would be a disaster. It would take 42 rounds of players currently picked in the [50-round] domestic draft and turn them into free agents.

“Obviously, if they are free agents, the teams with the most money would get the best players, and we think that would be bad for competitive balance.”

Gene Orza, deputy to union chief Donald Fehr, said the union proposal would still protect the negotiating rights of most players not currently subject to the draft, which he describes as an “essentially insidious thing” that restrains the right to freely market one’s skills.

He said calling the union’s proposal a disaster is counterproductive. “Is that the kind of language that gets the players’ association to be sympathetic to their concerns?” Orza said.

Agent Scott Boras, whose representation of players such as Taylor, 1997 holdout J.D. Drew and others changed the economics of the draft, said baseball has several political and logistical obstacles to overcome if it intends to implement a worldwide draft. Boras favors a two-draft setup that would include scouting combines at various locations around the world.

“Everyone can reduce their scouting costs by having combines,” Boras said. “By having these combines, we’re all going to know where [the players] are, and they are going to be seen. They are going to learn about the system, clubs are going to learn about them, and they are going to better spend their money.”

Deric Ladnier, scouting director for the Kansas City Royals, said he would welcome a worldwide draft. In today’s market, Ladnier said, the Royals cannot compete for premium Latin American players because of budget constraints.

“It may allow us to draft a Latin American player that, normally, would be a guy we wouldn’t be able to walk in the front door and try to sign because the Yankees or Dodgers might sign him for a million dollars.”

Ladnier, however, said that a worldwide draft would not cause the Royals to set up a scouting operation in the Pacific Rim or other international outposts as many other teams have.

“If other teams want to fight it out for a player over there, it might allow us to get a player from the United States that we may have normally not been able to compete for,” Ladnier said. “That’s a good thing for us. And for other small-market teams.”

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Times staff writer Ross Newhan contributed to this report.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The order of selection for the 2002 first-year player draft scheduled for today and Wednesday includes 11 compensation picks between the first and second rounds, nine for Type A free agents lost after the 2001 season and two additional picks for the failure of the Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Indians to sign first-round picks in 2001.

Teams are awarded compensation in the form of draft picks based on the type of free agent involved.

A team losing a Type A free agent gets the first-round pick of the team that signs the player, as well as a supplemental pick. A team losing a Type B free agent receives only the signing team’s top pick. In both cases, a team selecting in the top half of the draft rotation cannot lose its first-round pick.

The loss of a Type C free agent provides a team a pick between the second and third rounds. Teams losing Type C free agents to minor league contracts will only be compensated if the player makes another club’s major league roster.

*--* FIRST ROUND

*--*

1. Pittsburgh

2. Tampa Bay

3. Cincinnati

4. Baltimore

5. Montreal

6. Kansas City

7. Milwaukee

8. Detroit

9. Colorado

10. Texas

11. Florida

12. Angels

13. San Diego

14. Toronto

15. Mets

16. Oakland (from Boston for Johnny Damon, Class A)

17. Philadelphia

18. White Sox

19. Dodgers

20. Minnesota

21. Cubs

22. Cleveland

23. Atlanta

24. Oakland (from Yankees for Jason Giambi, Class A)

25. San Francisco

26. Oakland

27. Arizona

28. Seattle

29. Houston

30. Oakland (from St. Louis for Jason Isringhausen, Class A)

*--* SUPPLEMENTAL FIRST ROUND

*--*

31. Dodgers (for Rangers signing Chan Ho Park, Class A)

32. Cubs (for Mets signing David Weathers, Class A)

33. Cleveland (for Texas signing Juan Gonzalez, Class A)

34. Atlanta (for Yankees signing Steve Karsay, Class A)

35. Oakland (for Giambi)

36. Cubs (for Yankees signing Rondell White, Class A)

37. Oakland (for Isringhausen)

38. Cubs (for Rangers signing Todd Van Poppel, Class A)

39. Oakland (for Damon)

40. Cincinnati (for failure to sign draft pick Jeremy Sowers)

41. Cleveland (for failure to sign draft pick Alan Horne)

*--* ADJUSTMENTS IN SECOND ROUND

*--*

51. Dodgers (from Texas for Park)

56. Cubs (from Mets for Weathers)

65. Atlanta (from Yankees for Karsay)

71. Yankees (from Cardinals for Tino Martinez, Class B)

*--* SUPPLEMENTAL SECOND ROUND

*--*

72. Cleveland (for Baltimore signing Marty Cordova, Class C)

*--* ADJUSTMENTS IN THIRD ROUND

*--*

82. Cleveland (from Texas for Gonzalez)

87. Detroit (from Mets for Roger Cedeno, Class B)

96. Cubs (from Yankees for White)

*--* ADJUSTMENTS IN FOURTH ROUND

*--*

112. Cubs (from Texas for Van Poppel)

*--* ADJUSTMENTS IN FIFTH ROUND

*--*

142. Colorado (from Texas for Jay Powell, Class B)

Source: Baseball America