Major League Baseball has sent a memo to the 30 teams warning them not to encourage draft-eligible prospects to essentially drop out of school, and instead establish residency in a foreign country so they can sign as an international free agent, reports ESPN. Drafted players can only sign with the team that drafts them. International free agents can sign with the team of their choosing.
Here is part of the memo (via ESPN):
"It has come to our attention that Clubs have been encouraging amateur players in the United States to withdraw from, or otherwise refrain from playing, high school baseball in the United States and/or Canada, in order to try to establish residency in a foreign country, in an effort to make themselves eligible to sign under the International Amateur Talent System instead of the Rule 4 Draft."
The Rule 4 Draft is baseball's annual amateur draft, which takes place during the All-Star break. Players in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico are subject to the Rule 4 Draft. All others are international free agents. The international signing period runs from Jan. 15 to Dec. 15 each year.
Teams receive a set bonus pool for international free agency each year and the bonus pool is a hard cap, making it difficult for the player to negotiate a larger bonus than in the past, when international free agency was uncapped. What teams could do, in theory, is convince a player who won't fall to them on draft day to become an international free agent so they can acquire him that way. MLB wants to put an end to that.
It is possible for some draft-eligible players to instead go through international free agency without running afoul of MLB's rules. New York Yankees prospect Henry Lalane, for example, has dual citizenship in the United States and Dominican Republic. That allowed him to skip the draft and pick his team as an international free agent rather than be at the mercy of the draft.
The three-day 2024 MLB draft will begin Sunday, July 14. Here are our top 30 draft prospects.
