How CBA affects Draft, free agency, international market

As Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association negotiated a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, it appeared that there could be some bones of contention regarding how teams acquire amateur talent, both through the Draft and internationally.

The agreement was announced Wednesday night, just over an hour before the previous CBA was set to expire. With it came some changes to the rules governing amateur acquisition, but given what was potentially on the table, they seem more like tweaks to the existing system rather than a complete overhaul.

The idea of an international draft, something that reportedly held up negotiations up for a while, was dropped as the deadline approached, leaving out what would have been a seismic shift in the CBA. But there were some smaller adjustments made domestically and internationally.

International cap and Competitive Balance picks

While owners wanted to institute an international draft to help control spending in those markets, it proved to be too large and complicated a step to take at this time. But there will be a hard cap that cannot be surpassed, ranging from $4.75 million up to $5.75 million, set for teams that want to acquire international amateur talent.

Here’s how it will work, starting with the 2017 signing period: Every team gets at least $4.75 million. Any team receiving a Competitive Balance Round A pick in the Draft will get $5.25 million in international bonus pool money. Teams receiving a Competitive Balance Round B pick will have $5.75 million to spend.

With that comes changes to what was known as the Competitive Balance Lottery. In effect, it is no longer a lottery as all teams eligible for those picks will be assigned one, either in Round A or Round B. The same teams are deemed eligible — ones that are in the bottom 10 in revenue or market size. Six will be awarded picks in Round A based on a formula that considers winning percentage and revenue. Those six teams will pick in Round A in 2017, 2019 and 2021. The remaining teams — estimated to be between six and eight — will pick in Round B in those years. The groups of teams, which will not change for the duration of the new CBA, will switch picking in Round A and B in alternating years based on their initial assignment of round in 2017.

Under the old CBA, teams were awarded international bonus slots based on reverse order of standings, meaning teams with the worst records got the highest international bonus pools to draw from. For example, last year the Phillies had the largest pool of just over $5.6 million by virtue of having the worst record in baseball in 2015. (In addition, Philadelphia had an assigned value of just more than $9 million for the Draft’s first pick. The Twins have an assigned value of $7.4 million for the first pick in the 2017 Draft.)

Under the last agreement, teams that went over their allotted pools were taxed a percentage of the overage and, if they went too far over the pool, would lose the …

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