2020 MLB Draft Will Only Last Five Rounds, Which is Awful News for Players
Major League Baseball has decided how it will proceed with the 2020 MLB Draft. According to multiple reports, the draft be reduced from 40 rounds to five. After those five rounds, teams will be allowed to sign an unlimited number of players for $20,000 each.
The 2020 Major League Baseball draft will be five rounds, sources tell @kileymcd and me. All players who go undrafted would be eligible to sign for a maximum of $20,000. While there was a proposal to the union for a 10-round draft, the sides didn’t come to an agreement.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) May 8, 2020
Amateur draft will be five rounds, sources tell me and @EvanDrellich. Teams can sign unlimited number players after that for $20,000 each. Also reporting: @JeffPassan.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) May 8, 2020
More information from ESPN's Jeff Passan is below:
The 10-round proposal the union rejected included an interesting twist: essentially it was two five-round drafts. Meaning teams would not have been allowed to use slot money from R6-10 to pay guys in R1-5. Proposal also limited the number of undrafted players teams could sign.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) May 8, 2020
It appears the owners want to cut costs so badly they don't want to draft to last beyond five rounds. Despite that, front offices wanted the draft to be longer because of the value that could be mined from later picks. This will now turn things into a bit of a free-for-all where the majority of draft-eligible players will essentially become free agents.
Unfortunately for those players who go undrafted, their bonuses will be capped at a comically low $20,000.
This is just another way the COVID-19 pandemic really stuck it to the draft-eligible players this year. As I discussed with Keith Law a few weeks ago, players in this year's class are getting the short end of the stick.
It's a huge blow to the players and, as Passan points out, it won't really save owners that much money in the end.
There is a lot of disappointment from amateur players, front offices, scouting circles -- really everywhere -- in the decision to limit the 2020 draft to five rounds, and it comes down to this: The slot values for Rounds 6-10 total $29,578,100. That's less than $1 million a team.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) May 8, 2020
Rob Manfred and the owners apparently got their way on this one.