Comments on: How the draft killed baseball in Puerto Rico

By: cyanocittacristata

cyanocittacristata — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:44:03 +0000

This whole situation with the impending “world draft” that MLB wants to implement is maddening. The owners want absolute control to cut costs and snuff out the sometimes dubious handlers and middle men agents.

What they don’t acknowledge is the lack of investment in training and facilities in many of these countries, along with promoting the sport through active involvement . Either you’re going to end up with a vacuum in development in a place like the Dominican Rep. or you could end up only with some elite level league like P.R. ,Mexico, Venezuela, and potentially little else.

MLB owners are busy gazing at their navels while soccer can easily grab the best international talent and athletes with some extra cash. Baseball isn’t protecting itself from potential competition with other sports in the new CBA.

By: sfs1

sfs1 — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:04:02 +0000

And a jump from $40K to $48K is incomparable to a jump from $12K to $16K.

By: JBerardi

JBerardi — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:27:16 +0000

…And baseball just installed severe caps on draft and international bonuses in the new CBA. Wonderful.

By: jwbiii

jwbiii — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:23:20 +0000

About the same as the difference between Canada and the U.S., yes.

By: sfs1

sfs1 — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:24:56 +0000

You do realize that going from $12,700 to $16,300 represents around a 25% jump, right?

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:55:48 +0000

Bicepts and I definitely had our dustups, one or two of them pretty ugly, but to be fair I don’t ever recall an instance of his being “overtly racist.” He was openly contemptuous of cultures with built-in defeatist attitudes and made clear that it had to do with established habits of behavior, ingrained cultural deficiencies that lead to violence and self-subverting conduct, not skin color, heredity, bloodlines or anything else of that sort. If I remember aright he also came back with pretty unimpeachable statistics about domestic violence in the Dominican and all that did was piss everyone off even more at him. If you want to attack his logic and, especially, his negativity about those situations, fine…but “racist”? That’s neither a fair nor accurate description of him.

By: Kevin S.

Kevin S. — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:23:52 +0000

Catering to overt racists like ‘bicepts is always a plus.

By: jwbiii

jwbiii — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:03:14 +0000

Over the same period, Puerto Rico’s has dropped $1,800.

By: jwbiii

jwbiii — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:01:47 +0000

Yes, it’s dropped $1,100 over the last few years.

By: surly1n1nd1anapol1s

surly1n1nd1anapol1s — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:41:43 +0000

Venezuela’s inflation rates would widen that income gap. Good article Craig.

By: jwbiii

jwbiii — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:19:54 +0000

Venezuela's per capita GDP is not that much lower than Puerto Rico's: $16,300 Puerto Rico, $12,700 Venezuela. Unfortunately, the CIA World Factbook does not list income distribution information for Puerto Rico.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:53:17 +0000

It had nothing to do with the decline in baseball. PR was never as poor as those other countries when it was producing great baseball talent. Most teams/scouts are well aware of the effect including PR in the draft had on baseball there; it will be interesting to see if the baseball leaders ignore that precedent and decide to include all amateur talent in the draft….if they do, good by to most of the latin american talent coming to baseball….I guess we’ll find out what is most important to them: talented players or a few million dollars.

By: danrizzle

danrizzle — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:29:49 +0000

I wonder what Alderson means by “a lot to do with it.” How much could Puerto Rico’s socioeconomic situation possibly have to do with the decline in production of talented baseball players, if baseball teams simply don’t invest much there any more.