Comments on: Major League Baseball launching a “prospect league” for unsigned Dominican players http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/03/22/major-league-baseball-launching-a-prospect-league-for-unsigned-dominican-players/ Baseball. Baseball. And then a bit more baseball. Tue, 21 May 2013 18:43:28 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: paperlions http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/03/22/major-league-baseball-launching-a-prospect-league-for-unsigned-dominican-players/comment-page-1/#comment-274238 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 11:42:06 +0000 http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=132909#comment-274238 The reason a lot of these guys choose baseball over soccer and basketball is that they can get a nice signing bonus at age 16 or 17. Now, the chance of such bonuses are much reduced as teams won’t have to compete to sign guys. With the greatly reduced chance of such up front money, there will be fewer guys playing baseball and fewer in-country scouts recruiting athletes to baseball.

Compared to the Hispaniola, Puerto Rico is a very rich island; and the inclusion of PR in the draft killed the talent base there already.

]]> By: qcubed3 http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/03/22/major-league-baseball-launching-a-prospect-league-for-unsigned-dominican-players/comment-page-1/#comment-274204 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:08:02 +0000 http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=132909#comment-274204 At a Cactus League game this year, I talked to a talent scout from the DR who explained most convincingly that the international draft is a terrible, terrible idea for the players involved as they would be way underpaid from their N.American counterparts amongst many, many other reasons. This scout had a petition against the draft from every single currently playing latin player I’ve ever heard of.

The prospect league may be a good in-between, but for the latin players’ sake, I hope it’s not a veiled attempt to implement an international draft at a later date.

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