Only (slightly reasonable) possibility is that Boras will use Appel to challenge the whole slotting system.

A fair world would have no draft. It might well not work in professional sports because the rich teams would dominate, but don’t punish people for wanting the freedom to negotiate.

If you don’t want the degree that is fine, too. Odd are that most players won’t. But if you have a job and have made a lot of money or are in business, the degree thing is a personal goal, not a necessity.

Why should amateur players abide by the “spirit of the draft?” The entire thing was set up by two parties (current players and owners) specifically to siphon money away from them and transfer it to those two groups. Players holding out for more money amounts to somebody firing a BB gun over the Rio Grande and your response would be the equivalent of the US nuking Ciudad de Juarez.

They could have put an end to “this nonsense” by leaving the system as it was, in which smart small-market teams were the biggest spenders on amateur talent because it pays off in spades. Instead, they set up a system where teams pass on better talent not because they’re too stupid to pay the bonuses, but because MLB actively enforces penalties for doing so.

Go Mark Appel. Go Pirates. Screw Bud Selig and his cronies for allowing this to happen.

They need to change the rules so that players who refuse to sign are banned from professional baseball for at least 3 seasons if they refuse to sign with the team who drafted them.

Sure, as long as the AAV of the contracts are equal to or above the starting salary of a MLB first year player (~450k now). Or do the indentured servants, I mean players, not get a choice in this matter?

The whole idea of the draft is that the weaker teams can improve by selecting higher in the draft.

When a player refuses to sign or sits out a year in order to to reenter the draft it violates the spirit of the draft and what it’s intended to accomplish.

They need to change the rules so that players who refuse to sign are banned from professional baseball for at least 3 seasons if they refuse to sign with the team who drafted them.

That would put an end to much of this nonsense.

The Detroit Tigers selected Granderson in the third round of the 2002 amateur draft, after his junior year at the University of Illinois at Chicago. As the son of teachers, Granderson felt a familial obligation and personal desire to graduate. So, while playing for Class A Lakeland in 2003, he asked the Tigers if they would accommodate his desire to fulfill his degree requirements. The organization agreed, even though his obligations to baseball didn’t cease.

So Appel could easily still get his money and still get the college degree if it really is that important.

Looks like a no-win situation for the Pirates,

http://www.nola.com/zephyrs/index.ssf/2012/07/kevin_gausman_will_return_for.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

-Scott Boras

Next years draft looks stronger than this year

This has to be the latest troll here at HBT. Who says it’s stronger?

They aren’t supposed to, but it happens all the time. In fact both KG and Klaw mentioned this year it probably happened far more than usual so teams could game the system.

However, the Paxton issue had to do with the NCAA’s gestapo like tactics of suspending players for violating their bylaws, in doing something that any one of us would do. Each year the NCAA sends out a survey to all players, high school and college, asking questions like, did you hire an attorney to speak on your behalf with a team? Did you hire an agent?

If players say they did either of those things, the NCAA has and will restrict their eligibility to play in college*. If you refuse to answer the survey, they have and will restrict your eligibility to play in college. Paxton fell into the latter category, and Kentucky, rather than risk getting their season tossed out, removed Paxton from the team.

*Can you imagine being a 17 year old HS senior and being drafted in the bottom of the first round, and being unable to have anyone advise you on the process? The NCAA is a f’ing sham.