CBA not that bad

I have been a way for a while. I apologize for that. But it seems like a time to give some thoughts about the Pirates and the CBA. Overall I don't think it is that bad for the Pirates.

Now the new CBA has a slotting system with a minor tweak here or there. That is no doubt bad for the Pirates. They will be given a set amount for the first 10 rounds. If you don't sign a guy you lose his money no matter what. If you sign a guy under the slotted amount, you can carry that over to sign other guys over the slot. If you go over by a certain percent you are taxed 100% on it. If you go over too much then you lose a 1st round pick next year. If you go over a lot you lose 1st round pick the next two years. This is bad, bad, bad for the Pirates. Not good, but not bad for teams always picking at the back of the draft, and out right great news for College Seniors who will see themselves get drafted higher now.

However, some okay things are in there. There were some changes to the Type B free agency and comp picks that won't hurt. Also there is a draft lottery that would give small market and losing teams an extra pick or so. This is good news for small market clubs like the Pirates. More picks means quicker filling up of a depleted minor league system.

The best news in the CBA is the International signing system. Now all International players will be in one common pool. That means less money spent on scouting in Latin America. No more advantage for teams like the Rangers who were far sighted enough to really pour money into Latin America. There is also a set amount that you can spend on players out of this pool, and it is a higher amount for bad teams like the Pirates. Also, if you want you can trade money in the International pool to other teams. This means if a big name prospect has made it clear he is not going to sign with the Pirates. The Pirates can give the money to an AL team for a A ball player or something in order to make sure the prospect signs with an AL team rather than an NL competitor. Instead of just losing out on signing a guy, we can get an A ball player for it. Not bad.

In the end the advantages picked up in the International market I think out weigh the hard slotting system of the CBA. The Pirates ought to benefit. Especially if you think that one day the Pirates will not be picking in the top 10. If we get competitive the International Market becomes vastly more important than the Draft.

The other thing that this can do is encourage the Pirates to sign free agents. I don't think the GM's will like the new system, but I think owners do. Now owners can know how much they are going to spend on international signings and the draft because it is basically slotted for them. This part of their budget is now fixed. No more needing to hold back 10 million because you need to sign the number 1 over all pick. You now know exactly what he is worth. That can save you a couple of million that you can plug back into the current major league product via free agency.

I also think holding down the signing bonuses of guys who have not played pro-ball will help keep prices low in the free agent market at the major league level. Having huge bonuses and MLB contracts for guys in the draft will eventually make mediocre guys in the bigs want to get more money.

So overall this deal is not bad, maybe even slightly helpful. If you think that the Pirates are going to be bottom of the barrel for a while and will have a decade worth of top draft picks then it looks like a bad deal. However, as soon as the Pirates turn competitive, this will look much better or at least not hurt so much in the draft. Even then we could get an extra pick in the draft lottery for our small market.

This CBA puts the focus now a lot more on good scouts rather than big bucks. We will see how that works out of the Pirates.