Now we speculate, debate and wonder.
President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that the United States and Cuba were working to normalize and relax relations between the two nations, and if this leads to an ease in trade and travel restrictions that have been in place since 1961 as a result of the Cold War, Major League Baseball will see a significant influx of Cuban talent.
Several MLB teams have been planning for this day, but lifting the embargo between the countries would most likely come with stipulations that would not allow for an all-out raid on Cuban players.
It would also force MLB and the MLB Players Association to implement some kind of international draft for 2017 after the current collective bargaining agreement expires in December 2016. However, while that process would benefit MLB clubs by suffocating player salaries, the Cuban government would probably fight to keep its players free from the draft in order for it to collect commissions on signing players.
"We've really got to review what we're doing with our draft and our international players to really say what we do with the Cubans," agent Scott Boras told Associated Press writer Ronald Blum. "Maybe it will prompt a broader discussion to revamp the entirety of the system."
What baseball certainly does not want is for U.S.-Cuba restrictions to be lifted without other restrictions in place. Having every player on an entire baseball-loving island become a free agent at the same tick of the clock would be a fiasco and difficult to police.
Koji Watanabe/Getty Images
MLB does not want an open season on Cuban players where the richest teams can simply head to the island and pluck its best players. Cuba would not oppose such a system since the government will act as players' representatives and take a cut of whatever open-market contract a player netted.
MLB and the MLBPA have issued statements that basically say they will monitor the situation and act accordingly, but to believe the commissioner's office has not been prepared for such a development is to call it naive, which it is certainly not. This, along with a possible international draft, is a topic that has been on Bud Selig's desk for years and will pass on to new commissioner Rob Manfred when he takes over on Jan. 25.
Because an international draft is at least two years away, the most likely scenarios for dealing with the Cuban situation is to put it in one of two categories.
The first is putting Cuban players into the kind of system that exists for Mexican players. When a major league team signs a player, typically under the age of 18, he already is affiliated with a Mexican League team. That team develops the player before eventually "selling" him to the major league team for a 75 percent commission.
Pres Obama did MLB huge favor w/ Cuba. Now instead of giving huge contracts based on workouts & brief tourny views, teams can really scout
— David Waldstein (@DavidWaldstein) December 18, 2014
Such a system would likely work for the Cuban government since it would make its money. According to Baseball America's Ben Badler, some Cuban baseball officials favor this option because the country could essentially sell its players directly to major league clubs for a huge portion of the players' contracts.
The second option is a posting system like the ones MLB has with Asian professional leagues such as Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball and the Korea Baseball Organization. Under those systems, the player's team—in Cuba's case it would be the government—would inform MLB that the player is up for bid, or posted.
Japan and Korea's systems differ slightly in how the bidding process works, but Badler believes MLB would lean toward Japan's updated system. In it, the player's team sets a "release fee" of up to $20 million. Every MLB team is free to negotiate with the player, and the team that signs him then pays the set fee to the player's former club.
There is also the possibility of some sort of hybrid system that implements both the Mexican and Japanese rules. But again, much of this is speculation at this point since MLB has never publicly discussed this situation, and team executives aren't always privy to such happenings.
What is certain is Manfred will not allow players on the island, which has about a million more people than the Dominican Republic and is just as baseball-crazed, to become unrestricted free agents in the way defectors can now after establishing residency in another country, usually Mexico or the Dominican Republic.
What is also fairly certain is major league teams won't jump to set up baseball academies in Cuba the way they have in the Dominican and Venezuela. Because the signing rules may change shortly after the embargo is potentially lifted, teams do not want to waste resources on an academy that could become irrelevant if Cuban players are subjected to an international draft.
Plus, Cuban baseball is advanced enough that players can continue to develop there without a major league presence. That is why players such as Yasiel Puig, Jose Abreu and others have had immediate success in the majors. They are ready for the major leagues when they leave the island.
There is another factor in play if U.S.-Cuban relations improve to a point of open trade and commerce, one that is far more important than whatever system MLB chooses to implement for Cuban players.
Such an improved relationship between the countries also means no more life-threatening defections for Cubans, ones that have led to kidnapping, violence, affiliations with drug cartels and Cuban government discipline for those who have failed in their attempts to flee. If players and normal citizens are allowed to travel back and forth between the United States and Cuba, those risks are immediately eliminated, and players do not have to abandon their families on the island for a chance to play in the majors.
For everything else beyond that, we will continue to speculate, debate and wonder until MLB cements its rules if and when they are necessary.
Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.
