MLBPA Proposes Preserving Current Draft System, Expanding Eligibility Amid CBA Negotiations
Major League Baseball proposed drastic changes to the league's domestic draft as CBA negotiations continue. On Tuesday, the Major League Baseball Players Association proposed a system far closer to the current setup.
As part of its proposal, the owners and league wanted to slash the draft from 20 rounds to just 12, cut amateur signing bonuses by over $150 million and block high-schoolers from being drafted altogether, per ESPN's Alden Gonzalez.
But the players want high-schoolers and junior college athletes to remain eligible for the draft and for any college sophomores to be eligible regardless of age (the current rule only allows sophomores to be eligible if they are 21).
Additionally, Gonzalez reported that "The MLBPA wants to maintain a system where signing bonus pools grow with industry revenues—it was $358.7 million in 2026, up from $350.4 million in 2025—and provide small-market teams with the ability to increase them. Under their proposal, teams designated as 'small market' under the collective bargaining agreement could add $2 million to their bonus pools in one draft over the next five years. A small-market team would also get an additional $1 million in bonus pool money for making the playoffs the prior year."
The MLBPA also wants to keep the competitive balance pick system in place to help smaller-market teams and wants to decrease the tax penalties for going over a draft slot's pool allotment. The current system punishes teams if they go five percent beyond the allotment—the MLBPA wants to increase that to 15 percent.
Add all of it to the list of topics where the two sides remain far, far apart in CBA talks. The main talking point, of course, will be the owners trying yet again to add a salary cap to the sport, something the MLBPA and its players have routinely said they would never agree to add.
That particular stand-off alone—never mind the countless other topics to negotiate—has created the general sense that a lockout and strike that last well into the 2027 season, if not beyond, are coming.
