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Elephant Rumblings: MLBPA reengages on international draft

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Tony Clark, executive director of Major League Baseball Photo by Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images

It’s the weekend, Athletics Nation!

Hey, remember the MLB lockout? It seems so far away now, back in March when we were treated to photo after photo of men in slacks walking across parking lots, and when people who had taken stock photos of locked chains wrapped around a baseball were making a killing. In the depths of negotiations running up to MLB’s self imposed deadline to start the season on-time(ish), one negotiation piece that kept being pushed by the league was an international draft.

By the time the lockout was lifted, MLB and the union had agreed to table the topic in an effort to just get playing. The set date for a resolution on the topic is July 25 but it isn’t just to do with an international draft, because its implementation is tied to the removal of the qualifying offer for departing free agents. If the two sides agree on a way to pull off the international draft, then the qualifying offer that has been in place since 2012 will be removed. No international draft? Then the qualifying offer stays as it is.

The negotiations were back and forth during the lockout, often with minor changes to money available to be given to players, or tweaks to the potential draft structure. ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez provides an excellent breakdown of how the two sides got to where they are now, and what their motivations are. Friday’s new proposal from MLBPA is the first movement on this front that we have seen since the lockout. With two weeks left to go, expect to hear more back and forth between the sides as July 25 will approach quickly.

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