A big thanks to David Cameron at FanGraphs for breaking some news on transactions in MLB.
As you may recall, in the past, drafted players were not eligible to be traded until at least 1 year after they’d signed. For that reason, some teams – the Padres with Trea Turner most recently and egregiously – would wait six months from the signing post-draft, and then trade those players as players to be named later (who must be “named” within six months – thus, the team gets to trade the player six months earlier than they’d otherwise be allowed … but the player has to remain in an organization that no longer has a vested interest in doing the best job of development that it can).
It was a bit of a kerfuffle this time around, and Cameron reports that the rule has now been changed. You can read the full statement Cameron obtained, which was sent to the 30 teams, but the gist is: starting with this year’s draft class, drafted players can now be traded in the year they were drafted as soon as the World Series ends.
That’s a thoughtful solution to an obvious problem, and I don’t really see it creating any new problems. You can’t use PTBNL rules to get around this one, though – in other words, you can’t trade a just-drafted player in July as a PTBNL, and then “name” them when the World Series ends. The earliest a drafted player can be traded is right after the World Series concludes, and they cannot be the PTBNL in a trade before that.
Full stop. That’s it. New rule. I like it.