Amateur News: No More Undrafted Signing Cap, International Draft Negotiations, Lawsuit Settled

There were a trio of major baseball news developments this weekend that, thanks to the Draft, the double-header, and the Juan Soto scrambling, I haven’t had a chance to share.

And with Day Two of the Draft looming, I’m just gonna hit them quickly. But these are all really notable items …

I’ll start with the one most draft-related:

News: Undrafted players will no longer be capped at $20,000 signing bonuses.

NDFAs will be eligible to sign for any amount, although any amount over $125,000 will count against a team's bonus pool. It's a return to the system in place pre-2020.https://t.co/ZXUokSYTJN

— Kyle Glaser (@KyleAGlaser) July 16, 2022

Thank goodness this is back, because the Cubs had historically been aggressive in this space (relative to other clubs), and those new limits had kinda removed a lot of the incentive for undrafted players to sign. Hopefully the Cubs will once again be aggressive with the six-figure bonuses for their preferred targets.

Next up, the International Draft, which isn’t yet a thing:

For players who go undrafted, MLB has proposed a maximum signing bonus of $20,000, while the MLBPA has proposed a maximum signing bonus of $40,000. There's a lot more to these proposals, but per usual, the gap in the money is the dominant matter. Deadline is July 25.

— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) July 15, 2022

The newsy bit there is that the sides are still negotiating, but are still – predictably – far apart on the dollars. Remember: if they don’t figure this out by July 25, then the current system stays in place, and the Qualifying Offer system stays in place, too.

Lastly, the long-time minor leaguer minimum wage/overtime lawsuit against MLB has finally been settled:

Now at ESPN: Major League Baseball agreed to pay $185 million to settle a federal class-action lawsuit by minor league players for minimum-wage and overtime violations by teams dating back to 2009, pending judge's approval.

News story, free and unlocked: https://t.co/wEXVZdADXx

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 15, 2022

It is not a coincidence, in my view, that as soon as MLB’s federal antitrust exemption started getting seriously threatened, they moved quickly to settle this suit. In theory, settling this suit does not end possible political efforts to close the antitrust exemption, but in practical effect, it might.