On Monday, June 8, the 2015 MLB First-Year Player Draft will take place live from the MLB Network studios. As with any draft, young lives will be forever changed and instant millionaires will be born. But what separates the Major League Draft from either the NBA Draft or NFL Draft is the fact that anyone is eligible to be drafted by one of thirty MLB clubs. This creates an interesting and confusing dilemma not only for potential MLB draftees who have committed to play baseball at the collegiate level. But also for current redshirt sophomores and third year juniors, given that they are 21 years of age, who are already playing college baseball.
Since baseball draft prospects do not have to declare for the draft, they do not forfeit any NCAA eligibility, so long as they follow rules that have been set by the NCAA. Prospects are permitted to receive input from what some have dubbed as an advisor, but not an agent. The only problem with that is the NCAA does not define what an advisor is. As is often the case with the NCAA and its rule book, there are plenty of “grey” areas regarding advisors. With the NCAA not defining what exactly an advisor is or is not, many institutions have had to come up with their own definitions in order to educate student-athletes.
The Compliance Department at Arizona State University defines an advisor as “a person who provides advice or counsel to an athlete or his family relating to the athlete’s value, proposed contract, or other subjects related to the draft.” While the NCAA refuses to define what an advisor can do, the NCAA clearly defines what an advisor may not do on behalf of any draft prospect. According the NCAA’s own memorandum dated January 1, 2015 “an advisor will be considered an agent if they contact teams on your behalf to arrange private workouts or tryouts” or if the advisor is “present during the discussions of a contract offer with a professional team”, advisors also are not allowed to “have any direct contact with the professional sports team on your behalf”. The NCAA also states that the advisor must be compensated by the draft prospect for any work completed by the advisor on behalf of the prospect.
So the NCAA allows, prospective draftees to hire a non professional to give them career advice, but that said individual can’t speak with any club that may draft the prospect. The same holds true after the draft as well. The life altering decision to go pro or go to school isn’t always clear. But in order to stay compliant with NCAA rules, young men and their families are often forced to make a decision without always having the best available advice or resources.
Without being able to hire an agent to fairly negotiate a contract between the professional ball club and player, draftees are at a disadvantage when securing a long term contract. Player contracts can be complex, and a bad contract can severely limit the player’s potential earnings as a professional. But because the player has not made a decision between college and professional ball, and does not want to risk losing eligibility he is stuck in no man’s land
By not allowing baseball players to hire agents, the NCAA is putting many young players in a no win situation. The NCAA already has different rules in place for different sports regarding the draft, so why not allow players to hire an agent? There are already deadlines in place for players to declare if they are going pro or enrolling in school, hiring an agent would simply allow the player the ability to make the best decision for him and his family. Clearly the NCAA is concerned with a hired agent providing extra benefits to a student-athlete once he has enrolled, but lets be honest, this could happen anyway.
If the players were allowed to hire an agent, the NCAA and university compliance departments would have to be made aware and could then monitor the situation more closely. There is simply too much at stake for the NCAA to force drafted players to pick between college baseball and professional baseball without having the ability to access the best tools available.
You can read the entire NCAA Memorandum here.
Feature image via R. Schultz
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