NEW YORK, July 21 -- Today, the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) continued negotiations with Major League Baseball by making its first proposal on the Rule 4 amateur draft. 

Rejecting MLB's proposals that would demolish the current system by shrinking the draft, slashing benefits by hundreds of millions, and removing all players' right to negotiate, the MLBPA offered a framework that would maintain the economic structure of the Rule 4 draft, provide lower-revenue clubs enhanced access to amateur talent, and provide millions in benefits to such clubs that achieve succeed on the field. 

Among the key components proposed by the MLBPA:

• Preserving eligibility for high school and junior college players while expanding eligibility to college sophomores—designed to ensure the best amateur talent has the freedom to choose when to begin their professional careers.

• Retaining a 20-round draft—designed to maintain a healthy pipeline to professional baseball while protecting Major League and Minor League markets across North America.

• Increasing signing bonuses, not decimating them—designed to reward the world-class athletes entering our game and make baseball economically attractive to elite athletes choosing between professional sports. 

• Maintaining competitive balance selections for smaller markets—designed to support those clubs with enhanced access to amateur talent.  

• Maintaining the freedom for draft selections to negotiate signing bonuses and other benefits—designed to ensure players retain actual negotiation rights, as opposed to being dictated to by clubs or the league.

To further aid competition, reward player performance, and provide additional advantages to lower-revenue clubs, the MLBPA also proposed:

• Granting lower revenue clubs the flexibility to increase their signing bonus pools, while providing automatic pool increases to such clubs that qualify for the playoffs. 

• Reducing the taxes and penalties assessed on teams that spend over a signing bonus pool.

Other draft proposals made by the MLBPA included: Moving the draft to June in order to provide a longer season for recently-drafted players; permitting clubs to trade draft picks, subject to certain restrictions; increasing player compensation under the Incentive Bonus Plan; and removing the current practice of clubs deducting certain bonuses from players' continuing education benefits—all designed to help attract young talent to baseball and promote competition.