An international draft where kids have to register and submit to uniform medical exams (perhaps where MLB is paying for their health care) cannot come soon enough. I just hate these pre-agreements even when we get a kid like Renteria.
A draft with flexible slots that have dollars attached but are flexible is really needed. Making the international draft have similar rules as the regular draft (reverse order to help bad teams, extra small market picks, trades allowed, etc.) would go a long way towards transparency as long as the relative amount of money for those slots increases as the regular draft pool increases.
There are ways to do this and MLB just kicks the can down the road every negotiation. I think MLB players themselves realize that bonuses offered to 16 and 17 year olds would be more fair than pre-agreements with 13 year olds.
