Handling International Players First Year in MLB

[joeizzo]

The handling of international players coming to the MLB has been handled inconsistently during our auctions over the year.  In my mind these players should not by allowed to be nominated at auction.  Further, I don't think they qualify as rookies since they have been playing in an international league such as Japan or KBO.

I think these players should be subject to FAAB when the season starts unless they've played in the US minor leagues for some period of time.  In that case they could be minor league draft eligible.  We would obviously need to work out some kinks but I think we should get a clause like this into our rules.

Thoughts?

[tomfool]

IDK, I like that they are avail for the draft. If we had mixed leagues, I could see us treating them differently, but since we do NL/AL Only leagues, I personally feel like a guy coming back from or over from KBO or over from the NPB/JPL as similar to a guy going from AL to NL or vice versa. Most of the time, these guys go right onto major league rosters; whereas players coming from other foreign leagues like the Mexican or Cuban leagues seem to need more seasoning in the minors. Just my two cents.

[Crosley]

Allowing Kim to be purchased in Uecker started with my mistake - adding him to AVL after auctions started. The AVL lists need to be frozen no later than the morning of the day of the first scheduled auction. Hence, if they are on a team's 40-man roster or invited to spring training, they would be available, barring any other errors on my part.

[geoflin]

I also like having international players available for the draft. Some have been immediate stars (Ohtani, Matsui, Nomo, Abreu, Ichiro, etc.) and I don't like the idea of spending a big portion of FAAB money on the first day of the season to acquire one of them.
I do agree that they should not qualify as rookies if they have played in the equivalent of the major leagues in their country but that doesn't really affect us.