Yankeetorial: Our first pick, Heathcott, signed for less than a 16-year-old

Reason #34 why baseball's leadership should be neutered:


Yesterday, we signed Slade Heathcott -- our "5-tool" (post-surgery) first-round, can't-miss, draft pick -- for a whopping $2.2 million... a figure that will cause Commissioner Bud "$18 million per year" Selig to squirm beneath his $2 rug, because it's "over the slot."

In other words, too much. Teams are supposed to cry poverty with talent.

After all, U.S. players have no leverage, other than to go on and play college ball, for free.


It's rumored that Selig will fine teams for dishing out too much to the 18- and 19-year-olds, who've graduated from high school, or the older guys in college.


Well, on July 2, we shelled out $2.5 million for Gary Sanchez, a 16-year-old Latino catcher.


Yes, age sixteen.

Not only does the current Latino system turn local scouts into pimps, but baseball rewards the main components of the exploitation.

We paid this 16-year-old more than our first draft pick? WTF? How good can he be? How tested could he have been?

If we signed him at 15, would he have wanted more?

I know the lines: "They don't have much down there... it's a different culture... the money goes to large familes... they're hungrier... local traditions... blah, blah, blah..."

If this is such a righteous policy, let's sign U.S. kids at 16? They can forego their junior and senior years of high school, so they can just train to be ballplayers... nothing more!

Think we'd be raising a generation of engineers and doctors?

How many of these Latino kids end up on the scrap heap. They sign at age 12 to a local headhunter (who takes a generous cut), being evaluated by scouts (who are corrupt), and then enter pro ball at 16?

Bud Selig could change it. His legacy will be that he approved it.