MLB owners propose limiting high school signings and reshaping international amateur rules in CBA talks

Major League Baseball owners floated a set of proposals during collective bargaining agreement discussions Thursday that would significantly change how teams add players from both high school and abroad. According to Yahoo Sports, the owners’ plan centers on two major goals: reducing direct access for high school players to sign with major league clubs, and altering the international amateur pathway by raising the age at which players become eligible to sign and by cutting into the leverage of signing-bonus negotiations.

The most visible change in the proposal would be a ban on high school signings, meaning major league teams would no longer be able to enter into deals with players directly out of high school. MLB has long used international and amateur markets to supply talent to its 30 clubs, but a prohibition on high school signings would shift when and how teams can begin contracts with prospects in the U.S. amateur system and would likely send younger players toward alternative routes, such as college development or other domestic pathways.

For international amateurs, the owners’ plan would raise the signing age to 18. As described by Yahoo Sports, the age would be measured as 18 on Sept. 1 of the player’s signing year, up from a current baseline of 17. The proposal also calls for slashing the amount of money spent on signing bonuses, which would be intended to reduce the range of outcomes created by negotiations between clubs and prospects and to limit how aggressively teams can bid for top international talent.

These changes are framed as components of a broader negotiating effort over how the sport’s revenue and labor structure will operate during and after the next CBA cycle. Even without a finalized agreement, proposals like these matter because they can alter team strategy well before any formal rule takes effect. International scouting staffs, analytics departments, and development pipelines all rely on expectations for when players will be available to sign, how much teams can spend to acquire them, and what types of contracts prospects realistically face.

The international market, in particular, has been shaped by the economics of signing bonuses, which can vary widely from one player to the next. If owners succeed in tightening or reducing the bonus amounts tied to negotiations, teams may adjust their priorities toward prospects who project as ready to develop quickly, or toward approaches that emphasize longer-term evaluations rather than immediate acquisition costs. That could change the competitive balance among organizations that have historically emphasized international spending and those that have focused elsewhere.

On the domestic side, a high school signing prohibition would compress one of baseball’s traditional early entry points for talent. Depending on what replaces it in the final CBA, the transition could increase the role of amateur drafts, collegiate competition, or other systems that keep players in organized baseball while teams preserve the ability to evaluate them over longer windows.