NCAA's Rule on Agents and the MLB Draft is Senseless and Stupid

Ten high school seniors were taken in the first round of this year's Major League Baseball draft. Seventeen college juniors were picked, too. They and all the other high school seniors and college juniors picked in this year's draft share one thing in common: They cannot use an agent to negotiate with their prospective employers. We all got a lesson last year in what can happen if they do.

Speaking of that lesson, the Philadelphia Phillies aren't exactly known for their acumen. And that's probably understating it a little. By one analysis, their previous 10 drafts ranked dead last in baseball by a wide margin. But perhaps things are looking up. Many analysts ranked their 2013 draft as fairly successful. "The Phillies had my favorite top five picks of any draft class in the NL," wrote ESPN's Keith Law. But it was players the Phillies took with their sixth and seventh selections who made news for the team the following winter.

The Phillies had taken Oregon State's Ben Wetzler in the fifth round and Washington State's Jason Monda in the sixth. Neither player signed. Baseball America ranked the duo No. 3 and No. 4 of the "Ones Who Got Away" in its autumn draft round-up.

In February, BA's Aaron Fitt reported the Phillies accused both Wetzler and Monda of NCAA rules violations, and turned the two into the NCAA. Though the NCAA eventually cleared Monda, it suspended Wetzler for 11 games, or 20 percent of the season.

The rule-breaking by the pair? The Phillies alleged each used an agent when negotiating with the team. NCAA rules prohibit players from hiring an agent in order to negotiate with a team. Though players can have a lawyer or agent look over contracts and offer advice, any contact between an agent and a pro team is verboten. The agent can't even be in the room when a player is negotiating with a team. This is what apparently got Wetzler. Though he handled contract negotiations with the Phillies on his own, at one point an agent was in the room when he was meeting with team executives.

The rule is silly, but there is an upside. The teams generally ignore it. Players use agents to negotiate with clubs and, if they don't sign, return to school as if nothing happened. "Every single player that we deal with—I don't care what round you're talking about—has representation, has an agent," an AL scouting director told Baseball America in 2008.

The players who are suspended by the NCAA for using an agent usually get caught because of the NCAA. Per Baseball America, the Phillies were the first team to turn in a player who didn't sign with them since the White Sox narced on A.J. Hinch in 1992.

The MLB draft isn't like the NBA or NFL drafts where players declare their eligibility. Players are simply drafted whether they like it or not. They can be selected directly out of high school or after their junior or senior year of college. Teams negotiate with players before the draft to assess their likelihood of signing, and teams have incentives to attempt to take signable players: In addition to losing the draft pick, current draft rules limit the amount of bonus money teams can spend on players when players in the top 10 don't sign. That bonus money just can't be reallocated elsewhere. The Phillies later indicated they believed both Wetzler and Monda would sign and were upset neither decided to.

A BA reporter called the Phillies' narcing "unprecedented." The baseball media burned the team. "I'd suggest a pox on the Phillies' house but jeez, Ruben Amaro Jr. doesn't need my help," SI.com's Jay Jaffe tweeted. "I guess we should be happy Phillies are only a baseball team and not in the position to do things like report Chinese dissidents," tweeted ESPN analyst Dan Szymborski. Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal called the Phillies' actions "inappropriate." Eighty-four percent of fans polled on Phillies blog The Good Phight were "unsatisfied" with the Phillies' statement on the issue.

A forum thread headline on SportsHoopla.com put it succinctly: "Phillies front office: Spiteful shits."

The Phillies were silent on the issue for months, but director of scouting Marti Wolever finally broke the team's silence in an interview with reporters before last weekend's draft. He says that, despite initial reports to the contrary by agents, the flare-up hadn't harmed the team in negotiations with any agents. And  —though general manager Ruben Amaro said he wishes the team had handled it better — Wolever says he's not upset or embarrassed at the way the Phillies acted. In fact, he's proud! "You wouldn't believe the number of people in professional baseball who have come up to me and our group over the course of the year and say, 'Thank you for what you did,'" Wolever told reporters "You guys aren't the bad guys in this situation."

Turning in players on dumb rules violations certainly makes the Phillies look bad, but whether they are bad guys—Wolever said the team was responding to a questionnaire from the NCAA—isn't really the point. The NCAA rule is stupid. It should be changed. It's as simple as that. The NCAA has been under fire for exploiting college athletes the last few years, but this rule doesn't even do the NCAA any good. It's a pointless rule, one protecting an imaginary ideal of amateurism—but it even fails on that measure. Logically, there's nothing about hiring an agent to consider turning professional that compromises an athlete's amateur status. It's a rule for rule's sake. Teenagers have to negotiate with billion-dollar businesses on their own. It's tremendously unfair, and the NCAA isn't even making any money from it! It's especially dumb, even for them.

Oregon State was incredibly angry. In a release announcing Wetzler's 11-game suspension, the school blasted the NCAA for the stupidity of the rule. "A student-athlete sought advice on whether to go pro or return to school," Steve Clark, the school's vice president for University Relations and Marketing, said..

"He received that advice, and now he is being punished by the NCAA for making a decision to complete his education—a decision that we should all applaud. This is inexplicable."

"Once the player is drafted, there is no compelling reason to deny a player the opportunity to obtain maximum value for his services," Florida Coastal School of Law wrote in a 2005 paper in the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, "even if that requires retaining an experienced agent to negotiate with the club." Players are drafted in the middle of the college baseball postseason. They are busy! They should be able to have an agent negotiate for them. Even the Phillies' Wolever sees the stupidity: "I think the NCAA needs to stand up and say, look, all these kids are represented, they have agents and advisors, if you are going to have rules, then enforce them, and if you are going to not, then don't have them."

Wetzler was selected again this year in the 9th round by the Miami Marlins, his draft stock possibly dropping a bit after being arrested for allegedly breaking a window while drunk.

Monda, of Washington State, doesn't want to play pro ball and is going to med school.

Everything worked out, it seems. These are isolated incidents. But that doesn't make it any more sensible.

The NCAA really needs to change the rule and allow kids to use agents. It's only fair.