From the midst of Craig Calcaterra's riff on Bob DuPuy's recent Mike & Mike appearance:

DuPuy went to call for a reformation of the draft to add international players. Though he didn't say it explicitly, he was also clearly advocating for hard slots on amateur signing bonuses. Both of those things will be demanded by the owners the next time the Collective Bargaining Agreement is up for renewal. If I had to guess now, I'd say that the players will give that to the owners, simply because neither of those things directly impact current players.

Well, maybe. But those things haven't directly impacted current players in the past, either. Yet the draft wasn't changed despite MLB's efforts to do exactly that. The problem has always been that the players have always been willing to change the draft, but like everything else it's a bargaining chip. You want to change the draft? Fine. Give us a 26th roster spot.

Or whatever. The point is that when it comes to the Collective Bargaining Agreement, nothing's free. It doesn't matter if the draft directly impacts the players. It's a bargaining chip, and the players aren't going to just give it away. So then it's a question of how badly the owners want it, and this point they haven't wanted it badly enough.

Will that change in 2011? Nobody can say. Changing the draft -- it will be argued, anyway -- might accomplish two things. It might enhance competitive balance, and it will almost certainly save the clubs some money. But a fair number of owners don't care much about competitive balance, and we're not talking about a great deal of money here. Not relative to the money earned by the major leaguers, anyway. So it's not clear, to me anyway, if the owners are really willing to go to the mat on this issue.