Such is life when dealing with 18 year olds who can tell you to fuck off, go to college, then re-enter the draft in 3 years..
This is true and the one thing that is now prevalent for all MLB organizations. What other teams did to avoid the embarassment of being told to "fuck off" and see the kid go off to college is throw the money at them that they weren't going to and certainly well offline from the commissioner's outline. Ironically, the MLBPA wouldn't have raise any stink if all teams colluded to hold the line on spending for draftees. The MLBPA doesn't care about non-members to the union, they care if the non-members to the union like these draftees start to effect the mid-class to lower-class MLB player's livelihood though. So in some ways, the MLBPA is a bit concerned that teams have started to throw money at draftees to circumvent the collegiate experience.
Further irony, Houston did this in the past with Try Patton and Jimmy Barthmeir, so they know they can and will do this if they have too. This time they chose to try and hold the line and now look like an inept organization because of it. Which really means that if they're going to hold the line (as a semi-policy), then they better stay away from high school kids in the first several rounds. Had they had this in place several years ago though, Troy Patton would be in this year's draft after completing his third or fourth year at University of Texas and not making his major league debut for the Astros.
