Jonathan Mayo writes about a silver lining for the Pirates in the new CBA. Most of the changes to the Rule 4 amateur draft would appear to be disadvantageous to the Pirates. This one will benefit the Bucs, most likely on an annual basis. As we have seen from Jim Callis' work that Charlie highlighted below, we probably won't have a full read on all the ins and outs of the new system until after the 2012 draft has taken place.

A couple highlights from the article: 1) the lottery picks can be traded by the team (and only that team) that wins them. 2) first round picks that are forfeited due to exceeding the budget cap are put into a separate lottery. Every team is eligible, but there is a weighted allocation.