THE LOCKOUT HAD been lifted, a new collective bargaining agreement was in place and so Omar Minaya ventured out for spring training. It was the middle of March, and Minaya, the former front-office executive who is now employed by Major League Baseball as an amateur scouting consultant, had a simple, yet critical, job: Discuss MLB's pitch for an international draft, a subject that had nearly blown up an entire offseason of bargaining, with as many players as possible.
The abbreviated camp restricted him to one trip to Arizona, where he visited the complexes of seven teams.