In other words, beginning in 1991, there have been increasingly more baseball playing jobs for Dominicans and Venezuelans than there have been for Puerto Ricans. Moreover, as the DSL came to employ more ballplayers, it also created incentive for the men who—for a percentage of any eventual signing bonuses—train and advise amateur ballplayers until they sign. (And more still, these men have helped increase the number and quality of amateur talent, which is a big part of why the DSL continues to grow.)

And so the Dominican, and more recently, the Venezuelan presence in the big leagues has exploded, while Puerto Ricans are represented at about the same level as they were 30 years ago.

All of this to say that while the Rule 4 draft has affected Puerto Rican baseball, it is primarily by aligning it with the North American developmental system as opposed to the Latin American system. Meanwhile, assuming that the DSL would continue to exist in its present form, there’s no reason to think that a worldwide draft would have the same effect on Latin American baseball. The clubs have invested in Latin American academies, and the return on the investment has been good. They have built the capacity and there’s no reason to think that they won’t continue to fill it.