Sometimes you have to feel sorry for Bud Selig, just as you would for a child who watches other kids in the neighborhood playing with toys or games he wants but his parents won’t let him have.

For example, Selig, the baseball commissioner, always wanted a payroll cap and in his zeal to get it, he was a pivotal participant in the ouster of his predecessor, Fay Vincent, and in the owners’ bargaining strategy that killed the 1994 World Series.

But Selig failed to get the payroll cap the other professional team leagues had.

More currently, Selig wants a hard-slotting system that would reduce the bonuses for players selected in the annual amateur draft, but he faces another fight to get it. This is something the other sports have as well, and Selig says why not us?

Unlike his disastrous experience with the payroll cap, Selig is confident he will get what he wants this time.

Speaking at Major League Baseball’s draft earlier this week, Selig said, “The clubs have voted, the GMs have voted, and everybody’s for slotting.”

The commissioner, however, is a little ahead of himself on two counts. First, everyone in M.L.B. does not favor a hard-slotting system. The Boston Red Sox have expressed opposition to it, and if the Red Sox are against it, you can bet the New York Yankees are, too.

Second, everybody is not for such a system. The commissioner might have meant everybody on management’s side, which a spokesman said he did, but the fact that the union opposes the idea makes for significant opposition that Selig cannot ignore.

Michael Weiner, the head of the union, declined to discuss bargaining issues because the two sides have agreed not to comment publicly on the ongoing negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, but in responses he gave to questions before the talks began Weiner said the union didn’t like the idea of a hard-slotting system because it served as a cap, and we know how the union feels about caps.

In a hard-slotting system, the league sets a maximum signing bonus for each position in the top rounds of the draft. A team can negotiate a lower bonus – unlikely – but not a higher one.

The person who would probably be most affected by such a system is Scott Boras, the high-profile agent who often represents many of the top draft choices and has made millions of dollars in agent fees.

I called Boras to get his reaction to a hard-slotting system and reached him on his cell phone. But I apparently caught him off guard; he must have been expecting someone else.

Boras doesn’t like me – my questions over the years apparently have been too tough for his liking, just as my critical and questioning comments about him have displeased him – and after pausing for a second or two, he stammered, “I’m in a meeting. I’ll call you back.”

But Boras did not prove to be a man of his word. Not surprisingly, he did not call me back. (UPDATE: Boras did call back two days later after this column was posted.)

The commissioner’s office has engaged in slotting for several years, but the numbers have been recommendations and have often been ignored. A hard slot would mean exactly that – a hard and fixed number that could not be raised.

In researching the subject of slotting, I came across an article by Sean Forman, the editor of Baseball-reference.com, who makes a mistake common to observers who don’t understand the union’s thinking.

The union, Forman wrote last August, “does not and can not care one iota for players not on the 40-man and does not in any way shape or form represent them. They are the major league baseball players association. Their responsibility is to guys who have made (or will soon) make the show – full stop. “As such, they would love hard slotting (assuming it isn’t a backdoor to the cap) that frees up money for major league vets, and they would love the removal of FA compensation, which only increases the value of existing major league free agents.”

Forman, whose expertise is in statistics like WAR and VORP, strayed into unfamiliar territory, failed to see the connection between slotting and capping and demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of how the union overlooks no player, no matter where he plays.

The union apparently is even prepared to agree to a change in the draft rules that would allow teams to trade draft choices as teams can do in other sports. The commissioner didn’t mention that possible development because the clubs have always opposed the idea.

“How does it make sense that teams can’t afford draft choices and pass on them and get worse?” asked Tom Reich, a senior player agent. “Why don’t they have the right to trade draft choices so they can improve quickly like the other sports? How can you prevent that? Do I think something has to be changed? Yes, I think there need to be changes in the system.”

The owners, however, have long opposed the proposal to trade draft choices. Nevertheless, it’s possible that the current negotiations could produce the revolutionary system.

“I think the clubs would allow trading draft choices within a certain draft program, not within the current program but in the context of the right draft rules,” said a man close to many of the owners. “Trading draft choices is something the clubs could accept.”

He didn’t spell out any possible plan, but it only makes sense that for the owners to agree to the trade of draft choices, they would require the union to make one and possibly two concessions.

One would be the hard-slotting system. The other would be an international draft, covering players around the world who always have been signed as unrestricted free agents.

The owners want the new draft to restrict the bargaining leverage of young players, who are mostly from Latin countries, and to spread the talent. The start of an international draft would be similar to and have an equivalent effect as the amateur draft that was begun nearly 50 years ago. Players’ bonuses would shrink, and players would be dispersed.

Besides the union’s opposition to it, an international draft would have to overcome the geopolitical obstacle of opposition from the countries whose young players it would affect. The signing of 16-year-old players has become a cottage industry in Latin countries like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

With the relationship between the union and the commissioner’s office at its friendliest ever, it’s possible that the two sides could compromise on two or all three of the draft issues.

“I expect the union would look unkindly on the hard slot and the international draft but would look kindly on trading draft choices,” the man close to the owners said.

That combination, though, would not seem to provide the ingredients for a compromise.