Blue Jays reliever Jason Frasor won’t miss baseball’s free agent ranking system the next time he’s eligible for free agency. The sport’s new collective bargaining agreement eliminates Type A and Type B designations and assures non-elite free agents that they won’t be tied to draft pick compensation.
“I think this is the right way,” Frasor told me yesterday. “You have middle relievers who are Type A? I mean who’s going to give up a first round pick for someone who’s going to pitch the seventh inning? So I think this is more fair.”
Under baseball’s previous collective bargaining agreement, teams had to surrender top draft picks for signing Type A free agents who had turned down offers of arbitration. Knowing that turning down an offer of arbitration would make them unappealing to potential suitors, middle relievers often accepted their teams’ offers.
Frasor was eligible for free agency following the 2010 season, but he pitched well enough to obtain a Type A ranking. He ultimately accepted the Blue Jays’ offer of arbitration instead of testing free agency with limited market value. Though Frasor was happy to return to Toronto, Type A status led to free agency lite for similarly-positioned relievers. Potential buyers wanted to keep their draft picks, so their interest in ranked middle relievers was often tepid. Frasor took note when he heard that baseball’s current collective bargaining agreement includes some significant adjustments.
“My reaction was it was two years too late,” he said. “If that Type A and Type B stuff wasn’t there, I’m not sure how it would have played out [two winters ago], but it could have changed how I went about doing that.”
Frasor, 34, is on track to hit free agency this offseason. Unless the Blue Jays make him a qualifying offer of $12.5MM or so — an extremely remote possibility — his performance will determine his free agent value. And for relievers such as Frasor it’s a welcome change.
Disqus!
Octavio Dotel must be thrilled
why would they have to offer him 12.5 mil?
Arbitration offers now have to match that of the average salary of the league iirc.
Refreshing to hear from a baseball player with a little bit of business sense. Frasor seems like he at least understands the economic side of the game, which I get the feeling many pro athletes do not.
Okay that’s good to know.
I expect Frasor and other middle relievers will regret this change. It is my belief the chance of draft picks at the end of a contract motivated some teams (Tampa Toronto Boston etc) to pay a higher salaries for relievers. With that out of the equation, it will purely be his baseball value (I.e. WAR).
What about teams having to surrender a first round pick in order to sign the player? I agree with Oz that you have this completely backwards.
Perhaps the A/B system would have worked better if relievers were rated against all pitchers.
Regardless, apparently that system is going away. Is there something else going in its place concerning compensation for the team losing a player? Otherwise, while this is good for middle relievers, I’d say this is ultimately bad for small and often even mid-market teams. The Yankees will have one fewer reason not to just make a Playstation team. So I assume there must be something else going in its place. Anyone know a good quick link to some reading material on the subject?
This is what I understand, some of it is just my speculation:
In the past, some teams would stock up on type B relief pitchers, only
to have them leave once they reach free agency. Thus, some teams would receive multiple sandwich picks for the loss of several bullpen guys.
In a way, this practice was ridiculous because the sandwich round was
too large. In fact, just last year (2011), the sandwich round lasted for
27 picks; that’s almost an entire round. This is bad because it pushes
round 2 to begin later in the draft. For 2011, round 2 didn’t begin
until pick #60.
And the question becomes, is it really fair that teams are grabbing
picks in 40th to 50th range for the loss of bullpen guys? On the other
hand, if the sandwich round is shortened, picks ranging from #40 to
#50 would be a part of round 2.
It’s a bit of give and take. Personally, I would like to have kept the
type B free agency status, and eliminate type A. The other positive I
see is the rule where a player must stay on one team for the entire year
to be eligible for draft pick compensation. But it’s just my opinion.