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By Tim Dierkes | at
Email a copy of '11 MLB Top Prospects Who Conquered Service Time' to a friend
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Rally Weimaraner
Trading 12 days for one year is a bad call which is why the MLB/MLBPA should address this issue in the next CBA. The CBA should encourage teams to put forwards the best roster from day one.
mstrchef13
This issue has been talked about for a few years now, and no one has put forth anything that would cause the owners to collectively give up the right to run their businesses the way that they want and to make decisions that value the long-term health of the franchise over the short-term health. No matter how much whining Scott Boras and Tony Clark do, what can they give the Cubs that makes having Kris Bryant on the 2015 roster for an additional 20 days more appealing than having him for the entire 2021 season?
Rally Weimaraner
I have seen a few suggestions. For example changing the current 12 day period to say 1/2 a season. It is a lot easier to trade 12 days for one year than it is to trade 1/2 a season for a whole season.
mikecws91
What can they GIVE the Cubs, not how can they make the situation worse for the Cubs. The owners won’t agree to that kind of change unless they’re given something else in return.
revolu888
Maybe not half a season, but perhaps 3 quarters?
martinfv2
You’ll need ESPN Insider for this, but Keith Law proposed a limited free agency for rookies put on Opening Day rosters, where the other 29 teams can make one-year offers and the original club has the right of first refusal.
insider.espn.go.com/blog/keith-law/insider/post?id…
One problem I see with this is that a fourth year of arbitration will still be way cheaper for the team than limited FA would be, and the arb salary is much more predictable. So a team like the Cubs would still hold Bryant down until mid-April just to avoid the limited FA thing.
Rally Weimaraner
Interesting idea but can you imagine how much that would benefit the big money clubs. How much would NYY, BOS or LAD ect. be willing to pay for one year of a superstar’s prime?
BYOP
Pretty sure if Bryant wasn’t represented by Boras, he’d have made the OD roster. But then we’d miss out on some classic whining Boras.
mrnatewalter
I think Boras is the reason for this story being bigger than it needs to be, but for a different reason.
Bryant was going to sit out the necessary time regardless of his agent. It’s only a big story because Boras is outspoken on just about everything.
But I do enjoy me some good Boras whining. Always entertaining.
Mark 20
A bad call for who? seems like a good call for the team, hence why the cubs are keeping bryant down.
Rally Weimaraner
I think we agree. For a team trading 12 days of play for one year of team control is a bad call.
martinfv2
The union would have to make a huge concession to get this, but they could propose something where players with 5-6 years of service get their service time rounded up. Meaning anything from 5.086 to 6.000 equals 6.000, so the Cubs would have to limit Kris Bryant to a half-season this year to get their extra year of control.
If the decision is between three months of the player or the full year of control way down the line, maybe more teams put rookies on Opening Day rosters. At two weeks or so, most teams aren’t going to do it these days.
Rally Weimaraner
I like that idea too but what could the union give up?
martinfv2
That I don’t know…I’m not sure what MLB wants that the Union could reasonably surrender. I’m not sure the union would even see this as worth pushing for.
Rally Weimaraner
Do owners want an international draft? The idea of paying top international prospect 1-2 mil instead of market rates would be appealing.
Lance
the problem with an international draft is not the MLBPA but the contract japanese teams have on their players. mlb teams basically have to pay those teams $$$ to give up their rights. I don’t know what the union would be willing to give up in return. The union is controlled by mostly veteran players and they’re not going to do something to hurt the older/established players to help rookies.
Sir Didihiro Nakamura
The international draft would apply to Latin american teams, not Japanese.
GameMusic3
Eliminating DH
disgruntledreader
It’s an interesting idea, but it doesn’t remove the disincentive for great prospects to be held down in the minors; it simply changes the group of players who are impacted by the disincentive. Instead of guys who are fighting for a job out of spring training, you now are going to have a negative consequence for guys who are tearing up the minors and ready for a big league shot. If the service time rules you suggest were in place last year, everyone would have been talking about whether the Red Sox were gaming the system by waiting until July to bring up Betts.
There will always be a cutoff point for any negotiated benefits, and there will always be incentive for teams to have a guy land just on the other side of that cutoff.
Joe Goodin
I’m shocked Evan Longoria wasn’t talked about in this piece. He made the opening day roster for a team nobody expected to make the world series, never mind the playoffs.
TheRealRyan 2
No he didn’t. The Rays sent Longo down to the minors until Willy Aybar got injured about two weeks into the season and the Rays called him up. He also signed his extension less than a week after being called up, so it’s very possible the Rays were already discussing this contract with Longo at the time of his call up.
Rally Weimaraner
Longoria didn’t make the opening day roster. He was called up on April 12, 2008
Michael Cerami
And got a contract extension after a day, right?
martinfv2
Yeah I think he had agreed to the deal prior to his call-up and it was announced shortly after.
Steven Garrison
I was reading somebody wrote that the rays should trade Longoria to the cubs for some of their prospects.
alb-3
Tim, the most obvious case I know of is Ben Sheets, as two extra starts in April cost the Brewers another season of him. Amazingly, he was injured late in his time with the Brewers, and was never the same after he finished his 6th big league season.
Michael Cerami
“Jackson hit quite well in his first dozen games or so, and his performance easily could have led to an additional win or two.”
I like this article, but that is not how that works.
martinfv2
I think it is. I went into this in my Cubs’ offseason in review in relation to Bryant…WAR isn’t instructive here. Replay the first two weeks of the Tigers’ 2010 season exactly, but replace Jackson with Don Kelly. I think it’s very likely you will find multiple instances where the difference between the two, and only that difference, impacts one or two wins.
Michael Cerami
Except for the fact that literally every single other thing would be different. You can’t just take out one player and insert another one and claim it would be the same (plus the net difference of a better player). A win on another day, that player 1 helped create, may be a loss with player 2, due to one million differerent things.
For example, the Cubs comebacks against the Rockies. Would they have comeback if Bryant was there? Would they have even needed to? What if Bryant made an error? It just said with any amount of confidence.
But again, I really did enjoy this article. It’s just that one little thing that bothers me.
martinfv2
It’s true, we can’t A/B test players. That would be fun. I generally prefer hard evidence myself, but in this case I don’t think it can really be tested.
Let’s say it was Game 7 of the WS and you could either start Max Scherzer or Kyle Kendrick. WAR might tell you the difference here is what, one-tenth of one win? I’m not the right person to quantify it, but I do feel that the chances of winning the game with Scherzer starting are dramatically higher than with Kendrick.
Michael Cerami
I guess I just feel it’s disingenuous to imply that starting a different player might lead to more wins in such a short amount of time. It very could lead to more wins, less wins, or different wins.
Probably a bit nitpicky, but as a Cub fan it struck a cord, because of people who say, “what if the Cubs miss the playoffs by 1 game!!!!”
GameMusic3
It would add a chance to win more.
Yes if you put Kevin Correia as the starter instead of Max Scherzer it MIGHT cause a win but it would not be smart.
HubcapDiamondStarHalo
I think what it boils down to is, in an era when starting pitchers are being paid a million dollars or more per win and WAR is so expensive, the clubs are going to do everything in their power (usually) to get the most they can out of a player’s “cheap years,” especially high-ability players. We’re starting to see more of clubs speculating on a potential star’s future, buying out arb years in conjunction with one or two FA seasons; time will tell how effective that strategy is, of course. In the long run, the money has gotten SO insane that the GMCFOs of the league are having to use any and every edge they can get.