Yesterday, MLBTR's Ben Nicholson-Smith broke down ten key aspects of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. More reactions to the changes…
- Pirates president Frank Coonelly commented to Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "Is this everything the Pittsburgh Pirates hoped it would be? No. But we don't subscribe to the notion it was aimed at us." Even so, the Pirates' large draft expenditures of the last several years will be curbed in years to come.
- The Nationals helped create the new landscape with draft spending limits, writes Ben Goessling of MASNSports.com.
- Many free agents became more attractive to the Red Sox with the new CBA, writes Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald, as they are loathe to surrender draft picks.
- Franchise values are reduced by the draft spending limits, agent Scott Boras tells Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post.
- Bubba Starling's name came up multiple times during bargaining sessions, writes Yahoo's Jeff Passan, as the union was concerned teams will no longer be able to buy players out of other sports. The Royals lured Starling away from football for $7.5MM this year.
- One GM sees "massive problems" created by the new CBA, telling Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports, "Competitive balance is going to get progressively worse."
- There was some shock among GMs at the $2.9MM cap on international signings, writes ESPN's Buster Olney.
- Dave Cameron of FanGraphs says MLB reduced the chances that small-market teams will be able to build long-term winners because it made winning "a lot more about Major League payroll size than anything else."
- Though Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com gives players and owners credit for completing the CBA peacefully, he believes the new regulations surrounding the draft and international amateurs are a minus.
I think the new CBA and playoff structure is good for baseball, because it does everything to ensure the Yankees and Red Sox make the playoffs every year. What happens if the Rays and Blue Jays make the postseason? Who would watch?
metsmagic i agree with you…before now i didnt even know who the rays and blue jays were until i looked them up on the internet. i thought only the yankees and red soxes were in that division. thanks for helping an old man learn!
well i’ll be! there’s a team called the oreos in that division too! wow what will they think of next?
They should be the only ones in that division. How dare another team succeed without a high payroll. They should just eliminate the draft altogether.
They should put the mets in the al east so at least the cause of the imbalance wont be payroll, but just bad scouting and drafting
Ha! Jokes on you. Not only have the Mets had bad scouting and drafting, they don’t have money either.
Move the Cubs there too. That’ll get things cooking in Baltimore.
I see what you did there.
I’m a Jays fan, and I wouldn’t watch them in a WS. Sounds too boring.
I think TV ratings would say otherwise. But i watch every WS regardless of who is in it
So do I. Was just being sarcastic.
Hey i know plenty who wouldn’t watch it. Because the “yankees always win”
Do we really have to start this conversation up again? 😉
Hey that last convo was about who buys X amount of championships, not WS TV ratings which I’m afraid to see to you, has the highest, at least the past decade, when it’s with the Yankees.
For the sake of our friendship I will change the subject.
How about that Bruce Chen guy?
I think there are going to be a lot of unforeseen consequences that may actually hurt the big markets. Considering that the extra wild card will create a lot of “buyers” at the deadline, you’d think that the price of acquiring talent then would go up. Considering that the big market teams are the most frequent buyers at the deadline the price of that ace pitcher will likely go up as well, helping the small markets who are often “sellers”.
Are people still crying about this CBA?!?!
Every time something changes in a sport, everyone cries “this will destroy the game” and guess what? No game has been destroyed.
If you really think a bunch of kids that played baseball are going to pass on $2M and go play football where the chances of success are not much better you are out of your mind. Either way, theoretically speaking it’s still better to take the $1M and go play baseball than it is to stay in college for 3 years, and even now basketball might be requiring 2 years.
All this does is make kids take less money. The only people who TRULY got screwed are the agents for these young kids
too much typing for an old man. keep your thoughts to two lines or less boy.
If he is old, what does that make you?
I’m unsure if you’re playing along or if the fact that you’re very young is showing.
Now im not sure if that you’re playing along with me lol
And to note im typing from my phone and AmenRas picture isnt showing well on it
So there is a spending cap on the draft yet the worst teams will get more picks( does not make sense) there is a spending cap on international free agents with exception to Japanese players. But there is no salary cap? I like doing away from type a and type b guys and only the truly top free agents will garner a pick. That’s the smartest thing. But telling teams they can’t spend money on the draft and if they do they will get fined is nuts. Teams last season spent what 17 mill was the most on the draft. Yet arod, jeter, Crawford, Burnett, lackey, cc, Tex, all made more than that ( not combined). This new cba really does punnish teams like the padres, reys, o’s, royals, etc it favors the big market super teams. The nice thing is it’s only a 5 year cba.
High tax on going over slot is very pricey compared to going over the luxury tax. This aspect of the cba clearly benefits the yankees, phillies and bosox and hurts teams like the royals, pirates and rays. I feel that a higher rate of luxury tax would help restore some competative balance. Do the yankees need yet another leg up………..really?
The Rays will not be picking near the top of the draft unless their team falls back to the way they were when they were the Devil Rays and gets a top 10 pick again.
Then again, with the #1 farm system (If not 1, then probably 2), they are in no desperate need to restock their farm.
Overall though it’s a very stupid thing, but I don’t think it’s all that harsh. If it hurts anything, it only hurts the next years draft.
As a fan of a small market team rebuilding through the draft, i dislike that a team could lose draft a pick(s) for signing their picks
I hear what you’re saying. But i think GMs and scouts would know when to overspend and when not to. It isnt necessarily the small markets teams that this hurts. Its more so for the teams with the low draft picks. Astros get the first pick and Houston is far from a small market.
The rangers wouldnt be able to sign martin under these new guidelines.
If there is a $2.9MM cap on international signings, then what happenings when a star Cuban player defects? All the teams interested would have max bids :-/
I’m guessing they’d waste a year in japan and then try to maximize their pay through japan.
I don’t think some of the new CBA deals are that bad. Yeah, I don’t like the cap on the draft but the budget does depend on where you finish so as a bad team, you would be getting an upper advantage in the draft.
The one thing I absolute hate under this new CBA is the international spending cap. 2.9M is just not enough and I don’t really understand the need to put a cap. These guys are not subject to the draft and hence they are FA so why does there need to be a cap on spending on a FA? If MLB put like a 20M cap on free agent spending per team in an off-season, we would consider it completely insane because it’s free agency.
I would be delighted if the Angels spent $2.9 million on international signings. Last year they spent about $620K.
What happens IF the cubs win the world series next year getting in as the second wild car team? People will mock that WS win forever.
The Big market teams don’t draft the top 10 so they’re not getting the top draft picks ever. Small market teams always have the advantage in that repect. Their problem is in the past, they would not keep those players when they come to free agency. The star players have come in the top ten picks in the last 20 years for the most part. Once a team is drafting in the back end of the 1st round it is the same as drafting in later rounds for less money. What the big market teams do is they pick up most of the top ten picks when they reach free agency, example A-Rod, Swisher, Tex, CC, AJ, for the Yanks. It’s the same with the Sox with Gonzo, Drew, Beckett, Jenks, and Crawford.
I wonder who adding an additional playoff team will help in the AL . . . let’s see here, looking back the past few years . . . Red Sox. Red Sox. Rangers . . . Yankees? What a coincidence!
Of course it will also help the rays considerably as they will no longer need to bank on something going wrong on the other two teams to make it. But lets ignore that.
I suppose another playoff team is a good thing (I’m against the one-game-playoff thing, but that’s a different matter). However, don’t think for a second that this was done for a team like the Rays. The number of playoff teams was never a problem on anyone’s radar until Tampa started spoiling the Bos-NYY postseason party. Do you remember anyone talking about adding a team before the last few years?
A small team like the Rays have to do every single thing right, have good years from most of their players; and have the very best management; and if everything breaks their way maybe they’ll have a three or four year window of opportunity to squeak into the playoffs (because of course they won’t ever be able to draft like they have been again).
The big East Coast teams can bungle and make mistakes and have terrrible signings and cover all of them by throwing cash at the problem. If they totally blow it really badly maybe they’ll miss the playoffs by a game or two every now and then. No, that doesn’t mean you can “Buy WS’s” or whatever, but ask someone in Oakland or KC if they’d take an almost certain playoff run every fall. Or no, don’t bother, it’s not possible for their teams.
There will never be a Green Bay Packers in MLB. Or a Pittsburgh Penguins. It’s almost literally against the rules at this point. Do you really not see a problem with that?
Some will say that it’s good for the game to have big star teams like that, but I’d rather not be a fan of a league that looks to the Harlem Globetrotters as a solid model.