SEPTEMBER 2: Jon Heyman of the MLB Network reports that the MLBPA “responded very negatively” to the league’s initial proposal. As mentioned, the full terms of the offer aren’t yet known.
SEPTEMBER 1: Major League Baseball proposed a radical altering of the league’s service time structure in collective bargaining discussions with the MLB Players Association last month, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post. The league’s proposal included an offer to make players eligible for free agency at 29.5 years of age. It also involved a $1 billion pool (which would be tied to revenues in future seasons) that would be dispersed in an unspecified manner to replace the current arbitration system.
Both features were part of a broader package proposal the league made to the MLBPA in mid-August, which Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reported also included the lowering of the first luxury tax threshold to $180MM and the institution of a $100MM salary floor. Much about that proposal still remains unclear, although the lowered tax thresholds alone seem likely to make it a non-starter for the Players Association, which is widely expected to push for higher tax thresholds in the upcoming CBA.
The current CBA is set to expire on December 1, leaving three months for the parties to continue to negotiate before the current deal lapses. (It’s not entirely clear what kind of impact such a scenario would have on the offseason were it to come to fruition, as teams were still permitted to make transactions the last time the CBA expired without a new agreement). It seems likely those talks will pick up in earnest the closer we move to the winter, but intervening reports offer a glimpse of how those more serious negotiations might take shape.
MLB’s offer to base free agency qualification on age is in response to players’ concerns about service time manipulation. Under the current system, players first qualify for free agency at the end of the season in which they accrue six full years of MLB service time. A full year of service is calculated as 172 days, meaning players first promoted to the big leagues in late April of their rookie seasons fall just short of that benchmark. Not coincidentally, various top prospects have been held in the minors until just after that cutoff point in recent seasons — ensuring their teams essentially gain a seventh year of control over the player.
Under an age-based system, there’d be no incentive for teams to keep prospects down past the time they’re deemed ready to play at the major league level. It’d also be a boon to late-blooming players, many of whom have to wait until they’re into their 30’s — and potentially past their physical peaks — to market their services around the league. Sherman cites Yankees star Aaron Judge — whose free agency timeline would’ve accelerated from next offseason to this winter if eligibility were set at 29.5 years — as an example of a player who would stand to benefit from such a change.
That said, setting the free agency qualifying age at 29.5 would have an adverse effect on many of the game’s top stars. It’s not uncommon for the sport’s brightest young talents to reach the big leagues in their early-20’s in spite of the existing service time structure. Those players will often reach free agency before turning 29, setting them up well to land lengthy mega-deals. For reference, three of the top four players on MLBTR’s most recent Free Agent Power Rankings — Carlos Correa, Corey Seager and Trevor Story — wouldn’t be eligible for free agency this offseason if it were only granted for players 29.5 and older.
So while an age-based system would benefit some players, it would likely depress the earning potential for some of the game’s top free agents — many of whom land market-resetting deals precisely because they’re young enough to shop around multiple seasons of prime-age performance. Young, extremely talented players who are most likely to land top-of-the-market contracts are also the ones most likely to be impacted by service time manipulation in the first place.
That makes it all the more challenging to find an age the league would find agreeable that meaningfully changes those players’ free agency outlooks. For instance, Kris Bryant — whose delayed 2015 promotion pushed back his free agency until this winter and led the MLBPA to file a highly-publicized service time grievance on his behalf — wouldn’t have reached free agency until this offseason regardless if the qualification age were set at 29.5 years. That’s not to say MLB’s proposed age threshold couldn’t be modified in future negotiations, but it also demonstrates that basing free agency eligibility on age isn’t inherently a universal benefit to players.
As with free agency, arbitration eligibility is presently determined by service time. Under the current system, players qualify for arbitration upon reaching three years of MLB service. Players in the top 22% of service among those with between two and three years will also reach arbitration as Super Two qualifiers. If the team and player can’t agree on a salary, it is decided by a panel of arbitrators, who use comparable player salaries often based upon traditional statistics.
That can lead to a bit of a disconnect between arbitration values and teams’ valuations of players, which are often based on more advanced analytical data. Arbitrators’ heavy reliance on traditional metrics can fuel non-tenders for players whose box score statistics (e.g. home runs, RBI, pitcher wins) are more impressive than a team’s ’wins above replacement’ type of formula or Statcast data.
On the surface, it does seem revamping or replacing arbitration could be a positive endeavor for players. Sherman estimates that arbitration-eligible players made approximately $650MM this past offseason, so the $1 billion pool would be a rather significant increase. But Sherman also notes that a revenue-based pool system might be viewed by the MLBPA as too closely resembling a salary cap — which the union has always rejected. It’s also not clear how that money would be distributed or how arbitration eligibility would be determined if the sides were to abandon service time considerations.
Sherman also offers one additional piece of information on the league’s proposal. While MLB’s offer included a lower first luxury tax threshold, the league was willing to remove escalating penalties for repeat tax payors. The current CBA requires teams to pay a 20% tax on the first twenty million dollars above the lowest luxury threshold. That tax increases to 30% for teams that exceed the threshold in two consecutive years and escalates to 50% for teams exceeding the threshold in three or more years straight.
The escalating penalties have led some high-spending teams to pull off a tax reset. A team that exceeds the threshold in Year One has extra incentive to dip below for a year and reset their penalty bracket before going back above the mark the following season. That seemed to be of particular import this season for the Yankees and Astros, both of whom exceeded the threshold in 2020 but appear to have narrowly dipped below the mark this season.
It bears repeating that MLB and the MLBPA remain in the very early stages of bargaining. Drellich and Rosenthal previously reported that the MLBPA made its first offer in May, and last month’s proposal was the league’s first. The full terms of both sides’ initial offers remain unclear. There should be plenty more about the sides’ back-and-forth that emerges over the coming weeks and months.
If this happens Yaz would be a free agent after this season. With the current rules he wouldn’t even be arb eligible until 2023. I don’t know if that’s fair to the team who discovered and coached him to his level of success in his late 20’s.
This is unfortunately beginning to sound like 1994 all over again. I have been a MLB fan that long. Lots of fans walked away for good after that.
Clearly have been a fan that long if you can recall McGriffs HOF case
McGriff was totally screwed by that season.
Trading McGriff, Dave Collins and Mike Morgan to the Blue Jays for Dale Murray and Tom Dodd might be the worst trade the Yankees ever made. McGriff was 19 at the time. A year earlier, the Yankees traded Willie McGee for Bob Sykes.
@cey hey. I believe Crime Dog would’ve made the 500 home run mark and been voted in by the writers already if the 1994 strike . I agree the McGriff trade was probably one of the worst trades the Yanks have ever made. I’m hoping the Today’s Game Era Committee does the right thing and votes him into the HOF with their 16 person panel.
if not for the the 1994 strike…
And lockout.
He will eventually get in. One of the best first basemen during one of the last great pitching eras.
These early negotiations have a Curt Flood feeling if you ask me.
Whats crazy is that they had at least one strike a decade for years up until then. It used to be a much more regular thing.
29.5,?! Yet another asinine proposal from MLB, ManFRAUD is a fool & a clown & to paraphrase Thoreau, “Any fool can make a proposal & MLBPA can piss on it.” Next!
If lots of “fans” walked away for good, then perhaps they weren’t fans.
I walked away until 1998. Boy, did they pull the wool over my eyes with that one.
Steroid mutant home run race brought a lot of the lost fans back:).
If I stop following MLB it will be because it is a big business interested solely in maximizing profit. The league is in bed with sports gambling companies, and Pete Rose is still not in the Hall of Fame. Players move around so much that my head spins trying to keep track of it. Teams have something like a 30 percent annual turnover. When they develop a star they can’t afford him after six years. The game itself is just a means of acquiring the fans’ money. And analytics are at least as much of a curse as a blessing. I don’t know what the solution is, but the problem is huge.
There’s a tennis tournament this weekend. Knock yourself out.
A manager who bet on baseball games should never be in the hall. If a current player is caught gambling, they will end up in a lot of trouble.
No true fan walked away. No matter how much you are disappointed by this know-nothing commish, strikes or loss games, true fans always love our game.
Chinese virus, strikes, bad weather, what ever….we always have baseball.
Yaz is a Super Two. He is on track to be arb eligible this coming offseason.
I didn’t realize Yaz was a super 2. Thanks for pointing that out @Remove! I hope Yaz can make a little money before he has peaked (maybe already starting to happen) as he surely deserves it!!
Been trying to ask this question in the live chats for months. Never got an answer. I’ve been wondering if teams were gonna be cations trading for guys with “control” when the new cba could change everything
Good question Orioles. My guess would be smaller market teams will be more cautious of that scenario than the top league spenders. It’s why I admire the Rays doing what they have been doing recently. I’ve always been a hold on to the prospects kind of guy myself.
Glad you could see I meant “cautious”. I’m usually the opposite actually, but when you develop like the Rays can it’s a different story. I always wonder “what if” with the Orioles not trading bundy or Gausman when they were competing. But I was looking at John Means and wondering if teams wouldn’t want to trade for him not knowing how much control they really have
Like that.. Admire the Rays about something..
Here is something else to “admire” about them.. Check out last night’s (Thursday) boxscore, then pan down to the bottm and take a peek at the attendance vs Boston at the good ‘ole dumpsterdome in St Pete.. *7,500* fans shown as paid attendance and as a Sox fan who has attended MANY-A game at the dumpsterdome can attest.. 2/3+ of that attendance was wearing Red and NOT cheering on the hometown Rays..
A team in 1st place (Tampa), playing a national draw team with 7500k paid attendance?? I don’t want to hear about anything that team is doing right when nothing has ever translated at the gate, or moronic tv announcers they have always employed.
The Rays’ color commentator hasn’t impressed me one way or another. But I like the voice of play-by-play man Dewayne Staats. As for the Rays’ management, every other MLB organization should study the way it operates. The Dodgers have a payroll of $266 million and a record of 85-49. The Rays payroll is $70 million, and their record is 84-49. Milwaukee has a record of 82-52 and a payroll of $97 million and just beat the Giants three straight. The Giants payroll is $161 million. Ergo, I hope it’s MIlwaukee vs. Tampa Bay in the World Series. If anything can convince the other owners and GMs to stop throwing money at players that will.
If all teams had lousy attendance like the Rays there wouldn’t be MLB.
As for the Dodgers, when your local TV deal has a value of over $300million a year, a year, why not spend?
They draw million per year, why not spend?
If not for teams like the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees and RSox, teams like the Rays and As wouldn’t exist.
7500k is 7,500,000
I think that must be a record for paid attendance at a sporting event.
It’s probably way more than the fire marshal will allow too, so a lot of that gate revenue will have to go towards paying a significant fine.
Tampa screwed up big time not putting that chronic whiner Staats out to pasture a couple years ago and letting Todd Kalas take over before he jumped ship and went to Houston as lead tv voice, Kalas showed as interview host in Tampa he had what it takes, but for whatever reason.. tampa has stuck with that loser Staats since the begining, who finds no fault in anything the Rays do, regardless of the errors on the field when they occur.
Correct on every color commentator they have ever had can remember, except for 1.. kevin Kennedy, who would call mistakes and the game as he saw it, probably because was an ex manager and not full of crap, as is Staats. i remember several times he corrected Staats and his glossing over routine.
Why can’t teams have announcers who call a game somewhat impartial. Team announcers used to be that way. 1st ones remember breaking that mold were Phil Rhizzuto (NY) and Mel Proctor (orioles). Now, it’s half the teams in the game have announcers with full blown call it 1 way. David Sims (Seattle) is about the best one out there now is my 2c for giving a fair shake to the opponent.
yeah that was my first thought, there are going to be a lot of guys in the giants org that it will mess with for that reason. I mean one thing that people won’t be happy about is that it means guys that do come up later in their career will end up in a pool where a glut of guys get traded at once, especially pitchers since they don’t usually stick until later and as a result they will probably not do as well in free agency since who is going to want to sign a guy to a deal that has a cap on it that could be a year or 2.. I think that you ought to do some sort of a sliding scale rather than an age cutoff where if a guy say is brought up from age 17-21 it is one term, 22-25 another term and 25- whatever another term, like 6, 5, 4 or something like that
i get the age thing, but that kinda hurts older guys with less experience.
Does it? Tommy Pham was 26 when he debuted. I am sure he would have loved to be a free agent at age 29.5.
The biggest victims of a new 29.5 rule would be guys like Manny Machado and Bryce Harper who debuted at age 19 and 20 and signed mega deals at age 26. Both of those guys are in year 3 of their mega deals and neither of them is 29.5 now.
Yea you would think tho that alot more player would debut by 21 or 22 at the latest meaning 8-10 years of control over said player. The downside is clear players don’t become free agents for 8-10 years. The upside is that the players make an MLB salary for those 8-10 years and should make way more money. Also if a player stays in the minors tell he is 24 or 25 the team still has 8-10 years of control over said player if u count his minor league carrer, that just make way more bread in this system. Bottom line is that I see it as being better for most players except the top 25-30%.
The average age of 1st time FA in 2021 was 28 years 65 days. This proposal from the owners would hurt the best players the most. Guys like Trout would have been under team control for 10 seasons under this proposal. The owners know that the MLBPA is going to say no to this. It takes hundreds of millions out of the pockets of the very best players.
It is definitely one way to cut down on service time manipulation. Might as well call prospects up as early as possible since they aren’t FA until 29.5. The whole proposal has flaws but I find this part of it intriguing
Judging by the 28 year age of 1st time FA now, teams already call up prospects earlier than that.
Seems like it could be ideal to do an either/or system.
That player would be eligible for free agency after x amount of years or an age (ex. 29.5 yrs old) whichever comes first.
You could do it based on years in the organization. Too simple?
In the organization, or in any organization? Would the clock reset if a guy is traded? So yes, too simple.
If you want to disadvantage all the kids who sign out of the DR at 16, and convince the best players to graduate college before signing, then you can do years.
I like the free agency at 29.5 years…. for college drafted players. And then make high school/international signings free agency 27.5 yrs. I hate the way service time gets manipulated. The Pirates did it with everybody way back when they had prospects.
26.5 if you debut before 20. You still have to figure out how to do team control compensation.
Tony Clark:
“Yeah that’s the dumbest proposal in the world, let’s accept it”
lol Tony clark is awful… the players really jobbed themselves the last CBA by wanting more quality of life increases for MLB players, whilst screwing MiLB players.
It’s the MLBPA, not the MiLBPA. They explicitly do not represent minor leaguers and don’t pretend to.
It is, but that is a distinction without a difference. The major league players come from the minor leagues. And by squeezing how much minor leaguers get, it de-values the major leaguers.
So if they do change it age 29.5 or at least 30 that’s usually was most free agents hit the free agency in most years. But if you’re a team who kept a guy down in the minors until 26 then you only have have for 2-3 years. Really making teams play their prospects if they don’t want to they can let them go.
29.5 years old is a year later than it has been over the past decade. It also means teams have 9-10 seasons of control over the very best players. You can be assured the MLBPA will say no.
AND predictably the MLBPA said F off MLB. That proposal is not going to fly.
what if you were to reach 6 service years before you turn 29.5?
and what if they didn’t have a signed contract for their 26, 27, 28 , 29 season?
The team still controls them.
I’d imagine it would be like additional arbitration seasons. So it wouldn’t really cost the players any money. They would get paid more for their prime earlier and probably increase salary ceilings more than the current market does. They would get paid 40 million at age 27, or 28 instead of age 37,38. Currently these players probably aren’t going to even get contracts at 37,38 as the current trend is. That’s why the fans are yelling about collusion and have no idea what they’re talking about.
Teams aren’t exactly chomping at the bits to sign players to megadeals at age 30 anymore though. Not a bad idea, but I think these hard and fast “flat” rules for all players don’t work as best as it could. It should be based on time as a professional, not just as a Major Leaguer.
That’s hard because of the enormous difference in age between an eligible college player on one extreme, and a 16 year old Dominican on the other. That’s four or five years difference. If you set a free agency limit of 8 years in pro ball, which might be appropriate for the college guy, the Dominican kid will only be 24.
6 years for college draftees, 9 for highschool, and 10 for Latin American?
Tstats That would incentivize players to go to college for 1 year for no logical reason other than manipulating service time. No way the owners agree to this bizzaro world rule haha
You dont become eligible till you’r a jr unless you go JC. No top program players could one and done.
Then 5 years for seniors but seniors also get screwed by them having no other option but to go Indy or take a lower signing bonus
Oh I read it wrong but isn’t the rule you can only draft juniors and seniors, if not apply that rule
The time difference to reach the majors between an international free agent signing and a drafted high school player is less than half a year on average. Not all international free agents sign at 16. College kids are drafted after their Junior season at an average age of 20 years 102 days. So 4 years difference in age from the 16 year old signee.
There are winners and losers with any change. With this proposal, one of the losers will be marginal major leaguers who have hung on into their late 20’s or early 30’s. Your middle relievers and utliity infield grinders and the like. With teams now incentivized to bring prospects up as fast as they can (to get max years of control out of them), those are the players whose careers will end sooner. MLB will become a league of kids, more than it is already.
Anyway, this seems easy, make free agency at 29.5 or six years, whichever comes first. Or as someone suggested, make the age based limit for guys with 2+ years of college only. Either way.
Can’t they use a hybrid system? x amount of years or age limit of 29.5 whichever comes first. Players association would have to give a little more to pass that though
for the first big league season of a player career, he gets the minimum at $1 mil. arbitration starts with second year and through 6th season. after that free agency!
This exactly, owners keep control, players get raises earlier.
I honestly hope MLBPA does some negotiating instead of simply refusing every offer MLB sends over to them. That seems to be what they did last year.
I’d surely anticipate them declining the two offers we’ve heard thus far. The first caps salaries, the second destroys earnings of the best and youngest players in the league.
mlb offers were nothing but robberies!
Aaron Judge’s total war so far, 25.6. His total pay so far, $20.256 million. Players that come up late really do get screwed if they perform.
True, but this would also mean that Juan Soto wouldn’t get the chance at a payday through free agency until he’s like, 8-9-10 years into his career.
I don’t see the connection. Soto came up earlier so he will make a boatload. I’m saying the current system screws over guys that pop up later. I’m not saying that younger players should have to wait longer.
Juan Soto wouldn’t hit free agency until he’s like 30 under this proposal. Right now, when Soto hits free agency, he’ll be going into his age-26 season. There’s no guarentee that Soto will make a boatload. I’m sure that Soto wants to get a large guarenteed contract, not keep going through arbitration from his age-23 season up thorugh his age-29 season. Maybe they need to work out a way for older guys to get compensated, but not in a way where a guy called up at 20-21 spends 9-10 years with one team while going through arbitration however many times.
Like I said. I’m not saying younger players should be forced to wait longer to reach arbitration and free agency. I’m saying that the current system screws over players who break through later in their careers. I’m not saying this proposal is fair. I’m saying the current system is unfair to late bloomers. My comment was strictly about the current system and has nothing to do with this proposal.
Ryan Howard came up late and still got paid. Ask Ruben Amaro Jr. and the Phillies who got screwed on that one
There’s always going to be exceptions. All the cards are in the owners hands. They can just ride out the players controllable years at a huge discount. All those years that these players are employed by the franchise’s minor league teams amount to nothing.
This would benefit ownership, not the players.
They would just call up players they know are good sooner, then extend the period where they can underpay them.
The system should be based on date of first signing, like every other league. You get x number of years with a player, regardless of when they are called up, with differences between high school/DSL prospects and draft picks.
If they want to sign extensions before that period is up, that is players prerogative.
That’s a fair system.
I agree it should be based on the signing date. A reason I like t is that it emphasizes player development, which is something all teams can afford to invest in. And it’s something a lot of teams can be better at. No team can whine about losing players they developed. In fact, smart small-market teams can benefit by developing players well and then trading them for other assets before the six years are over. Or they can just extend the players that are most worthy of being extended. No stashing players. No more bringing them up before they’re ready.,
There is absolutely no chance the players association agrees to this. Having service time start once a player is put on a 40 man roster makes a lot more sense
It wouldn’t surprise me if the union’s counteroffer does something like that. It’s a number question for both sides. Will more players benefit or be hurt by a change and by how much? Who has more say in the union, a few superstars, average players, or marginal ones, and how can the union make the most players happy. In the least, they need to address service time manipulation and the irrationality of arbitration salaries being based on outdated measures of value. the owners face either overpaying or nontendering and losing players while the players who are nontendered face uncertainty while they flood the market and hold down salaries.
I think 7 years is the right number but it has to be implemented better. Once a player hits the 40 man that clock starts. If he’s added to the 40 man in season the team controls him for that year plus an additional 6. This would keep teams from stashing goes on the 40 man for a year or two before they get called up
this 100%.
Odds of a strike or lock out next season? If there is a strike, will it kill the golden goose?
Hard to feel sympathy for either side.
Of course, by no means am I saying it’s guarantee, because it’s not a guarantee, but I think there’s a pretty good chance that it happens, I’ll give it a 70% chance of happening.
Employment status based on age…. Sounds super constitutional
If it’s collectively bargained, the courts usually uphold such provisions.
Yeah there are plenty of unconstitutional employment agreements. It only starts violating laws if both parties entered it in good faith if it says stuff like upon termination the employee is barred from seeking employment for 5 years. Stuff where its egregious.
It’s actually not unconstitutional and here’s the reason why. The precise language in that clause gives eligibility to the player when they reach that age to elect free agency. It’s does not state that the player becomes a free agent upon reaching that age. If that were the case then there might be a situation where a constitutional violation under the fourteenth amendment’s equal protection clause might come into play. You also have to factor in if the clause is directly affecting a certain group of players based on race which would give the players a case that would receive a much higher standard of review from the federal courts. Age alone only gives a mid tier standard of review from the federal courts.
A high salary floor and a salary cap would be good for players, but the union always seems to be more concerned with having a few players earn massive dollars than the collective good.
I also think a salary cap would make it more fun for players to be on a lot of the small market teams that currently have trouble competing and attracting free agents.
29.5 is probably just a negotiation starting point, great idea if it’s 27-28. Long overdue, so many good young players being stashed in the minors to manipulate service time
While this proposal may help older players, it also hurts players promoted when they’re young. Bryce Harper for example would be a free agent after next year, his first trip through free agency. Does he get a mega contract when he’s 29-30 compared to when he hit free agency going into his age 26-season? Juan Soto would face the same conindrum. Does this proposal also take into account players signed internationally? The Texas Rangers shouldn’t lose Adolis Garcia after next season when he was signed out of Cuba going into his age-24 season. This essentially kills any value of older internatonal players or college seniors.
Delaying FA hurts a player’s marketability. There should be a way when you sign a player and that player can negotiate for shorter terms. This will allow for more creativity, extensions, etc. i.e. teams will want to draft a guy they can control longer and will give up a larger bonus, whereas a player will bet on themselves and sign for less. Also, allow a flexible payroll apron for a team to help keep players vs lose players to other teams. That buffer to help teams from getting taxed incentivises them to spend to keep their guys and risk less penalties.
guys should be able to do what Soler did when he signed, but MLB is adamant that they have to have stupidly rigid rules for international amateur players.
So under this plan, a player like Wandar Franco or Soto would be under team control through their entire 20s? I can see why the owners would love this. For the players it would be a pass.
exactly, this only reduces the earning power of the mega talents, but increases the earning power of late bloomers. I highly doubt teams will shell gobs of money out for guys that are proving themselves at such advanced prospect ages. as always, these first CBA offers (although sometimes even later offers) are often horrid… like I get that negotiating is all about starting extremely high vs extremely low and trying to find the middle, but additionally this darkens the light and outlook of baseball at its normal start time next season.
Though we don’t know the FULL details of either proposal (last week and this), they both look more like opening salvos than real goals. Either that, or the owners either (a) really want a stoppage or (b) are convinced the MLB players are so greedy, and their reps so dumb, that they’ll take anything.
Both of the proposals look idiotic, as they are now,. Doesn’t mean they’ll be turned down however.; that’s the nature of the MLBPA.
Ironic they would even be suggested in the year that Marvin Miller (who would glance at them, look at them, toss them on the floor and pee pee on them) is going (long denied) to the HOF.
Yeah, this benefits the owners more than the players. The only players that would benefit from this are late bloomers like Whit Merrifield and the aforementioned Mike Yastrzemski, but they aren’t super common and generally don’t have their service times manipulated anyway. It would be terrible for the elite players like Juan Soto who are All Stars before they can even legally drink a beer, which are precisely the type of players who primarily fall victim to service time manipulation.
I think the best compromise is to make players eligible for free agency after six years, plus the year they make their debut. If you debut in year one, you have the rest of that year plus six more. If you’re a September call up, then you have that month and the following six years.
It’s not too much different than in hockey, where you burn the first year of your entry level deal the minute you step on the ice in an NHL game. And with the way teams manipulate service time anyway, it’s basically just a more transparent way to do it. If players don’t agree to that, they could compromise and do their debut plus the five years afterward.
The owners wouldn’t have made this offer if it wasn’t good for them. That’s not a shot, just business. The one-size fits all is particularly punitive to younger stars and to high school draftees, who would be tied to their teams for 11 or more years. As to the arbitration offer, it depends on how many players are in arbitration.
First offers are always lowballs – just natural in negotiations. I could see players coming back with an age 27 reply, then a lot of back and forth. Might be based on when signed at first ie: sign out of high school you get it earlier, sign out of college you get it later. IFA based on high school – so maybe age 27 for high schoolers, 29 for college. Something like that.
The arbitration thing is very interesting – a LOT of details would be needed to determine why the owners are pushing something that appears to hurt them – odds are it is to set up a revenue based cap system long term which I figure is inevitable.
Over the next few months I’m sure we’ll hear all kinds of options by both sides.
So basically under these rules teams can call up their best 19-21 year old prospects and keep them for the next decade without having to worry about losing them as free agents to a big mega deal before they hit they’re prime years.
I can’t see the players union going for something that is actually worse than the current service time structure
More bull crap from the owners. This so called proposal offers nothing to the players and takes everything for the owners. I don’t know about you, but I follow baseball to see players play now owners count money and rip off taxpayers for new stadiums
Are they *trying* to come up with the dumbest ways of solving problems? There’s all kinds of ways to tweak service time… maybe RFA at 4 years so marginal players can move around and superstars can cash in earlier. Add a “super-5” system so you can’t game down to the day in advance how to milk an extra year. Then give teams a “franchise tag” so they can pay a premium price just to guarantee a seventh year of control.
MLB’s offers keep getting worse and worse. Its almost like the owners WANT a strike in 2022.
Here is a fair system. Keep it at 6 years of service time, but one day in the majors = 1 year of service time. No more manipulation.
Then give teams a single “franchise tag” for one year.
That just means teams won’t call up top prospects in September when they otherwise would have.
The reduction of September rosters to 28 already means that.
You also wouldn’t call up guys to spot start double-headers, injuries could kill you in service time, etc.
Some GM’s (Preller) would likely still call up top prospects to spot start double headers/play the last week of September.
Teams would still have to do that to stay competitive. Guys would get call up.
That is perfectly all right since they also won’t keep guys in the minors for a few extra weeks in April. The best players will get called up. And isn’t that what fans want to see, the best players.
MLB already did limit young payers being called up in September with a 28 man roster instead of the full 40 man roster.
Just get the dam Pitch clock, man.
Neither side is going to get huge changes. If one side wants something they will have to give something of equal value.
Americans and their fascination with monopolies and indentured labor, from college athletics to Major League Baseball, never ceases to amaze me.
At age 29.5 a footballer like Real Madrid’s German world champion, Toni Kroos, had already earned approximately €150 MM ($177 MM) in wages since the age of 18 and in addition the same amount through endorsements. As a matter of fact, German football clubs pay their academy prospects about €60,000 ($71,000) + bonuses annually between the ages of 14 and 18. The same goes for other international leagues.
MLB is a joke. 60 percent of all players making it to the big league never even reach arbitration and only a handful make it to free agency each season. The majority of franchise players struggle financially due to MLB’s minimum wage exception for the Minor Leagues.
Oligarch owners and their media stooges keep creating narratives about players “stealing” money, e.g. Chris Davis. On the other hand we never hear about the huge profits massively underpaid players in their prime generate for these billionaires. Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani will make ridiculous $3 MM in 2021 and $5 MM in 2022 at the age of 27/28 while generating hundreds of millions for Arte Moreno and the league.. Not one peep in the media about that.
Besides, once players reach the threshold of 30, franchises hold their age against them in contract negotiations. This whole systems needs to be abolished, setting players free to choose their employer, as is the law in civilized societies.
Why are you bashing Americans? Why don’t you just go away? We’ll settle our own issues without your input.
Thanks.
Good points, but soccer still sucks.
Considering that a lot of guys are considered question marks at around 31 years old and beyond and they’re viewed as middle aged or senior citizens as far as baseball goes, plus all the guys who debut before they’re 22, this seems like it’d hurt a lot of players’ income potential.
Apart from free agency, what about fixing arbitration? What about a rule making arbitration salary against the WAR value plus a percentage of the value of the merchandise sales or something?
Bryce Harper’s WAR has been all over the map season to season. Some years with a WAR under 2, some with a WAR over 8 and it’s never the same two years in a row.
This proposal doesn’t make sense.
This shouldn’t be about age. This should be about total service time in professional baseball.
So, from the moment you get drafted and signed and are on a roster playing, the clock starts ticking.
If you get to FA before you get to the majors you can always sign a new split deal or something on a minor league contract.
I also still think the focus should be on paying guys more money earlier so they don’t feel like they’re losing out while paying less later on a total guarantee so that guys aren’t taking up salary space in their declining years but they still get to play on a guaranteed deal with the salary locked in.
I was always a fan of Ian Desmond’s contract as a great example of what contracts should look like, even if he’s out of the majors now and probably or actually retired.
The salary started low, jumped incredibly high in the middle, dropped back down to earth and went low in the final couple seasons.
So you would sign a guy to a deal that pays him so much money in the middle that he isn’t concerned with his annual fee or with a recurring value and you can get costs down year over year.
Along with that, you’d need to remove the luxury tax being based on AAV’s, since salaries would fluctuate so much.
Instead, focus on a minimum roster budget and FA player WAR construction rule rather than luxury tax in lieu of a salary cap.
Put the onus on cheaper teams to spend more to entice higher level players and let that create more parity in the game and get rid of the idea that in order to make a ton of money you have to play for certain teams or you can’t play for certain teams or that a team signing a particular guy to a mega deal prevents them from signing other players to make the club competitive.
Component stats, particularly fielding, are volatile so it would have to be weighted in a way that makes sense. WAR has limitations fornthis especially year to year. It would need to be some projection model that includes things scouting reports and minor league numbers at least early in the players career.
I could see granting FA at 27, maybe. The player would still be in his prime when he hit Free Agency. It would encourage teams to bring players up as soon as possible. 29.5 is when teams start giving one year deals.
It would probably hurt small market teams the most, but if they enable teams to trade draft picks, I think it’d be ok.
6 years from the date of signing their first contract, no restrictions based on school or age. Teams get 6 years to decide whether or not they have someone they want to keep or not. Patrick Wisdom gets to be a free agent in 2027, when he’ll be in his mid 30’s. Is that fair at all? And no, this is not Patrick Wisdom.
If you can be sure of one thing, it’s that MLB is not going to present a proposal that reduces the owner’s overall revenue. They have done the math on this and determined that overall, more players will lose out than will gain, compared to the status quo. They’ve just structured it into a proposal where it’s not that obvious. You’d have to dig into the numbers and understand the ramifications of what would happen if this change went through.
Ultimately, a big problem is that “MLB” should not be synonymous with “the team owners”, which it currently, effectively is. What is good for the the owners, business-wise, is not necessarily the same as what is good for the game of baseball, and vice versa.
it’s a sign of how right you are that when i read “mlb” my brain instantly translates it to “owners”
This proposal only makes me think in the end, we likely won’t have a solution to service time manipulation.
What if MLB lowered the minimum age to 27.5 for international signees and HS draft picks taken before competitive balance round B or 3rd round? Clubs aren’t going to stop drafting elite talent they want and while higher variance high schoolers may get picked earlier in this system, it shouldn’t change too much. Rutschman for example, would be in the bigs already if this system was in place.
Having it based off age is kinda ridiculous.. considering guys like Vladdy made their debut it seemed at like 20.. The great young players, would need to put in near a decades worth of work to get compensated in free agency. Ridiculous if you ask me… while some late bloomers would be getting paid of a seasons worth of work..
I think bringing down service time to 4/5 years is more then reasonable..… Don’t know if an age based system is reasonable, but at least it does give a chance for everyone to eventually hit free agency.
Agreed. Perhaps it should be both. 6 years of service or Age 26. One or the other.
High school players would become much more valuable in the draft with this proposal.
Here’s the deal.
If I’m a player, I want to be a free agent every year.
The current agreement doesn’t allow that.
If I’m an excellent Walmart employee, I can walk across the street to another place, demand a higher salary, and potentially get it.
If I like to play baseball, and I’m good at it, I don’t have those options.
Something stinks here.
You’re missing something vitally important. You can walk across the street and work for Costco for more money. But, if either you or they have a bad quarter, they will show you to the door with 2 weeks severance pay.
The reason why you have to sign away half your career is because the other half of your career have guarantees built into it guarding against injuries and declining performance.
You can be a FA every year after your initial deal. The initial deal is to allow a team to benefit from developing a player and to protect teams from just losing all of their top prospects to the Dodgers, Yankees, and Red Sox every year.
Your idea would basically make for super teams, way more than there already are. The draft would be meaningless because no team is going to spend $7M on a player bonus for a guy who will be with them for only a year before they jump ship to the Yankees.
Hmmmm. Players won’t really go for that as the mercenary tactics do not work from year to year. A good year might get you paid but a bad or injury lost season would potentially get you nothing. Players want some level of stability and so do owners. Under your idea almost every player becomes the next Matt Stairs or Edwin Jackson bouncing from team to team and all but eliminating franchise players
Interesting idea but hard no. Players should be able to hit free agency sooner. 6 years of service or age 27. That way players can hit the open market and capitalize on their prime years…. 28-32.
That kills college players. Teams just wouldn’t draft them nearly as high because after two years of development, they get them for only three years. No draft money, fewer chances. Has to be bare minimum of 28, more likely 29.
Reduce the years of service then. 4 years of MLB service or age 28.
In most years there are 365 days, so on what day does a player turn 29.5? Also, a player born in a leap year before February 29 would have a day added while one born after February 29 would have a day less in calculations for age 29.5.
Players who are 29 years + 180 days old come the offseason are eligible to be free agents.
I’ve been saying this for years. A guy like Brasier, for example, will never be a real FA, since by the time he plays out, he won’t command anything.
OTOH, the team should retain some service time by virtue of having discovered him. Without the benefit of guaranteed service time, guys like Brasier will never be scouted and signed.
What they need to do is a combination of the existing system, where you are a FA after 6 years, plus a guarantee that you are free after 29.5, combined with say a minimum of three years service time.
Every player a FA every time his contract is up. Minor leaguers, major leaguers. Total free market. (Although guaranteed minimum wage pay for minor leaguers might be nice.)
One year, guaranteed contracts for every player at every level. Problem solved.
And I would add, salary should be commensurate with performance. My season tickets at the old ballpark were priced at $15,000.00 for two tickets plus parking, whereas at the new ballpark, comparable seats / parking pricing is in the $25,000.00 range. I understand the need to increase revenue to be able to pay players, however they have priced me out of the equation. It’s a free market, and they can charge what they want. I have no problem with that. I can enjoy the games now in the comfort of my easy chair.
I think the idea of a having an age for free agency is sound, but the proposed 29.5 will be a non-starter. I think this is the part that will be negotiable, and the suggestion of having a multi-tiered system based on whether the player was drafted from HS/JC/C might also be a good compromise.
I understand that negotiations are give-and-take, but does the players’ union? I mean, the $180M threshold is too low, but if they’re against it going down at all and still demanding a salary floor, I think they’re going to be disappointed. As for the age thing, I think it should be the earlier of six years of service or when a player hits 29. As for manipulating service time, any player called up in the first month (and is on the roster the rest of the year), gets a full year of service time. Any player called up in the 2nd or 3rd month doesn’t get a full year, but that year counts toward arb eligibility. Anyone called up more than halfway through the season wouldn’t see their clock start. In exchange, the owners want expanded playoffs to bring in more money, so add a tier of playoff money to the players and let that happen. (I hate the idea of expanded playoffs, but just adding it as they type of concession the union would probably have to make to get an overhaul of service time that’s definitely in their favor).
Double league minimum then some form of arbitration after that getting raises each year, but tier it higher so that by year 6 they make equivalent to a free agent on a one year contract and drop the qualified offer. That means the 28 yo rookie can get a million or two and if they’re no good they still got that, but if they are good they can sign as as a FA w/o draft pick compensation and the 19 yo phenom doesn’t get completely screwed when they can’t sign a mega contract at 26.
What would the players union give up to get all this?
I think that’s where negotiations on the luxury cap come in.
To make that work they would have to be willing to pay years 6+ so that someone like Trout was getting even as high as 40m or even more but the team still had control of those years. It does cost that player but softens it and makes everyone make a little more.
the owners want control and the players want to get paid, so some version of this structure makes sense to me. instead of age, negotiations should focus on league minimums and arbitration start dates
as a human, my primary concern is for labor to force concessions from management. as a fan, my biggest issue is that teams can get away with tanking for half a decade. because owners are unlikely to accept a salary floor, the only way to address competitive imbalance and perennially hopeless fan bases is to keep expanding the number of teams who make the postseason until baseball becomes hockey. at this point i’m assuming there will be 16 teams in the postseason next year
I have zero problem with tanking so long as there’s a plan (beyond making the owner money). The Cubs, Astros, Padres, and White Sox all went through rebuilds and have built contenders that way. The Tigers’ rebuild is showing signs of ending and they could have a dynamic young rotation. Rebuilding is not the problem. Tanking without trying to rebuild is. Some teams are going to suck until they’re forced not to or until a new owner comes in. That’s the real issue.
the issue to me is fielding a somewhat competitive team while doing the rebuild. the astros and cubs basically announced that they were okay with losing 100 games for 3 seasons. it will never happen but i would love a soccer-style relegation system so you could have the get-into-the-playoff races at the top and the avoid-relegation races at the bottom
Why should a team have to be competitive during a rebuild? If you’re competitive the whole time, it’s retooling, for one thing. Second, for mid-market and small-market teams that can’t afford what the Yankees and Dodgers can, it markedly lengthens these periods of non-contention. I’d rather my team be in contention half the time and rebuilding the other half than be a .500 to barely sneaking into the playoffs team for 12 years waiting for the right mix of prospects to work out and then have a short run of actual contention. In other words, I’d rather be in the White Sox’ situation than the Guardians’.
baltimore, miami, colorado, pittsburgh, detroit, kansas city, arizona, and texas fans have reasonable hopes maybe once a decade. that can’t be good for the game, but neither is having a gazillion teams make the postseason. maybe what i’m after is greater revenue sharing
Poor player development over decades is more to blame for those teams not being competitive than revenue sharing.
I’m sort of wondering what the story is with the $100M floor that MLB presented. I find it hard to believe they have 100% buy-in from the owners on that proposal. But I can’t believe they’d put out an offer that they wouldn’t actually agree to…..
It’s the ceiling that they liked. And I agree that they probably didn’t have buy-in from the Pirates and Guardians on that, but majority would rule. Just like the union doesn’t need all of the players to agree to accept a proposal.
Teams like the Rays and Guardians might be fine since a $100M floor would likely include a substantial increase in league revenue sharing. That means the wealthier teams will have to increase what they pay to the current low payroll teams, hence the lower top end of the luxury tax.
Just get it resolved before the offseason. Don’t want this looming around. Want the offseason to focus on offseason transactions and not the CBA negotiations and more proof how incompetent idiots with “Ivy League” backgrounds can’t negotiate a deal ala 202.
I have only faint hopes that there won’t be a work stoppage lasting all the way into next year. The sides were so far apart on handling Covid and everything seemed to get so heated that I lost all faith in Tony and Rob to act like adults. The only thing that breathes life to my hopes is that I haven’t heard nearly so much acrimony this time around. But as for a deal being done in the offseason or before, I’ll believe it when I see it.
New clause – If a player plays in more than 50% of the seasons games it counts as yeas 1 of service. The remaining service time structure stays intact.
The MLBPA needs to make a counterproposal. By flatly rejecting every offer, they look uncooperative and get the fans on the owners’ side. They need to be proactive, even if their counter is as easily dismissed as what the owners have proposed.
Keep the Free Agency rule in place as is and then add that all players can be eligible for FA by age 29.5. This way, the young stars can get their mega-contracts at age 26 or 27 and the late blooming players have a shot at signing at least one sizable free agent contract. Also, MLB should remove the cost of benefits from their CBA calculation (approximately $15M per team per year right now). Make the CBA threshold based solely on AAV of salaries only. This way, MLB can ‘lower’ the CBA threshold to $190M or so and there would be little to no impact to the players since that phantom $15M is removed. I also think there should be a maximum ceiling set (say $250M/team) so the level of competition can stay somewhat reasonable. Keep the floor of $100M too; that would greatly benefit the players and all owners can afford to do this. Keep revenue sharing in place too to help balance out the haves and have nots.
The idea of lowering the tax threshold and instituting a spending floor will just mean that higher spending teams will be subsidizing the payrolls of lower spending teams.
For players who debut at 20, presumably they’ll be arbitration eligible in their 3-4th year, then get arbitration raises every year until 29.5? With the increased arbitration pool, it would seem like they’re making huge yearly salaries late in arbitration. So they’ll be under team control for 10 years, but really expensive in the last few years.
Negotiating through the media is bad enough but MLB has issued two proposals so far that they have to know that A) the players are certain to reject and B) even the fans know these are terrible ideas.
I almost feel like Manfred is hoping for a strike. He continues to try to reinvent the game and he may feel like tearing the whole thing down to the foundation is how he will put his stamp on it
MLBPA said, “Not just no, F No!!!!!”
John Heyman, Scott Boras’ personal lackey, with a huge scoop. The players union reacts negatively. That’s some good reporting.
The default MLBPA position is that they will always gain in every aspect of the negotiation without ever giving on anything.
The fans pay all the bills. Maybe it’s time for the fans to have somebody at the negotiating table.
Recent changes to the CBA have done nothing substantive for the players. As for the fans paying, yes, we pay, but just a wee bit of it trickles to the owners–and then a whole torrent of cash goes from the taxpayers to the owners. This is a business for both the owners and players, and everyone will get as much as they can out of it. The players are not obligated to us to take less so we can spend less. And, let’s not assume that every dollar in salary reduction would go to reduced ticket prices….I’m sure the owners would have heavy carrying charges on those dollars.
I look forward to the 2025 season when we finally get back to having professional baseball.
It’s beginning to look like ESPN will be broadcasting KBO games all season next year
I just have a crazy idea. Wouldn’t it be more productive for the two sides to sit down to negotiate, instead of flinging proposals at each other that they know the other side is going to totally hate and instantly reject? Completely nuts, I know. I’m already sorry I suggested it.
I believe that there should be a set date, like Sept 1 or something like that, where both sides are required to submit a proposal to each other. That way they have a starting point. Too often it seems like one side just sits back waiting for an offer just so they can feign insult.
Nobody can require them to do anything. Both sides have to believe that coming to an agreement is in their mutual best interests and behave accordingly. Instead they’re only behaving like the rest of the country, talking past each other and expecting that they will prevail if their side can hold out longer.
They hate each other. This is going to get uglier before the outlook is brighter.
Hotdogs are already $7 – $10.
WHAT DO THESE BUTTHEADS WANT?
ALL of your money. Not just $7.
When I was at the Globe Life Park’s final game at the end of the 2019 season, two beers were $20, including a $2 tip for the beer vendor. At the new Globe Life Field this season, not only did I have to get up out of my seat to chase down a beer vendor, two beers plus a 15% tip for the vendor was over $27….
I’ve already made the decision that I won’t be seeing any games in person in 2022. I can get a much better view of the games on my couch, the beers are only about a buck each, and I don’t have to make the two hour drive home when the game is over.
I always figured buying beer in the ballpark was optional, but maybe the rule is different in Texas.
Work stoppage coming.
When you start negotiating you obviously start low or high depending on which benefits you but they had to know a free agency of age of 29.5 was never going to fly. It almost feels like an idea the owners came up with and said “who knows, maybe they’re stupid enough to sign on with this.”
Fernando Tatis is a great example of someone you have to wonder would have gotten that massive contract. Would the Padres just pocket his next 8 years of insanely cheap production rather than pay to keep him beyond 6 years? That would at least have to be a consideration for them. After all, Tatis is making several times any normal player because he is obviously very far from being a normal player. Getting that kind of elite production on the cheap would tempt any GM. I could see how that benefit would outweigh having to let go of lesser talents because they became free agents just 1 to 2 years earlier than they otherwise would have.
When both sides are making proposals they know are complete non-starters to the other side, it isn’t really a negotiation. What it does in reality is create a bad faith environment where good faith negotiation is that much more difficult to start. So if we have a walkout or a lockout or whatever it’s called next year, remember where things stood in September, with completely unrealistic dead on arrival proposals.
Typical MLBPA response…. not happy about anything, just say no… to anything and everything… no valid counter-proposals. Clark and company are so over-matched…. stoppage coming.
This is an attempt by MLB to show MLBPA the cost of putting on an MLB payroll floor.
The major issue in the CBA over time has been the income inequality that exists at the MLB level. Service year 1-3 are paid like an apprentice and not an actual Major Leaguer. The MLBPA’s mantra of “rising tides lifts all ships” has failed. They’ve created a cheap replacement labor class for the owner to exploit and it has ripple effect for all players except the elite. The value of a 40 man roster spot is hugely valuable to the detriment of the MLB middle class. This is reflective in the volume of minor league deals with an invite to camp many established MLB’ers go though each off season.
Worse in an attempt to “save” the always artificial free agent market, MLBPA in the last couple of CBA’s has thrown amateurs and international players under the bus not to mention make the QO system worse. I am not sure how leadership there still has their jobs.
Hopefully the MLBPA looks to how the NBA has “veteran roster exemptions” and finds ways to apply that to MLB. A contract/roster spot that if certain conditions are met would either be exempt from CBT and/or create a special 41st roster spot.
Amateurs and international players don’t belong to the MLBPA so it’s kind of unreasonable to expect their interests to be represented by the MLBPA. Nobody represents them except their agents, and some of them are pretty shady characters. It also isn’t up to the MLBPA to solve all of the problems in baseball by themselves. Both sides figure they can gain an advantage by threatening the sport with another shutdown, and so long as they believe it, that’s what we can expect.
I like the 29.5 idea. It’s kind of pissed me off that a guy can come up at age 27 and by the time he’s a FA he’s facing possible decline so nobody will reward him. I know it’s not my money, but that’s the type of player I can identify with.
Strike or lockout, no way 2022 starts on time.
I’m doing my part to help MLB resolve their labor disputes by not giving them any money.
100 million salary floor? Bob Nutting pooped himself when they agreed to offer that. He knows that it will never happen anyways.