The process for determining free agency and arbitration eligibility figures to be among the more contentious aspects of collective bargaining negotiations transpiring over the coming weeks. The MLB Players Association is expected to push for an overhaul of the existing system to get more money to players earlier in their careers; MLB, on the other hand, would seem to prefer the status quo.
Under the current structure, players are first eligible for free agency after logging six full seasons of big league service. Most play their first three seasons on salaries right around the league minimum, first qualifying for arbitration after three years. (The top 22% of players in the two-plus year service bucket also reach arbitration via the Super Two exception).
Jeff Passan of ESPN wrote earlier this week the MLBPA is hoping for players to reach free agency after six years of service or after five years of service and 29.5 years of age, whichever comes first. The Athletic reported in August they were also seeking arbitration eligibility arising after two seasons. The former ask would be an unprecedented development; since the 1975 abolition of the reserve clause, every collective bargaining agreement has set a six-year service threshold for free agency qualification. There is some precedent for the latter proposal, though. Between 1973 and 1987, players only needed two years of service to reach arbitration.
The league, unsurprisingly, hasn’t been keen on either idea. Over the summer, MLB proposed scrapping service time considerations altogether and making players first eligible for free agency at 29.5 years old. That was an obvious non-starter for the MLBPA.
While an age-based threshold would certainly be of benefit to some late-bloomers (hence the MLBPA’s desire to incorporate age into the equation to some extent), it’d also have a negative effect on many of the game’s top young stars. Carlos Correa and Corey Seager — each of whom is either expected to command or already has commanded one of the largest deals in major league history this offseason — would still be multiple years out from free agency under that kind of setup.
An age-based system would, however, address another concern players have expressed: service time manipulation. Calling up a player just days after the threshold passes for a player to earn a full season of service can give clubs a de facto seventh year of control, a loophole multiple teams have exploited when deciding when to promote their top prospects. That’d no longer be a relevant consideration under an age-based system, but even the MLBPA’s modified “age/service time hybrid” proposal could lead to gaming of players’ service clocks.
Evan Drellich of the Athletic wrote yesterday that the MLBPA has resigned itself to the potential for manipulation in any system with service time considerations. As a means of somewhat offsetting that issue, Drellich writes they’ve considered more creative ways of players “earning” service time beyond simply counting days. He floats the idea of a player who narrowly missed a service time threshold picking up additional service credit depending upon All-Star nominations or MVP voting.
Regardless of the specific form it takes, it’s clear that getting more money to early-career players is a priority for the MLBPA. Last week, Mets right-hander Max Scherzer — a member of the Players Association’s eight-person player subcommittee — told Drellich “unless this CBA completely addresses the competition (issues) and younger players getting paid, that’s the only way I’m going to put my name on it.”
Earlier free agency eligibility seems to be a non-starter for the league, however. Drellich wrote yesterday that the league refused to make a counter-offer to the MLBPA’s proposals on service time and luxury tax issues unless the union dropped its push for earlier free agency. Drellich reported this morning that the league has been similarly steadfast in its objections to arbitration eligibility after two years.
MLB has shown a willingness to revamp arbitration, albeit not in a manner the MLBPA has found acceptable. Over the summer, MLB proposed abolishing arbitration altogether and replacing it with a revenue-based pool system to be distributed to younger players based on performance. In MLB’s vision, salaries would be fixed based on objective performance metrics — likely some form of Wins Above Replacement statistic.
At a press conference this morning, Commissioner Rob Manfred reaffirmed the league’s objection to earlier free agency and arbitration eligibility (link via Bob Nightengale of USA Today). Manfred argued that the league “already (has) teams in smaller markets that struggle to compete. Shortening the period of time that they can control players makes it even harder for them to compete. It’s also bad for fans in those markets. The most negative reaction we have is when a player leaves via free agency. We don’t see that making it earlier, available earlier, we don’t see that as a positive. Things like a shortened reserve period … and salary arbitration for the whole two-year class are bad for the sport, bad for the fans and bad for competitive balance.”
Manfred echoed competitive balance concerns in pointing to another issue of contention: revenue sharing. The MLBPA has sought to cut back on the amount of money being distributed from higher-revenue franchises to their lower-revenue counterparts, Drellich wrote this morning, believing the reallocation “goes too far in keeping teams afloat without having to invest in players.”
The MLBPA has expressed concern about whether smaller-market clubs adequately reinvest those funds, filing grievances against teams like the Pirates, Rays, A’s and Marlins in years past. The 2016-21 CBA required teams to use revenue sharing money “to improve its performance on the field,” but investments in such things as scouting and player development staffs fit that criteria without offering direct financial benefits to players.
Manfred implied this morning that the MLBPA has expressed a desire to reduce revenue sharing by around $100MM, a development he said would further harm small-market clubs’ ability to compete. How significantly those proposals would harm competitive integrity is up for debate. MLBPA negotiator Bruce Meyer argued they’d have the opposite effect.
“Our proposals would positively affect competitive balance, competitive integrity,” Meyer told Drellich. “We’ve all seen in recent years a problem with teams that don’t seem to be trying their hardest to win games, or put the best teams on the field. Our proposals address that in a number of ways. And we’ve offered to build in advantages for small-market teams.”
There’s some room for debate about the competitive balance impacts of the MLBPA’s goals. There’s little question, on the other hand, that shrinking teams’ windows of contractual control would get more money to younger players. Unless paired with a drop in spending on older veterans, that’d raise the players’ overall share of revenues — a development with which Manfred and league ownership groups certainly wouldn’t be enamored.
To get around the “7 year loophole”
Just make it to where it counts as a full year if the player gets 400 plate appearances or more, RP pitches 28 games or more, SP pitches 20 games or more.
You’d still get manipulation, but more blatant.
Sorry if I’m a little new to this. From my years as a civil attorney I would like to see both sides of the negotiation. They are writing about what the players are asking for but not telling us what the players are willing to give up for that in the negotiation. It would be easier to assess that way. I’m certain the players have to be offering something in return directly for the service time changes.
I can tell you from experience the 30 wealthier owners will be able to wait out the players. Their money buys them time. It always does in negotiations. Hundreds or thousands of players will start wanting to play under owners guidelines before 30 billionaire owners feel the pressure to cave in to players demands.
In negotiations there is always a trade off for everything that happens or the negotiation fails because the wealthiest people involved wait for the other side to run low on money first. It’s all very interesting but I don’t like hearing one side of the story.
Why aren’t they telling us the quid-pro-quo? What are the players offering to give up for the change in service time? If they don’t tell us how do we even form an opinion whether the owners should accept it? It can’t just be a demand or the owners can just wait out until a lot of the less wealthy players start to cave.
The owners want expanded playoffs (means more revenues). Owners want international draft (limits expenses). Owners wanted (and got) smaller September rosters (limits expenses). Owners want to reduce luxury tax caps (limits expenses). Etc…
Thank you Please Hammer, for a balanced approach.
Does anyone remenber Bob Goodenow? Bob was the head honcho at the NHL players’ union 15 years or so ago. He was locked in a tough set of negotiations with the NHL teams.
Bob didn’t know when to raise and when to fold. He bargained hard, and got a last minute, good offer from the clubs, maybe even more than they could afford, so that they could avoid a strike. Bob held out through, and took the players out on strike. They ended up having the entire season canceled including the playoffs. It was only the second time a major sport canceled the post-season, the first being the 1994 MLBPA strike.
The next year, before losing a second season, the NHL players took a deal that was significant.yl worse than the deal they turned down. Why? Because they let their strongest moment, the moment before the work stoppage, pass. Once there was a work stoppage, the owners are going to adjust. They’ll lose out at the beginning, but they will adjust. The players just lose more and more as time goes on.
The NHL owners were willing to go the extra mile to get a settlement before the work stoppage, even lose a little bit of money to avoid the stoppage. But once the stoppage starts, once they’ve lost that money, that desperation fades and it’s the players who will lose.
Same thing will happen here. The MLBPA, in the past few decades a clown outfit that’s stood for enabling PED cheats, opposing revenue-sharing etc, is leading players down the garden path for the sole purpose of looking strong. The sport is doing well and so are the players, as the $300 million contracts show. This is a pointless fight about nothing.
And I agree with what the owners want. …. You are ina business that highers employees. They are payed a certain sum so your business makes a profit. So what is the issue?
Best Screenname Ever: That’s kind of what I mean. I’m sure neither side wants a work stoppage but there is no question a stoppage hurts the players far more than the owners.
There has to be a quid-pro-quo for every single compromise each side makes. It doesn’t even really matter what the owners or players have already received. It can come grouped together or the compromises can come separately but they each must have a compromise that the other side believes is specifically beneficial to them.
I’ve seen too many negotiations where one party demands something without giving anything in return because that is “the way it should be.” It doesn’t matter. They can be right and stomp their feet and bang their fists all they want but at the end of the day the group with the most money will win. If they don’t get something in return they know whoever has less money is under more pressure.
If there is a work stoppage players like Tatis, Acuna, Franco, Albies, Soto and a ton of other players are going to start getting very frustrated with the union after a period of time. None of them have made much money yet and they know the work stoppage is what will prevent them from making it. Eventually they will be willing to agree with the owners so they can finally play baseball and start building their nest egg.
The owners know this. No matter if there is a work stoppage or not every last owner will spend the rest of their lives taking trips on yachts and eating caviar. In between sips of Don P. they will laugh at the great players who had hundreds of millions of dollars on the table but are now in the poor house because they couldn’t get their rep to sign.
The owners know that at some point the players will start disagreeing with how to go about it and fracture their resolve. Every last owner could retire right now and live in the lap of luxury for the rest of their lives. The players have to offer something in return for everything they ask for because a work stoppage is much worse for them than it is the owners. That’s how it ends up in every negotiation I have ever seen. The side with lesser money offers something of equal value for everything they ask for or the side with more money just waits them out. It hurts both sides to wait it out but it hurts the less wealthy side much more.
In my 24 years helping business owners, I can tell you they cannot lower their margins long term (leverage & other key franchise factors will be greatly impacted) and certainly are not going to be told how best invest their earned profits. The public may fail to see that increase in the cost of the good will eventually paid by us – the consumers. Further more maintaining competitive balance is critical otherwise we shrink the consumer to about 10 metro markets not a fun league with just 10 clubs right! Expanding viewership is key even a couple franchises don’t compete as they should but small markets like A’s and Rays seem to make the post season more then their fair share so the revenue sharing and developing players how they do it does work.
First, every team makes over 200 million in revenue every normal year! Second, owners buy teams for different reasons. Third, there is parity with the system as it is now. Four, MLB players have the best contract in sports, every contract is garanteed.
@Please. I disagree. This doesn’t make the players look bad. It makes Manfred look like an ass. With Mlb.com removing current player info ( the site was developed for fans and also offers a subscription ) and with Manfred’s stupid proposals and decision making ( ie: moving the Allstar game out of Atlanta over political issues ), the fans and players are fed up. … It’s the players vs. owners and Manfred.
then you’ll probably see a lot of guys end with 399 PA, 27 games pitched, or 19 starts. this is why any stats-based baseline isnt going to fly from the union’s perspective.
It’s a Start but that can still be manipulated.
But there must be an answer.
I don’t know how long it will take but both owners and players know how catastrophic it would be to lose part of the season
The owners behaving with integrity would stop manipulation, but that’s not going to happen.
well, ya
thats why unions exist
Why not just start the clock the minute they’re called up, and do away with ANY manipulation. If you’re called up, it’s a year. Then you wouldn’t get the Kris Bryant situations. Because the chubs absolutely screwed him on service time. But they’re not the only team to do that. If you don’t set hard boundaries, teams will find ways to work around service time. A player is ready, or they aren’t, most of the time. Or just set a specific time until a player is a free agent. It’s not rocket science. 7 years from signing or draft. Or 8 or whatever works. That time counts if traded as well. If you’re drafted or signed at 18, you’re a free agent at 25 or 26. Or go 9 years, and make it 27. Whatever, but just agree on something. It’s billionaires fighting with millionaires right now. It’s not like any of these guys are curing cancer ffs.
The current system rounds service time down. If service time is rounded up, and Super Two was, say, 1.9yrs of service time, that would eliminate a lot of manipulation. Currently if you have 2.116yrs or whatever, you’re still min-salary for another year, which is super-unfair
I agree 100%
I’ve always felt it should be calculated the opposite way it currently is. Any year a player spends more than a month on the active roster, it should count for a year of service. The threshold is so low that there is little benefit to game the system.
How about if you play a game in the majors it counts as a year. Would still get a very small amount of manipulation, but not much.
That would just change the time of year at which the manipulation would occur. You would see a lot fewer prospects getting called up to “get their feet wet” in September.
I’d be fine with that. Just have the best players make the team out of spring training, no need for bloated September rosters anyways where guys just pinch run or pitch once a week to get their feet wet. Toss them in the ocean and let them sink or swim.
I don’t know if this would work, but why not have an independent arbitrator decide if a player gets a year of service time. Every case can be different. One player can get a year from x amount of games. Another could get a year based on contributions during a season (or postseason). An independent arbitrator would look at the Kris Bryant example and almost surely rule in his favor.
Kris Bryant went that route and still lost, despite it being so obvious. The arbitrators always side with the teams, for some reason. But that WOULD seem like an easy solution, if it weren’t already proven to not work, for whatever reason. Maybe keep a system like that, but have less league control over who arbitrates them.
Why not make years of control dependent on neither MLB service time NOR age, but time since a player signs his first professional contract. You could make three groups of players, amateur signees under 18, high school draftees, and college draftees. If a player’s good enough to get to the big leagues with 7 or 8 years of control, they’ll make a fortune in arbitration.
I like this, fair for the player but also removes teams trying to game to get more years
This makes the most sense to me. Give them 10 years of control. So if you’re 18, you’ll hit free agency at 28 no matter where you are in the organization. The arbitration clock starts from the day when you’re first added to the 40-man, so you become eligible three (or two or whatever) years later, until you hit 10 years, then you become a free agent if you don’t have a contract.
This would cost Juan Soto three years of free agency.
Edit: no it wouldn’t, just one.
I mean, I don’t care, make it 8 years of control if that’s a big concern.
Soto signed out of the Dominican in 2015. So he’d reach free agency in 2025 with 10 years of control. As it stands now, he’s due to hit free agency in 2024, I think.
Edit: Yeah, I think just one.
They wouldn’t be able to do 10 years because the college players signing contracts at 21 or 22 years old wouldn’t reach FA until after 30. I like the OP’s idea, but it’d have to be a 7 year max.
Theoretically though they’d reach the majors faster and get more MLB arbitration salary years.
Pun, what that does is mean the best players that come into the league at 19 or 20 are not eligible for FA for 2-3 years after they would be now.
That is a non-starter.
Well, again, they’d get a lot of high arbitration salaries. I don’t think the structure should be most concerned with the top handful of players that make the bigs by age 20. They’re going to get paid no matter what. The guys who don’t break in until 24 or so are the ones who get screwed.
Earlier arbitration just seems like a no-brainer to me. I mean, yeah, I know it’s going to cost owners more, but it seems like easily the most common-sense and straightforward way to address the concerns about younger players being underpaid without a major overhaul. And it’s not like early arbitration will mean players start getting $20m a year two years into their careers.
I also don’t understand why the owners as a group aren’t more inclined to initiate a salary floor and limit revenue sharing. The owners of the Yankees and Dodgers have to be sick of funding their competitors, and I’m not buying the cries of poverty from “small market” teams. You’d think the owners of bigger market teams would have more pull in negotiations.
Actually the high revenue teams don’t directly fund the low revenue teams. Most revenue sharing comes from MLB and their national revenue streams. The whole of the lux tax program last year was about $20m.
Fair enough, but it just seems like the MLBPA and a substantial, if not majority, share of ownership would be pretty much on the same page on this issue.
Revenue Sharing has next to nothing to do with the Luxury Tax. LT is a component of the Central Fund, distributed equally to every team. Total RS payments are about 80M a year, by Forbes’ estimates, with the bottom 5 revenue generators receiving
about 90% of that money.
And national revenue streams go into the Central Fund; again, nothing to do with RS.
The CBT doesn’t fund revenue sharing. All the teams put money into a pool. The big revenue teams don’t get as much of that back and the small market teams get more than they put in. THAT is how revenue sharing is accomplished.
BTW
MLBTR the content today has been fantastic as usual, really great information for us. A+
I feel there is merit towards an expanded 40 man roster, one additional option year, earlier Rule 5 eligibility, a 27 man roster, and players earning service time as long as they are on the 40. This does the most possible to legislate out service time manipulation, allow players to earn well, but doesnt disadvantage owners so much as to make them unwilling to come to the table.
Seems like the framework for a workable compromise. Remember, the union gave in and allowed an extra year of non-40- man control (it used to be 3 years for college, 4 years for High Schoolers; now it’s 4 and 5). Return to the old standard, add an option year as you suggested, and Service Time starts with 40- man placement.
I don’t know if either side would go for this, but how about giving the teams seven years of control, but starting the clock when the player is put on the 40-man roster, not when they are brought up? That would eliminate manipulation, and encourage teams to bring players up as soon as they’re ready.
I could be wrong here, but I feel like a lot of times these younger studs that make their debut aren’t put on the 40 man until their debut. That puts them at a disadvantage, or much of the same (7 years vs. 6).
They would likely be manipulated into a seventh year anyway, and with an extra year of arbitration, they would still earn a pretty good salary.
Depends on the situation if a top prospects hasn’t made a debut but gets to where they are eligible for the rule 5 draft then they are normally added to the 40 man to be protected from being drafted in the rule 5
ya exactly. I’m thinking about the Trouts and Acuna’s of the world that debut at a young age that are not on the 40 man (obviously most guys that make their debut’s come from the 40 man but there’s other cases)
If a young stud reaches free agency at 27, which is an extra year, he’s still going to make a fortune.
Most players would benefit, but there are a small few who wouldn’t.
@cookmeister 2, You are wrong. Thanks for admitting that. They are placed on the 40 man roster to protect them from the rule 5 draft. But what do I know? I’m just a bat that Kenny Lofton climbed through the ceiling to rescue from the umpires locker room.
@bhambrave , this would never work as long as the rule 5 draft is in play.
Well if the PA wants the kids to get paid there needs to be something that controls spending later on….because the players can’t moan on that one.
I dont see them taking money away from vets and giving it to the youngsters because they never have.
exactly. I find it really weird when Scherzer talks about younger guys getting paid more when he just signed for $43 mil a year at his age
I think the people who are getting screwed the most are the late bloomers. The Correas and Sotos of the world are going to get paid under any framework. But if you don’t make it to the bigs until you’re 25-27- either because it hasn’t clicked yet or because of injuries or whatever – you’re not going going get a crack at FA until you’re 31-33, at which point you’re too old to really cash out, and you’ll have played half your prime for the league minimum and the other half for artificially deflated arbitration salaries.
Correa is 27 and would get royally screwed if FA was at 29.5 years old as the owners are proposing.
But Aaron Judge would benefit.
Max contract sizes like the NBA would help spread the money around. But MLBPA would never go for that.
The problem with salaries in MLB isn’t that Corey Seager just got paid $325M instead of $350M. It’s that 95% of minor leaguers get paid next to nothing and the biggest stars get paid 90% of the salary. Cutting some off the top salaries would go a long way to fix this. But it will never happen.
Won’t work in MLB where the teams do not have equal revenue. .
It’s important to remember that the players association does not represent minor league players.
Minor league players get a signing bonus and contract, when drafted for 6 months worth of work. Daily per diem, baseball card contracts and ect. This changed after the ’94 strike. Before ’94, minor leaguers were paid squat.
For context in all of this: nobody has ever paid for a ticket to see the owners own.
You still need a business to work at to get paid. Players can’t do it on their own they need to owners.
I agree with you in spirit. I go to ballparks right watch the players on the field, but I find the argument overly simplistic. I mean, I don’t order from Amazon to see Jeff Bezos deliver packages to me front door, but I sure am glad he’s a billionaire who can offer streamlines shopping and delivery service while I watch my favorite prime shows with my family. The fact is that both owners and players play a vital role in putting the product on the field.
Both sides have an agenda. Thats simply reality.
Owners want to control players as long as possible, make as much money as possible, and spend as little money as possible.
Players want to be free agents as soon as possible, make as much money as possible, and make sure revenue share money gets spent on salaries not hoarded.
I think we need to band together and form a fans union.
Depends on the situation if a top prospects hasn’t made a debut but gets to where they are eligible for the rule 5 draft then they are normally added to the 40 man to be protected from being drafted in the rule 5
Both sides have an agenda. Thats simply reality.
Owners want to control players as long as possible, make as much money as possible, and spend as little money as possible.
Players want to be free agents as soon as possible, make as much money as possible, and make sure revenue share money gets spent on salaries not hoarded.
I think that we should band together and form a fans union.
What about restricted free agency for players in the 5-6 year range? A player can market himself to other teams, but the old team can match an offer made to the player. Or, the player can wait it out for another year for unrestricted free agency. I remember the owners tried it during the 1994-95 strike to replace arbitration when they reinstituted new rules that were eventually struck down by Sotomayor.
I also like the idea mentioned above about tying service time to the 40-man roster. Still potential for service time manipulation if it’s a player not on the 40-man roster, but if they’re already on it, there should be incentive to get the player to the majors as soon as possible.
ANY system they come up with for service time can be manipulated. What I would love to see, but have no delusions it will actually come to pass, is that the owners make the players true partners in the game. Then, the players and owners would work together to improve the game, and their profits, instead of always being at loggerheads with each other. But that would require the owners and players to be open and honest with each other, share information including financial information. It would also require them to address the competitive balance issues that plague smaller market teams.
Play 1 game and its a year of service time. Manipulate that an only the team loses.
How about starting a new Superior League Baseball and make MLB extinct. Initialize a salary cap per team to ensure competitiveness . Give the fans back their game where families can attend at prices the family can afford. If current MLB PLAYERS want to play, they will have to submit to contracts no longer than 2 years.
The ticket prices will depend on what people are willing to pay for them, not what the players make.
OlC2021 lives in a fantasy world. First, who’s going to buy or pay to build new stadiums? You need a place to place and the current owners aren’t going to let you play there. Second, the upkeep and staffing alone will dictate whether you can even make money based on what fans want to play. Finally, many fans would never stand for their favorite team dissolving.
Salary caps have been proven to not help competitiveness. Mlb has the best recent championship parity of the big 4 by a wide margin
A salary cap won’t ensure competitiveness. It would actually drive more teams to tank.
With this down time could we get a revised Top FA Prediction list just for fun from the writers?
Thanks, guys
5 years from the singing of a contract. If they are still in the minors, then they are a minor league free agent, and rule 5 draft rules apply to them, but if called back and not put on the 40 man, the immediately become free agents again.
It looks like we’re going to have to deal with an XFL type of league if they can’t figure this out.
East Division…
Arkansas Hellbenders
Hartford Seals
Memphis Hound Dogs
Tallahassee Turtles
Virginia Beach Sand Crabs
West Division…
Albuquerque Desert Dogs
Omaha Dragons
Salt Lake Silvers
San Jose Pterodactyls
Wichita Warlocks
@48
what about Portland?
Portland Anarchist; oh, never mind:)
If you ever win the lottery I don’t even need to ask what you’d do with it @48. There’d be baseball everywhere- even Alaska. Lol
@ Appalachian_Outlaw
Don’t forget about the Halifax Demon Ducks.
These are all complicated issues and there has to be compromises. That being said, I like the idea of reaching arbitration after a player is on a major league roster any part of two seasons. If they are good enough to be placed on a roster, the team needs to ready to compensate them in year three. The team always has the option to extend, drop or trade a player. They go to arbitration for four years and can become a free agent after that.
How about arbitration two years after they’re put on the 40-man?
Unless revenue sharing or a salary cap is put in place, small market teams are screwed, if the length shrinks. As an example, the Brewers won’t be able to afford Hader, Burns, Woodruff etc once their time is up. Sucks
They should also allow trading of draft picks. Just saying.
create a fund, paid out to the 1st-3rd year players; based on thier production, or service time, or ?
players are rated(by team, not league) by one of the stat metrics and the top performers get a larger bonus out of the team fund.
maybe it allows a player to get $100-200K bonus. small bonus is $25-50-75k. could be more.
Maybe the bonus carries over into the following year salary. top talent gets $200 bonus, and the next year his salary is salary+$200k.
2nd and 3rd yr could see $400k increase from bonus and carry over from previous years bonus awarded.
1st yr player could earn-570k+200=770k
2nd yr player could earn 1.170,000(770k+200+200)
3rd yr player could earn 1,570,000
this scenario would be for a Soto or Acuna or India, Garcia,Rogers…
teams that get revenue sharing need to spend X % of it on new player contracts. Use it or lose it.
I have what will likely be an unpopular suggestion. If the small market teams are struggling that much, then get rid of them. Everyone always seems to want expansion, but seem to ignore that continued expansion has caused some of the problems we have today. Right now the A’s and Rays can’t get a stadium funded and struggle greatly with attendance even when they win. Go ahead and contract them! Yes, it sucks that they just happen to be 2 very well run teams – but those baseball brains will find jobs in other organizations. If we had this discussion 20 years ago it probably would have been the Indians and Twins instead. Times change and so do the markets that are profitable. Even if 2 teams were contracted, there are still several teams that would likely be far better off financially by relocating to other markets. Go where the $$$ is, period.
Go to 28 teams and use a balanced schedule where all teams play each of the other 27 teams for 1 home and 1 away game series each year. Rain out or other cancellations aren’t made up. 27×6=162. Increase the year long roster size to 28. The will give players more “rest” to help avoid injuries, and basically replace the player jobs lost through contraction.
Pay everyone a higher minimum salary and have all additional compensation based upon some agreed upon metric. It could be WAR, or based upon playing time, games started, award or peer voting or whatever. Then service time is no longer an issue for anything other than the pension. Even better we would then always likely see the best players on the planet on the field. There would be no advantage to keeping young guys down or keeping old guys around based upon past performance or because they’re still owed big contracts.
Just my two cents.
The other owners would have to pay the As and Rays ownership a hefty amount to go away. I don’t think owners will like that. I don’t see a decrease in teams. Although those 2 would be the top easy choices. Still have the giants in market and a lot of the tampa area is transplants and roots for other teams. You didn’t suggest it now but to lose all of Minnesota and half of Ohio would be a bigger lose. Like if Pittsburgh lost the Pirates they won’t start watching Cleveland or Philadelphia. They will just stop watching baseball. Oakland already lost teams so they are used to moving on to something else. Pittsburgh doesn’t care for nearby cities, they won’t watch.
I’ve become in favor of contraction, to be honest. Just reading this article, this whole thing feels like it’s about dragging 4-6 teams along. If a market can’t support baseball, then it can’t. The solution is really simple.
Move the A’s to Vegas.
Contract the Rays and maybe the Pirates.
Pittsburgh is a great baseball town. When they are good pnc park will be full. Steelers and Penguins do just fine. MLB system is broken. Pirates are doing just fine, but if you want them to spend more money then you need to share more money. If a team wasn’t making all the owners profit they would remove it.
This article is the perfect analogy using grades instead of dollars to show what you can expect
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that she had never failed a single student before but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on this plan.” All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D. No one was happy. When the third test rolled around, the average was an F.
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, all failed and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
These are possibly the five best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
Substitute Business For Government In This Little Example
Also TB should play half their games in Montreal. Montreal us up for a team and willing to build a stadium just for baseball. Smaller, near downtown.
One that doesn’t destroy knees…
Owners stop messing around and go with replacement players. Wait a few months then throw Manfred under the bus and make him the fall guy along with players union. Give some total bs statement on how much you love the fans and in this time of pandemic baseball with replacement players is better than no baseball at all. You shouldn’t have rules to allow such easy service time manipulation. At least start service time when added to 40 man or when player becomes rule 5 eligible. But you have all the power. The players can either play under your system or go get into the enterprise car rental management training program. I hear it is really good.
They tried that in 1995, genius, but the NLRB and SCOTUS ruled that the owners failed to bargain in good faith and that hiring replacement players is illegal. Those rulings were what forced a settlement and saved the 1995 season. The owners don’t have the power to act illegally. Any other bright ideas?
I like the owners chances from what I am hearing. But if not hold steady and starve them out. Owners will be more than willing to just keep the old system. Players won’t and most casual fans will side with ownership.
I’d disagree. I think you’re writing off people as being naive, and most aren’t. Everything you’re suggesting is frankly an evil negotiating move as well as super transparent.
And we have another genius. That was exactly their strategy, first with the 1990 lockout and then the 1994-1995 strike. There was a cabal of owners, including Jerry Reinsdorf and Bud Selig, who wanted to break the union, but they got their clocks cleaned in NLRB and SCOTUS rulings.
Just how things work. The owners have the money connections power. A few months without pay will be hard for some players. A few years wow. Players only have so long to make money. Owners will make money as long as they are alive and well.
Clocks cleaned? Nah. Temporary injunction which immediately lead to players coming back and ultimately lead to the owners becoming a lot wealthier the last 20 some years.
You’d also have to be able to sell this to fans. Look, I loved the movie “the Replacements”, but it was fiction. I’m not paying the current ticket price to watch scab players. They won’t be as good and it’d feel dirty. But hey, let’s say you have a segment of fans not bothered by the ethical issue of it; are you lowering ticket prices? If you are, you’re cutting into ownership revenue now. Uh oh!
Pirate fans have been watching replacement players for 30 years. 1.5 million fans come no matter how bad the product is. When they field a good team an extra million come. Some come to see the ball park or just something to do. I know people who went to games just to see a band or fire works after. Tickets are the same but they will run more promotions for non fri sat games. Beer food etc same price. Think of it this way. Tickets will be cheaper but food and drink are the same for a limp bizkit concert and rolling stones concert. The current players can either play or loss millions. My guess is they will play.
And yes ticket prices and or number of tickets sold will go down. So will tv revenue. But so will payroll. NY LA will go from 300 million to 3 million.
So your plan is to destroy the profitability of the game to prove a point? Doesn’t that seem… counterproductive to you?
The financial hit would be a short one.
No. The NLRB ordered the players back to work under the old contract. That wasn.t the case with other sports. By Federal law you can fire workers that are on strike and hire replacements.
Sparky Anderson
MLB subscribes to voodoo Economics LOL!
Too many small market Teams aren’t trying to compete. Looking at you Pirates, Orioles, Rockies, etc.
Max is totally correct. There needs to be more competitiveness enforced to prevent Teams with minimum payrolls just in it for the TV shared Revenue and Revenue Sharing.
The Game’s top producers are young and they are working for Peanuts. Makes no sense. Pay needs to be aligned with production not with age and service time.
Denver, the entire state of Colorado, and surrounding states isn’t a small market. The used to routinely fill a football stadium with fans. Pirates tried to compete by spending money. Prior to the last few years they had payrolls of 70 80 90 even 100 million and with the exception of a few years that they hit on and had cutch is his short prime and hit on some reclamation projects all it got them was 70 80 wins. New GM is attempting to rebuild them the only way they can so when they are able to give it a shot again maybe they can spend over 100 million. They can’t spend over 100 otherwise. Small market. Small ballpark with 2.5 million max while others seat 3 to 4. Their tv deal is measured in low hundreds of millions. Other teams receive billions in theirs. They aren’t here to compete. They are the Washington Generals for NY LA etc.
I am usually on the players side on these.
After all, they have no choice where they play and make way less than veteran players for years until they get “tenure”.
That said, what are they offering the owners?
They want earlier arbitration and a free agency system that is better for THEM
what are they giving up in return?
Owners want 14 team playoff which will increase revenue but players said no.
I think the players demands are just and fair.
But that’s not enough.
A negotiation is GIVE and take.
Just expecting to gain concessions because they are just and fair but not giving anything in return is what causes these problems.
14 Team Playoffs is a horrible idea as it waters down the quality of postseason Games. Half the Teams making the playoffs is a joke like the NHL & NBA where Teams don’t belong in the mix.
14 is too many but I’d be good with 12. If they were to go to more than 12 then I would actually like the one-game playoff more than I do now. In that case I would have four wild cards basically play a single-elimination tournament to determine which one goes to the Division Series. That way the division winners still have a big advantage. If they keep it at just two wild cards then they need to make it a best-of-three though.
It’s not apparent how the ‘anti-tanking’ proposals assist competitive balance as Meyers suggests they do. Teams at the bottom of the ladder tank to get a better draft position to improve themselves during the draft. Undermining their rebuild strategy and forcing them instead to spend money on players that aren’t going to effectively improve their competitive situation isn’t improving competitive balance as Meyers and the MLBPA self-servingly claim. It’s just forcing them to waste money and artificially raise salaries, while undermining their rebuilding efforts.
Purposefully losing 100 plus games three years in a row to improve your roster is a terrible way to rebuild for the overall sport. Is it successful? Sure, ask CHC, HOU, SD, TOR, etc. But that means every single season there will be (multiple) teams refusing to field a competitive team to ensure they have a better draft pick…
These are smart people on both sides, they know they can’t strike! Owners get 14 team playoffs, free agency stays the same, lottery draft, players contracts after 35 don’t count against the cap. 220 top end cap.Players : minimum salary 1 million, bonus salary 10 million for MVP, Cy Young, and WAR over 4 for top 5 players. DH, and arbitration after 2 years. New rules, no shift, pitch clock, robot umps, bases larger, 28 man roster.
Just an idea: Stop the draft as we currently know it. Instead, somehow assign/draft players to lower MiLB teams that aren’t affiliated with any club. Then, players need 1 year of service before they become draft eligible. You draft for your AAA team. Limit the number of rounds to like 10. If a player doesnt make the draft, they stay in the low minors. Then, after they have 1 day of MLB service, the following off-season they become arbitration eligible for 2 years. Free agents on the 4th off-season after they made their MLB debut.
It will be interesting to see that by locking down and killing all the hot stove interest in the sport whether fans will lose interest in baseball altogether.
The sport is already losing the interest of younger fans. Both sides need to stop being so myopic.
Who do they think they are? Congress ?
No idea on how you do it but I’d love to see high performing younger guys getting paid a lot more. At the moment, the system breeds an almost automatic going to the highest bidder when they hit free agency. Understand it, but not a massive fan of that. A mechanism that pays them in line with how they are performing while under control, might breed a bit more loyalty to the club that developed them when they reach free agency. I think that would be a positive for the game.
Sometimes the players are right, sometimes the owners are right.
About service time and free agency, the players are right.
About how to have competitive balance, they are wrong. The best way to have a competitive balance is to have a luxury tax and less revenue sharing for teams that don’t have a salary floor. Softening the luxury tax is a great way to tip the apple cart even more towards big market teams.
There seems to be balance with 5 new teams making the playoffs every year. Teams like Tampa, Cleveland, and even the Marlins look competitive and they have low payrolls.
There’s more concern on this board to reach a fair deal than there is with the owners and MLBPA. MOST sickening is Manfred supposedly being the “Commissioner”, and yet referring to the owners as “we”; and setting himself up as the adversary of the M:LBPA.
Close to it is Tony Clarke, claiming he’s concerned about “competitive balance” as if he gave a hoot.
Here’s a hint to what’s REALLY driving all this drivel; the owners (especially the big market ones) want to change the Revenue Sharing guidelines. The MLBPA wants to change the Revenue Sharing guidelines.
Strange bedfellows.
6 years or 5 year and 29.5 years old seems pretty reasonable to me.
Just a random idea. Change super 2 to super 1. Once a player completes a year with their rookie status gone they can start the arbitration process. Then make it a flat 6 years in the majors before free agency. What constitutes a year? How about if they are on the MLB roster for 10 days that counts as a year. This way if a team plans to call up a prospect it is in their best interest to have them on the opening day roster or wait until next year to maximize it.
Being a fan of a team that very closely steps on the line of small market/big market (Detroit Tigers), I will say that it would be very hard to root for a team like the Pirates and A’s. In my opinion, there has to be a salary line where teams MUST spend a minimum amount of money strictly on players salaries or risk penalties. If small market clubs like these are getting funds from the bigger market clubs and “spending” it on BS such as in house wifi capabilities or some other crap and not on the on-field product, then they don’t deserve those funds. If I go to the ballpark with my family and spend $300 on tix, hotdogs,a few beers and maybe a souvenir and they aren’t spending the bare minimum on players, then why the hell would I go? I get that not every club is going to spend like the Yanks, Dodgers, etc but there needs to be a standard amount that ought to be spent strictly on the product on the field.
Time to move teams like Tampa to Nashville or Montreal where they will get a better fan base and more revenue. Forbes has every team making over 21o million in revenues, which means they all can spend more. Baseball franchises are worth more than 2 billion dollars. I think you will see them expanding to 32 teams in the next few years as soon as the CBA is settled.
The owners basic position is that the players must agree to a structure that limits their pay sufficiently so that the smallest market teams can compete and make a profit. But why should that burden be entirely on the players? We wouldn’t insist on a doctor accepting a “small” hospital salary scale when recruited by a bigger hospital who can afford to pay more,, or a big-muscle law firm to give us their greater resources at a small firm rate.nor expect a ticket to a big Broadway show at the price charged by a small amateur community theatre group.
The tiniest violins playing here for both sides. Go ahead, mess this up and if part of the ‘22 season is lost, you will lose me for the rest of my life. Go grab your greedy $$ from some other fans. Apparently you think there are an endless number of them (fans).
I have an idea for the service time. How about something like they do with arbitration? Call it a “Super 5” player. So instead of making service time a flat 6 years like it is now, make a 5 year player a free agent if he has a certain amount of time in the majors. So if he gets to 5.5 years, for example, then he becomes a “Super 5:” free agent. It wouldn’t be a perfect system (there isn’t one) but it would eliminate teams from waiting 3 weeks into the season to call up their top prospects. It would also result in many more rookies starting the season with their teams and having a true rookie season. The players would avoid the almost 7 years to free agency and the owners would still have 6 full years if they wanted it. You would still have teams manipulating it (calling up players in August to get 6.3 years instead of 6) but it would benefit the players some without a total overhaul of the system. The system was never meant for players to wait 6.9 years to be free agents anyway.
Easier solution. Once a team adds a player to the 40 man roster; their service time clock begins.
This isn’t bad. I also like the 6 or 5 until 29.5. Obviously, the owners don’t, so the 40 man rule you’re proposing would definitely be out because that would mean having the clock start on some players who are 2+ years from the majors who need to get added to the 40 because of rule V. Now, if they changed rule V to accommodate that change, that could be something, but idk if that’s on the table for this CBA.
So a player could be in the minors on the 40 man and still accruing service time. This will eliminate manipulation of service time to gain an extra year of control. You put them on the 40, the clock starts ticking.
I think a salary cap is needed and settled all the grievances going on between both sides.every major sports league but baseball, is salary capped. Soccer is a rising sport and not quite sure how they do things. But baseball is sending out half a billion dollars on a single contract right now. Smaller market teams can’t compete with that and understand that. Salary cap the league, 2 years of league minimum before players get an increase in salaries, bring the DH to the NL (pains me to say that), divide the league into East and West coast, expand the playoffs while reducing “inter league” play and shortening the season by 20 games, eliminate the extra year of control by allowing players to be free agents by 28 years of age or 5 years of MLB service time of minimum of 100 ABs or 10 pitching appearances per season, and eliminate the “capped spending” in drafts and international signings. Drop the idea of replacing umpires with robots to call balls and strikes. Leave the pitch clock alone and keep it at 15 seconds for a pitcher to make a pitch/move. They want to reduce the length of the game, limit the instant replay challenge to 2 for 9 innings. After 9 innings, umpires can call a review if a play could change the outcome of the game. Managers can no longer sit at the top of the steps waiting for confirmation to review a play or not. They have 15 seconds (depending on pitchers move/pitch) to decide to challenge or call a 10 second time out and you only get 3 per 9 innings. On a home run, a player may just touch first base and can head to the dugout. Instead of a long home run trot, 8 seconds to touch a base 90 feet away and a quick trot to the dugout instead of the normal 40-60 second trot to round the bases and another quick trot to the dugout. There are ways to speed up the game, but rushing pitchers shouldn’t be the answer
Time to move teams like Tampa to Nashville or Montreal where they will get a better fan base and more revenue. Forbes has every team making over 21o million in revenues, which means they all can spend more. Baseball franchises are worth more than 2 billion dollars. I think you will see them expanding to 32 teams in the next few years as soon as the CBA is settled.
Once again, salary caps don’t work. Baseball has had by far the best parity recently, especially when measuring by championships. It’s not close.
How about raise the CBT threshold and leave everything the same. Everybody keeps getting rich. Oh and its 100 year contract so no more worries about games cancelled.
How would that proposal impact younger free agents? Wouldn’t it limit the max number of team control years to 6 instead of 7 with the super 2? I don’t think the idea is to purely base free agency on the 29.5 age threshold. That could leave some players under team control for 10 years.
The players want to completely change three long standing tenants of the game, when free agency occurs, when arbitration occurs, how much a team has to spend.
Pick one. Asking the owners to surrender all three will never happen.
You put all three on the table and you’ll get a stronger concession in just one.
Competitive balance is not a union issue. The MLB has the power to completely balance competition if it so chooses. They’re the only major sport that allows teams to be on such inequal footing financially.
NBA, NFL, even MLS all share revenues nearly entirely equally among teams. If the Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder can run some of the largest payrolls in NBA history, that’s because the league allows them to do so. Same with the NFL.
The MLB is trying to claim the players have to sacrifice for “small market teams” when they could just simply make market irrelevant with stronger revenue sharing. They could do literally today, but instead they’d prefer a system where small market teams cry poor and big market teams duck under the luxury tax to pocket insane profits.
Yet there is less parity in the NBA, the stars players run this league. M:LB players are getting smart and they are teaming up. You can say that Steve Cohen and some of the others Dodgers, Nats, and Tigers have tried to load up on pitching to try and win.. All filthy rich!
One way could solve it is. Say when you reach 21 or 4 years after being drafted if not called up you immediately become a free agent. Then owners couldn’t manipulate service time. And that way great player ie Bryant, Franco etc could not be held in minors just to gain a extra year or so of control. And as far as small market teams base the amount in revenue sharing received on league or division standings. So for example let’s say Oakland won the division whereas Tampa tanked then give Oakland a bigger cut because did well. We have seen too many teams trade off all their stars and finish at bottom of league. Just so can pocket more from revenue sharing and higher draft pick. Also draft standing should be a lottery so teams aren’t tempted to tank just to get a hot prospect at number 1 in draft.
WRT service time: I like the idea that service time starts when a professional baseball contract is signed. Just agree upon the length of time to qualify for free agency…and throw an age on it too if it makes both parties happy.
My suggestion which will be unpopular
*60 day DL doesn’t open up roster spot on 40
*players DFA’d get full free agency, they sign a one year contract the other team doesn’t have team control the next year unless they sign another contract.
*Expand mlb roster to 30 players but limit to 15 pitchers. All roster spots must be used.
*players called up after trade deadline don’t get credit for time on roster, but they will be eligible for FA exactly 6 season after that regardless if on mlb roster after that.
*players will be paid mlb minimum for 4 seasons, but will be subject to restricted FA in which they can make up to 5 years at whatever the current QO amount is. Today for example that’d be about 5/90. This would be like the nba in which a player can decline this option and go through arbitration for 2 more seasons. In unrestricted FA teams can offer any amount.
@cookmeister 2, You are wrong. Thanks for admitting that. They are placed on the 40 man roster to protect them from the rule 5 draft. But what do I know? I’m just a bat that Kenny Lofton climbed through the ceiling to rescue from the umpires locker room.
Just change the service time rules so your service time clock starts the year you are first called up and appear in a game. If the game is before the trade deadline (or perhaps when rosters expand) you get a year immediately. And every successive year you appear in a game you get another year. If your first appearance is after that cutoff date, the only difference is you don’t a year until the next year you appear in a game.
Since it does not depend on counting days, it can’t be manipulated like in the Bryant case. And players like Bryant are still under team control for 6 years. Players who are marginal and get called up and sent down repeatedly benefit as they become FAs sooner.