I would guess JD Martinez.

Collusion.

This article backs up what I've been saying:

https://www.baseballessential.com/ne...usion-problem/

I think it is more teams wising up.


“Of course it doesn’t make sense,” a league official concurred. “We pay you the minimum for three years and arbitration for three or four years, and then you get paid more in free agency for your decline?”

:facepalm:

They are waiting on next year's class of free agents.

Alex Gordon costing our trio tens of millions?


Think about it

I do think a good chunk of it is simply the analytic side of the game is now influencing the people who set the budgets. More teams are focused on developing their own prospects than just blowing their wad in free agency when it doesn't usually pay off. It's the exact same reason why the trade market for position players wasn't great at the deadline. 10 years ago a big market team would trade a young Bellinger or Gary Sanchez for an established major league player. Now they'll develop those guys, save money, and use free agency to fill in the gaps... and even that doesn't mean going after big name guys.

I'm not sure how you fix that either. You could set it up so guys are free agents earlier, but will that help? You'll definitely get more free agents out in the market during their prime... but they'll have less established experience. Instead of paying $150 million for a guy with 6-7 years, you're maybe paying it to a guy with 2-3 years experience. Not sure a lot of teams would be wild about that either. And there are guys like Moose and Hosmer who didn't really become good players until their 4th or 5th year.

Not that its a common occurrence, but guys like Whit who get good at a later age will probably never have a chance to really cash in their worth. But something to be said for the organization to stick with guys too...I don't have the answers either.

It looks like a labor shakeup is really coming.

If teams have decided they're no longer going to hand out big FA deals to anyone but the elite stars, that hurts everyone else.

I would expect the players association to push for a higher minimum salary, allow everyone with two years of service time to qualify for arb, maybe hit FA after five years instead of six.

It would get players to FA younger, and increase what they get before they get there.

It also seems like this is the opportunity for the major league teams to correct the slave labor pay of minor league players.

Otherwise, it's just more money in the pockets of the owners.


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Why should minor leaguers get paid more?

Minor league teams don't generate profits.

It's the bigs - and the bigs only - that do. And hence, only their players who should be getting big pay days.


Hosmer deserves $20M. Kyle Zimmer deserves maybe $50k. (Maybe)

It's pretty simple. Follow the NFL rules for the most part...

Guaranteed contracts get tossed out..
Salary cap gets implemented...
Salary floor is enforced and increased...

This spreads the money around, keeps teams out of the Poo-holes situation and still forces owners to spend money on players....

This.

I've been thinking about this a lot also. I agree on all points, but why on Earth would the owners agree to this if it didn't include some sort of salary cap? It seems to me that they have all the leverage here.

Because they subsist on slaves-level wages right now? And if the profit sharing for the league stays the same, the money has to go somewhere?

Typically, the MLBPA hasn't cared about minor league pay because you make it up if you make it to the bigs. But if the landscape at the major league level has shifted and only the best players are getting the big paydays in FA, they may look at this differently.


The MLBPA will never stand for removal of guaranteed contracts. Just too embedded in the current landscape. They also don't want a salary cap. Look how FA now operates with a quasi-salary cap in place. Very owner-friendly environment.

I also think it's a major hindrance for small market teams. So the Yankees can go out and break the bank for Ellsbury, then just dump him if he sucks?

It removes all the risk for the big contracts from those big market teams.


The MLBPA is the strongest players union in the world and wields a lot of power. It's in the owners' long-term interest to avoid a labor shortage.