Major League Baseball and the Players Association have scheduled a noon central press conference for tomorrow, and MLB.com's Barry Bloom says they'll announce the new five-year Basic Agreement. Some of the expected changes:
- The Astros will join the American League in 2013 and two wild card teams will be added.
- There will be limits for draft pick and international free agent spending, above which penalties will be incurred. Loss of future draft picks is one such penalty.
- The luxury tax threshold will remain at $178MM for 2012-13, then increase to $189MM for 2014-16, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post. He says repeat offenders will be taxed at 50% beginning with the 2014 season. The Yankees currently pay at a 40% rate.
- Teams signing the remaining Type A relievers will not surrender a draft pick this offseason. Those seven teams will still receive compensatory picks, though I assume they must offer arbitration on Wednesday first.
- Starting next season, the Elias rankings system for free agent compensation will be eliminated. According to the AP, "Starting next year, teams will have to make a 'qualifying offer' of a one-year guaranteed contract to their players eligible to become free agents in order to receive compensation if the player signs with another club. That amount will be at least $12.4 million and could rise by next year, depending on a formula."
- The minimum salary will increase from $414K this year to $480K in 2012 and $500K in later years.
- The Super Two cutoff will rise from the top 17% of players with 2-3 years service time to the top 22%.
- Blood testing for human growth hormone will begin.
the NBA could learn a thing or two about CBA negotiations
Have to be honest. It’s been nice not having sports highlights filled with NBA garbage. I hope they continue the lockout.
We still have to hear about college football though unfortunately.
Not if you live in New England…most here don’t care about college sports.
I live in new england and college sports is everywhere.
Stopped watching ESPN for that very reason. (other than Monday Night Football and Sunday Night Baseball).
oh you must have misunderstood me. I am HAPPY the lockout is going on and I hope the NBA is dissolved permanantly (crosses fingers, knocks on wood) but the NBA could still learn a thing or two about CBA negotiations from this.
Yea, the same way MLB did in the 90’s…
players union 1 – 0 mlb owners.
For real, what did the owner get in this? lol
Blood testing and limiting draft spending.
But yeah, it looks like the owners gave a decent amount.
how is blood testing a win for the owners? I’m not trying to be confrontational, I just don’t understand lol
Well testing has been something the union has pushed against for years and the owners have kept bring up for years. But I suppose it’s probably more of a win for the commissioner’s office.
HGH testing is pretty big win for the owners and I’m actually surprised it was agreed to so easily.
They were probably happy to get that done and worry about other things down the road. They were a step ahead of the game before the government got involved and it got ugly.
So what you’re saying is that its a win for everyone in baseball not just the owners. So I’ll echo Jimbo’s comment from above, where is the win for owners? (As a note, i couldn’t care less if the owners got nothing out of this deal)
Maybe it’s not a win for the owners in terms of them actually getting anything out of it. It should keep the game cleaner which in the long run is good for baseball and good for their investment.
It is a HUGE concession from the players though. I didn’t expect testing to be implemented this smoothly with seemingly no resistance. So for the players agreeing to this, they are going to get something in return.
I hope the CBA has clarification tomorrow, because the way I am reading the comment means for a team to qualify for compensation, they must offer the player 12.4M for one year guaranteed or they become free agents without compensation. How can they justify that with players that have a total value of 2M – 4M tops? There would be a lot of players non-tendered that way, leaving only about 4 – 5 players offered new contracts. lol.
huh? Compensation only applies for players that are eligible for Free Agency.
Players value that are 2M-4M tops aren’t worthy of compensation.
The new system is that teams can offer any of their free agents a ‘qualifying’ contract of $12.4M. If the offer is made, then the team will be compensated in the draft, otherwise they will not be.
This is separate from offering actual contracts. You can offer your free agents a deal worth whatever you want, you just won’t be compensated if it’s less than $12.4M for the next year. Basically, if you want compensation for your player, you must be willing to pay them at least $12.4M next year.
Jose Bautista does not approve.
Small market team take advantage of the draft by overspending to get prospects and the MLB takes that away from them…. Big market teams continue to overspend of players so that small market teams cannot keep up but MLB doenst do anything about it. how does this make any sense
Not to mention increasing minimum salary, making more players eligible for super two, and the changes in the compensation system that all favor large market teams. But at least the Yankees will have to pay 10% more in luxury tax1!!
This new CBA kills small and mid-market teams by limiting draft/IFA spending and upping the number of Super-Twos, AKA preventing those markets from utilizing their limited funding on drafting/signing potential 0-3 service year types and by turning some 0-3’s into 0-2’s with 4 arbitration years. Didn’t Bud Selig want MORE parity, not less?
no doubt this entire process was orchestrated by anthopolous. removed epstein, put duquette in baltimore, and now cuts friedman off at the knees while gaining a second wildcard spot
expect the yankees to be sold to mccourt within a year
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, I literally just fell out of my chair laughing, you’re hilarious bro.
The small market teams were the ones that were pushing changes in draft spending, among other things, not just Bud Selig.
Totally agree. The idea that “There will be limits for draft pick and international free agent spending, above which penalties will be incurred” means that teams like TB, which habitually builds and contends through the draft, or KC, which looks to be almost competitive for the first time in years largely through the draft, will cease to be competitive in the near future.
I like the market-based approach to FA draft compensation. Instead of coming up with a formula, let teams decide if the player is truly worth keeping by offering at least $12.4 million for one year. Only players expected to put up 2+ WAR will be given such offers (by smart teams at least), limiting draft pick compensation to players that are worth it, pretty much.
Good thing the HGH testing is in here because the rest of it just sucks.
$12.4 mil seems high. a player worth $8 mil is still going to provide value to a small market team. i think the concept is fine, but i would have kept it more in line with the current system. a current b-type probably get’s more than $5 mil, so make the range between $5-$10mil worth a supplemental round pick. $10-$15 mil gets the other team’s 2nd round and a supplemental and $15 mil+ gets the other team’s first and a supp. or something like that.
But if a player is worth $8 mil they probably prefer a multi year deal like 3 years $24 million over 1 year $12.4. As a Twins fan I think the Twins would be willing to offer up a 1 year deal like this to Cuddy but he’s obviously looking for a multi year deal with more guaranteed money.
Question on the super 2 cutoff. Is that effective for this years arbitration eligibles or does it start next off season?
article says after the 2012 season
The spending limits on international FA’s might make the signings of Cespedes and potentially Darvish a little more interesting, wounder what kind of penalty a team that signs them might face if the spend $50+ million on one of them.
sounds like small market clubs have lost badly in this agreement. player salaries are going to rise, they don’t get as much compensation for losing their homegrown talent that become Type-A’s, they lose even more draft picks (or money) if they spend too much to improve their team, and they will have to deal with paying more in arbitration because of the new super two cutoff? The only benefit they receive will be a potential boost in luxury tax money. However, I cannot imagine that making too much of a difference on small market clubs.
crap, I missed EvanMK’s comment above before posting
The small market clubs were the ones clamoring for the change in draft rules, it’s their own fault.
seriously? do you have any links to back that up?
I don’t have a link but the general consensus was that they were pushing for constraints on spending because they felt big market teams had an unfair advantage over selecting premium talent. They didn’t like the fact that the premium talent was pricing themselves out of their price range.
Their major thing was slotting but that was never going to fly.
Even if I did have a link I couldn’t post it. If you check some of the older threads related to draft spending, it was the small market teams complaining about being hamstrung by Scott Boras in the first round.
Small market clubs had to spend huge bonus money for their top picks. If you take away the top picks, the Red Sox spend more money than the Royals or Pirates. Gerrit Cole took up a way larger percentage, the Red Sox get 8 players for the same price. As long as it’s a cap by slot, it definitely works out for small market teams.
And when Porcello and Turner fall because their demands are so high, sorry Detroit you just spent your entire cap. It gives some leverage to higher pick teams because they can tie up a lower percentage of their total cap for those players.
The compensation also helps because now second round picks will have more value.
One missing part of the analysis here is that the elimination of type-B compensation is a significant concession on the part of the MLBPA, since type-B makes many free agents more attractive, and also results in more arbitration offers being tendered.