Giants right-hander Jeff Samardzija recently crossed the 10-year threshold in terms of Major League service time and took the occasion to voice concerns about the difficulty today’s younger players will have in reaching that same milestone (link via Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle). More specifically, Samardzija wondered aloud how any young player can be expected to reach 10 years of big league service when modern front offices utilize the final spots on the MLB roster as a carousel of various relievers and bench players in an effort to keep their rosters fresh.
“These guys are being productive for our team but at the same time only getting 70 to 80 service days a season,” said Samardzija. “It’s going to take them till they’re 34, 35 or more to get six years, and then 40 to get 10 years. … We need to make sure one option can’t be 10 callups or call-downs where we can use them as swing guys who don’t accumulate any time.”
Samardzija’s precise wording is perhaps a bit embellished, but the sentiment is indeed reflective of today’s baseball climate. Players are optioned back and forth between the Majors and minors at a higher clip than ever before. The shift from a 15-day to a 10-day injured list — one that, notably, will be reversed for pitchers beginning in 2020 — in particular, has emboldened front offices to use brief trips to the IL as a means of resting pitchers and getting fresh arms into their bullpens or rotations when the need (often) arises. Rather than carrying a largely set seven- or eight-man bullpen, many clubs have only four to six set relievers and round out the final bullpen spots with a parade of changing faces.
As the league’s option structure is currently constructed, there’s nothing wrong with doing any of that. Maintaining that level of agility on a club’s roster is now generally viewed as a sound baseball practice, and with good reason. It’s easier to manage workloads in the minor leagues, and a constant churn at the back of the bullpen prevents clubs from having to trot the same pitcher out to the mound on three or even four consecutive days.
At the same time, the increased prevalence of optioning players in this fashion will eventually only increase the number of big leaguers who exhaust their minor league options, and that eventuality will the have the opposite effect of reducing teams’ roster flexibility. And for the players, of course, it does indeed become more difficult to garner substantial service time. The Yankees have sent left-hander Nestor Cortes Jr. back to Triple-A on seven different occasions this season. The Twins have done the same with Kohl Stewart. That’s a far better fate than merely sitting in the minors and not accruing any MLB time, but it’s also easy to see why players would argue that it’s a frustrating and suboptimal process that could be tweaked.
As things currently stand, players receive three option years (and, in rare cases stemming from significant minor league injuries, sometimes a fourth). Any player on the 40-man roster who is sent down to the minors and spends more than 20 days there is considered to have used an option year. He can be shuttled to and from the minors as often as the team deems fit that season all under the umbrella of that single option year.
As Schulman notes in the Samardzija interview, this very infrastructure is among the myriad topics being discussed as the league and the players’ union are in the early stages of collective bargaining negotiations. The current CBA runs through the 2021 season, so it’s unlikely that there’ll be any immediate changes to such a core component of roster construction, but the rising number of issues the players are bringing to the table in labor talks does seem like a portent for change in some respects. Surely, only a fraction of those issues will result in meaningful change, and the minor league option infrastructure is but one piece of the much broader topic of service time.
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Work your tail off to make it the bigs, then work harder to stay. This is the rule of being successful at anything…
And how many times have you, watching the Braves, seen a kid come up, throw 4 innings and go back to Gwinnett?
How can you work harder then throwing 4-5 scoreless like Touki did back in May?
Sometimes in life you can do everything right and still not get the break you need. As bad as it sounds, the key for guys like that is sometimes to just wait for someone better than you to get hurt,
Did you watch those Touki innings?? Touki has some great stuff, but it’s his inconsistency that puts him back to Gwinnett. If they spend one day in the bigs, that’s roughly $3500. I’m sure they are pleased to get that. Would they like to stay, sure but they have all of the coaching and data to help them. Newcomb couldn’t buy a strike with his $574K so he got sent down to figure it out.
Kyle Wright has to have been called up five or six times and at least twice he never threw.
Touki is terrible and should never pitch another inning in the MLB until he learns to get outs in AAA.
But the numbers don’t lie… yes Touki has great stuff but a 5.62 ERA. Some guys have great stuff but can’t put it together in the MLB
But the numbers don’t lie… yes Touki has great stuff but a 5.62 ERA. Some guys have great stuff but can’t put it together in the MLB.
LOL
I STRONGLY disagree that this is an issue. It’s weird, Sure. But I think everyone is better off having 3 or 4 guys accumulate some time (and paycheck!) rather than 1 guy taking all the opportunity and pay. And I do think pay is a huge issue for these guys who are borderline MLB players.
It’s a side effect of carrying 13 pitchers, starters no longer going deep and relievers being used daily. Alternative is to teach them to pitch instead of throwing and going back to 10 pitcher staffs. Overthrowing is in my view the main reason for so many injuries along with a change in the way pitchers train. Do they want to give back spots to other positions? I doubt it. I’m in the minority here but I am not happy about the roster expanding next year to 26 players. Why is the game changing for the worse? I heard an interview with the head of the Atlantic League about everything they’ve experimented with. It’s no longer baseball. For example, stealing first base on a wild pitch with less than two strikes.
Hi the worst is they are going to get rid of the 40 man roster !!! how the hell will minors and rosters work then ????
They are getting rid of the 40 man roster? Source, please.
they are not getting rid of the 40 man roster. Perhaps you are confusing this with no longer being able to expand rosters to 40 in September, Its reduced to 28 starting next year,
Which is fantastic. Late season baseball suffers a lot by the bottomless bullpen and endless pitching changes.
yes thank you
At the same time though it increases the amount of guys who get a shot at the Major league level.
When a team can have a max of 13 pitchers and teams have 9+ straight games without an off day, teams have no choice but to shuttle guys.
Disagree. Pitchers need to train and be used differently.
They can train all they want, but a “tired” arm (no matter how durable) will not be as effective as a similar fresh arm (similar referring to skill of players who are shuttled back and forth, not all-star types). Teams want to win, this is a more effective way of doing it. Rules should be changed but teams will use what’s most effective within the rules and training them differently will make no difference
It’s fine. You need fresh arms
Brendan McKay has 30 days of service time, but 8 MLB starts. I’d call 8 starts about a quarter season, He’s lost 33% of his service time because of roster manipulation.
Mitch Keller has 18 days of service time, but 5 MLB starts. I’d say that’s a 6th of a season. He’s lost 50% of his service time because of roster manipulation.
I wish that there was a limited amount of options per season before the player has to be DFA’d. Like after 2 options in a season, they player must be exposed to waivers.
2 options isn’t a lot. After a doubleheader, teams need to send down taxes arms for fresher options.
But double headers already get a 26th man, 27 next season. It sucks but 2-3 options is reasonable because it strongly prevents manipulation
I would say that Mitch Keller is lucky to be in the majors now with his performance.
So what? Once these guys are out of options after three years, they no longer have to worry about being shuttled back and forth. Three years of it (at most) isn’t that bad over the course of a player’s entire career.
Yeah then lots of guys are cut in favor of players with options
No McKay is clearly getting screwed.
The way they are using this system could delay his free agency by years, what if he gets hurt before then?
For the fringe players it’s not a bad deal, much better chance of being in MLB even for brief stints
But for subdue like McKay, he’s getting screwed hard.
A suggestion for a remedy: If you are called up for a third time, you earn a minimum of 30 days of service time (but not salary) during that callup. If you are called up a 4th time, you earn the rest of the season as service time.
Most of the shuttle relievers will never sniff free agency, but this will help with pension and long term insurance.
Unsurprisingly, in the growingly anti union climate in this country, mlbtr commentors again take the side of management as they utilize a loophole to manipulate the system to the detriment of the worker
Right because this have everything to do of people’s opinions of unions…
Not directly to do with unions, but has to do with people’s biases about worker vs management
I think that the guys who are constantly shuffled around are unlikely to ever reach the 10 year mark, which kicks in the generous pension plan.
It would be great to be the young player who the organization deems “the guy” and they stick with him all season long, but it might be optimal for several players to get their chances in the bigs.
It depends on what happens after they’re out of options. If they’re good enough to stick in the Majors after that point, then they’ll have a very good chance of hitting 10 years once all is said and done, otherwise they were never going to get 10 years of service time no matter what.
Optimal for who?
Don’t any of you have the capacity to imagine working in aaa for less than minimum wage and having your team fight to keep from paying you when you do get into the majors?
I think that it is better for multiple guys to get multiple chances to stick in the majors, instead of one guy being annointed the ride or die guy.
Once you hit AAA, or even AA, you are making decent money, at least 10k a month. And if you are shuttling between AAA and the majors, you are almost certainly on the 40 man roster, which means you are making the MLB minimum salary of over half a million bucks a year.
Better for multiple guys meaning it’s better for them as a group even though they don’t share money but worse for all of them individually AKA reality.
It might be better for the sport and it’s better for guys who have given up on the idea of a career and value a cameo but it is not better for players who want to make a living playing baseball.
A cup of coffee in the majors isn’t how you make a career.
Players only make major league minimum on the 25 man not the 40 man
Those are perceptions, not facts. Its the lower levels that make sub-minimum wage. AAA players who are on the 40-man roster (like the ones we’re discussing) make $4000 – $8000 per month. They also get $25 per diem for expenses when the team is on the road, even on non-game days. And when they do get called up, they make $21,000 per WEEK. Yeah, they’re at the ballpark 70 hours per week. But there are many, many salaried workers in this country whose jobs do not pay them for going over 40 hours per week. And most of the hourly wage workers don’t make that kind of money even with the overtime pay. So, yeah, a cup of coffee (or two) in the majors DOES make you a living.
The super two status and arbitration years are ridiculous. Teams shouldn’t have that much control over a player. A player should be able to earn real money as soon as they are MLB ready not when the MLB team they play for decide now is the time to call them up because they made it past an invisible threshold date. It’s crazy.
$500 K annually isnt real $? Look at the number of busts, guys that are good in the minors and never perform in the majors and more. You havent proven yourself until you have had a couple of good seasons. Plenty of players have a good early first year or 2 then nothing. Michael Wacha? Jose Tabata? There are scores more. $500K is substantial income by any realistic interpretation. The Super 2 and arbitration make perfect sense.
I’m not going to run down the extensive list of players that performed well in the minors, yet took years to get promoted but one of these players was Jeff McNeil. Besides an injury shortened season in 2016, he played 6 seasons in the minors before getting a shot. Oh yeah, he was a career .311 minor league hitter and is through 622 major league at bats a .331 hitter with a .902 OPS. So why did it take him so long to get promoted??? The system is flawed.
Poor example. Obviously, if anyone believed that he would hit 331/902 in the majors he would have been promoted sooner. You have people making these analysis. People get thing wrong. , You cant devise a system to overcome that.
Always the world’s lamest argument.
$500k is peanuts compared to the revenue that is being generated.
It’s unfair, yes, but the system is necessary to ensure competitive balance, otherwise teams like the A’s and Rays would never have a shot at the playoffs without the ability to draft and develop or trade for prospects who become cheap, young stars.
Get help.
I don’t know who told you that but it was a lie.
It isn’t like this is going to happen to same group of players year after year. Pitchers like McKay and Keller are likely going to stick in a rotation sooner rather then later. All players need to do to stay in the majors is to force teams hands by playing well when they get their chances.
This also isn’t something new teams have always shuttled players around for injuries
That’s great in theory as a talking point, but in reality and practice it somewhat rings hollow. It doesn’t matter how well you perform, if you’re a spot starter/extra arm you’re going to generally get the shuffle if you have options. That’s even more realistic for competing teams, and their general want to preserve depth.
When you have an issue like this, you really have to look at the alternative. Is it better for that one guy to get all the service time or have it spread out among 2, 3, or even 4 guys? I think it is better for more players to do it this way. The best among them will inevitably rise to the top and it will only impact them for a season or two. But to me, this system is far better for giving more people a chance to prove themselves at the big league level.
This is a little out-of-the-box, but what about restructuring the service clock to include all players on the 40-man roster and not just the 25-man? This would give teams incentive to get the most out of their rosters instead of just stashing them in AAA and manipulating their service time. If top prospects are on the 40-man roster and ready to contribute, play them. The only immediate issue with this is probably Rule 5 eligibility, but that could be altered.
Even just paying minor leaguers enough to keep them off food stamps would be a start.
If the guys want service time then give them service time. Change the rule so you accrue service time once you’ve hit the MLB roster and until you get DFA’d.
But I see no reason to deter “roster carousels.” There are no other downsides.
Most of us toil in occupations with never having a chance to compete for $500K in a year. Those that do have more talent, work harder and persevere through more adversity than the rest. Same is true of MLB. You are worth what you are worth. Like the rest of us, move on if you find it unacceptable.
You are worth what you are worth??
Then do away with the draft, options, everything. A player then is obligated to fulfill his current contract only, and is a FA free to get the max he can get according, like us.
See what happens to salaries then.
**according to his talent**
If I’m a late 1st round talent or lower I’m going overseas to play. I like what Lucious Fox did, got himself eligible for international bonus money, made as much as a top three pick.
I enjoy the guy griping about not making near MLB minimum salary and then announcing that ‘you are worth what you are worth’ without the slightest bit of awareness.
yes, but there need to be more options. all players signed to minors deals shpuld br optionable, and players should start off with more options to give certian players a better chance. (for example, players who exhaust theor options before reaching the majors are at a severe disadvantage, such as Jesse Biddle, and soon to be the case with the likes of Grant Holmes, to name a few) in turn, all players on the 40 man roster should recieve the same game saleries, and deals featuring clauses allowing for or against optioning should be allowed.
that being said im for limiting the number of options within a season calling guys up and down constantly gives them more chances, but is frusterating and silly. id be for them expanding next year’s roster size beyond 26 if it were to accomidate for said rule.
He just likes to complain about things. i remember when he complained about the high cost of housing in California but signed a contract when a California team offered him a big contract. If he wants to complain why not complain about how those in the minors get very little wages while those in the majors get over paid?
I’d also like to see something like a 30-day minimum stays on the 40-man. Claiming a guy and DFA’ing him a few days later just to hope he’ll stay and languish in your minor league system isn’t all that good either.
i dont know about that one. this allows guys to audition at little cost for other teams. few guys will get such chances if the risk was so high.
Love this idea. Teams will still fill out their 40-man, but players get some degree of security.
how about 10 days minimum?
I don’t think it’s a real big issue. It usually only effects a player for a year or two and only if they’re one of the last roster spots. Once you establish yourself, teams tend to not shuttle you back to the minors. If anything, make it so that players are guaranteed 10 days of service for a callup. This may help minimize players being shuttled. If nothing else, it would help players from feeling cheated on service time.
There are greater concerns than the options “crisis”. If a player wants to fix his situation, play better. Rosters will soon be 26-man with 30 teams. At one time the roster size was 24-man with 26 teams or less. Perhaps one reason for the tenure issue is the injury epidemic. What will the MLBPA do about starting pitchers going down to TJ surgery or other arm-related injuries? Do they care or are they happy to accommodate players who would be in AAA reaching the major leagues? There are bigger problems at-stake for the game.
so, you can just play better on a whim? these players are not supermen, you know.
While you are correct that a player cannot just “play better on whim”, you’re missing the bigger picture. Those players who cannot play better do not deserve to stay on the roster all year every year. Becoming a major leaguer is not an entitlement. Its something that a very, vary small percentage f players can do, and a much, much larger percentage cannot. Thats the simple reality. Its not the players’ faults. but its not baseball’s fault either.
These players are not entitled to be in the major leagues. The best of the best play in the best baseball league in the world. It is a privilege and not a right, so I don’t know why you’d come from a position of weakness with your argument.
Player’s health, specifically pitcher’s health, should be the #1 concern. Because the breakdown of pitchers is one reason why guys aren’t reaching tenure. We’d rather see longballs, longer games and long injury stints.
certain young players are used in this way, too. and sama’s point is about young players.
I wasn’t concerned about another’s point. You want guys to have some rule changed for a handout they didn’t earn and wouldn’t earn because they can’t hang in the big leagues long enough to get it. My point is to narrow in on the why. The guys who reach the big leagues may want to budget/stash some cash away to finish their degree or college diploma after baseball and make the living the way we do.
Maybe the real issue isnt the options, but, the number of roster spots. As the SP have pitched less and less the bullpen plays a larger role. Bullpens are pitching more innings than ever. Maybe the roster should be 26 or 27 to accommodate that change also providing more bench depth than what we have today as that seems to be where the extra bullpen slots are taking away from.
they are moving it to 26 next year.
Also need to see what the impact of new relief rules will be on staffs and roster management. ROOGY/LOOGY will be gone and things will favor guys with more even splits. That may see the return of dedicated 7/8/9th inning roles.
The carousel issue would easily be solved by saying that a player who spends at least 30 days on an MLB roster AND has been called up at least 5 times in a season gets a full year’s service credit.
But that will mean that some of those guys don’t get as many call-ups…
The real issue is the current math edition of baseball is killing the reliever. The starters go 5 innings or less. The relievers throw virtually every night until their arm falls off. The starter gets big, long term deals. The relievers get hurt and are out of baseball in about 3 years. As far as the every day player goes. If you are a speed and defense guy, you are irrelevant. As most things in sports, these philosophies go in cycles. I know one thing. I would cringe right now if a club converted me from a starter to reliever.
You can’t expect club management to pretend not to know what’s efficient. What’s needed is something realistic that means players don’t get stiffed when the clubs make those decisions.
The entire 25 man roster structure is antiquated. Better to move to a 28-30 man roster with only 25 players eligible for a given game (and named in advance). You’d carry extra relievers instead of starters who won’t get used that day. Guys who need a week to rest can be replaced by role players already on the 30 man instead of having phony IL stints.
Pair that with a return to the 15 day IL (or even make it 18 or 20) and you kill the need and the advantages of roster manipulation.
sounds like a pretty good idea, but you know how many people will complain endlessly about how removing those 4 starters from the equation allows you to add more relievers and there might be more pitching changes that might add a whole (gasp) ten minutes to the game.
the current game time accountant comes to mind.
If you are good enough to stay on the roster than you deserve to be on the roster. If you are being shuffled back and forth that means your not good enough to stay on the roster. Pretty simple in my eyes. How many of these 24/25 guys even play for 10 years anyway. They aren’t good enough to be a solid stay on a roster then tough.
They need to allow for it to continue, in that they need to be able to pull up fresh relief arms. They just need to restructure it so that 40-man players get paid even more, or that you designate 5 to 10 players on the 40 man, but not on the active roster that can be shuttled back and forth, like a legit taxi squad instead of this pseudo one. Or they can just increase the active rosters.
The problem seems to stem from the fact that once a player has used an option year, he can be put on an airplane every 24 hours, and sometimes that even happens. A limit on the number of times a player can be sent down and recalled in any one option year would help. Force the teams to plan their rosters better. They don’t “need” to be able to churn, they do it because they can.
Half a season should translate into a full year, cut free agent eligibility to 5 years and have arb 3 times.
In the good old days, these young players would sit at AAA for their entire careers. They wouldn’t sniff the major leagues. At least now they can tell their families they made it to the show. Shark wants them to get retirement too?
Seems like when you complain about things like this, the end result is worse than what they have now. It might look better on paper, but the result will be worse. Instead of putting someone on the IL and calling young guys up, Teams just give the player a couple weeks to rest and the other players have to shoulder the load.
Yeah, I think most fringe MLB’ers would much rather be called up for a day or two than not. All you need is one day of service time and you qualify for the MLB health insurance plan for life. That alone is probably worth a year’s salary in the Show.
So you don’t pay the bottom of the roster because it’s so special for guys to invest their entire lives in something and spend a whole day in the majors?
So lame!
OMG. retirement benefits for a professional baseball player who wasn’t an all star????
We can’t have that or Harper won’t get a quarter of a billion dollars.
You people need help if you don’t think you should have to pay some professional athletes but that other guys on the same team get 100’s of millions.
Why should taxpayers feed baseball players and why are owners allowed to pay them less than minimum wage?
Do Rehab assignments have any bearing on options? For instance, if a guy is on the 30-day DL, and heads to AAA to ramp up for two weeks, and does that twice in the same season (thus being over 20 days in the minors), does that require burning an option?
Cut back the pension plan minimum from 10 years to 5 years. Solves everything. Teams can screw around with call-ups, the employer can manipulate rosters in money making (if not winning cc: Keuchel/Kimbrel) ways, and they don’t have to try to exceed 10 years.
I’m with the players on this one because I was denied entrance to West Point since I’m Type-1 Diabetic. Trump forgives vet student loans (that I took out in school) and at the same time my prescription co-pay costs, adjusted for inflation, have quintupled since 2011. I get butt-f***ed on multiple ends. I hope the players win this one.
The players already won thanks to job creation and higher wages.
Very odd for a vet to care about young players-went to ND so watch this guy work for the Union or become a PA.
How about eliminating the cap roof and raise the floor? Or you can eliminate what had cuffs the owners-namely salaries of players who are still earning a check while sitting in a rocking chair-that count against profit sharing? Or a personal cap against players?
There,that should shut him up.
Jeff Samardzija is a mediocre pitcher, lifetime ERA 4.10 – more losses than wins, who’s made over $100 million in his career – so far. With 14.4 lifetime WAR, that comes to about $8+ million for every WAR. Players should keep there mouths shut and keep riding the gravy train.
Bloke who’s achieved more than you ever will at a sport we love has spoken up in favour of people who don’t get so well rewarded. Man, that must really offend you.
Me, I think it’s bloody great. More folk ought to do the same.
Just because you don’t have the decency to speak up for someone else or share what you have doesn’t mean anyone else wants to be like you.
You either have guys that shuttle and get some accrued time and MLB pay to go with it or you have only 1 or 2 guys get the call up and then all the rest languish in the minors and accrue zero MLB time and zero MLB pay. You can not have it both ways. would have to change the 25 man roster limit to get both ways accomplished with multiple guys called up and multiple guys staying up for the year.
11 pitchers max. There’s only 5 or 6 on the Sox I’d give a 25 man spot in a Utopian World, and Dumbrowski is giving spots to 13 or 14. Yikes
I don’t like it too much and MLB is loosing the entertainment value piece. For example where are 30+ vets – the fringe players that add a ton of color to the game. They are out is your not a star by age 31 you are done. I loved me some Pete Incaviglia back in the day and many more guys like that!
Get rid of service time.
Once the player is on the 40-man roster, the clock should start. After three full years pass, they are arbitration eligible. After six full years, they are eligible for free agency.
If the player is released and sign as a free agent with another club, service time is no longer applicable.
If player is on the 40-man roster before Game 82, that year counts as a full year. If player is called up after Game 81, the first full year is that year. Purpose of that last one is to stop the gaming of service time. If you want to get an extra year out of a player, then you must wait until Game 82 and potentially sacrifice a post-season berth. .
Once on the 40-man roster, you can call up and send down the player as much as you want. Either way, they get their arbitration and free agency at 3 and 6 years.
That’s what the Players’ Union ought to fight for to fix this problem.
Can we vote neither? The system should be tweaked but there are bigger problems. It is a small component of the bigger service time problem. How about cut the time from 6 to 5 years and accelerate arbitration from 3 to 2 years. Not the answer but starts a frame work. Also, the international kids signed at 16 should not be treated the same. How about 25 as the rule 5 cut off. It gives the college guys 3/4 depending which should be enough time to evaluate while also cutting down their time in minors. It also gives more time on the 16 year old they sign who doesn’t develop until a bit later. Just random ideas to improve.
THANK YOU!! I’ve been hollering about the international players for three years now on minor league blog sites. Forget about Rule 5. How about minor league free agency? These kids reach it at age 22 or 23, and once they get there, most of their careers in the US come to an end. Some of these kids just performed well in advanced-A and would have been ticketed for AA the following season when their careers end, while American players who just got drafted are still playing short-season. Or are 25 and struggling badly in AA, but still have two years left before their minor league careers expire. This undermines the entire game of baseball because some potential future big leaguers are being tossed out fo the gasme prematurely. What if Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil had been forced out of the minor leagues at 22??
I do wonder where Jeff Samardjia got the notion that all players are ENTITLED to achieve ten years of service time. (Or any service time, for that matter). Many of these guys who are getting shuttled back and forth would not reach the majors at all if it wasn’t for all of the extra need for “fresh arms”. Others would get one or two call-ups before being sent back down for good and never seen again. Yes, the current system is taking some service time away from – and delaying the big paydays of – some players. But its also giving some minor leaguers a payday that they would not have otherwise gotten. The 70 or 80 days of service time that Samardjia is complaining about amounts to over $220,000 in pay. For those borderline players who do not have a real, extended major league career ahead of him, this one paycheck makes the years of playing for peanuts in the minors justifiable, rather than a pure waste of time. Also worth noting is that while the standard AAA salary is $3,000 to $4,000 per month, guys in AAA who are on the 40-man roster often get paid more (up to $8,000 per month according to Jeff Passan about 5 years ago).
@Nessim. Cluless dude. This is about pension money man. Huge difference between 5 and 10 years. At least 60K now.
@Happy2Engage Shaky argument. For the fringe players, they’re not reaching 5 years service time, much less 10, anyway. The legitimately talented players can only be optioned back & forth like this for three seasons years before they are out of options and the club has to keep them. The number of career major leaguers who are truly affected by this is probably not significant.
A solution will be for these guys to be better. If you’re a stud, you may get sent up and down for your first year, but eventually it will be too hard to send you down. Let’ s look at the Dodgers, they use this strategy, however they wont be sending Walker Buehler, Will Smith or even Alex Verdugo down anymore. Here to stay.
It gives more players an opportunity to reach the bigs, IMO.
Sigh, Samardjiza, teams can only do that to MLB players for up to three years. After that, they have to keep them on either the MLB 25-man roster or IL or risk losing them on waivers, and if the players are truly contributing, then their teams are going to keep them on the MLB roster. This causes very little damage to their service time in the long-term, so you’re complaining about nothing.
Lots of good thoughts here. I’m largely in favor of benefits to the fringe guys, many of whom have devoted their whole life to the game and don’t get a chance to earn much outside of big league time. There are too many problems with the system now, especially because guys out of options often find themselves out of baseball at the expense of less talented players who help roster flexibility. So a nondescript reliever has less chance to get a better pension than before. The one tweak I’ll mention now is maybe every calendar month a guy is on a roster he makes the mlb minimum for that month and accrues service time for that full month. One possibility.
Why not just change the rules so that a player is awarded a minimum of 10 days service time no matter how short a time he is called up?
Teams would still be allowed to shuttle and players aren’t losing out because of it.
All of you that keep saying, “Oh, it’s just three years” that they can manipulate service time need to get a clue and are completely missing what Jeff is trying to say. First, three years is a long time in a player’s career. You guys are acting like it’s your career where you’re going to work until 65 and three years is a drop in the bucket. Most professional baseball players are done by 30 or soon after. Even manipulating one year of service time can cost a player to lose millions, especially the elite, in career earnings. And now with owners refusing to pay free agents top value the players are again losing millions in career earnings because of service time manipulation.
The system is broken. For years, owners would pay essentially for the player’s past production and the last couple years of their prime, and the back end of the contract was dead money. I get why they don’t want to do that anymore, it’s bad business. But it’s also bad for the players if you design a system to where only veterans can make market value but then not pay players once they are veteran free agents. The system needs to be fixed so that player’s are being paid accurately for what their actual worth is, that includes not giving inflated contracts to guys past their prime, but also giving up years of team control so players can make good money while they’re young. Then it’s fair for both sides. Before it wasn’t fair for the owners, now it’s not fair for the players. The system has to be corrected for it to be fair for both parties.
Also he’s not talking about double headers, long runs of consecutive days of play, etc ..where fresh arms are needed to be called up. He’s talking about top prospects that are having to wait longer until Super 2 status passes or to the point where the team gains another year of control by keeping them down. He’s also talking about the top pitching prospects who are called up and down between starts to further manipulate service time. He’s only talking about the service time manipulation. Not an extra arm or two, or a temporarily role player filling an injury. Stop getting caught up on those scenarios. That’s not what he’s saying. And he never said they were entitled to anything. Nothing was handed to him, he earned his roster spot and his big contract. He just wants guys to get their fair chance. Not be manipulated.
I’ll never understand why the average fan always sides with the team and billionaire owners. The average person is the player in the system, not the owner or front office management. It’s like rooting against yourself.
This was poorly written by someone who either doesn’t really get the issue or wants to minimize it.
Teams are using AAA as a portion of their major league roster that they only pay on the days they play a major league game.
It’s about guys getting ripped off. not sub optimal development.
How are they fresh arms? Those guys in AAA are presumably pitching at a similar rate as the big leagues.
They just need to have a 28-29 player active roster with a few, maybe 5-6 scratches every day submitted along with the lineup card, that aren’t available for that particular game. More players accruing time, easier to cover tired pitchers, carry a third catcher, what have you.
That, and they sorely need to reform the 0.000-6.000 journey, lots of different ways to try to do that which would probably benefit both players and teams in a lot of ways.