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2:05pm: The union has issued a statement regarding a potential spring boycott, saying (via Rosenthal): “Recent press reports have erroneously suggested that the Players Association has threatened a ‘boycott’ of spring training. Those reports are false. No such threat has been made, nor has the union recommended such a course of action.”
1:35pm: Backing up an earlier report from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, Buster Olney of ESPN tweets that, as a result of the lack of activity in free agency, players discussed boycotting spring training during a conference call last week. However, “it is not currently an option under any serious consideration,” he hears.
Olney delves further into the players’ growing dissatisfaction in a piece suggesting 12 questions they should ask their leader, Tony Clark. The MLBPA executive director and a few agents have voiced their displeasure with the slow offseason this week, but other representatives only saw those as empty threats.
“Short-sighted,” one agent told Olney. “Impetuous,” said another.
Olney goes on to express skepticism that MLB teams are colluding against free agents, pointing out that several relievers and Lorenzo Cain have done quite well on the market. He also notes that big offers are on the table for Eric Hosmer and Yu Darvish. The players seem to think something sinister is at play on the owners’ part, thus leading to the talk of a spring boycott, but Olney relays that there are differing opinions. In fact, there are some players and agents who think holding out from camp “would lead to another disaster,” he writes.
Commissioner Rob Manfred himself addressed this year’s inactive market earlier this week, saying (via Jerry Crasnick of ESPN): “Every [free-agent] market is different. There’s different players, different quality of players, different GMs, different decisions, a new basic agreement, different agents who had particular prominence in a particular market in terms of who they represent. Those factors, and probably others that I can’t tick off the top of my head, have combined to produce a particular market this year. Just like there’s been some markets where the lid got blown off in terms of player salary growth, occasionally you’re going to have some that are not quite as robust.”
There are indeed several potential factors at play; one, according to Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins (via Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports), is that “teams are valuing players in a similar way.” Atkins added that “the aging curve has potentially been overcompensated in the past. That seems to be correcting a bit.”
Beyond that, Passan mentions that there are fewer teams than usual chasing free agents because as many as a dozen are either “tanking, not competing or crying poor.” The $197MM competitive balance tax threshold, which the union agreed to when it negotiated the current collective bargaining agreement a year ago, has also contributed to the players’ problems because it has helped prevent normally big-spending teams such as the Dodgers, Yankees and Giants from participating in free agency.
Still, top-tier free agents like Hosmer, Darvish and J.D. Martinez will eventually “get paid,” a league official told Passan. But that same official is unsure of the futures of mid- to lower-tier free agents, saying that “even if you took away the CBT changes, most of these guys wouldn’t have jobs,” in part because “there are a lot of smart GMs, and they aren’t gonna overpay guys.”
Unfortunately for the players, there’s concern that what’s happening this offseason may repeat itself on a bigger scale next year, when free agency could feature the likes of Clayton Kershaw, Manny Machado, Bryce Harper, Josh Donaldson, Charlie Blackmon, Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel, among other household names. Overall, the 2018-19 class may be a bloated group of players if some of this winter’s stragglers are unable to find multiyear contracts, Passan observes. The premier players available should fare well, especially considering teams avoiding the CBT this year may not have the same motivation next winter, but “when 85 percent of the money goes to 15 percent of the players, 85 percent of the players are going to hear, ‘I don’t have the money,'” an agent told Passan.
Should what we’re seeing now emerge as a new trend for free agency, it could lead to an increase in team-friendly contract extensions for young players who are fearful of encountering low interest on the market, another agent suggested to Passan.
“That scares the [expletive] out of me,” the agent said. “One of my clients a few days ago said, ‘Why do I want to go to free agency if it’s going to be like this?’ We’re losing the messaging war.”
With the CBA set to run until December 2021, the present setup is in line to last for the next few years. That may be a bleak reality for the union, though there’s hope that the players will take this opportunity to band together on important issues and truly find out whether Clark is a capable leader.
A source on the players’ side declared to Passan that “the owners have to realize they’re about to jeopardize an unbelievably good thing. If they don’t recognize it, they don’t see where this is going. Everybody’s going to be in unison. And we’re all going to walk right off the cliff together.”
They won’t walk off a cliff to a spring boycott, however, as Passan tweets that an organized strike would lead to the league filing an injunction against them. The players would then have to return to work, and it’s also possible they’d have to pay damages. Union lawyers have warned them of those consequences, Passan adds.
According to a troubling report from Rachel Bachman and Brian Costa of the Wall Street Journal (subscription link), former MLB Advanced Media chief Bob Bowman was forced out of his position after multiple incidents of workplace misconduct.
Bowman left the entity in early November, not long after majority rights to a spun-off entity (BAMTech) was sold to Disney. MLB’s digital media arm has long been lauded as an industry leader that has generated massive revenues for the league and its member organizations.
The story is loaded with explosive details that could conceivably have broader ramifications within the league office. MLB Advanced Media has long been a separately operated entity with its own headquarters, though allegations against Bowman — in some cases dating back to over a decade — are said to have made their way to the commissioner’s chair.
Bowman is reported to have engaged in a variety of concerning actions during his tenure, including “propositioning female colleagues, allegedly conducting consensual relationships with subordinate coworkers and cultivating a culture of partying and heavy drinking with employees outside the office.” A few other particularly concerning episodes are detailed yet further in the report. Bowman is reported to have shoved an executive in the Red Sox ownership group this past July. MLB Advanced Media is also said to have hosted a party at the 2016 All-Star Game that included entertainment consisting of “alleged escorts.”
In comments to the Journal, current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred acknowledged that an October incident — in which Bowman is said to have engaged in verbal abuse of someone within his office — represented “the culmination of a variety of issues that had gone on over a period of time” and “precipitated” a mutual decision to part ways. Bowman, meanwhile, admitted that his own “personal flaws” led to “inappropriate behavior.”
Whether there could be further repercussions is not clear at this time, but some of the allegations — especially, those involving sexual harassment and other such issues — are deeply concerning and could seemingly be of ongoing importance. More generally, the report suggests questions about the league’s priorities. Significant profits have already been logged despite the problems that evidently existed under Bowman. Most recently, it has been widely reported that each MLB club is slated to receive an approximately $50MM payout from the BAMTech sale.
Following the MLB Winter Meetings on your phone? We’ve got your covered with our free Trade Rumors app for iOS and Android. With Trade Rumors, you can set up custom notifications to suit your needs, whether it’s for all of MLB, certain teams, or a few specific players. Plus, the app’s clean, fast interface draws rave reviews. The hot stove is burning, so download Trade Rumors at the links below!
Our 2018 MLB arbitration tracker is now available! The tracker displays all arbitration eligible players, with fields for team, service time, player and team submissions, the midpoint, and the settlement amount. You can filter by team, signing status, service time, Super Two status, and whether a hearing occurred. For unsigned players that do not agree to terms in the interim, arbitration figures will be exchanged on January 12, 2018.
You can bookmark MLBTR’s 2018 Arbitration Tracker here, or you can find it in the Tools menu at the top of the site.
MLBTR is also the only place for salary projections for every arbitration eligible player, which you can find here.
Here are the day’s minor moves from around the league, all courtesy of Baseball America’s Matt Eddy unless otherwise noted…
Major League Baseball has set the order for Competitive Balance Rounds A and B of next year’s draft, reports Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com. Those rounds, which take place after the completion of the first and second rounds, respectively, are comprised of picks awarded to teams that are considered in the bottom 10 in terms of market size and/or revenue.
As Mayo explains, last season marked the beginning of MLB utilizing a more formulaic approach to determining Competitive Balance order rather than a lottery, as had been done in previous drafts since the Competitive Balance rounds’ inception prior to the 2013 season. The league’s formula took into account total revenue and winning percentage among the 14 teams that received Competitive Balance picks. Based on the results of that formula, the Rays, Reds, A’s, Brewers, Twins and Marlins were awarded the six picks in Comp Round A last year, with the other eight teams (D-backs, Padres, Rockies, Indians, Royals, Pirates, Orioles, Cardinals) all falling into Comp Round B.
Under the new system, those two groups will now flip on an annual basis, meaning the six teams that were awarded Comp Round A picks in 2017 will now comprise the teams selecting in Comp Round B. Likewise, the eight teams that comprised Comp Round B in 2017 will now comprise Comp Round A in 2018. Notably, the Rays will pick in both rounds, as they’ve received the No. 32 overall pick as compensation for failing to sign last year’s No. 31 overall pick, Drew Rasmussen.
According to Mayo, the rounds will play out as follows:
Round A
31. Pirates
32. Rays (Compensation for Rasmussen)
33. Orioles
34. Padres
35. D-backs
36. Royals
37. Indians
38. Rockies
39. Cardinals
Round B
70. Marlins
71. Athletics
72. Rays
73. Reds
74. Brewers
75. Twins
It should also be noted that this isn’t yet likely to represent the final draft order. Competitive Balance draft selections are the only picks that are eligible to be traded from one team to another under baseball’s collective bargaining agreement. These picks can only be traded during the regular season, though, and each pick can only be traded one time. (The Royals, for instance, cannot acquire the Orioles’ pick and then trade it to another team.)
The specific placement of these picks in the overall draft order figures to change as well as draft-pick compensation from qualified offers slightly alters the ordering of the picks both surrounding the Competitive Balance rounds. Generally speaking, though, this serves as a rough guideline for next summer’s draft and helps to provide a clearer picture of which teams will have the largest draft pools.
The Royals, for instance, could very well have five of the top 40 or so picks in the draft between their first-round selection, their Competitive Balance selection, and the likely comp picks for Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Lorenzo Cain (which would fall after the first round and before Competitive Balance Round A so long as each of that trio signs for $50MM or more in guaranteed money).
Meanwhile, the Rays stand to have six of the top 72 selections if Alex Cobb signs a contract worth more $50MM or more and would otherwise have six of the top 80 if he signs elsewhere for less than $50MM (which would push the compensatory pick for his free agency back after Competitive Balance Round B).
Earlier this week, the Yankees announced that Joe Girardi will not return to manage the Bombers next season. But as Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated points out, 53-year-old Girardi might not have lost the job due to the team’s performance or his body of work. The three oldest managers in baseball (Terry Collins, Dusty Baker and Pete Mackanin) all lost their jobs this season, and John Farrell (55) will be replaced by the 42-year-old Alex Cora. This points to a trend in baseball wherein the game is being run by younger players, and it might just be that the ability of younger managers to connect with those youthful stars is being seen as a major asset. Fluency in analytics is also becoming increasingly vital to the manager position. As Verducci also points out, World Series skippers Dave Roberts (45) and A.J. Hinch (43) both fit the bill for this type of “modern manager”. With Girardi lacking the youth and analytic mindset required for the new mold, the Yankees may have simply decided he is no longer relevant in today’s game.
Some other items from around baseball’s Eastern Divisions…
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