Yo Soy Free Agency
Now the MLBPA must respond by demanding that the best young players in the game be available for free agency well before the age of 30. The most important change the players association should seek, therefore, is a reduction of service time commitment from seven to four.
Think of the fluidity it might create. One problem with free agency is that what teams want is not necessarily available. Availability would become a problem of the past.
And it would be a mistake to think teams would just keep reloading with new farm hands. Good players don’t just come along every draft. If the Yankees had to start paying Gary Sanchez next year, they would — especially if that tax penalty threshold were raised.
And is it fair to Judge and others like him that by the time he is a free agent, his own team will tell him his value has already declined? The shoe would be on the other foot if he were to hit free agency at 28.
Shooting for the Stars
In fact, in an even more radical move, they might want to push for every minor leaguer to automatically become a free agent at the new seemingly magical age of 28. That is very unlikely to happen but sometimes pushing an extreme idea helps your interlocutor accept the less extreme ones.
Every aspect of the service time rules needs to reconsider, in this new paradigm of free agency. For instance, get rid of all notions of a Super-Two. That is the rule that allows teams to retain an extra year of service by bringing up a player later in the season.
It needs to become more simple: If a player plays on the big league club, it counts toward that year.
And increased pay for being called up should be on the table. Why not let it trigger a big-league minimum salary for the rest of that season?
Memory Lane
It is important to remember why these rules were initially instituted: To protect small-market teams. MLB did not want the KC Royals of the world to lose their best young players, such as Johnny Damon because they could not financially compete with the Boston’s and New York’s.
But now the game is flush with cash, more evenly distributed, with even small market teams controlling their TV revenue streams. And the tax cap will still prevent bigger market clubs from exponentially outspending them, which was the problem at one point.
Instead, look at what is happening to KC’s newly exposed crop of free agents. They are being deemed too old for long-term deals, if they get any deals at all, even by their own club. These guys won a World Series; that used to mean something.
But now that the Royals got all their young years so cheaply, including that WS title, they want to hide behind statistics to defend not paying them. These players deserved a chance to cash in when their ages still worked in their favors.
What started as protection has turned into a protection racket, so time to change the game.