MLB: The Solution to Tanking and the Free Agency Crisis
By Marcus Guy
Why Teams are Willing to Give Extentions
The past two off-seasons have been notoriously slow and much more club-friendly than player-friendly. Players who are 31+ years old are having a hard time finding more than two years on a contract, and the two biggest names this off-season, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, (both of whom are 26-years old) only got signed in the middle of spring training!
Unfortunately for the players though, the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which was agreed to by the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), is not very player-friendly and does not give teams incentive to want to spend- and on top of that, the MLB penalizes the teams that DO spend by having a luxury tax and limiting their spending.
The next CBA is in December 2021, during which, the players are likely going to demand that the luxury tax be raised considerably and possibly that the MLB penalize teams that either doesn’t spend a minimum amount of money or win the minimum amount of games.
Once that happens, the average contract (and by default the massive ones) will be increased, possibly significantly for some of baseball’s biggest stars like Francisco Lindor, Aaron Judge, and Cody Bellinger. These players are going to seek upwards of 400 million dollar deals. So, teams like The Yankees, Phillies, Braves, and Reds are trying to lock up their young stars before the CBA so they don’t have to pay what would likely be a higher average salary and are instead paying less than the going rate now.
Expect more teams to start locking up their young stars to long term contracts.
Look for players like Christian Yelich and Kris Bryant to be the next ones to get long term extensions in the near future.