Tuesday, November 22, 2011

New Collective Bargaining Agreement

I thought I would add my voice to the cacophony of uninformed opinions out there about the new CBA with emphasis on what, if any, impact it may have on the Giants. Some of this stuff is way too complicated for me to completely understand. If you want a technical discussion of the fine points there are probably much better discussions out there. I'll just share my thoughts based on what I can figure out.

Free Agent Compensation: Starting after next season, there will be no type A or Type B FA's. Teams will have a 5 day window to tender a contract to their FA's. If the offer is for at least the average of the top 125 salaries in the game for one year, then that team can get compensation in the form of a supplemental round draft pick. The signing team will also lose a draft pick but it will not go to the old team. The player has 7 days to accept or reject the offer. Only the top 10 draft picks are protected instead of the top 15.

Comment: One thing I like about this is it takes arbitration out of the picture for FA's. The compensation will not be as high a draft pick, and it will likely only involve players who were previously Type A's, but it does make it easier for teams to get compensated because there is less risk in offering a contract. It may have a somewhat chilling effect on teams willingness to sign FA's who are borderline as teams will still lose draft picks and possibly higher value draft picks. Very smart move by the owners here. I'm surprised the players allowed arbitration to be taken out of the equation.

There were some "earmarks" or specific cases that were addressed that will impact this year's FA class and quite possibly the Giants offseason plans. Specific players were taken off designation as Type A FA's including Michael Cuddyer and Josh Willingham. In these cases, the team losing the player still gets 2 compensation picks, but the signing team does not forfeit a draft pick. This could make the Giants more interested in signing one of these two players as a fallback option if they can't sign Beltran. As long as the Giants don't lose a draft pick, I might even prefer Cuddyer to Beltran as Cuddyer can play multiple positions and has less of in injury history.

Draft: Each draft pick will be assigned a "slot value" much as it is now. There will be a very stiff, graduated tax on teams who exceed the cumulative slot value for the top 10 picks including the loss of future draft picks if they go too far above slot. It's not clear what happens if a team goes way above slot for the round 11 pick or later. This could prove to be a loophole barring further clarification. The signing deadline moves up to mid July instead of mid August. The 10 smallest market/lowest revenue teams will enter a lottery to get one of 6 supplemental round draft picks each year. Since market size changes slowly over time, I would expect the same teams to be in this lottery almost every year. Over time, the value of those draft picks could be a substantial competitive advantage. Major league contracts will be forbidden.

I don't think this will have much of an impact on the Giants as they have only gone substantially above slot for Buster Posey. Buster might not have fallen to them had this rule been in place at the time though. This may not be the Apocalypse for baseball talent that some are making it out to be. Teams can still allocate resources to sign an exceptional talent. They will just have to scrimp on the rest of the draft. Conversely, teams may choose to allocate their slot money more evenly over the first 10 rounds as a strategy. The only players I see being severely affected are the two-sport players. More of them may opt to play the alternative sport if they think they can do better there.

International Signings: Teams will have a international signing allowance ranging from about $1.8 M - $5 M each year in reverse order of record. Teams can trade up to half their allowance.

I don't see this having a major impact on the Giants who have already gone to a strategy of signing multiple players to lower bonuses rather than going for that one big impact signing. Early returns on this strategy seem promising.

Equipment: New players will not be allowed to use low density maple bats. If these bats are deemed to be dangerous, I think they should have been banned for all players. Probably existing endorsement contracts played a role in this decision. Always follow the money! Hitters will be required to use batting helmets that can withstand a 100 MPH impact. I think we can all be in favor of this one.

Substance abuse: Players will tested for HGH. It's about time! Players will be required to undergo evaluation for possible alcoholism for any altercation with the law

Minimum Salary: Rises to $480 K and then to $500 K. Minimal impact.

The agreement does nothing to help minor leaguers. I agree with Bacci on this. Baseball needs to do something to improve working conditions for minor leaguers. Unfortunately, minor leaguers are not members of the "club" and therefore their interests are not represented at these negotiations.

What do you think about the new Collective Bargaining Agreement?

13 comments:

  1. http://assets.espn.go.com/pdf/2011/1122/2011_MLB_CBA.pdf

    this is a nice summary of the cba in PDF form from ESPN.com

    I like the Draft changes a lot with the draft budget and penalties for going over them. It states that players selected after round 10 won't effect the budget as long as they are less than $100k.

    ReplyDelete
  2. guys on the farm may not be members of the club, but everyone in the bigs was once a member of the farm...and the fact that they still have the mindset of guys "having to pay their dues" is nuts

    many will become future teammates...and you always want to have the best athletes as teammates

    19th century mindset for the 21st century...crazy

    the olympics gets the concept...why cant the mlb?

    sad thing is...the cost per team would not be more than the avg salary....just a few mil extra per year

    and i was really hoping that selig would have announced that he was going to work with all the clubs to start investing in ownership of their minor league franchises

    with the change in the economy (that doesnt look to be getting better any time soon) more and more families are finding that the minor league experience is dollar and kid friendly

    wanna keep a strong fan base? push minor league attendance


    i did hear mention of a change in minor league fa...just cant find the particulars

    they are also allowing for the 25 to be expanded to 26 for dh's...thats a start

    maybe in 16 they will come to their senses and allow the 25 and 40 to both be expanded and the dh to be done away with

    the hgh testing is a joke...can only be done in st and offseason and only with "probable cause"

    the current blood test can only tell if hgh has been used between 48-72 hours

    hgh aint like other peds....dont have to use it all year

    and its really expensive....they are currently testing minor leaguers....who cant afford it


    i dont like the hard cap on the draft...and i wish they had expanded the draft to foreign players

    i do like the change in compensation

    dont like the expanded playoffs or the season long interleague

    dont like the fact that less games will be played within the division

    dont like that no change regarding the as game counting was done...with expanded interleague...home field shouldve gone with the head to head winner

    dont like the change in revenue sharing....giants have gotten screwed on this since day one...a's get a pass, cuz they have a "bad venue"....why do i have a feeling that even if they a's move to sj...they wont draw?

    anyway...at least the mlb is smarter than the nfl or nba

    but i still hope that this is selig's last year as commish...and that the next one is not a former owner

    ReplyDelete
  3. Agree with Bacci, the minor league part is a shame and really short sighted, a small amount of money overall would make a big difference.

    The HGH testing is a joke.

    http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/2011/11/draft-cap-may-not-be-so-harsh/
    Apparently the ceiling is being lifted from 133MM rec'd to about 200MM and isn't solely determined each year by the league, so teams will have more autonomy, but it seems like a pretty complicated structure that only insiders will be able to figure out.

    Really hope this is the last year of Selig. Very mixed legacy, but for a used car salesman, he's done well. Like Hyman Roth, he always makes his partners money.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Say, DrB, you are a doctor, maybe you can resolve this for me (I promise, this is not off topic :^).

    A noted sabermetrician, the Saber-Economist, wrote that he spoke with P.E. professors at his college (he's an econ prof) and they noted that HGH does not do anything to help with performance, but does do horrible stuff to your internal organs. Left unsaid to me was whether HGH does help people heal faster, which is a form of performance enhancement since that woulud mean that it allows the player to heal faster and return to full strength. Are the Profs right, HGH does not help performance in baseball? And what does HGH do for athletes?

    Regarding the draft beyond round 10, first, I would note that Baseball America has a series of articles available for free on the new CBA and how it pertains to the draft. I also found an article in the WSJ which is where I got this next tidbit of info: beyond the 10th round, the max is $100K and if any team goes beyond that, that money will count against their money spent with regards to the max cap.

    I agree that more should be done for minor leaguers so that they can develop better.

    Great rundown, DrB, as usual, I have still not yet digested everything, maybe over the long weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  5. FYI, DrB, for some reason when I tried to post this via I.E., it said that I (via my gmail account) had no access to view this page, and said that I needed to log out and change accounts. Once I used the Safari browser, it worked fine. I know you are not techie but just so you know and to see if anyone else had this problem.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Completely agree on minor league players. I crunched the numbers a little bit, and yeah, it would be a matter of $1-2 million to pay the kids a decent wage. And that would make all the difference. Teams could afford that and it would be the right thing to do. It's a shame that players, at least, don't make this a priority when negotiating CBA. I never even hear about it as a point of discussion.

    IGMFU.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Good question about HGH. I am not aware of any convincing evidence that HGH improves performance for anybody beyond puberty. It's main clinical use is to help short stature kids get to a normal height, but it has to be used for a limited time at the right time in their development. High levels of HGH, whether endogenous or exogenous, beyond puberty produce a condition called acromegaly characterized by coarse facial features and large diameter extremities as well as a tendency to a variety of metabolic diseases. There are some ballplayers, who I will not name, whose physical characteristics are strongly suggestive of acromegaly. My own suspicion is that they were given HGH during puberty to make them larger in stature and the they continued taking them for too long and ended up with the physical manifestations of acromegaly.

    It is my understanding that Andre the Giant, the wrestler, had endogenous acromegaly from a pituitary tumor that gave him his size and coarse features. Another example of this disorder was Georges Muresan the basketball player who was 7'7" tall or something like that.

    There has been interest, mainly in the alternative medicine community, for using HGH as an anti-aging agent. I am not aware of any convincing evidence that it has any benefit in this regard.

    Short answer: If HGH is given to kids before the end of puberty, it will make them bigger and stronger. After that, it is very doubtful that it is performance enhancing and is likely to cause a variety of disease states.

    ReplyDelete
  8. i was under the impression that hgh, when prescibed to older adults, helps to retard the aging disease...improves eyesight, and gives one more energy...was i mistaken?

    dont see the point in its use by healthy athletes...bigger and stronger doesnt really mean one is gonna hit a curve,although the eyesight thing is a plus

    again, the testing, as it was layed out...is a joke

    announced that the testing will go on during st...whoever is using will stop a week before st starts...wont show up in the test

    testing during offseason....unless the tester is showing up unannounced at a players home...still wont find anyone using

    wouldnt have the issue with peds if the mlb would just institute my changes to the minors

    wish one org would have the balls and just do it themselves, and give the finger to the mlb...it will pay dividends

    how hard would it be to set aside a few mil to improve conditions to the system?

    and both coaches and scouts could get a bump too


    as an aside...my parents were worried about me being small...took me to a specialist...he wanted to put me on something (not sure if it was hgh...this was back in the 60s) my pediatrician told them they were crazy...that i would grow to be above avg height...he was wrong

    i blame him for a lifetime of never being really able to wear the suits that i want...or not being able to date tall women

    damn him

    ReplyDelete
  9. Well Bacci, that doc may have unwittingly done you a favor. Before HGH was available from recombinant DNA, it was obtained from beef or pork pituitaries. Unfortunately some of it got contaminated by Jakob-Creutzfeldt proteins(similar to Mad Cow Disease) and there was a significant outbreak of the disease in humans who received the treatments.

    There are many claims out there about the therapeutic effects of HGH including anti-aging properties. To my knowledge, all these claims lack sufficient evidence to support using it therapeutically except in kids with Short Stature Syndrome.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Correction, the HGH that caused Jakob-Creutzfeldt disease was extracted from human cadaver pituitaries.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I like the extra wildcard team. The one game playoff forces the manager to decide whether to "burn" his ace for this one game. That means that for the next series, he'll have to go with #2 in the first game against the #1 of the opponent. The alternative is to save #1, but, you don't get to use #1 in the next series if you don't win this one game. This has the effect of penalizing the wildcard team, which I think is more fair in the end. I think that there has been too many wildcard teams winning the World Series.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Yes, Andre the Giant had that problem. According to that article, HGH causes the internal organs to expand, that is why Andre had that big gut, everything inside grew large and basically spills out of the gut because it has no where else to go.

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Well, I'm not an expert on HGH, per se, but yes. it does make everything grow big, not just bones. People who have the endogenous disease do tend to have a lot of related health problems.

    ReplyDelete