The Giants have extended a qualifying offer to Madison Bumgarner, which I expected, and one to Will Smith as well. The current value of a QO is $17.8M for a one-year term. That's expensive for a relief pitcher so I wasn't sure if the Giants would go there with Smith, but he certainly earned the organization's respect with his performance.
Players have ten days to decide if they want to do that. They are free to explore the free agent market during that time. If they take the QO they are signing a one-year deal with their current team. The $17.8M is an average of the top 125 highest-paid players. If they reject the QO they are free agents.
Teams that sign a player who has rejected a QO have to forfeit a draft pick or two. The rules are Byzantine and I don't really care enough to fully learn them, suffice to say there is a penalty, which works out as compensation for the player's original team.
Pretty silly stuff. All holdovers from the days of the reserve clause. The owners own the franchise, not the players. I say eliminate the draft and make everyone a free agent from the start. Same rules for international players as well as homegrown ones. The system is unnecessarily complex, and it works against the players. By the time they reach free agency they are past their prime years and teams would rather have a 24-year old at the league minimum and under control than buy expensive older guys. Ah well, it gives us something to talk about.
--M.C.
14 comments:
If all players are free agents from the start, the very wealthy teams will have a much greater advantage than they already have. Competitive balance will be a thing of the past.
I don't think so. There are only so many spots. You can't corner the market on every player, especially if there are limits to roster sizes. It would not be hard to set a cap on the minor leagues and the number of players any one organization can have at any one time.
Houston is proof that the system encourages tanking in order to get good draft picks. That's not the way it is supposed to be. Teams should play to win. And there is no reason why an 18-year old kid can't sign up for any team he wants to play for--that is, any team willing to pay him. It's un-American to require him to work for one team over another just because that one team stunk and got to draft first.
The draft is so much a part of our sports landscape that we don't question it. I submit that it is outmoded and that a robust international "market" of talent would work better. Part of the problem of course is that MLB is a protected monopoly. They don't have to "compete" like most businesses and the draft is just another scheme for protecting their stranglehold on the talent pool.
Here's something from Rob Manfred re the automated strike zone:
“Here’s our thinking on the automated strike zone: The technology exists. We have the technology,” Manfred said on MLB Now with Brian Kenny. “We’re actually going through a big upgrade of that piece of our technology during this offseason. I think we need to be ready to use an automated strike zone when the time is right. That’s why we experimented in the Atlantic League. It’s why we went to the Arizona Fall League. It’s why we’re using it in Minor League Baseball next year, in some ballparks at least.
“I think it’s incumbent upon us to see if we can get the system to the point we’re comfortable it can work. I only would go to an automated strike zone when we were sure that it was absolutely the best it can be. Getting out there too early with it and not having it work well, that’d be a big mistake.”
Giants pick up a righty reliver Rico Garcia who had a very brief stint with Colorado and has impressive AA numbers.
Giants also claim Kolten Wong's younger brother, Kean Wong, also an infielder, and a RHP named Trevor Oaks.
OF Mike Gerber was cut loose. Also cut was RHP Ricardo Pinto, I'm not sure I remember him being picked up!
FZ is up to his usual roster-churning. I suppose I'll do a summary every few weeks or so.
I'm really intrigued by this strike zone technology, that will likely be worthy of a post as well. I've always believed the tech was not there yet, that the error/failure rates and calibration problems were too big and thus not enough of an improvement over human umps. There is always a very high hype/BS factor when dealing with techies and their claims, so this move by MLB seems fast. Hey, if the shit works I'm all for it. I guess I'm not yet convinced it really works!
Scott Harris, an assistant GM with the Cubs, is supposedly under consideration for the GM job. I've also heard Billy Owens, an AGM with the A's, is also in the running.
I keep forgetting that the Giants intend to add a GM as well as a field manager!
Baseball is a monopoly, and given rare monopoly status by the U.S. government. Baseball knows that a system of competitive balance is necessary for the sport to thrive in more than just a few cities. A rich Yankee or Dodger owner may think nothing of spending 500 million on a team if that will get them in the playoffs and have phenomenal TV rights in the N.Y. metropolitan area. Hell with the rest of the league. However, it will not last that long. We will have another situation where the Yankees make the playoffs every year, and poorer teams are just there to be fodder, like when the Globetrotters would come into town. Unless the monopoly status is removed from baseball, there has to be some regulation that enables some degree of competitive balance.
When strike zone technology is perfected I will support it, because umps are really good, but still not good enough. But I agree that the technology at this point seems to be an issue as there seems to be a degree of over-claiming.
Pete Putila, Astros head player development, is a candidate for the GM job.
The draft does not create competitive balance. The Padres have had 5 #1 picks since the draft was instituted in 1965! The LA Dodgers have had zero. The Astros had three straight (12-13-14) because they deliberately tanked. It is not a good system. It doesn't prevent the Yankees from being rich and buying who they want, and it encourages clubs to lose so they can harvest talent cheaply. And it is unfair. Foreign players are automatically free to sign with whatever teams they want but American kids cannot. Imagine if computer science grads had to be drafted rather than seeking out a job a Google or Apple or Intel. We'd be howling with outrage.
Imagine if another baseball league appeared and siphoned off some big names. It cannot happen because MLB has its tongue up the asses of the US Congress. If MLB had to compete they'd be more concerned about the quality of their product and they'd get damn creative about keeping franchises healthy and competitive.
If you limit the size of the rosters at every level and set a minimum salary and put all players in the same pool then teams would be forced to RECRUIT talent. Much like Google and Apple and Intel have to compete to sign the talent coming out of universities both here and abroad. And limit the length of contracts so that players are free to move and seek out better opportunities.
Sports is a business. Baseball no more deserves "protection" than coal mining does.
Pirates acting GM Kevan Graves is another name associated with the Giants GM search.
Interesting article by Joe Posnanski on The Athletic where he talks about the late Marvin Miller. Miller had a lot of interesting things to say about baseball, as you can imagine. Here's his thoughts on competitive balance:
“Competitive balance, hah,” Miller said. He all but spit out the phrase. “I remember when we were trying to do away with the reserve clause. I marveled at the fact that something like that could be in the players’ contract. But, even more, I marveled at the fact that when I brought it up to players, they gave me a response which, in effect, said baseball couldn’t survive without it. They had been brainwashed to believe that the reserve clause was for the good of the game.
“The words change. It used to be ‘the good of the game.’ Now it’s ‘competitive balance.’ There’s no difference.”
He was also opposed to the many other things we take for granted as part-and-parcel of the game:
Steroid testing? “Do you want someone searching your car without proper cause?” he asked.
Revenue sharing? “Corporate welfare like we have never known it in America,” he said.
Luxury tax? “That’s a very clever name,” he said. “Luxury tax. It sounds harmless. Of course, that doesn’t describe what it is. It is a penalty, and a very large one, designed to prevent clubs from hiring people and prevent them from paying people what they should get on the open market.”
Miller had a knack for cutting through the BS! Even if you disagree with his sentiments you have to admit his words are certainly thought-provoking. And these aren't the brain farts of some half-assed amateur blogger (!), either, but ideas from a man deeply involved with the game for many years. Certainly he was a players' man, and suspicious of billionaire owners, but I'm not sure I'd call that bias. Seems more like common sense.
He had thoughts about fans, too:
“Fans don’t seem to understand that the largest pocketbook issue that faces them is the tax money being used for essentially free stadiums for wealthy owners. That’s hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in cities where schools are crumbling and highways and bridges need repair. It amazes me. Fans don’t complain about the real issues. Mostly, they don’t even understand them.
“Players make what they deserve to make on the open market. That’s all. And let me say this again: Fans have their rights. But they should have nothing to say on what a player earns. I liken it to an automobile company. Someone might buy six or seven Chevrolets in his life. Automobile companies ought to listen to the things he has to say about how a car looks, how it runs, how it stands up. All important things. But I don’t think a car buyer has any right to have any input whatsoever on the wages and benefits of automobile employees.”
I'm having a hard time arguing against any of that.
The article is behind a paywall at The Athletic. The site is something like five bucks a month and I go there all the time. Andrew Baggarly, Grant Brisbee, Eno Saaris, Melissa Lockard are all excellent and there are all the big-time guys like Jayson Stark, Ken Rosenthal, Peter Gammons, Joe Posnanski, etc. if you like them.
https://theathletic.com/1362282/2019/11/08/posnanski-marvin-miller-is-once-again-on-the-hall-of-fame-ballot-whats-the-right-thing-to-do-here/
the draft alone does not create competitive balance, but it helps as there is free agency, which destroys competitive balance in favor of the rich teams. If you do not have a draft and just have free agency, you will have no balance.
I think the owners have figured out how to "game" free agency. Players peak before they reach free agency so the market for aging players is weaker every year. They aren't spending the money on these guys, only a top few get a big payday, the mid-level guys sign minor-league deals or low-base incentive-laden contracts. There are too many years of service time required. Free agency should happen sooner, when players are worth the most, both in dollar and baseball terms. More free agents means more value to spread around the league.
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