Tom Brennan - Baseball Pay - How Fair (or Unfair) Is It?

The Baseball CBA is being negotiated.  Oh, joy.

Visions of work stoppages dancing in my head.

One issue that should be addressed, in my opinion, in the new CBA is player salary fairness, both for owners and players.

To me, the current system is grossly unfair to many players.  

There, I said it.

The bulk of the riches primarily accrue to the 

1) true superstars - and superstars get paid in every sport, and

2) decent-to-star level players who reach free agency at a relatively young age.

Francisco Lindor is a prime example of that.  

He certainly fits category # 2, and it is your judgment call whether he also fits category # 1, but he is making a boatload of category # 1 bucks.

On the other side of the coin, a guy like Jeff McNeil hits the big leagues late age-wise, due to close to 2 years in the minors missed due to injury, and hits over .300 in 2018, 2019 and 2020, and made less than $700,000 in 2021, a paltry sum in light of his performance.  Had he hit free agency at age 28 with those being his last 3 years, he'd probably have signed a 6 year, $120 million contract for 2021, an enormous difference.

Pete Alonso?  In a similar $$ boat to McNeil.

Both have been drastically underpaid for what production they've provided - so far.

Lindor will make $34 million next year - Pete and Jeff might make $4 million between them.

By the time Jeff McNeil is eligible to be a free agent, his best baseball may be behind him.  

Pitchers have an even more treacherous road to free agency.  Just consider Matt Harvey.  Way underpaid in his early years, then got hurt, so he never reached the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  There are many like him.

Guys who are good are way underpaid in their early years, hoping their production stays strong until they reach free agency and can finally reap the big bucks.  But if they are older by then, as McNeil will be, even if they are producing at high levels, it will squeeze what they get because clubs won't give them long contracts extending into their twilight years.  McNeil is a free agent in 2025.  He will be 33 in 2025.

The great Macks Mets writer Reese Kaplan recently included the following outfielder free agents info in his article - notice, if you will, how old, in baseball terms, all of these guys are - 3 are 29, the rest are 30-35, and baseball players who are 35 are not getting big $$ deals:

Left Fielders:

• Mark Canha (Age 33, 4.3 WAR)
• Kyle Schwarber (Age 29, 3.4 WAR) -- mutual option
• Eddie Rosario (Age 30, 1.9 WAR)
• Tommy Pham (Age 34, 1.4 WAR)
• Andrew McCutchen (Age 35, 1.0 WAR) -- club option
• Corey Dickerson (Age 33, 0.8 WAR)
• Jurickson Profar (Age 29, 0.6 WAR) -- can opt out
• Joc Pederson (Age 30, 0.5 WAR) -- mutual option

Center Fielders:

• Starling Marte (Age 33, 6.7 WAR)
• Chris Taylor (Age 31, 4.5 WAR)

Right Fielders:

• Nick Castellanos (Age 30 4.5 WAR) -- can opt out
• Avisaíl García (Age 31, 3.6 WAR) -- mutual option
• Michael Conforto (Age 29, 2.9 WAR)
• Adam Duvall (Age 33, 2.9 WAR) -- mutual option
• Charlie Blackmon (Age 35, 2.3 WAR) -- player option

My take?  If I were a guy in the Jeff McNeil category, and there are many of them in baseball, I would want the years to free agency reduced by at least one year.  I would speak up to players' negotiator Tony Clark.

Perhaps there could then be some annual salary or length-of-contract limitations on the Lindor types so that it is not a case where the many like McNeil (under saner rules) reach free agency sooner, make more in what would have otherwise been his last pre-free agency year, and owners make less. It should be a zero sum game...players in total make $ X and owners pay out $ X in 2021, and the same amounts (adjusted for inflation) in 2022, 2023, etc.

The mechanics of how that could be done I'd leave to the powers that be.  All I know is that the better performers in early seasons of their career who are faltering by the time they reach free agency (e.g., Harvey) make a lot less than guys who falter early on, but kick it into gear as free agency arrives (e.g., Wheeler).  And that ain't right.

Also, I would start arbitration in year 2.  Why should an Alonso hit 53 HRs as a rookie and make under $700,000 the next?  Absurd.  Again, I am not asking owners to pay more overall but to reduce the salary slope.  There's no reason Pete should not have made $2 million in 2020 and $5 million this year - he is an everyday starting player and star.  

in the business world, if you are a superstar in your first year, more than likely, you will be compensated (relatively speaking) far better than Pete Alonso was for his second season.

Baseball's salary formulas are simply inequitable.

That is it, folks.  Thoughts?