SportsPulse: USA TODAY Sports' Bob Nightengale on the newest Baseball Hall of Fame class. USA TODAY Sports
It’s a blizzard of ugliness on the free-agent streets, the nastiest winter in a quarter-century of baseball.
Players are livid. Agents are mortified. Fans are fuming. Even team executives are sympathetic.
In a 48-hour period over the weekend, Los Angeles Dodgers All-Star closer Kenley Jensen proposed a possible strike, Seattle Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto suggested that more teams would rather win the top draft pick than the World Series, and veteran agent Scott Boras accuses the current regime of destroying the sport’s integrity.
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Major League Baseball owners will convene in Beverly Hills, this week for their quarterly owners’ meetings, and why there won’t be players picketing outside their posh hotel pleading for owners to start spending their fortunes, there are more than 130 free agents still unemployed with two weeks remaining before the opening of spring training camps.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,’’ Boras tells USA TODAY Sports, “not like this.’’
Who would ever have imagined that the Colorado Rockies and Milwaukee Brewers would spend more money in the free-agent market this winter than the combined total of every other team in baseball? Those two mid-sized markets have shelled out $212 million, a cool $200 million more than the combined total of the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers.
Really.
Sure, maybe it’s different a year from now when the greatest free agent class in baseball history hits the market. The Yankees and Dodgers are planning to re-set their payroll under the $197 million luxury tax this year, giving them huge tax breaks when the likes of Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Clayton Kershaw, Josh Donaldson, Dallas Keuchel and Charlie Blackmon come available.
Perhaps, only then, will free-agent normalcy return to our game.
Then again, brace yourself, because it might get a whole lot worse.
Considering the volume of players that may have no choice but to accept one-year contracts in the next couple of weeks, we may have more than 200 free agents next fall, a glut that could demolish the mid-tier class.
“We have a non-competitive cancer that’s ruining the fabric of this sport,’’ Boras says. “And until we change the system, this is going to continue.
“Remember when Bud Selig used to always say that every fan must have hope and faith? That was his legacy. He said, 'If you remove hope and faith from the fan, you destroy the fabric of the sport. My job is to restore that.’
“Those were Bud’s words, not mine.
“Well, the modern administration is not listening to that credo. Where’s that hope and faith now?’’
If you live in South Florida, and are one of the few Miami Marlins’ fans still around, do you have hope and faith your team is going to contend this year? How about in Cincinnati? Pittsburgh? San Diego? Oakland? Detroit? Atlanta?
There are 11 teams this season who are rebuilding. It’s simply not in their best interest to win. Why win when you’ve got a chance to reap the benefits of not only getting a high draft pick, but also receive millions of more money in the draft pool?
“You could argue you're going to compete with more clubs to get the first pick in the draft,’’ Dipoto told Seattle reporters, “than you would to win the World Series.’’
Ouch.
There was a time when just the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros were employing this strategy, trading away veterans for prospects in lieu of winning, but hitting it big in the draft with the likes of Kris Bryant and Carlos Correa, and now having World Series championship trophies to show for it.
The strategy worked so brilliantly that now you have more than one-third of the teams in baseball copying it. The Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins are the only teams realistically trying to win in the AL Central. The NL East may once again have only the Washington Nationals finish above .500. And we could wind up having more than last year’s total of 14 teams that finished 20 or more games out of first place.
Hope and faith?
“The idea that people don’t want to win is nonsense,’’ Selig said Sunday in a telephone interview with USA TODAY Sports. “I don’t think there’s any less of a desire to be competitive. I understand what clubs are doing. If you’re trying to rebuild your club, the best way to do it is through your farm system. If you don’t have farm system, you’re in trouble.
“Teams are simply recognizing that.
“It’s only January, and I still think when it all shakes out, my hope-and-faith theory will bear out.’’
The calendar tells us that the free-agent deep freeze has no choice but to quickly thaw, with GMs calling it “inevitable.’’ There are only two weeks left before pitchers and catchers report to Florida and Arizona. Now that the Marlins have shipped off their entire starting outfield, and Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay have each traded the faces of their franchise, maybe there won’t be any more salary dumps, forcing teams to spend money in free agency instead of acquiring players in trades.
Let’s face it, the free-agent outfield market took a beating with All-Stars Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna, Christian Yelich and Andrew McCutchen all being traded.
“This tanking mechanism has dramatically interrupted the timing of the (free-agent) process,’’ says Boras, estimating that free agency is nearly six weeks behind schedule. “You have clubs creating non-competitive behavior. Four All-Star players bursting into the market completely affected the normal ebb and flow of free agency.’’
Now, with 24 teams earning at least $150 million more in revenue than their payrolls in this $12 billion industry, according to Boras’ calculations and refuted by club owners, maybe now they’ll take out that dusty checkbook and start spending.
Starter Yu Darvish won’t get that seven-year deal he was seeking, but still will still have his choice among five-year, $120 million contracts. First Eric Hosmer has waited all winter for an eight- or nine-year deal, but he still has his choice of returning to Kansas City or spending the next seven years in San Diego. Slugger J.D. Martinez has been sitting on a five-year offer all winter from the Boston Red Sox that he may have no choice but to take. And every marquee starter has a potential home in Milwaukee, with the Brewers letting everyone know they’re open for business after acquiring Yelich and signing Lorenzo Cain to the biggest deal of the winter -- five years, $80 million.
Yet, there are going to be dozens of free agents who won’t even get jobs. Even more players will have to settle on one-year contracts. Only a few will command anywhere near their expectations when the filed for free agency nearly three months ago.
“Maybe we have to go on strike, to be honest with you,’’ Jansen said during the Dodgers’ Fan Fest, “to fix everything.’’
There are no realistic thoughts of a strike by the players union, not with four years still left on this collective bargaining agreement. It’s still premature to set up a spring-training camp for unemployed free agents. Still, no matter how many players sign contracts these next few weeks, the epidemic of teams trying to lose now so they can win later won’t go away.
“The draft has created this non-competitive cancer,’’ Boras says. “It limits what teams can spend on youth, and that one alternation has dramatically changed teams’ desire to compete.
“The owners need to sit down with the union and correct it.’’
Boras, believing that the renovated draft system is responsible, with the worst teams not only getting the best picks but the most money, insists it’s time to offer an incentive to winning.
Boras has proposed draft bonuses for winning games. If a small-market team wins at least 78 games, it receives $2 million more to spend in the draft while the other teams get $1 million. It doubles if you win 80 games, with $2 million increments for every two victories, providing an extra $10 million in draft dollars to small-market clubs, and $5 million to large-market clubs, who win at least 86 games in a season.
“It enhances the game, rewards competition,’’ Boras says, “and still allows teams to also invest in the future. The better you play, the more draft dollars you get. It gives you a reason to win every game.
“It will end all of these excuses not to compete.
“Then, we can have true competitive balance.’’
Hope and faith.
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