On Friday morning, MLB and the MLB Player’s Association (MLBPA) reportedly executed a deal for how baseball will proceed in 2020, if baseball is to proceed in 2020 that is.
The need to ratify the current collective bargaining agreement was necessary as this season has obviously been affected a great deal by the current pandemic sweeping the globe. The gist of it all is players wanted be sure they’ll be paid and represented fairly, while owners/organizations want to be sure their finances are protected. Several things such as the MLB Draft, potential baseball in November, as well as the potential for double-headers were also talking points. Here are the highlights of the deal.
Service Time
Arguably the most important issue for players was service time. Player representatives like Mookie Betts and Trevor Bauer want to be sure they’re receiving credit for the 2020 season, thus insuring they reach free agency when expected. This is obviously a huge deal because most big leaguers don’t get their real money until after they get out of arbitration. Players wanted, and received, a guaranteed year of service time for the 2020 season. This includes even the worst case scenario of not one single game being played. If games are played, service time will be prorated. If a player is active or on the IL for the entire amount of games played in 2020, they’ll receive a full year of service time.
Elsewhere, MLB players will also receive healthy little checks out of a $170 million fund for April and May. This should come out to roughly $125 thousand for each player during this work stoppage. The caveat in this is players cannot sue for lost wages if the entire season is lost. This payout will be non-refundable, but will cap their earnings if baseball is not played this year.
Draft Destruction
Now, the real public outcry over this deal involves the MLB Draft and July 2 International Signing Period. In the ratification, MLB has the right to delay the International Free Agent signing period, the famous J2 date, all the way to January 2021.
As far as the MLB Draft goes, the customary 40-round June draft will not happen this year. The draft itself will still happen no later than July, but the amount of rounds will shrink from 40 all the way down to five. MLB has the right to bump it up to as many as 10 if the league deems it necessary.
The travesty in all this is not the lost draft picks, but the $20,000 signing bonus cap for players that go undrafted. For reference, the slotted bonus for rounds 11 through 40 in a normal draft is $125,000. The slot bonus for rounds 6 through 10 is generally between $150,000 and $250,000.
So what does this all mean? Well, if you’re a player destined to be drafted in the first five rounds you’re largely un-impacted. MLB will be spacing the payouts for signing bonuses out over the course of a calendar year, but those players will still get their bonuses in full in due time. Unfortunately, if you’re a player in the talent pool just outside of those rounds you’re getting a very raw deal. This is brutal on guys that were expecting to hear their names called and signed this summer, especially college seniors.
With college baseball expecting to grant another year of eligibility to all seniors for the 2021 season, programs across the country are going to be chockfull of talent they weren’t expecting to have next year. Coaches will also have to factor in that high school players they didn’t think would actually make it to campus will now almost certainly suit up for their school next season. The influx of talent next year in college baseball is going to be unbelievable, and the 2021 draft will be one of the deepest in history.
But the restrictions don’t end there. Speaking of 2021, MLB has the right to cut next years’ draft in half, limiting it to just 20 rounds. There will be so much talent in the 2021 draft, it’s easy to imagine each and every one of those picks holding great value. The 2020 MLB Draft was going to be one of the deepest of the last decade. A large portion of that will now spill over into next year.
It’s important to note, teams with compensatory picks this season obviously benefit the most from this, if there are any winners here that is. As an example, the Seattle Mariners will likely have seven picks and roughly $11 million to spend over those picks. They could certainly splurge big time on top high school talent on a number of spots. Adjacently, the Houston Astros will have just four picks, only roughly $2 million to spend. That’s devastating. Teams, such as the Atlanta Braves, that spent big last offseason and surrendered their first or second round pick in this year’s draft, will be hurting big time as well.
In closing, this deal hurts amateur athletes the most. Future members of the MLBPA without a say in the matter are being crushed at the expense of MLB pocketbooks. It’s easy to rationalize this in the sense that, without baseball being played and minor leaguers being promoted through systems, there’s less spots for new draftees to play, but still, five rounds is an egregiously aggressive self-correction and it reeks of exploitation in a sensitive period in time. It’s hard not to see this ratification as the owners taking advantage of the situation, negotiating a shorter draft, smaller drafts pools, and probably the eventual contraction of minor league baseball as a whole.
The draft didn’t need to be 40 rounds, but it certainly shouldn’t be five rounds either. Sure, big leaguers are comfortable and happy today, but the guys grinding for a better tomorrow are suffering the consequences.