DUNEDIN, Fla. – The Major League Baseball Players Association is concerned about the impact qualifying offers and public comments by team executives are having on free agency, and intends to let the off-season play out before drawing any conclusions.
The lingering availability of Ervin Santana, Stephen Drew and Kendrys Morales has been a talking point throughout the off-season, and while the collective bargaining negotiated after the 2011 season cut the number of free agents tied to compensation, new union executive director Tony Clark said the way teams are valuing draft picks “was hard to anticipate.”
“I still don’t quite understand how we have impact players who are at home without jobs as a result of draft-pick compensation, and/or what’s happening in the draft,” Clark said after leading a 90-minute meeting with the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday. “If a team is focused and committed on trying to be the last team standing, then you’re going to put yourself in position to make sure you sign the best players you can now.
“The Stephen Drews, Kendrys Moraleses and Ervin Santanas of the world, quality major-league baseball players that can affect the bottom line in the win-loss column, these are guys that should have jobs, and we are concerned about it.”
Free agents that receive a qualifying offer equal to the average of the top 125 salaries in baseball – $14.1 million in 2013 – are tied to compensatory draft picks if they sign with another team. All 13 players to receive the offer this year turned it down – one problem with accepting is that they can be qualified again after the season – with Ubaldo Jimenez and Nelson Cruz signing last week and Drew, Morales and Santana remaining in limbo.
Clark acknowledged that, “draft-pick compensation is something that’s been a part of the fabric of this game for a long time. But sure as I sit here, you guys are also aware that it’s caused work stoppages in the past. Anything related to free agency, draft-pick compensation, salary arbitration, pension, binding arbitration, salary caps, revenue sharing are all part of the discussion. So when you have situations where a part of the agreement appears to be adversely affecting players, yes we have a concern. Is it a topic of discussion? Yes, it’s a topic of discussion. Is it one we’re paying a lot of attention to? Sure.”
Clark said it was difficult to reopen the CBA before it expires to address the problem, but added: “This isn’t in anyone’s best interests.”
“What that lends itself to in the short-term is hard to say, what it lends itself to in the long-term, in 2016 we’ll have an opportunity to address it if we don’t have an opportunity beforehand.”
The union has also raised with Major League Baseball the types of comments some executives have made regarding free agents. Some agents feel the volume of public discourse serves to telegraph the plans of clubs to one another, adversely affecting the negotiating leverage of players.
Asked if some of the comments made by Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos this winter about the asking prices of free agents being too high and his suggestions that prices for free agents were coming down, Clark replied vaguely.
“When I suggested that draft-pick compensation was something that we were paying attention to,” he said, “if the free-agent market as a whole is being manipulated on some level, and we have an opportunity on some level to reflect on this off-season, comments that were made, where those comments came from, and how they may have affected the free-agent market, then it is a conversation that we’re going to have going forward to make sure that the integrity of the collective bargaining agreement is upheld, and that we don’t find ourselves in a place where certain information is lending itself to certain appreciations and understandings with respect to free agency.”
As for Scott Boras’s comments over the weekend that Blue Jays ownership isn’t spending enough money on the team, Clark said agents were free to share their own opinions and that “as long as the (Blue Jays) are not violating the collective bargaining agreement, they can make the decisions they see fit.”
