As most baseball fans know, the current collective bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association is set to expire at 11:59 p.m. on December 1, 2021. And based on the contentious history between the two extremely powerful (and extremely wealthy) factions, negotiations are once again expected to be… well… contentious.

Late Thursday morning at the annual General Managers Meetings currently underway at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, CA, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred fired the first of what is expected to be many salvos, when he proposed a significant overhaul of the existing free agency and player arbitration system.

Although there most certainly is a desire – on both sides – to see significant changes to the free agency and arbitration system – more specifically, salary arbitration and how long players must play before reaching free agency – the proposal offered up by Major League Baseball (through Manfred) on Thursday had an unexpected and unusual twist to it.

According to Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (subscription required), MLB’s proposal would make players eligible for free agency at age 29 1/2 instead of the current system of six years of Major League service time or when they are released from their organization prior to reaching six years of service time. 

But even more noteworthy is the fact that MLB is proposing replacing salary arbitration with “a precalculated salary based in part on the wins above replacement (WAR) stat.”

MLB is proposing using WAR statistics from Fangraphs, which, at face value, could help talented defensive players and pitchers with high strikeout numbers but could hurt relievers and other pitchers who rely more on soft contact.

Obviously, it’s still a bit early to walk down this prickly path and, in fact, the players union has yet to even respond to the commissioner’s proposal, which is expected to fail (miserably). In fact, and as one MLB agent attending the GM Meetings said upon hearing of Manfred’s plan: “Albert Pujols has a better chance of leading the majors in stolen bases.”

The key issue is, of course, putting an age threshold on free agency at a time when players as young as 20 years of age (or younger) are making their Major League debuts.

Again, it is still very early in the negotiating process and there is clearly much work to be done on both sides of the bargaining table to (dare I say it) avoid a “work stoppage” (strike). But to be brutally honest and at risk of scorn, a baseball strike during one of the worst pandemics in history when the world so desperately needs something positive to focus on, and with the current MLB minimum salary at $570,500, a “work stoppage” (strike) is absolutely unacceptable – period.

Don’t blow this one, guys.

Play Ball!

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