After Manny signs for $300 million after doing about the best possible job of self-anti-marketing and Harper also seems likely to get at least $300 million, I can't help but think back on the wailing about owners' collusion killing the FA system -- well this article bemoaning the fate of Moustakis sent my mind back in that direction.
So, I am expected to cry, because poor Mike had to settle for a one-year deal worth only a bit over $7 million, despite putting up +2.1 WAR in 2018. I agree he is a bargain at that rate, but I'd feel a lot sorrier for him if I didn't know that he turned down a qualifying offer, which would have netted him a very fair $17+ WAR, valuing him at over $8 million/WAR. He let it be known that he wanted a multi-year $50+ million deal. There's the rub. Teams are willing to pay him what he's worth based upon his 2018 performance and take the risk that he is injured or falls far short of that performance in 2019. They aren't prepared to take that risk over 3 or more seasons. So... it's not that annual salaries have eroded, it's that team's interest in multi-year deals for anyone who isn't a star, with a star's potential marketing as well as on-field difference-making value, is vanishing. This trend is fairly well underway with teams, like the Phillies, willing to sign inferior FA or trade prospects for guys under contract for just a year or two, rather than sign mid-level FA to largish multi-year deals. Going into his age 30 season, Moustakas was viewed as too risky for probably more than a 2-year deal. Players could have received more 2018 money, had they not pushed for the security of multi-year deals. They could have gotten more money on a one-year deal had they not held out for the largish multi-year deal. Despite all the grousing about how long it is taking for Harper to find a deal or for MM to finally get signed, it is clear to me that the holdup has been the strategy of their agents. Harper turned down $300 million before last season ended and there are persistent reports that he spurned an early $360 million offer from the Phillies, before it became clear that the market wasn't that strong.
There is an inequity in the share of baseball's $ going to the players. In my view that inequity is entirely with the younger major leaguers and all of the minor leaguers. The older players are doing very well. Those that lose out lose out because they cling to long to the dream of a big multi-year score, based more on past than on future performance. Mike will get by just fine on his $7 million, although he and his agent threw away a cool $10 million.
I think the Phillies will end up signing Harper, and they will do so at a premium above what constitutes an objectively fair price.
Clearly too many FAs spurned QOs this year. To win at that game, you have to either be clearly worth more than the QO price or clearly be above average safety for a multi-year deal and worth about QO value currently. I think next year's wrinkle will be teams getting stuck with players who accept the QO, when the team didn't want them at that salary and was just draft pick hunting.
