MLB and MLBPA Agree to New CBA

[julio]

Yeah, there's always one...

[csnyder]

Quick example/idea: The signing bonus for International Prospect X is now limited by the cap in spending available to a club which we will hypothetically call the Rose Hose. So the Rose Hose offer Prospect X a $2 million bonus - well under the cap. Then they hire a "consultant" in the Dominican Republic, to advise them on possible future prospects from that nation. That "consultant" just happens to be Prospect X's buscone (or said buscone's mother, or brother, or son, etc.) - and the consultancy fee is $2 million.

Interesting idea. Is there anything that prevents teams from doing something similar across-the-board to get around the luxury tax? Assuming that consultants (as long as they're contractors) wouldn't count toward the overall payroll...

[Austinfan]

I think this is a huge advantage for the Phillies, while a lot of teams focused on the top LA prospects, the Phillies have built up a grass roots scouting organization that has allowed them to find sleepers.

A hard $5M cap means most teams will be signing one or two top guys and scrambling to identify bargains, where the Phillies should have an informational advantage in allocating that $5M since in a sense they've been implicitly playing under these rules.

[Austinfan]

It's no different than the games some teams played (who got slapped down?) by paying smaller amounts to top prospects then signing their brother who's a non-prospect. I'm sure the league will be watching for these games and some team will get penalized and lose their allocation or draft picks.

[julio]

I don't know the specific answer, Chris...but what's become obvious over the past couple of decades is that clubs with money to burn will find ways to use that money to gain a competitive advantage, whether by just paying penalties, or by finding ways to go around/circumvent rules and restrictions.

Not unique to baseball. Buyers with money who want things find ways to buy those things, whether there are market restrictions or not. That's why black markets exist. So clubs are going to cheat/get around the limits, if they can find ways to do so. Always have; always will.

[andyb]

It looks like there are some nuances to the international limit to help lower revenue teams. I think there is an extra million in pool limit for the bottom 15 revenue teams.

No idea how this stops side deals other than MLB policing any expenditures like that.

This is a better system. It really does not help the larger market teams as much as in the past. The luxury cap in general looks a little harder with stricter penalties and some QO/bonus rules that impact teams over the cap line.

All that should help competitive balance a bit, though the huge missed opportunity for the Phillies is that they never abused any of these rules like on international spending when that was permissible. I'd like to think our scouts are generally pretty good, but it is not like we have evidence of them being better than most other clubs. So we revert to a system where all 30 teams are much closer to being equal and where the Phillies could no longer use their revenue as a large market team to add talent. Call it yet another missed opportunity.

[julio]

What we have to think about - and what Klentak and his staff have to think about! - is what new opportunities may be opened by the changed rules. I don't know, at this point, but it seems highly likely that there are some new possibilities, "unforeseen" loopholes or benefits available to those who figure them out - in particular, those who figure them out first. Rule changes always seem to come with unintended consequences/impacts.

[bigegypt0417]

Passan...
.Int’l bonus $ depends strictly on market size. Teams can trade every $ of their int’l pool. Teams can trade for up to 75% of theirs.

[julio]

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Phillies 2016-2017 offseason Discussion

[julio]

The hard cap won't constrain the price of the top prospects (other than a couple each year that broke the bank) but may discourage some teams from investing in LA scouting since it's not that hard to scout the top 50-100 or so and spend to your limit on 2 or 3. But scouting the top 500-1000 requires a major investment over a number of countries (in the millions), so many teams may not think it is worth the investment if they have limited funds to chase those players.

But the counter-argument here is that, because they can spend only $5 million or so on international amateurs, it's more important than ever to identify the best opportunities - and one way clubs with more financial resources can out-compete other clubs is by doing a better job scouting in Latin America (e.g., spending more, paying more scouts, etc.). They spend a couple of $ million more on scouting, to improve the return from their $5 million investment in bonuses - as opposed to spending that couple of $ million more on bonuses...possibly for no better overall return than the new way.

[julio]

Per Jon Heyman:

Jon Heyman (JonHeyman)

English:

When a club signs a Qualifed Free Agent:

• If the club is over the luxury tax threshold, they forfeit 2nd and 5th round draft picks, and lose $1 million from international signing pool.

• If the club is under the luxury tax threshold, and not receiving revenue sharing, they forfeit 2nd round pick, and lose $500k from international signing pool.

• If the club is under the luxury tax threshold, and receiving revenue sharing money, they forfeit a 3rd round pick.

It's not clear to me what happens if a club is over the luxury tax threshold, AND receiving revenue sharing payments - but I'm not sure that ever happens (or could happen), so it may be a moot question.

[julio]

And per Rosenthal:

Ken Rosenthal (Ken_Rosenthal)

[bigegypt0417]

Deleted...

[allentown]

The 'new' opportunity seems to be the only old opportunity: over-23 international players.

[andyb]

It really seems kind of stupid to penalize U23 international dollars from clubs that sign a QO free agent. Why should 16-year-old international kids lose dollars over a signing that has nothing to do with them. The draft penalties in place previously really did not impact the kids because the 20th pick slot value was always the 20th pick slot value. The pool of money available to the top kids did not shrink.

Minor league players and amateur free agents are go to win some lawsuits at some point in the future.

[schillingfan]

The point in this that was "news" to me this morning was the DL change:

The disabled list is no longer 15 days. Long live the 15-day DL. The new agreement reduces the minimum time on the disabled list to 10 days. This makes so much sense; who wouldn't want a chance to see their favorite players for more games during the season? There are some injuries that do not require the full two weeks on the disabled list, but teams had to DL a player because they needed the roster spot.

My take in this is that it will eliminate the sitting the player for a week, while still staying on the active roster because the team wasn't sure how soon the player will recover. This used to drive me crazy as it would leave the team a player short. With a 10 day DL, I think it will be easier for teams to DL injured players rather than sit them down without playing them.

[LoneStarPhan]

It did at times seem that the Phillies had someone "not available for a few days" far too often.

I had hoped for the roster size to go to 26 or even 27. I grew up when the 25 man roster usually broke down to ten pitchers and fifteen position players. Of course, the norm now is 12 pitchers and sometimes even 13. I would like to see the bench expanded. A third catcher would allow teams to use the second catcher as a pinch hitter or to pinch hit for a weak hitting catcher in a key situation. Of course, when I heard some discussion on the 26 man active roster, the conventional wisdom was that teams would go to 13 man pitching staffs. In the end, the new CBA keeps the 25 man roster and allows call up of the full 40 man roster in September. Really not a big deal.

[schillingfan]

I grew up when the 25 man roster usually broke down to ten pitchers and fifteen position players. Of course, the norm now is 12 pitchers and sometimes even 13.

With all due respect LSP, but back when we grew up the roster only had 24 men.

[julio]

I think LSP is correct here. There was a period when the roster had 24 men - but that was an aberration. See this page at baseball-reference.com

The 25-player roster limit has a long history behind it. It has been in place since the 1920 season, having previously been limited to 21 players, although it was also at 25 for periods before World War I.
...
The normal roster limit has been 25 for most of the past decades with a few exceptions.
...
Major League teams decided to play with 24-man rosters during the first half of the 1978 season (i.e. until July 1st) and during the entire season - except for the period of expanded rosters - from 1986 to 1989, as a cost-cutting measure in the face of escalating player salaries. The settlement of the 1990 strike made the 25-man roster a part of the basic collective bargaining agreement and it has not been touched since.

[Austinfan]

Given the lower value of the QO to the team offering it, I think we'll see more July trades, if the opportunity cost is one year of the player's services or a 1st rd pick, you might hold on to him, but unless you're a good team on a down season or have a lot of money (Phillies) and don't mind keeping the player, that 2nd or 3rd rd pick isn't worth as much as a decent prospect in a July trade.

Conversely, players are less likely to accept QOs because they cost less to sign, I don't think a team will care about losing a late 2nd rd or early 3rd round pick if they like a player.