The author, a former Detroit News reporter, is a freelance writer.
Update, 4:20 p.m. Tuesday: Manny Machado, formerly of the Baltimore Orioles and LA Dodgers, agreed to a 10-year, $300-million deal with the San Diego Padres. It's the largest free-agent contract in U.S. sports history.
By Paul Harris
Major League baseball players – or at least stars with the highest visibility – are quite unhappy with the way the free market is treating them. So are their agents.
Miguel Cabrera
That’s the same free market that they lauded when owners stood in line for the privilege of signing players like the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera, Alex Rodriguez (separate deals with the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees) and Giancarlo Stanton (originally with the Florida Marlins, since traded to the Yankees) to contracts worth at least $25 million per season for a minimum term of eight years from 2001-2016.
But teams and owners have been far less eager to throw money at the best available players these past two years.
The top free agents have ultimately achieved big contracts. Former Tiger J.D. Martinez signed a five-year, $110 million deal with the Boston Red Sox, and pitcher Jake Arrieta got a three-year, $75 million contract with the Philadelphia Phillies before last season. However, neither was for as much money, nor as many years as expected. And both players had to wait until after spring training began to sign.
And with pitchers and catchers reporting this week to training camps in advance of the 2019 season, the off season’s top two free agents – outfielder Bryce Harper (Washington Nationals) and shortstop/third baseman Manny Machado (Los Angeles Dodgers) – have not signed.
According to media reports, the Nationals offered Harper a deal worth over $300 million earlier in the offseason to remain in Washington and there are rumors that Machado has drawn offers ranging from $175 to $250 million.
Of course the Major League Baseball Players Association (led by former Tiger Tony Clark, the organization’s executive director), agents and star players have loudly criticized the teams and owners for holding out, and are even talking collusion, which owners were found to have committed back in 1985, 1986 and 1987, and were penalized for it.
“100 or so free agents left unsigned. System is broken. They blame 'rebuilding' but that’s BS,” says a Monday tweet by former Tigers star pitcher Justin Verlander, now with the Houston Astros. “You’re telling me you couldn’t sign Bryce or Manny for 10 years and go from there? Seems like a good place to start a rebuild to me. 26-36 is a great performance window too.”
“Rebuilding” is a big factor.
Not only in baseball, but in the other three major North American professional sports, teams have decided that if they don’t have a legitimate shot at winning a championship within a couple of years or maybe three, they’re better off jettisoning high-priced players and starting over.
Unaffordable expense at the bottom
Being among the league's worst teams means a better future than being in the middle. (Ask any Pistons fan.)
J.D. Martinez and Justin Verlander
That same free market makes it enormously expensive to build and keep competitive teams together. If a championship is not realistic, they cannot afford to keep spending money on the best available players or on top players already on their roster.
Roughly half the teams in baseball, including the Tigers, find themselves in rebuilding mode.
That’s why Verlander was traded to Houston on the last day of August 2017. And no matter what JV says about rebuilding, it is also why the Astros were positioned for Verlander to put them over the top in the 2017 World Series.
From 2011-13, Houston was by far baseball’s worst team, losing a combined 324 games and just a bit better in 2014, when they lost “only” 92 games.
That kind of dismal performance allowed the Astros to draft: Shortstop Carlos Correia (first overall pick in the 2012 draft), starting pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. (41st overall in 2012) and third-baseman/shortstop Alex Bregman (second overall in 2015). They all played key roles in the World Series win – the first of Verlander’s career – and remained cornerstone players this past season as the Astros again won the A.L. West Division, but lost to the eventual World Series Champion Red Sox in the American League Championship Series.
Double edge
But if collusion can’t be proven this time, the players have to face up to a fundamental reality: The market is a sword that cuts both ways.
The market that allowed players to sign gigantic contracts has changed, as it has in so many other professions. Owners and teams aren’t as willing to sign players to triple-digit million-dollar long-term contracts as they once were. And unless collusion can be proven, they can’t be bullied into doing do.
I’ve always sided with players when I hear complaints about how much money athletes make. My argument was, and remains: That’s what the free market produced and teams and owners are free to stop signing them to those kinds of deals any time they desire.
Apparently, now is that time.
Just as it has done over the years to those in the horse and buggy business, the landline telephone industry, the print journalism business, among many, many others in the history of the United States. And no amount of complaining or bullying is going to change things.
