NEWSLETTER
Although the service time games teams play to secure an extra year of control over top prospects may sound like someone else’s problem for most Cubs fans, it remains to this day one of the biggest issues facing the future of MLB.
In fact, thanks to the relative explosion of youth across the game and the increasing tensions between the league and the player’s union on almost every single topic, things with other youngsters might be worse now than they ever were with Kris Bryant … and he was called up on the exact day the Cubs gained an extra year of control (something, something, Mike Olt’s wrist, something something).
Needless to say, if something isn’t done to address this very obvious, very public problem, we could be looking at a strike before the next CBA is required in 2021. It’s that big of a problem.
By now, I’m guessing most baseball fans are familiar enough with this issue to avoid a full-on “history” segment in this post, but I will break it down briefly for those who need a refresher. Basically, when rookies reach their big league club, the team gets six full years of control over them before they’re granted free agency. Better players can earn more money during those six years, but they don’t have many options or much leverage for those first six years. Depending on when a player is called up, a team can effectively squeeze a 7th year of extra Major League control by simply waiting until the right time (in terms of potential big league service days remaining that season) to call them up.
Kris Bryant, for example, played his first big league game on April 17, 2015, which means he will be a free agent after the 2021 season.* If he played his first game on April 16th, 2015, however, he would be a free agent after the 2020 season. So even though the Cubs got him for almost all of 2015 (he posted 6.1 WAR for them that year), that was essentially a freebee for the organization. They still have control over him for all of 2016 (1), 2017 (2), 2018 (3), 2019 (4), 2020 (5), and 2021 (6). Again, he’ll make more money during those years than he would have if he’d been held down for all of 2015, but he also doesn’t reach free agency until a year later.
Why do teams do this? Well, legally it’s entirely within their collectively bargained rights to do so. Strategically, it makes sense both in the short and long-term, because waiting to deploy a top prospect until the team is ready to compete makes sense, and getting him for an extra season on the tail end is usually going to help, as well. And financially, I think it’s easy to see how an extra season of an elite player in arbitration as opposed to free agency is useful both directly and indirectly. Of course, there’s also the extension angle, because under these circumstances, teams have one fewer year of free agency to buy out.
But even as we recognize why teams behave this way and also acknowledge that they are full permitted to do so, there’s something about it that just seems very unfair to these players (and to fans who want to see guys like Eloy Jimenez or Vladimir Guerrero Jr. as soon as they’re ready for the big leagues).
So what is there to do? Well, in the short term, not much. These are the rules the union agreed to in the latest CBA, even after this had already become a clear point of contention. The issue won’t be taken up again formally until the next round of CBA negotiations in a couple years, and, even then, there isn’t an obvious fix.
But, because it’s such a complicated and important issue facing the game – and risks a strike – there’s no time too soon to begin trying to work out solutions.
To that end, at The Athletic, Jayson Stark shares five possible solutions in a piece that is very much worth a read.
Among the slightly more complicated alternatives, Stark suggests (with commentary from agents and executives around MLB) switching from “days” of service time to “years.” This issue would have probably solved the problem for Kris Bryant (the Cubs would have called him up right away instead of waiting two weeks), but won’t really help guys like Eloy Jimenez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who deserve to be up right now. Obviously non-competitive teams aren’t going to lose an entire year of control to call up young studs late in the year (also, each player might help them, you know, win baseball games, which doesn’t really help the draft position does it?).
Another solution, known as “the super-fives”, models itself off the already familiar super-two status and would grant a certain group of players free agency a year earlier. Other options include the use of age, not service time, and accumulated WAR-accumulated (i.e. actual performance) as bench marks, but all three present significant challenges.
One angle I found particularly convincing, however, is something fans of football or basketball might recognize: free agency after four years.
The idea was brought up to Stark, and we can all see the benefits. Instead of six years of team control, teams get only four years, and in exchange, owners get to set strict salary scales for those four seasons. The concession there, if you can’t tell, is that it would prevent guys from making big money in their final years of arbitration (Bryce Harper, for example, made $21.6M via arbitration this season, his last before free agency).
That’s a lot to give up for the best of the best, but two fewer years of team control combined with more youth in the game than ever will make for some crazy markets. More and more players will hit free agency in their prime (like, 26-28 years old) as opposed to 28-30 years old like they do today. That should shift more money *overall* to the player side and reignite the usefulness of free agency.
As far as I can tell, there’d still be reasons to play service time games – that clock needs to start sometime – but rising arbitration costs would be completely eliminated from the concern, which could make a huge difference for smaller market ball clubs.
Sadly, this proposition feels like far too big of a change to realistically hope for. According to Stark’s source, the only way it would happen is if there’s (1) unprecedented cooperation on this front (unlikely) or (2) … a severe work stoppage. Which is more likely? I’m not sure anymore. So basically, good luck, MLB and Players. You’re going to need it.
Stark has far more on each proposal here at The Athletic.
*(Note: Kris Bryant’s service time grievance has not come to a public resolution, so it’s at least theoretically possible that the Cubs could lose that extra year of control when everything shakes out. But we’ve been given no indication to date that it is an expected outcome.)
Brett Taylor contributed to this post.
