CBA Details
We finally get the details on the new CBA agreement which was announced today. The one provision that I was most concerned with was draft pick compensation and here are the details:
Type C Major League free agents will no longer carry draft pick compensation for the club that loses the player, beginning this year, while Type A and Type B free agents will continue to carry compensation. Next year the Type A and Type B pools shrink. Right now, Pool A is the top 30 percent at their position, but in succeeding with decrease to 20 percent. Pool B is the top 50 percent, but it will decrease from 21 percent to 40 percent.Bummer, I was really counting on that pick we'd get for Henry Blanco. Oh well, that barely changes anything in my opinion. In case you need a refresher, here's how teams were compensated:
A type players fetch the 1st-round draft pick of teams in the top half of W-L record or a 2nd-round draft pick of teams in the bottom half of W-L record and an additional pick between the 1st and 2nd rounds. B types don't get the sandwich pick and C type players fetch a sandwich between the 2nd and 3rd rounds. The higher the player's ranking in the compensation formula, the higher priority the old team gets in acquiring draft picks.Well that ended up to be a whole lot of nothing. The other interesting bit is this:
After Major League players file for free agency in the one-week period that begins at midnight the day after the World Series, all subsequent deadline dates are eliminated: Dec. 7 (for club to offer arbitration), Dec. 19 (for players to accept), Jan. 8 (last day the old club could re-sign its own free agent) and May 1 (first day a club's former player could re-sign with its former club if he went past Jan. 8 date). Also, the tender date for clubs to offer contracts to all players has been moved up from Dec. 20 to Dec. 12. And players traded in the middle of a multi-year contract can no longer demand a trade.That one is kind of big and confusing. I don't get the deadline dates are eliminated part of the equation. I guess this means that teams have to offer arbitration to players by the same time that players have to file for free agency. And do players have to accept arbitration by that time to or can they accept it whenever they wish as long as it was offered? I am glad to see them remove the provision where players can demand a trade if they're moved in the middle of a multi-year contract. I'm guessing that's what the players had to give up to get more freedom on the arbitration side, which is what it sounds like all that is doing. Other provisions include: - Minimum salaries will rise starting next year to $380,000 and go up to $400,000 by 2009 where it will remain until the deal expires in 2011. - All Star Game winner will still determine homefield for the World Series. Blah! - Teams that can't sign their draft picks will get the same pick in the draft the following year. That means if you drafted someone third and couldn't sign them, you get a third pick in the next draft. Also teams only have until August 15th now to sign draft picks instead of up to the next draft. I think the owners wanted a slotted draft bonus system but agreed on this instead. - Teams have one more year now before they have to protect players from the Rule V draft. Wasn't that nice of them? - The luxury tax is going way up that only the Yanks will really have to worry about it, not that they actually end up worrying about it at all. It doesn't seem like anything that will make too big a deal from what I can see, but a few interesting new twists. UPDATES: Rotoworld is saying that Type B free agents that get signed will not cost the signing team anything. The team that loses the free agent though will get a sandwich pick. A commenter over at Baseball Musings who it seems runs the Cardinals site at scout.com is saying that the arbitration dates have just been moved up to December 1st (for offering arbitration) and December 7th(for accepting arbitration) respectively. UPDATE #2: The Aug. 15th deadline for signing draft picks does not apply to college seniors. It basically reduces the leverage of players who threaten to go back to school. There will be no worry of contraction of teams during the agreement. Teams who don't sign their first and/or second round picks get the extra draft pick in the same slot in the following draft. And as I mentioned, the arbitration dates have moved up, the big change is that if arbitration is rejected by a player, they still can negotiate with their last team. UPDATE #3: A little bit on the timing of all this thanks to Baseball America. The Rule 5 changes will take place this off-season meaning a few players that AZ Phil listed yesterday will not have to be protected, most notably Ryan Harvey and Chris Shaver. Players on the 40-man roster who are optioned to the minor leagues did get a boost in the minimum salary department to $60,000 though. The free agency and arbitration changes won't go into effect until next off-season though.
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