BP Comment Quick Links
![]() | |
December 6, 2010 Prospectus PerspectiveNon-Tender Mercies
By the time December rolls around on the baseball calendar, it used to be that the Rule 5 draft was the Christmas present that any team might give to itself. But in the seasonal spirit of charity and gift-giving, there's a new, bigger redistributive mechanism in place, one that involves more established talent: the non-tender deadline. That's much less the case these days, which makes last Thursday's activity a lot more important than this coming Thursday's grab-bag. There are two reasons for that. First, in the last CBA negotiations, the union gave away an extra year of chattel status to the people it still doesn't represent—minor leaguers—tying them to their original parent organizations by exempting them from the Rule 5 draft for another season. But second, the non-tender deadline has become the much more significant vehicle, adding coal to the Hot Stove at a point when teams used to be already squared away as far as knowing who was a free agent, and who wasn't. The change reflects a more dynamic market, one that in its own way brings the game a little bit closer to Charlie Finley's original suggestion for free agency, that everyone be a free agent after every season. The other Lords of the Realm laughed him off—all the better to rid themselves of him—but four decades later we're seeing a market that's become even more fluid in terms of player movement. That's great for teams, but not so great for the players. This isn't really a surprising development. Whether Gary Huckabay or the late Doug Pappas or yours truly, a lot of us here have been harping on the slow death of baseball's middle class going back to the late '90s. This mechanism merely contributes to that. As a result of Thursday's non-tenders, 50 newly liberated players are about to find out that they stand to make less as free agents than they would have through salary arbitration, because while the panel underpays the great brought before it, as a matter of process and precedent it also overcompensates the mediocre. General managers have long since figured this out. Where once, in the early days of free agency, the industry feared turnover, to the point that players like Jerry Augustine were getting guaranteed five-year contracts, now it's better understood that the Jerry Augustines of the world don't deserve certainty, any more than teams should settle for five years of Augustinian adequacy. Instead, you get examples like Jack Cust, non-tendered and re-signed last year, only to find that 30 different decision-makers in big-league front offices were less inclined to give him a raise than the three mouth-breathing panelists. Pay cuts via arbitration are almost inconceivable; why limit yourself to just a 20 percent cut, when under the current CBA you might have better leverage to re-sign the guy for even less than that?
So what's available with this year's pickings? First, a pair of tables:
Mostly, the free-agent pool just received a big bucket of replacement-level relievers and a selection of outfield bats that may or may not tickle your fancy. By “replacement-level,” I don't mean that in the statistical, abstract sense of some appallingly low standard of performance, but in terms of guys who might contribute, and might not, but who are essentially fungible and not a whole lot better than what you might find on either the major- or minor-league free-agent market, or from within most farm systems. As arbitrary as it might be, most will have to settle for non-roster invites. Then, if they haven't re-signed with employers already intimately familiar with them, they'll have to hope to make a great impression in six weeks, otherwise they're about to get re-acquainted with the exciting range of amenities found in exotic locations like Scranton or Sacramento. To stick with broad strokes, let's bullet our way through the choicest bits in the various groups:
Generally, there just isn't much in the way of big-time talent that has been added. I'd identify just two guys who might profit from their late addition to the list of free agents seem fairly straightforward: Jenks for reputation, Martin by virtue of position scarcity. Beyond that, for everyone else on this list you end up having to start off with a caveat or two. Cust's options are still limited; he would be a fine fit on a team like the Orioles or Rays if he doesn't just scuttle back to Oakland on their terms, and once it becomes clear whether the Twins and Rangers are just bringing back last year's starters, he might actually get a raise if either team expands its search. But as the poster child for next-gen roster management and the contemporary cruelties for life among the middle class, he really shouldn't count on it.
Christina Kahrl is an author of Baseball Prospectus.
|
I for one am rooting for Edwin Encarnacion to get another shot. Jerry Narron really messed with this kids head a few years ago and I think he could blossom still with a good organization. Move him to 1st base or dh and lets him concentrate on hitting. He'd be a great low cost alternative to Carlos Pena.