October 25, 2025 • 20 mins
Free agency gives players the opportunity to negotiate their own contracts and determine their value. However, the road to free agency isn’t a quick one and it takes several years to reach. Unlike the NFL or NBA, MLB does not have a salary cap, and some teams, like the Dodgers, are handing out massive contracts. Should there be a salary cap in free agency, or should players have an easier path to qualify for it?
Get 20% off your first Slab Pack or card purchase by going to ArenaClub.com/FOUL and use code FOUL
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
The Los Angeles Dodgers are headed back to the World Series,
and you know what that means. It's time to talk
about how the ruining baseball and the fact that we
need a salary cap right now. It seems like these
conversations are always happening these days. Predictably, the Internet does
not need to be told twice. I think that we
can all agree that not all of the teams, especially
the small market teams, are able to participate in the
(00:33):
distribution of like the game stars, and everyone has their
own opinions on why that might be happening. Some say
a salary cap like what they have in the NBA
or the NFL would curb overspending and allow teams with
less money to compete a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
It's unbelieve that a salary floor alone could get that.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Job done, as it's the cheapest owners that are keeping
their teams uncompetitive. I have thoughts on all of those things,
of course, but I'm gonna save that for a deep
dive on another day because we're going to be talking
about CBA and the upcoming negotiations quite a bit in
the next year.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So today I want to tackle just a.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Single part of this problem the ever increasing contract numbers
given in free agency that are pricing out the smaller
market teams. I'll explain how free agency works, why it
is that way, and how I think some simple adjustments
could possibly get everyone what they want. I know, it's
pretty crazy, So first, what even is free agency? Free
(01:30):
agency is the first opportunity for a professional athlete to
fully negotiate a contract with any team in the league,
theoretically receiving full value.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
For their services.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Now, every single sport has their own version of this system,
governed by their own rules and built to facilitate the
way that that game is played and put together. It
takes into account things like how many total players there
are on a team, how many players can play at
one given time, what value a certain player tie or
(02:00):
a position has to that game. All of those things
are factored into what free agency brings for what, guys,
The biggest difference between baseball and the other major sports
in the United States is the length and potential value
of those contracts is uncapped, meaning that a player can
be paid whatever a team is willing to give them.
That's free market capitalism. Now, that concept is exactly what
(02:23):
small market owners say and many fans believe is what
is allowing for the best talent to be consolidated into
the richest teams or the biggest markets, i e. The
Los Angeles Dodgers. So, for the sake of argument and
for this video, let's assume that we all accept that
that dynamic is a big problem and that we want
to fix it. In order to accomplish that goal, we
(02:45):
have to establish why baseball has its markets set up
this way. Reason number one, teams have a lot of
control at the beginning of a player's career, more so
than any other sport. Therefore, it takes a long time
to get to free agency. So there's a lot of
reasons that it is so long, but some of the
big ones are the fact that the minor leagues exist.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I was drafted at eighteen years old.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
In the NBA, you have to go to college for
one year, and in the NFL you have to go
to college for three or you have to be at
least a junior before you can go. They use college
a little bit to develop players before they're ready to
go to the big show. In baseball, guys can go
straight out of high school and then they have to
develop in the minor leagues. I myself spent over five
(03:30):
years in the minor leagues, which didn't even take into
account how much control is given at the major league level.
Minor league contracts when you sign them are set at
seven years. If you live out your entire minor league
contract and then get to the major leagues, a new
contract takes place and it is for another six years,
six years of service time that for a lot of
(03:52):
people is actually spread out over seven eight years. Take
me as an example. I was drafted two thousand and
eight as an eighteen year old. I got to my
fifth year of my minor league contract and entered something
called the Rule five system. If I weren't protected on
the forty man roster, meaning I could be called up
to the big leagues in any given time, I would
be put into something called the Rule five draft, which
(04:12):
would give other teams the opportunity to pick me up
and have to put me in the big leagues for
an entire year to keep me in their organization. Or
the team you're on can protect you by putting you
on the forty men roster, which increases your pay quite
a bit, not to big league levels, but much better
than the minor leagues is and that is the route
that I went. I was put on the forty men
roster and my contract then continue with the team. Then
(04:34):
when you actually get to the big leagues, your big
league contract kicks in. If you just go up and
stay up, like Joe Mauer did, he got called up
and never went back to the minor leagues or used
an option. You have six years before you get to
free agency. That sounds like a lot of years. It's
hard to tell which one of those is overlapping. So
let me give you a prime example of a player
that's going into free agency this year and how the
(04:56):
length of these contracts has affected them. You may have
heard of Tyler Rodgers. I use him a lot as
an example of how free agency works. Tyler is Taylor
rodgers twin brother. Taylor got to the big leagues very
quickly with me in Minnesota, and Tyler is a Submariner
that went to San Francisco. Now, Tyler Rogers was in
the minor leagues for all seven years of his minor
(05:17):
league contract.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
He went into the Rule.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Five Draft, he was not picked up by another team,
so his minor league contract just continued. Remember he is
a submarine pitcher who does not throw very hard against
what is normally looked for in right handed pitchers these days.
He played all the way through his seventh minor league
season and then was called up to the major leagues
after his season had ended, so he had played out
(05:39):
the entire minor league contract. If he weren't called up,
he would have become a minor league free agent. But
because he had been so good in the minors, which
he did, he threw like a two in TAA for
like four years before he got the opportunity, he kind
of threw him a bone and said, hey, come up
and let's see what you got.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
And you know what he did.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
He pitched great right away and then he started his
major league contract. That was six years ago, and he
was traded to the Mets at the deadline this last
year and is finally a free agent. He was drafted
out of college he was twenty one years old and
now he will be thirty five, entering his first year
of free agency. Now this is kind of a rare situation,
(06:16):
but it just goes to show you how long a
team and be in control of a player if all
of the stars aligned. Tyler Rodgers was a member of
the San Francisco Giants for thirteen years. That's crazy when
free agency could potentially take that long to get to.
Understandably a player would like to maximize how much they
(06:38):
are paid at that point. That makes sense, right, So
that takes us to reason number two because it takes
so long. Most guys only get one opportunity to make
the majority of their career earnings. In those six years
that you are signed in a major league deal, the
pay goes as follows. You're one, two, and three, you
get a version of whatever minimum wage is, so the
(07:02):
first year's minimum wage, and then you can get nominal
increases based on some past equation that is not really
easy to understand. A lot of times it's like a
normal kind of raise, but you're still in the hundreds
of thousands. You don't get over a million dollars, especially
if you're a relief pitcher like me. Then you enter
years four, two, six, as we build towards free agency,
those are called arbitration years, where you get a limited
(07:22):
opportunity to negotiate with the team based on a comparative
player that you are similar to and what they got
in the past. So you have a range that this
salary can be. And basically, what you're trying to do
is argue that you are either just as good as
or better than the guy that you're being compared to,
and they're doing the opposite. It's not truly like an
(07:45):
open market situation where you can leverage other teams against.
You still have to are just negotiating with a team
you're on. But the potential to make more money than
you were making the last three years is there, and
that is a positive thing. Is that going to be
all of the money you make for your career? The
hope is no. So then you get to free agency
after six and that is where the big payday is
supposed to be. But remember, if you are like me,
(08:07):
it's with you five and a half years to get
to the big leagues and then six years to get
to free agency. It took me eleven years of my
career to get to freegency, actually close to twelve. I
was a free agent at thirty one years old, right
after the COVID season. Contract offers were much lower, especially
for relief pitchers they generally make less money than everyone
else anyways, And I was thirty one years old, which
(08:28):
is kind of the oldest you want to be going
into freegency. Frankly, that's where the league kind of considers
the back end of your prime to be, and so
it limits the number of years you can get from
that point. So timing is everything when it comes to
free agency and how old you are when you hit it.
This is going to be important for part two of
this video. Really quickly, before I move on, I just
want to make it very clear that is not my
(08:50):
intention to flex my net worth or a show like
how much money I made in my career and look
how great I am. I am aware of the growing
in affordability of life. I don't want to make anyone
feel bad about that because this conversation is going to
be happening so much in the next year. I just
want to give you the human perspective on how these
(09:12):
decisions are made based on the system that is set
up and how possibly we can fix some of it.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
So that is my intention. Please don't hit me really quickly.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I'm going to break down my career to show you
how important free agency is and why players value it
so highly. In my first and second year, I made
pretty much just minimum wage. In my third year, I
got a little bit of a bump, about one hundred
thousand dollars because I had played well the first two years.
Then I got Tommy John surgery, So then I went
into arbitration having missed an entire year. I had to
(09:42):
be compared to another player that also got hurt, and
I had to basically just take whatever they offered, so
I got basically what I got the year before. I've
gotten about one hundred thousand dollar raise or a fifteen
percent raise over four years of my career so far,
and have made million and a half two million bucks.
Then in year five, I had twenty five innings year before,
got another bump, not a huge bump.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Still haven't made a million dollars.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And then in my final year, I got compared to
someone with a full year after I pitched really well,
and then what happened. COVID hit and I had to
get that money pro rated. Anyways, it was two point
two h five million dollars that then turned into eight
hundred and eighty thousand, so I technically made less money
than I made the year before.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Let's take you through the arena club slab pack experience.
This is part two because Todd father last week pulled
a card that he didn't love, yet he sold it
back for actually more than what the slab pack cost.
This time pulls a card that he likes.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Yeah, and this is the best part of it. Ronnie Mauricio,
the Mets stand out, you know, rookie sensation. He's been
absolutely phenomenal. I like the itch of seeing what you're
gonna get, you know, I like prospects. I don't love him,
but seeing this kind of card is actually absolutely beautiful thing.
I know a couple of people around town that would
absolutely love that card. So there's gonna be a lot
of conversations going on here for a club.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
And what you do is you have it in your
digital showroom. If you want to hand it out locally,
then cool. You ask Arena Club to send it to
you and they do. Or you can sell it back
like you see there instant offer for one hundred and
ninety three bucks. But he's keeping it. And you can
do what Toddfather does by going to Arena club dot
com slash foul and getting twenty percent off your first
card purchase or your first slab pack purchase.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
So I've gone six years in major leagues and have
not made one million dollars in a year yet, and
you're supposed to have made that much.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
By now, even relievers.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So then I went into free agency and over the
next three years do with the Mets, where I signed
two for fifteen point five million dollars, and then once
with the A's one for seven I made twenty two
point five million dollars. In my career, I made just
about twenty seven million dollars, and just under twenty three
of that was in the final three years of ten seasons.
That is why free agency is so important and why
(11:57):
we focus on it so hard, because the ability to
negotiate any part of your contract is so hard to
do in the beginning of your career up to six years,
and the vast majority of players don't even get there.
Now we talk about reason number three, the peak numbers,
meaning the highest contract numbers are going so high because
of this one earning opportunity and the free market system.
(12:21):
We are taught as players that free agency is where
your ability to recoup your full value with the assumption
that you are giving more than you were receiving in
terms of money at the beginning of your career because
you don't have any control over negotiating those things. You're
receiving that value on the back end in free agency,
even if it's by another team. Does that not make sense?
(12:41):
It doesn't really make sense, and that's maybe something that
needs to be addressed as well. So with the assumption
that you want to get that one big contract, that
one big guaranteed contract and maximize its value, those contracts
are then set by the guys that signed similar contracts
and increase that number every single time a new guy
signs one. For example, Mookie Betts signs his contract, Mike
(13:06):
Trout signs his contract of over four hundred million. Those
two guys walk, so that Wan Soto, who signed a
seven hundred and sixty five million dollar contract, can run.
This is how those numbers go so high. Guys stack
on each other because we are all under this assumption
that we're only going to get one crack at it.
So what can be done about it? I have a
(13:27):
couple thoughts, and remember this is all hypothetical. I am
not advocating for any of these things. It's just something
to think about. Suggestion one adjust the incentives by shortening
control by teams. So with the idea that free agency
is your big payday. Players are taught, or at least
suggested to by agencies, do not take team friendly extensions
(13:49):
with teams and push for big free agency payday instead,
because it's seen as the only time you can get
your full value team friendly deals. If you take a
deal that is considered less than your value, will be
a free agency by signing with the team that you're
on right now.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Being on a team and only being able.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
To negotiate with them gives them leverage to push those
numbers down a little bit. That logically makes sense. I
also don't begrudge anybody who wants to sign one of
these because maybe they just like being where they are
and they don't really care about the money. Believe it
or not, that is a big part of this sometimes.
So my question is, how would that dynamic change if
(14:27):
the time it took to get to free agency was
actually reduced and there were now multiple opportunities to get
your value. What if pointing towards one glorious free agency
date was no longer the norm because it was closer,
and therefore there might be a couple opportunities Because you're
younger when you hit it, and you're younger when that
(14:48):
contract ends. Suddenly, players probably won't worry so much about
driving that number to the moon because you're going to
have an opportunity reassessed later, and there is some security
in that.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
It's what it comes down to.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
You just want to get it done guaranteed, so you
don't ever have to worry about it again, one way
or the other. That's why guys are afraid of taking
too low of a deal as well, because you can't
reassess that later either. So building in more opportunities or
more ways to be creative might make it so these
contracts aren't so big and maybe so long.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Let's go through an example really quick.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Say the time it takes to get a freeency once
you get to the big leagues is reduced to four years,
with like a mutual option for the fifth year, meaning
both the player and the team decide they would continue
with what they have in place, and then they can
negotiate the salary. Similarly to how arbitration works. Say that
player gets to the big leagues at twenty two after
being drafted at twenty one. That would set free agency
(15:46):
possibly at twenty six or twenty seven. Remember we're going
to be talking about how old the guy is throughout
this whole timeline, because that matters a lot for length
of contract and value because they project when this player
is going to regress with the mutual option.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
There are a.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Bunch of ways to recoup value earlier in a career,
including more ways to get deals done that don't need
to be thirteen years long. For example, signing a five
year extension with your home team when you're twenty four
is now much more palatable because you'll still be a
free agent at twenty nine. Players won't be so afraid
to sign something that maybe isn't paying them their full
(16:24):
value because they might have an opportunity to recoup that
value later if they were wrong. Also provide some front
end security for them as well, so they make a
good amount of money or more than they would have otherwise,
and if they end up not panning out, then they
still have some money to take home. And also the
team didn't have to lock in a thirteen year deal
in which they are paying eleven years of no value.
(16:46):
On the back end, they have an out as well.
So I feel like this could possibly change a few things. One,
players would be more likely to sign with their current team.
You get to keep your young guys a little bit longer,
possibly into some of them their prime, so that the
team that drafted them is getting the best version of
them without having to sell the farm to keep them.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
That way.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Also, this understanding that I'm going to have opportunities to
make different amounts of money at different times in my
career might allow players to prioritize the other parts of
that decision and free agency. How good the team is,
the city you live in, how close it is to home,
what other perks you can get, because those are part
of the decision. It just usually comes down to money
being the highest one, because again, it's your only chance.
(17:30):
It makes maximizing the contract size feel a little bit
less important while still allowing players to realize their true value. Now,
reducing the time to free agency is directly beneficial to
the players, even though I believe that that change and
incentive will make negotiating these contracts a little bit easier
on the teams. But let's not be naive. Teams are
(17:53):
going to need something big in return as well, some
sort of limiting something because at the end of the day,
limiting expenses is what their goal is. Again, not going
to go down that path. We're not ranting, We're staying
on task. We're staying on task. The owners give us
some control. So what would they receive in exchange? Possibly
a limiting contract length. That is something that happens in
(18:13):
a cap system, and there's taboo around even mentioning anything
that is related to a cap system. But if say
it was limited to like five years or six years,
this would one guarantee the player has an opportunity to
hit free agency again within a window where they still
are probably considered in their prime if you're lucky, And
it would also naturally reduce the full value of a
(18:35):
contract so more teams can afford them. In essence, it
would limit the massive sides of these contracts, but it's
year to year value could still hold steady. The AAV Now,
would the owners go for a version of this, Sure
if the concerns they have are truly related to their
ability to afford these best players and therefore compete, But
(18:56):
unfortunately it's likely more about wanting stronger control on expenses
and the built in excuses to pay less. Lowering expenses is,
after all, the tried and true best way to increase
your profits.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
What they're all in this for anyway.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
So this is all based on good faith negotiation where
the problem we're trying to solve is established that has
not worked very well in recent years, so that remains
to be seen if that would happen. I believe that
this is an interesting way to approach the incentives of
both sides. What do we want and what does the
system incentivize us to do? So, with the end of
(19:33):
the twenty twenty five season upon us, the CBA negotiations
that will ramp up at the end of next season
are going to be a major talking point for the
next twelve to eighteen months.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
We're going to have plenty of time to get into
all the.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Other pieces of the puzzle, and trust me, I intend
to can Major League Baseball begin to solve some of
the issues around competitive balance through simply adjusting some of
its incentives around free agency? Let me know down in
the comments and keep the conversation going with any questions
or suggestions that you also have. Also like subscribe and
turn on the notifications so you don't miss these videos
(20:04):
in the future. Anyways, I am starving, so I'm gonna
get out of here. Drink your water, watch your baseball
and I'll see you next time. I'm the Trevor May
Baseball Channel. Double win
The Los Angeles Dodgers are headed back to the World Series,
and you know what that means. It's time to talk
about how the ruining baseball and the fact that we
need a salary cap right now. It seems like these
conversations are always happening these days. Predictably, the Internet does
not need to be told twice. I think that we
can all agree that not all of the teams, especially
the small market teams, are able to participate in the
(00:33):
distribution of like the game stars, and everyone has their
own opinions on why that might be happening. Some say
a salary cap like what they have in the NBA
or the NFL would curb overspending and allow teams with
less money to compete a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
It's unbelieve that a salary floor alone could get that.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Job done, as it's the cheapest owners that are keeping
their teams uncompetitive. I have thoughts on all of those things,
of course, but I'm gonna save that for a deep
dive on another day because we're going to be talking
about CBA and the upcoming negotiations quite a bit in
the next year.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So today I want to tackle just a.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Single part of this problem the ever increasing contract numbers
given in free agency that are pricing out the smaller
market teams. I'll explain how free agency works, why it
is that way, and how I think some simple adjustments
could possibly get everyone what they want. I know, it's
pretty crazy, So first, what even is free agency? Free
(01:30):
agency is the first opportunity for a professional athlete to
fully negotiate a contract with any team in the league,
theoretically receiving full value.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
For their services.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Now, every single sport has their own version of this system,
governed by their own rules and built to facilitate the
way that that game is played and put together. It
takes into account things like how many total players there
are on a team, how many players can play at
one given time, what value a certain player tie or
(02:00):
a position has to that game. All of those things
are factored into what free agency brings for what, guys,
The biggest difference between baseball and the other major sports
in the United States is the length and potential value
of those contracts is uncapped, meaning that a player can
be paid whatever a team is willing to give them.
That's free market capitalism. Now, that concept is exactly what
(02:23):
small market owners say and many fans believe is what
is allowing for the best talent to be consolidated into
the richest teams or the biggest markets, i e. The
Los Angeles Dodgers. So, for the sake of argument and
for this video, let's assume that we all accept that
that dynamic is a big problem and that we want
to fix it. In order to accomplish that goal, we
(02:45):
have to establish why baseball has its markets set up
this way. Reason number one, teams have a lot of
control at the beginning of a player's career, more so
than any other sport. Therefore, it takes a long time
to get to free agency. So there's a lot of
reasons that it is so long, but some of the
big ones are the fact that the minor leagues exist.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I was drafted at eighteen years old.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
In the NBA, you have to go to college for
one year, and in the NFL you have to go
to college for three or you have to be at
least a junior before you can go. They use college
a little bit to develop players before they're ready to
go to the big show. In baseball, guys can go
straight out of high school and then they have to
develop in the minor leagues. I myself spent over five
(03:30):
years in the minor leagues, which didn't even take into
account how much control is given at the major league level.
Minor league contracts when you sign them are set at
seven years. If you live out your entire minor league
contract and then get to the major leagues, a new
contract takes place and it is for another six years,
six years of service time that for a lot of
(03:52):
people is actually spread out over seven eight years. Take
me as an example. I was drafted two thousand and
eight as an eighteen year old. I got to my
fifth year of my minor league contract and entered something
called the Rule five system. If I weren't protected on
the forty man roster, meaning I could be called up
to the big leagues in any given time, I would
be put into something called the Rule five draft, which
(04:12):
would give other teams the opportunity to pick me up
and have to put me in the big leagues for
an entire year to keep me in their organization. Or
the team you're on can protect you by putting you
on the forty men roster, which increases your pay quite
a bit, not to big league levels, but much better
than the minor leagues is and that is the route
that I went. I was put on the forty men
roster and my contract then continue with the team. Then
(04:34):
when you actually get to the big leagues, your big
league contract kicks in. If you just go up and
stay up, like Joe Mauer did, he got called up
and never went back to the minor leagues or used
an option. You have six years before you get to
free agency. That sounds like a lot of years. It's
hard to tell which one of those is overlapping. So
let me give you a prime example of a player
that's going into free agency this year and how the
(04:56):
length of these contracts has affected them. You may have
heard of Tyler Rodgers. I use him a lot as
an example of how free agency works. Tyler is Taylor
rodgers twin brother. Taylor got to the big leagues very
quickly with me in Minnesota, and Tyler is a Submariner
that went to San Francisco. Now, Tyler Rogers was in
the minor leagues for all seven years of his minor
(05:17):
league contract.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
He went into the Rule.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Five Draft, he was not picked up by another team,
so his minor league contract just continued. Remember he is
a submarine pitcher who does not throw very hard against
what is normally looked for in right handed pitchers these days.
He played all the way through his seventh minor league
season and then was called up to the major leagues
after his season had ended, so he had played out
(05:39):
the entire minor league contract. If he weren't called up,
he would have become a minor league free agent. But
because he had been so good in the minors, which
he did, he threw like a two in TAA for
like four years before he got the opportunity, he kind
of threw him a bone and said, hey, come up
and let's see what you got.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
And you know what he did.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
He pitched great right away and then he started his
major league contract. That was six years ago, and he
was traded to the Mets at the deadline this last
year and is finally a free agent. He was drafted
out of college he was twenty one years old and
now he will be thirty five, entering his first year
of free agency. Now this is kind of a rare situation,
(06:16):
but it just goes to show you how long a
team and be in control of a player if all
of the stars aligned. Tyler Rodgers was a member of
the San Francisco Giants for thirteen years. That's crazy when
free agency could potentially take that long to get to.
Understandably a player would like to maximize how much they
(06:38):
are paid at that point. That makes sense, right, So
that takes us to reason number two because it takes
so long. Most guys only get one opportunity to make
the majority of their career earnings. In those six years
that you are signed in a major league deal, the
pay goes as follows. You're one, two, and three, you
get a version of whatever minimum wage is, so the
(07:02):
first year's minimum wage, and then you can get nominal
increases based on some past equation that is not really
easy to understand. A lot of times it's like a
normal kind of raise, but you're still in the hundreds
of thousands. You don't get over a million dollars, especially
if you're a relief pitcher like me. Then you enter
years four, two, six, as we build towards free agency,
those are called arbitration years, where you get a limited
(07:22):
opportunity to negotiate with the team based on a comparative
player that you are similar to and what they got
in the past. So you have a range that this
salary can be. And basically, what you're trying to do
is argue that you are either just as good as
or better than the guy that you're being compared to,
and they're doing the opposite. It's not truly like an
(07:45):
open market situation where you can leverage other teams against.
You still have to are just negotiating with a team
you're on. But the potential to make more money than
you were making the last three years is there, and
that is a positive thing. Is that going to be
all of the money you make for your career? The
hope is no. So then you get to free agency
after six and that is where the big payday is
supposed to be. But remember, if you are like me,
(08:07):
it's with you five and a half years to get
to the big leagues and then six years to get
to free agency. It took me eleven years of my
career to get to freegency, actually close to twelve. I
was a free agent at thirty one years old, right
after the COVID season. Contract offers were much lower, especially
for relief pitchers they generally make less money than everyone
else anyways, And I was thirty one years old, which
(08:28):
is kind of the oldest you want to be going
into freegency. Frankly, that's where the league kind of considers
the back end of your prime to be, and so
it limits the number of years you can get from
that point. So timing is everything when it comes to
free agency and how old you are when you hit it.
This is going to be important for part two of
this video. Really quickly, before I move on, I just
want to make it very clear that is not my
(08:50):
intention to flex my net worth or a show like
how much money I made in my career and look
how great I am. I am aware of the growing
in affordability of life. I don't want to make anyone
feel bad about that because this conversation is going to
be happening so much in the next year. I just
want to give you the human perspective on how these
(09:12):
decisions are made based on the system that is set
up and how possibly we can fix some of it.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
So that is my intention. Please don't hit me really quickly.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I'm going to break down my career to show you
how important free agency is and why players value it
so highly. In my first and second year, I made
pretty much just minimum wage. In my third year, I
got a little bit of a bump, about one hundred
thousand dollars because I had played well the first two years.
Then I got Tommy John surgery, So then I went
into arbitration having missed an entire year. I had to
(09:42):
be compared to another player that also got hurt, and
I had to basically just take whatever they offered, so
I got basically what I got the year before. I've
gotten about one hundred thousand dollar raise or a fifteen
percent raise over four years of my career so far,
and have made million and a half two million bucks.
Then in year five, I had twenty five innings year before,
got another bump, not a huge bump.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Still haven't made a million dollars.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And then in my final year, I got compared to
someone with a full year after I pitched really well,
and then what happened. COVID hit and I had to
get that money pro rated. Anyways, it was two point
two h five million dollars that then turned into eight
hundred and eighty thousand, so I technically made less money
than I made the year before.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Let's take you through the arena club slab pack experience.
This is part two because Todd father last week pulled
a card that he didn't love, yet he sold it
back for actually more than what the slab pack cost.
This time pulls a card that he likes.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Yeah, and this is the best part of it. Ronnie Mauricio,
the Mets stand out, you know, rookie sensation. He's been
absolutely phenomenal. I like the itch of seeing what you're
gonna get, you know, I like prospects. I don't love him,
but seeing this kind of card is actually absolutely beautiful thing.
I know a couple of people around town that would
absolutely love that card. So there's gonna be a lot
of conversations going on here for a club.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
And what you do is you have it in your
digital showroom. If you want to hand it out locally,
then cool. You ask Arena Club to send it to
you and they do. Or you can sell it back
like you see there instant offer for one hundred and
ninety three bucks. But he's keeping it. And you can
do what Toddfather does by going to Arena club dot
com slash foul and getting twenty percent off your first
card purchase or your first slab pack purchase.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
So I've gone six years in major leagues and have
not made one million dollars in a year yet, and
you're supposed to have made that much.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
By now, even relievers.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So then I went into free agency and over the
next three years do with the Mets, where I signed
two for fifteen point five million dollars, and then once
with the A's one for seven I made twenty two
point five million dollars. In my career, I made just
about twenty seven million dollars, and just under twenty three
of that was in the final three years of ten seasons.
That is why free agency is so important and why
(11:57):
we focus on it so hard, because the ability to
negotiate any part of your contract is so hard to
do in the beginning of your career up to six years,
and the vast majority of players don't even get there.
Now we talk about reason number three, the peak numbers,
meaning the highest contract numbers are going so high because
of this one earning opportunity and the free market system.
(12:21):
We are taught as players that free agency is where
your ability to recoup your full value with the assumption
that you are giving more than you were receiving in
terms of money at the beginning of your career because
you don't have any control over negotiating those things. You're
receiving that value on the back end in free agency,
even if it's by another team. Does that not make sense?
(12:41):
It doesn't really make sense, and that's maybe something that
needs to be addressed as well. So with the assumption
that you want to get that one big contract, that
one big guaranteed contract and maximize its value, those contracts
are then set by the guys that signed similar contracts
and increase that number every single time a new guy
signs one. For example, Mookie Betts signs his contract, Mike
(13:06):
Trout signs his contract of over four hundred million. Those
two guys walk, so that Wan Soto, who signed a
seven hundred and sixty five million dollar contract, can run.
This is how those numbers go so high. Guys stack
on each other because we are all under this assumption
that we're only going to get one crack at it.
So what can be done about it? I have a
(13:27):
couple thoughts, and remember this is all hypothetical. I am
not advocating for any of these things. It's just something
to think about. Suggestion one adjust the incentives by shortening
control by teams. So with the idea that free agency
is your big payday. Players are taught, or at least
suggested to by agencies, do not take team friendly extensions
(13:49):
with teams and push for big free agency payday instead,
because it's seen as the only time you can get
your full value team friendly deals. If you take a
deal that is considered less than your value, will be
a free agency by signing with the team that you're
on right now.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Being on a team and only being able.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
To negotiate with them gives them leverage to push those
numbers down a little bit. That logically makes sense. I
also don't begrudge anybody who wants to sign one of
these because maybe they just like being where they are
and they don't really care about the money. Believe it
or not, that is a big part of this sometimes.
So my question is, how would that dynamic change if
(14:27):
the time it took to get to free agency was
actually reduced and there were now multiple opportunities to get
your value. What if pointing towards one glorious free agency
date was no longer the norm because it was closer,
and therefore there might be a couple opportunities Because you're
younger when you hit it, and you're younger when that
(14:48):
contract ends. Suddenly, players probably won't worry so much about
driving that number to the moon because you're going to
have an opportunity reassessed later, and there is some security
in that.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
It's what it comes down to.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
You just want to get it done guaranteed, so you
don't ever have to worry about it again, one way
or the other. That's why guys are afraid of taking
too low of a deal as well, because you can't
reassess that later either. So building in more opportunities or
more ways to be creative might make it so these
contracts aren't so big and maybe so long.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Let's go through an example really quick.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Say the time it takes to get a freeency once
you get to the big leagues is reduced to four years,
with like a mutual option for the fifth year, meaning
both the player and the team decide they would continue
with what they have in place, and then they can
negotiate the salary. Similarly to how arbitration works. Say that
player gets to the big leagues at twenty two after
being drafted at twenty one. That would set free agency
(15:46):
possibly at twenty six or twenty seven. Remember we're going
to be talking about how old the guy is throughout
this whole timeline, because that matters a lot for length
of contract and value because they project when this player
is going to regress with the mutual option.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
There are a.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Bunch of ways to recoup value earlier in a career,
including more ways to get deals done that don't need
to be thirteen years long. For example, signing a five
year extension with your home team when you're twenty four
is now much more palatable because you'll still be a
free agent at twenty nine. Players won't be so afraid
to sign something that maybe isn't paying them their full
(16:24):
value because they might have an opportunity to recoup that
value later if they were wrong. Also provide some front
end security for them as well, so they make a
good amount of money or more than they would have otherwise,
and if they end up not panning out, then they
still have some money to take home. And also the
team didn't have to lock in a thirteen year deal
in which they are paying eleven years of no value.
(16:46):
On the back end, they have an out as well.
So I feel like this could possibly change a few things. One,
players would be more likely to sign with their current team.
You get to keep your young guys a little bit longer,
possibly into some of them their prime, so that the
team that drafted them is getting the best version of
them without having to sell the farm to keep them.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
That way.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Also, this understanding that I'm going to have opportunities to
make different amounts of money at different times in my
career might allow players to prioritize the other parts of
that decision and free agency. How good the team is,
the city you live in, how close it is to home,
what other perks you can get, because those are part
of the decision. It just usually comes down to money
being the highest one, because again, it's your only chance.
(17:30):
It makes maximizing the contract size feel a little bit
less important while still allowing players to realize their true value. Now,
reducing the time to free agency is directly beneficial to
the players, even though I believe that that change and
incentive will make negotiating these contracts a little bit easier
on the teams. But let's not be naive. Teams are
(17:53):
going to need something big in return as well, some
sort of limiting something because at the end of the day,
limiting expenses is what their goal is. Again, not going
to go down that path. We're not ranting, We're staying
on task. We're staying on task. The owners give us
some control. So what would they receive in exchange? Possibly
a limiting contract length. That is something that happens in
(18:13):
a cap system, and there's taboo around even mentioning anything
that is related to a cap system. But if say
it was limited to like five years or six years,
this would one guarantee the player has an opportunity to
hit free agency again within a window where they still
are probably considered in their prime if you're lucky, And
it would also naturally reduce the full value of a
(18:35):
contract so more teams can afford them. In essence, it
would limit the massive sides of these contracts, but it's
year to year value could still hold steady. The AAV Now,
would the owners go for a version of this, Sure
if the concerns they have are truly related to their
ability to afford these best players and therefore compete, But
(18:56):
unfortunately it's likely more about wanting stronger control on expenses
and the built in excuses to pay less. Lowering expenses is,
after all, the tried and true best way to increase
your profits.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
What they're all in this for anyway.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
So this is all based on good faith negotiation where
the problem we're trying to solve is established that has
not worked very well in recent years, so that remains
to be seen if that would happen. I believe that
this is an interesting way to approach the incentives of
both sides. What do we want and what does the
system incentivize us to do? So, with the end of
(19:33):
the twenty twenty five season upon us, the CBA negotiations
that will ramp up at the end of next season
are going to be a major talking point for the
next twelve to eighteen months.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
We're going to have plenty of time to get into
all the.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Other pieces of the puzzle, and trust me, I intend
to can Major League Baseball begin to solve some of
the issues around competitive balance through simply adjusting some of
its incentives around free agency? Let me know down in
the comments and keep the conversation going with any questions
or suggestions that you also have. Also like subscribe and
turn on the notifications so you don't miss these videos
(20:04):
in the future. Anyways, I am starving, so I'm gonna
get out of here. Drink your water, watch your baseball
and I'll see you next time. I'm the Trevor May
Baseball Channel. Double win
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.