In the midst of the 1994-95 baseball strike, 38 players received surprising news: They had been granted free agency. This was a new type of free agent – a restricted free agent. Players with at least four years of major league service but less than six years — which is still required today to become a free agent — could field offers on the open market. Their previous teams could match any offer they received, much like NBA or NFL teams do.
As Major League Baseball remained engaged in a bitter labor dispute that wiped out the World Series, owners had declared an impasse and implemented the restricted free agency plan, accompanied by a salary cap, to replace salary arbitration. The Boston Red Sox even reached verbal agreements with restricted free agents Sammy Sosa and Kevin Appier before the MLB Players Association filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board and the new owners’ system was scrapped.
MLB hasn’t had a work stoppage since 1994-95, its longest stretchable of labor peace in the era of free agency. But because free agency appears to be stalled for many players, and accusations of collusion are taken, there is growing speculation that work conflict could wait until the collective agreement expires after the 2021 season.
To save free agency, it turns out players could actually benefit from what owners proposed nearly a quarter-century ago. What players need is a route to market closer to their prime seasons.
The MLBPA’s biggest problem with the current free agent structure is that to become a free agent, a player must accumulate six full years of service, which players typically reach after age 30. The average age of a free agent signing so far this winter was 32.2, according to data compiled by The baseball cube. Since the 2013-2014 offseason, the average signing age has hovered around 33 years old. This is well beyond a player’s golden age.
Position players usually peak between 26 and 28 years old. Pitchers Peak Even earlier. These years are almost always controlled by the club with below-market salaries, unless a player debuts at an extremely young age like Bryce Harper (who was 19) and Manny Machado (20) – agents unusually young free people entering their 26th year. seasons.
The other problem for players and free agencies is that the game is getting younger and younger.
THE average age of position players last season (28.1 years) was the youngest since 1979. This age has gradually declined since the peak of 29.3 years reached in 2004. average age of pitchers has also declined, from a peak of 29.2 years in the free agency era in 2005 to 28.4 years last season, tied for third youngest this century.
Yet the average starting age of hitters and pitchers has remained stable.
The average starting age last season was 24.3 for hitters and 24.6 for pitchers. For hitters, the average starting age has been between 24.0 and 24.6 since 2000, and for pitchers it has been between 23.8 and 24.9.
All this means is that hundreds of 30+ seasons have disappeared from baseball. In 2004, 250 players aged 32 or older recorded at least 100 plate appearances or confronted 100 batters on the mound. Last season? There were 190 such players. There have only been four seasons – 1915, 1917, 1965 and 1975 – in which players 32 and older accounted for a smaller share of wins above replacement than last season, at 12.9 per hundred. The fifth lowest share was 13.1% in 2017.
This youth movement is likely linked to performance-enhancing drug testing, which began carrying sanctions in 2008. 2004 because it was thought that PEDs prolonged careers. But teams have never had more data to understand how players age. Clubs seem less and less willing to spend 30 years and over free agents.
And while the last careers are reduced to nothing, clubs are often accused of manipulate service time players, particularly elite-level prospects, early in their careers to drive down salaries in the highest-paying years and gain more controllable years from players.
As this offseason has warmed up after an even colder start than the previous winter, the 2017-18 class was considered a weak crop of free agents. This year’s class has long been considered elite, with some predicting the total contract size would set a record, with 3 billion dollars or more guaranteed to players. But the total guaranteed dollars through February 5 – 100 days after the World Series – has reached just $1,066.78 million, which is well below the totals at the same point in recent offseasons, at excluding winter 2017-18. And it is not only the total amount that is lower than in the not-so-distant past, but also the average annual contract value.
Free agency becomes less lucrative for MLB players
Average value per season under contract for MLB free agents over the first 100 days of the last six offseasons
| free agents | Contracts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Out of season | total | Signatures | signed sharing | Total value | total seasons | Avg. Value per season |
| 2013-14 | 530 | 75 | 14.2% | $1,527.5 million | 152 | $10.1 million |
| 2014-15 | 527 | 72 | 13.7 | 1,558.6 | 142 | 11.0 |
| 2015-16 | 578 | 82 | 14.0 | 2,298.3 | 182 | 12.6 |
| 2016-17 | 543 | 80 | 14.7 | 1,295.4 | 140 | 9.3 |
| 2017-18 | 569 | 50 | 8.8 | 736.7 | 95 | 7.8 |
| 2018-19 | 540 | 80 | 15.0 | 1,066.8 | 123 | 8.7 |
FanGraphs forecasts that payroll could decline for the second year in a row this season, while revenues and franchise values increase to go up.
Additionally, the percentage of one-year contracts signed has increased. Of the 80 free agent contracts signed through Feb. 5 this offseason, 51 — or 63.8 percent — were for one year. This is the largest one-year contract share since at least the 2013-14 offseason, perhaps suggesting players are lowering their contract expectations.
So how might restricted free agency help beyond getting players on the market sooner? This should also increase their revenue share.
Players with more than three years of service but less than six years are eligible for arbitration. The first year of arbitration eligibility is expected to earn a player approximately 40 percent of his open market value, the second year 60 percent, and the third year of arbitration approximately 80 percent, although this estimate don’t do it. always apply. Although arbitration earnings are much higher than pre-arbitration wages, which are typically close to minimum wage, they remain below market value.
The type of system of restricted free will that the owners tried to implement in 1994 seems today more and more beneficial to the stakeholders. This system could have made young star Francisco Lindor a 25-year-old free agent this winter and Mookie Betts a 25-year-old free agent last winter.
While clubs today would likely fight what they offered a quarter-century ago, free agency isn’t working out as expected for many players. The union may need to get more creative and commit to change.
“As we approach the next round of collective bargaining, we will review all aspects of the system, as we always do,” an MLBPA spokesperson told FiveThirtyEight in November.
And maybe that should include an examination of an idea coming from the other side.
Neil Paine contributed to the research.
