My goal was to examine, at the top level, how the process was working mostly from the perspective of the players—i.e., are they making more money. The quick answer to that question appears to be “yes,” with a caveat that I didn’t do this in advance like Ted did last year, so for those guys who opted out, I can’t say if they left money on the table or not--though I did go back into the last v19 file to check on earlier contracts in some cases.
Still, here’s the raw data…comments follow:
A few points:
- Overall Value: Free Agency is a boon to players. All told, Type A players made base salaries of $106.3M in 2038, and will make $167.9M this year (a 57% increase). For Type B players, those numbers are $77.5 in 2038, $98.4M this year (a 27% bump). Not bad if you can get it.
- In fact, though there are a few 1-season deals in here, each group of these players (Type A and Type B) will make more money in 2040 (next year) than they did in 2038.
- Of eight players who opted out of their contracts, four will make more money in 2039, three will make less, and one broke even but is now guaranteed an extra season. The three who had pay cuts are (1) Alfredo Salazar ($16.5 - $15.5) … but Salazar is 37, and I happen to remember that what he turned down was $12.5M, so that represents a $3M raise. (2) Reece Wareham, who signed a 1-season $18.5M deal as a 32 year-old after making $21.5 last year (a number that includes bonuses paid), still made out, as his base salary was due to be $18M (per the last v19 file). (3) 35 year-old Sean MaGuire, who turned $17.M in order to take $13.5M, but the kicker here is that MaGuire’s deal gives him two more guaranteed years at $13.5 each…so he gave up $17.8M guaranteed in order to take $39M guaranteed. Hard to argue about that.
- Alfredo Martinez’s opt-out choice left $7M of team buy outs on the table, which might have made his decision bad if it weren’t for Louisville’s Golden … uh … well, you can do a lot with $56M in two years.
- Egbert Behner was the big winner, turning down a guaranteed $30M over three seasons in return for $50M over two.
- Of the fifteen players who played out their contracts and became Free Agents, twelve received raises, two (Lloyd Braun and Leyli Yelmanian) took pay cuts, and Adam Parrish signed a minor league deal (which is, admittedly, odd). I’ll note that the most likely scenario in both Braun and Yelmanian’s case is that the were over-paid to begin with, and allowed to walk.
- Three 27-year-old players entered the market, and all three got 6-season deals with some level of player control (CCJ’s Mario Guerrer has a team option at the end).
- Note how many contracts are being let with player control (options/opt-outs) being included. I suspect this is because BBA GMs have gotten the idea that there’s value in draft picks, and that means it’s worth it to us to take some risk in planning, but that’s just my take.
Of course, time changes. This was essentially year three of this process, and we’ve yet to see the ramifications of where things will settle. For example, for the first time that I can remember we had two bigtime players (Jared Gillstrom and Luis Berrera) not sign until the first week of the regular season. Is that the new norm, or was that a dynamic created half in the game and half in the market that is the BBA. GMs learn. Yes, we do…sometimes slowly. But now that we know a guy like Gillstrom will take 1-season deals, will we jump there earlier? If so, would it make a difference in the OOTP algorithm that is one Jared Gillstrom?
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know.
The meat grinder can be a bit hard to watch at times, right? But, at least at the high level that this data is cut at, I can see a lot to like about what’s going on around the BBA in free agency these days--looking at it from the player's perspective, anyway.
