A Minor Adjustment

Derek Zumsteg

Service time was a sticking point in the NBA lockout: the players' demanded that there be two minimum salaries, one for players at large and another for ten-year veterans. It's interesting that this issue has yet to surface in baseball's labor negotiations. Considering that baseball provides a much longer career for its players (too long, in many cases), I would think that this would be a sticking point in baseball first.

What's strange to me is that players would ask for this at all. While at first glance this seems like it's a sweet throw-in, even the most cursory analysis reveals that it accomplishes the exact opposite of what it's intended to: it encourages teams to not sign marginal ten-year veterans as bench players.

Let's say you have two players, one drafted out of college and a marginal NBA player, and a veteran past his prime, and you're looking for that last $3M to throw at a marquee player. Who are you going to choose to fill those three minutes a game? The choice is obvious. If the minimum salary were equal, it'd be pretty close -- youth, upside, and a risk against declining but known and dependable talent. Since there aren't a lot of ten-year veterans hanging around, and those that are still there are either marquee players or in the final years of the last oversized contract they signed, I think this should have been a giveaway for the owners -- if you want ten-year bench players to get paid more, hey, that's great -- we don't have to hire them.

Of course, NBA owners are notorious for being stupid like that (rookie contracts are out of control! cap them! cap them! we worked around the cap to give some dud $150M! renegotiate the labor agreement!), but didn't that occur to anyone?

This is a labor issue that could easily become a MLB issue. Here's why:

In the NBA, teams draft a bunch of players out of college and put some of them on the roster. They also maintain a practice squad, where there's minimal salary or other regulation. Many also keep a couple of marginal players on the injured list with nagging injuries like bruised heels. Other than that, that's it. From a player's perspective, you're either drafted and signed, you head off to international ball, or you see if that communications degree you got is worth anything.

In baseball, players are drafted largely out of high school. Teams draft everybody, and if they don't sign they'll get re-drafted every year they're in college (unless they get injured, then it's tough luck, kid). A player has to sign with the team that drafted him, leading to salary negotiations, holdouts, and all the acrimony we're used to, or wait to be drafted the next year while playing in an independent league, working on a communications degree, or becoming a kung-fu lord.

A player is generally under that original contract for five years, and it's signed when they're 18. This means that they're stuck in that team's development system, whether they like it or not (how'd you like to be a pitcher in the A's system?), and all they can do about it is toil in the hopes that someone in the organization will take a shine to them and keep them moving up the ladder.

After five years, they become eligible for minor-league free agency, the Rule V draft, and other possibilities to switch organizations. But at that point, it's likely their career has been made or lost. The best have already been picked out and spent two or more years in the majors. They're getting their contracts renegotiated.

A five-year veteran still living on meal expenses and stuck in AAA long relief or some similar dead-end position will have a hard time signing again. To be certain, organizations like these kind of backup players who've been in the organization for a while, known quantities, and they offer them pretty good wages to wait for the call. But there's a huge contingent of major-leaguers who are always re-signed somewhere and often play to justify their contract, and that prevents the good minor-league veterans who can play well from ever getting their chance -- and there's the rub.

Barring wide-ranging reform of the MLB labor contract (which, let's face it, is a joke, a piece of collusion between the union fat cats and management that has about as much to do with the average player as the Wagner Act had to do with the oppressed factory workers), this kind of service-time agreement must be on the minds of the marginalized players, the Brian Raabes of the game who languish. What they may ask for would do them as much good as the NBA service-time clause, but what if what they asked for was smarter? Like so:

Service Time	Pay
1 year	$ diddly/squat
2 years	$100K or free agency
3 years	$250K or free agency
4 years	$750K or free agency
5 years	$1.5M or free agency

And either force draft compensation to be put in signing bonuses, or pro-rate the signing bonuses.

This has an interesting effect -- teams would no longer be able to keep players forever for three dollars a year, waiting to see if someone else offers them a carrot in trade, but if they're interested they get to keep them, better compensated.

Now if you're quick you're already thinking "but then doesn't that mean 5th-year players would be dumped in favor of 4th-year players, just like you said would happen in the NBA?" A couple of points: first, each year's raise is nothing if an organization is interested in a player. Second, that's good for the players. If your organization doesn't want to pay you that raise, you can renegotiate with them or any other team. If you're a pitcher in the A's organization and you're tired of idiot instructors (or no instructors, it would seem), and they decide you're not developing, boom, go sign for pennies with the Braves, who can help.

This would create a whole wiggy minor league environment close to the one we have today, but with a great deal more player freedom and compensation.

However, I regret to report that it's unlikely to happen, as the MLB union is primarily concerned not with the plight of the minor leaguers at large (as demonstrated during the strike), but instead with protecting the financial situation of the players who make it through the plantation-style minor leagues to become regulars. That such a proposal, which could do a lot of good for the game, would hardly be considered, is another reason why the greatest professional game in the country can't manage to solve the basic issues that confront it.

about the author

Derek Zumsteg refuses to use the word "ass-face" in another article until we double his salary. Let him know we're holding out for two "butt-munches" and a "dork" at dmz@strikethree.com.