Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
August 29, 2006
Compensation Gone?

Ben Kabak links to a post that claims draft compensation for free agents is out of the new collective bargaining agreement. Maury Brown relies on unnamed sources for this news.

I remember something like this happening the last time the CBA was up for renewal. There was talk of getting rid of it, but in the end it stayed. (If I could find my copy of Moneyball, I might be able to confirm that.) I would think that small market teams would fight such change.

Ben thinks this is a positive:

As we learn more details about this welcome change, it will be interesting to see how teams approach the trade deadline next year. Will fringe competitors be less willing to land soon-to-be free agents if they're not getting draft picks in return? Will we see fewer competitors after July 31st or more? While this deal fixes a great inequity of the current draft system, I'm also interested to see how teams respond to these new rules at the trade deadline.

I'm torn on the issue. Compensation allows teams like the Athletics to keep their good players until they become free agents and still get something in return. On the other hand, a free market in players is probably a better system. If they're scraping compensation, I hope they also scrap the system of offering arbitration and let players negotiate with their former team just like the other 29.


Posted by David Pinto at 05:51 PM | Draft | TrackBack (0)
Comments

It'd be terrible to remove compensation without any other changes in place. Specifically, they should allow teams to trade draft picks. That'd create an open market and allow smaller market teams to trade away their pending free agents and get something of future value. It'd go a lont towards making up for the loss of compensatory picks. It'd also make the draft more interesting.

Posted by: Adam at August 29, 2006 06:34 PM

Agree with Adam that this will only be changed as a package of changes. Either more revenue sharing or something. In my opinion, this would lead to more fire sales. Currently, a team can at least claim they got a pick for letting a free agent walk. Without that teams will be more reluctant to get burned like the Indians did by Thome and Ramirez.

Posted by: LargeBill at August 29, 2006 07:18 PM

I'm not so sure I agree that this would lead to more firesales. If team A is out of contention and wants to trade their soon-to-be free agents, team B, a fringe contender, may not be so willing to pick up team A's free agent if B doesn't get draft pick compensation in return. I think it changes the dynamics of the trade deadline. But I agree: Gotta be more changes in store.

Posted by: Benjamin Kabak at August 29, 2006 07:25 PM
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