Category Archives: Union

November 19, 2025

Competitive Balance

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Rob Manfred spoke today about a number of issues and competitive balance made the cut:

Manfred said labor has been addressed at the owners meetings this week, but he declined to elaborate on those discussions.

“What I would say about the issue of competitive balance is that we have a significant segment of our fans that have been vocal about the issue of competitive balance and in general we try to pay attention to our fans,” Manfred said. “So it is a topic of conversations.”

ESPN.com

Current revenue sharing rewards poor revenue generating teams and poor performance, as the two tend to go together. Instead of discussing salary caps and floors, MLB should talk about increasing incentives that lead to building at least an interesting team, or even better, one that wins.

I would propose that 50% of team revenue goes into a pool. You do not have baseball if there are no opponents, so 50% of team revenue would be used to pay for the opponents. (I suspect it work as well with a 60/40 home road split, but let’s keep it simple.) That would include ticket sales, concession sales, local TV revenue, and local radio revenue.

The simplest way to divide that money would be to give each team an even share. That does not give that much of an incentive to build an interesting, winning team, however . MLB would come up with a formula that takes into account a team’s road attendance (or % of capacity), road TV ratings, road radio ratings, and winning percentage. We want to reward teams that are interesting to watch, but we also want to reward teams that win. I suppose one could even factor secondary market ticket prices into the equation. In the end, the best road draws/winners would get somewhat more than 1/30th of the pool, and the worst road draws/losers would get somewhat less than 1/30th of the pool.

Yes, the current big teams do well under this system, but that is a good reason for them to accept it. This would replace the luxury tax, end talks of salary floors or ceilings, and lead to less subsidizing of non-competitive teams. A system like this might work much better than the current one. This is a bold move the MLBPA could propose, rather than playing defense against a salary cap.

November 9, 2025

The Ditch

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The heated discussion between Bryce Harper and Rob Manfred is alleged to have been followed by a threat to Harper:

Those details from ESPN were the only details on the altercation until a new report from sports agent Allan Walsh. During an appearance on “Agent Provocateur,” Walsh reported that, later, a “deputy” of Manfred’s allegedly threatened Harper.

“Don’t ever say that again to the commissioner,” Walsh said, quoting what was allegedly said to Harper. “Don’t ever disrespect him again publicly like that. That’s how people end up in a ditch.”

Newsweek.com

The podcast is here, and you need an Apple ID to hear it. The Harper discussion happens at about the 19 minute mark. When I first read the story, I thought Walsh was sent at a later date to talk to Harper, but all this happened in the same clubhouse incident, and from the story the agent tells, Manfred was in the discussion. The agent makes it clear that he didn’t hear this directly from one of the principals, but from player(s) in the room. So until we hear from Harper and Manfred, take this with a huge grain of salt.

I understand what upset Walsh. Let’s go back to the early 1900s when the American League saved major league baseball by rejecting the violent cheating and intimidation rampant in the National League at the time, especially toward umpires. The success of the AL forced the NL to adopt the clean game as well, and the prohibition on intimidation of umpires continues to this day, to the point that if a player or coach touches an umpire during an argument they likely get suspended.

Like him or not, Manfred is the ultimate umpire of the game, and is given great power to discipline players. Harper tried to intimidate him, and to Manfred’s credit, he stood up to Harper. I suspect, whatever Walsh may have said, he meant that the intimidation of the commissioner won’t be tolerated, and if it continued Harper could be suspended. I believe any commissioner would need to do that.

Whatever actually happened, the point of the story is that the next CBA negotiation will be contentious over this issue, because the players will never accept a salary cap. Please remember, however:

  1. Baseball is always on the edge of extinction due to the next CBA negotiation, no matter how far away it is.
  2. If the issues are not settled months before the deadline they will never be settled.
  3. The owners are evil, greedy people.
  4. MLB has not lost a game to a work stoppage since 1995.

Manfred gets a lot of credit for the last point, as he negotiated every CBA since that strike. Note the brilliance of the salary cap position. By putting the salary cap on the table early, Manfred is controlling the negotiation, and the MLBPA is playing defense. They are in the position of stopping the salary cap, rather than pushing their agenda.

The MLBPA should have done was adopt an extreme position right after the conclusion of the last CBA. Unlimited free agency or a $5 million minimum salary or reducing the free agency clock to four years and starting that clock in the minor leagues. In other words, they should have put MLB on the defensive.

Instead, the players will make concessions to avoid the cap. They will think they won when the cap is not implemented, but it will come at a cost.

October 30, 2025

Union Money

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ESPN does a deep dive into Players Way, an organization created by the MLBPA and apparent large amounts of money that flow to it for accomplishing very little:

Federal law officers are investigating a youth baseball company owned by the Major League Baseball Players Association that spent at least $3.9 million while holding few sparsely attended live events for kids, sources familiar with the inquiry told ESPN.

The Florida-based business, Players Way, has generated barely six figures in revenue since its founding in 2019. While the union said it has put $3.9 million into the company, two sources with knowledge of union finances and who have talked with investigators told ESPN that the amount is closer to $10 million.

ESPN.com

Having read the article, I don’t think anything nefarious is going on here. My bet would be that Tony Clark founded this with good intentions, gave jobs to some of his friends, and they do just enough work to get paid. My guess is now that this is out in the public, the union members will put an end to it.

June 14, 2025

Terrible Teams

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Sixty nine games into the season, the Rockies own 13-56 record, a .188 winning percentage. Since the first expansion in 1961, eleven teams produced a .315 winning percentage or worse. Four of those teams come from the early 1960s:

  • 1962 Mets 40-120, .250
  • 1961 Phillies, 47-107, .305
  • 1965 Mets, 50-112, .309
  • 1963 Mets, 51-111, .315

Note that this level of failure stopped as the first amateur draft happened during the 1965 season. For nearly forty years things were fine, the we saw this:

  • 2003 Tigers, 43-119, .265
  • 2024 Diamondbacks, 51-111, .315

There was a bit of an upheaval at the time. Between 1997 and 2002, MLB and the MLBPA went back and forth on a competitive balance tax, with the basics of the modern system going into place in 2003.

In 2013, the Astros finished 51-111, .315. Note that the Astros had completed a sale in which they were forced to move to the American League. It was also a time when the CBA put into place restrictions on the amount teams could spend on amateur players, both in terms of the draft and international signings. The Astros poor play for the next four years would be the basis of they dominant teams since.

That brings us to the recent past:

  • 2024 White Sox, 41-121, .253
  • 2018 Orioles, 47-115, .290
  • 2019 Tigers, 47-114, .292
  • 2023 Athletics, 50-112, .309

There were also two teams in 2021 just off this list. This season, the Rockies will be challenging the bad recent seasons by the Athletics and White Sox.

I am not a fan of the draft, but implementing that system seemed to stop these terrible teams from happening. Subsequent expansions have not produced a team as bad as the 1962 Mets. The draft did not end dominant teams, however. In the 1970s, four teams won multiple Word Championships; the Pirates, Athletics, Reds, and Yankees. Free agency led to long era when no team repeated. It was the Yankees dominance (and it’s always the Yankees dominance) that led to the competitive balance tax (CBT).

I think it’s safe to say the CBT did not work. Lowering the price of amateur players did not work. A draft lottery has not worked. All of these ideas were pushed with an element of competitive balance, but they seem to be a way for teams to simply save money.

I even think the bonus pool rules for pre-arbitration players might be keeping youngsters in the minors longer. If a team keeps a player in the minors until age 24 the team captures the entire prime of their career. I was having a conversation this morning in which I was asked, “Why don’t the Rockies just call up most of their AAA team?” My answer was that the Rockies won’t be competitive this season, so why start the arbitration clock?

I don’t have answers. In my mind, minor league free agency might work, where some combination of age, minor league service time, and MLB service time makes a minor leaguer a free agent. So use them or lose them. I don’t think a constant parade of below .300 teams are good for the game.

May 30, 2025 January 30, 2025

Pay Up Again

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The average MLB salary rose for the third straight season to a new high of $4.6 million.

Union figures are based on the 2024 salaries, earned bonuses and prorated shares of signing bonuses for 1,033 players on Aug. 31 active rosters and injured lists, before active rosters expanded for the remainder of the season.

ESPN.com

I think the takeaway is the new CBA succeeded in moving more money to the players. The competitive balance tax (CBT) threshold rose a bit, but one of the big movers might be the money being funneled to pre-arbitration players. That includes a $170,000 a year increase in the minimum salary from 2021 to 2024.

November 4, 2024

Unlucky 13

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Thirteen potential free agents received qualifying offers. This means their value will be a bit less than if they were unencumbered. I don’t think it will hurt Juan Soto all that much.

I hope the MLBPA is able to get rid of this in the next CBA. The union needs to constantly chip away at the barriers to free agency to get players paid what they are worth at the peak of their careers.

April 7, 2024

Clock Injuries

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Tony Clark, head of the MLBPA, blames the shortened time between pitches for the rash of elbow injuries:

“Since then, our concerns about the health impacts of reduced recovery time have only intensified,” Clark said. “The league’s unwillingness thus far to acknowledge or study the effects of these profound changes is an unprecedented threat to our game and its most valuable asset — the players.”

Cleveland’s Shane Bieber, Atlanta’s Spencer Strider, the New York Yankees’ Jonathan Loáisiga, Miami’s Eury Pérez and Oakland’s Trevor Gott are among the pitchers diagnosed with elbow injuries.

Major League Baseball pushed back on the union’s statement, pointing to a three-decade increase in pitcher injuries despite the clock being implemented just last season. MLB said that UCL surgeries at the minor league level actually declined in 2022, the first year that the pitch timer was used across the minors. The league believes the increase in max-effort pitching and focus on pitch design have contributed to the rise in injuries more than the clock.

“This statement ignores the empirical evidence and much more significant long-term trend, over multiple decades, of velocity and spin increases that are highly correlated with arm injuries,” MLB said in a responding statement Saturday.

ESPN.com

My idea of banning high speed pitches looks better all the time.

Note, too, that pitchers dislike the clock, and would even if there wasn’t a rise in injuries. Clark is on the hot seat with the union membership, so by pushing this issue, the politics work for him.

March 23, 2024

Days of Intrigue

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Damage control not performance dominates the start of the 2024 MLB season. ESPN reports on the dissension in the Major League Baseball Players Association:

Earlier in the afternoon, a coordinated effort by players had unfolded to replace Bruce Meyer, the union’s deputy executive director and lead labor negotiator, with Harry Marino, the lawyer who had organized minor league players who eventually would become members of the MLBPA. Near the end of the call, the matter had been put to an informal poll, and a significant majority of the dozens of players in attendance raised their hands in favor of change. Faced with his hand-picked No. 2 receiving a no-confidence vote from a large portion of the union’s executive board, MLBPA executive director Tony Clark told the group that it was his decision whether Meyer would be removed from his job.

He was not wrong. Union rules grant Clark, not the players, the right to hire and fire. But the sentiment espoused by Clark in that moment roiled players throughout the game Tuesday and Wednesday, enveloping the union with the sort of palace intrigue typically reserved for a Sunday night HBO series. The veteran was among a large swath of players troubled by Clark’s comment after hearing him say consistently, over more than a decade running the MLBPA, that players run the union. The fallout cast questions across the rank and file not just about Meyer’s murky future but Clark’s long-term viability as executive director.

ESPN.com

One thing I learned from the article is that arbitration contracts are not guaranteed.

Clark failed to fight the collapse of the original union model that limited free agency would drive up prices for all players. Two things killed that. First, the powerful long-time owners who fought the the demise of the reserve clause died out. At that point, the opposition to free agency disappeared. The people running baseball only knew free agency, so they worked to mold it to their advantage, not end it.

Second, front offices became more professional. They became better at valuing players. They also became better at gaming the system through service time manipulation and long-term contracts to young players. They found the cost effective strategy was:

  • Bring up a 22 year old a month into the season, giving them seven years of control
  • Offer the player a contract through age 30, the first seven years the salary being set by what the players might expect through renewals and arbitration.
  • Let the player go at age 30-31 into free agency, where the market no longer favored past prime players.

This pattern was clear by the time Clark took over as head of the MLBPA, but instead of fighting this he gave MLB the power to limit the money given in amateur signings, thinking that money would flow to major league players. That didn’t happen. Is it any wonder younger players are disillusioned? The fight waged in 2022 should have happened ten years earlier.

Then their is the Shohei Ohtani gambling scandal. Nate Silver wrote an excellent evaluation of the situation yesterday, and updated it now that MLB opened a formal investigation into the affair. His big question, did Ohtani make the bets?

I’m not so skeptical. I don’t know Ohtani, obviously. But as a world-famous professional athlete, he’s almost by definition an extremely competitive, wealthy young man in an industry known for being tolerant of gambling (again, MLB players are allowed to place legal bets in sports other than baseball). That profile checks a lot of boxes for someone with a high propensity to gamble. And $4.5 million is money that he can more than afford to lose. His ability to hit a 99-mph fastball, or to throw one, doesn’t particularly provide testament to his character or judgment — and for that matter, Ohtani has shown some considerable lack of judgment no matter which story is true, even if it’s just by trusting Mizuhara too much.

Then there is the fact that a huge percentage of Ohtani’s compensation in his new contract is deferred — all but $2 million of the $70 million. But I’m not so sure that reads well for him either. It’s actually pretty irresponsible financially, since you are giving up a lot of expected value by not investing in e.g. index funds. It may be suggestive of someone who is trying to impose constraints on himself — a gambler self-limiting — because he has had problems in the past.

NateSilver.net

On that last note, Ohtani makes plenty of money from other sources, so I’m not sure how deferring his salary would really help him limit a gambling problem.

Here is the timeline of how the information came to ESPN. Note the last item:

4:13 p.m. ET Wednesday (5:13 a.m. Thursday in Seoul): The Ohtani spokesman tells ESPN that what has actually happened in recent days is that Mizuhara has been able to control information to Ohtani in his position as the interpreter, and that Ohtani hadn’t realized what was happening until the postgame clubhouse meeting, when a new interpreter was brought in.

“He didn’t know any of it, didn’t know there was some inquiry,” the spokesman says. “After the game, that’s when he found out. … He didn’t know what the f— was going on.”

ESPN.com

I suspect New Balance is a bit perturbed.

March 20, 2024

House Divided

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There seems to be some disagreement in the MLBPA as to who should fill the role of chief negotiator.

During an online meeting Monday, players pushed for union executive director Tony Clark to remove deputy executive director Bruce Meyer, who led talks for the 2022 collective bargaining agreement.

Some in the group pushing for change want to replace Meyer with Harry Marino, who helped minor leaguers organize and join the players’ association in late 2022. Marino was hired for the union staff in September 2022, helped reach the first minor league labor contract with Major League Baseball, then left last July.

“The players who sought me out want a union that represents the will of the majority,” Marino said in a statement. “Scott Boras is rich because he makes — or used to make — the richest players in the game richer.”

Marino added that it was “alarming” for Boras to be defending Clark and Meyer.

Chron.com

This is going to be a fascinating battle. One reason the MLBPA was so successful is that they concentrated on the framework for salaries, not the salaries themselves. They concentrated on freeing players to make as much money as possible without destroying the meritocracy that makes some players fabulously wealthy, and others just a bit wealthy.

Marino might be a more traditional union organizer. Maybe he wants union control of salaries, distributing money more evenly over all the players in MLB. That might make the rank and file happy, and it might even make the owners happy, but I suspect it’s the wrong way to go.

My hope is that Marino wants free agency at a younger age or fewer years of service. If that’s true, he is the man for the job.

I was quite surprised when the minor league unionization went very easily and quickly. Whether you like Rob Manfred or not, he is a very good labor negotiator with a proven track record. Maybe he and his crew saw that the people leading the minor league charge were very different that those leading the MLBPA, and somehow that might lead to a situation like this, where the union becomes a bit weaker through dissension. We shall see.

February 24, 2024

Clark Speaks

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MLBPA chief Tony Clark spoke on a number of issues, and seems to come down against the change to the pitch clock:

“That’s a conversation that should have warranted a much longer dialogue than what we had,” Clark said Saturday. “We voiced those concerns, players voiced those concerns, and yet, the push through of the change to the pitch clock still happened.”

…

Clark’s main concern is that pitchers have less time between pitches to recover, particularly when maximum effort and pitch velocity are so important.

“When fatigue happens, you’re more susceptible to injury,” Clark said. “We’re seeing a lot of injuries and we’re seeing them in a way that simply can’t remove the question of whether or not shortening recovery time is in anyone’s best interest.”

Chron.com

He is also very concerned that the Athletics situation regarding a location for 2025 is not resolved.

February 16, 2024

No Frenzy

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Yesterday, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said that the owners asked the Players Association for a free agent signing period.

Sometimes I think these sorts of rules come up not just to save money, but because GMs are lazy. Draft slot bonuses, international bonus pool money, this idea, all let the GMs say, “Sorry, I can’t negotiate any more, my hands are tied.”

This is a bad idea from many angles:

“With the system we have right now, one of the tactics that’s available to player representatives is to stretch out the negotiations in the beliefs they’re going to get a better deal,” Manfred said. “That’s part of the system right now. There’s not a lot we can do about it. Certainly, from an aspirational perspective, we’d rather have two weeks of flurried activity in December, preferably around the winter meetings.” 

It is a given that deadlines are created to insure the best deal. Does it matter that it is two weeks or four months? In the case of a sport, it certainly does. If a contender were to lose a star outfielder to an injury tomorrow, would not Cody Bellinger become more valuable? The same with Blake Snell if a front line starter goes down for a year due to surgery.

Likewise for a team, if Snell and Bellinger remain unsigned into March, some team that wasn’t in the mix might be able to swoop in with a cost effective deal that provides some other incentives like opt outs or an extra year. More information benefits both sides.

If the MLBPA is smart, however, they could leverage this into a better free agent environment. A counter could be free agency after six professional seasons, not six years in the majors and no free agent compensation for teams losing players. Getting young players to free agency sooner is the best way to get more money to the players providing the most production.

September 14, 2022

Minor Union

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The Minors League became unionized today, as the MLBPA now represents them. MLB was very kind in their remarks:

In a statement, the league said: “Major League Baseball has a long history of bargaining in good faith with unions, including those representing minor and major league umpires, and major league players. We respect the right of workers to decide for themselves whether to unionize. Based on the authorization cards gathered, MLB has voluntarily and promptly recognized the MLBPA as the representatives of minor league players. We are hopeful that a timely and fair collective bargaining agreement will be reached that is good for the game, minor league players and our fans.”

ESPN.com

I keep getting the feeling that this might be the reaction of the union in a few months:

September 9, 2022

That Was Easy

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Major League Baseball voluntarily agrees to allow minor leaguers to unionize:

The move by MLB would formally accept the MLBPA as minor league players’ bargaining representative. The union and MLB are also working on an agreement on who the bargaining unit consists of and hope to accomplish that by next week.

ESPN.com

There is no reason presented for this. It could be that MLB thought the minor leaguers would vote in the union, so they might as well start with a little good will by avoiding a fight. It also could be that MLB gets the government off their back, as an agreed upon CBA is unlikely to face government scrutiny. The more nefarious reading would be that MLB thinks it can actually save money by having the the union represent the players, as MLB did pretty well in the last few MLB CBA negotiations.

August 29, 2022

Unionizing the Minors

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The MLBPA is making a push to represent minor league players. Bleed Cubbie Blue has a very good explanation of what is going on.

If this effort works, I hope it leads to an easier path to free agency for all players. While I’d love to see universal free agency, a good first step would be making the six year clock start at the beginning of the player’s professional career. This would force teams to bring good players up earlier, and allow others to find a team that might give them a better path to the majors.

July 25, 2022

Draft Dead

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The MLBPA chose amateurs over money as they rejected the proposal for an international draft.

The Major League Baseball Players Association formally rejected MLB’s last proposal on an international draft on Monday, the deadline for both sides to reach agreement on a long-standing issue with major ripple effects. The absence of a draft means the qualifying-offer system and the international signing period will each remain as is.

The two sides exchanged a total of four proposals this month, including two last weekend, and were consistently far apart on the amount of money that would be guaranteed to future international amateur players.

ESPN.com

I hope this is a start toward tearing down restrictions on players, including a shorter time to free agency and an end to the current amateur draft. This is the first step I’ve seen in that direction in a long time.

May 26, 2022

Thirteen is Really Not Enough

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I suspect right now the Cubs would be happy to find anyone who could actually pitch.

March 11, 2022

The Winners

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It looks like the biggest winners in the new CBA are the pre-arbitration players. The minimum salary goes up $125,000, plus there is a $50 million bonus pool. My estimate is that there are about 400 player-seasons* this helps. So that’s $50 million in salary increase, and $50 million in bonus pool money. The bonus pool money will be a great incentive for these youngsters to play well, which could turn out to be a bit of an anti-tanking measure.

*Lots of players get the minimum salary, but many play partial seasons.

On the other hand, there was little for what some refer to as baseball’s middle class. These are the good players who become free agents in their early 30s. They no longer get high paying, long-term contracts. They would have been helped by shortening the path to free agency, but the union did not fight that fight.

The owners obviously did very well. They will pay out more this season, but they have the revenue to do that. They can still control most players for parts of seven seasons, making them less valuable at free agency. They get more playoffs, which means more TV money.

They also saw that the union is not as united as they seemed during these talks. In the past, the MLBPA did what was best for their highest paid players. For all the talk of wanting to help the youngsters, the veterans voted against this deal due to the CBT. In the end, their self interest won out. The rank and file, however, saw this as a good deal for them, and now control the union.

March 10, 2022 March 10, 2022

Grievous Fault

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This is not a surprise:

I assumed the MLBPA would use this as a bargaining chip. Probably why they fought MLB on the issue in the first place.

March 10, 2022

The End of the Beginning

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MLB and the MLBPA decided on a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA):

It took more than three months — and multiple deadlines for delaying the regular season — before Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association ended their stalemate and came to terms on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

ESPN.com

The season starts April 7, and it will be a full 162 game schedule. The NL will use the designated hitter, and there will be 12 playoff teams.

It seems to me the players failed to make real, fundamental changes to the economic structure of the game; shorter time to free agency and abritration. Younger players will get more money, but that is likely to come out of the pockets of free agents, not the owners. The players also failed to simplify rules that the owners game, especially when it comes to service time manipulation.

I have not heard if we’ll see seven inning double headers to help make up the lost time.

March 10, 2022

Punting the Draft

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MLB and the MLBPA kicked the International Draft down the road so they can get back to the economic issues of the CBA.

Under the deal reached Thursday, if a negotiated agreement on a draft is reached by July 25, direct amateur draft-pick compensation would be removed for free agents starting with the 2022-23 offseason.

If the sides do not reach an agreement by July 25, direct amateur-draft pick compensation would remain in place.

ESPN.com

So the owners get what they wanted, linking the draft to free agent compensation. So if the players say yes to the draft, they are putting the interest of the free agents ahead of the interest of the amateurs.

March 10, 2022

In the Loop

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It strikes me that MLB is inside the MLBPA’s OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act).

Getting inside your adversary’s OODA loop creates a tangle of threatening events and generates mismatches between what an adversary expects you to do and what you actually do. This makes your adversary feel trapped in an unpredictable world of doubt, mistrust, confusion, disorder, fear, panic, and chaos.

TaylorPearson.me

Consider the Deadline-Not a Deadline-Deadline decisions. Or consider that until a few days ago, the biggest issues were the Competitive Balance Tax, minimum salaries, and the pre-arbitration bonus pool. Those three issues all moved toward compromise, but then MLB ties an international draft to free agent compensation.

And look at this reaction to the demise of talks a week ago:

To the MLBPA’s credit, they haven’t fully succumbed to this. On the other hand, instead of saying, “The international draft and free agent compensation have nothing to do with each other, talk to us in five years,” they actually negotiated the issue.

Maybe the players should start throwing unexpected items MLB’s way.

March 9, 2022

Suddenly Sticklers

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I’ll take that with a grain of salt for now. Seems foolish to miss a deadline by 18 hours, then complain if something comes in a minutes late.

March 9, 2022

More Games Canceled

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With MLB and the MLBPA failing to reach an agreement today, Major League Baseball canceled more regular season games:

Despite two long days of negotiations getting Major League Baseball and the players’ union closer to striking an agreement and assuring a complete 162-game schedule, the commissioner determined a deal was not going to happen in time Wednesday night. Commissioner Rob Manfred officially cancelled the third and fourth series of the season.

StLToday.com

This will make the negotiations tougher, as players will now hold out for as many games as possible. I suspect that if a deal is reached in the next couple of days, we’d magically return to 162 games per team.

March 9, 2022

Draft Road Block

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ESPN reports that the international draft is the sticking point in the current CBA negotiations.

The union is not in favor of it, according to those sources, while the league would like to institute it. The league believes the issue is tied to the elimination of draft-pick compensation for free agents who leave their old teams.

Without the draft, the league won’t eliminate the compensation a team has to give up when signing a free agent. The rule hurts the market for players who have turned down qualifying offers.

ESPN.com

I assume the players want no international draft and no free-agent compensation. MLB is very good at tying things together that have little to do with each other. I would have a lot of respect for the players if they stand up for no to both. At least then, they’d finally be making a stand for more freedom for players.

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