The Major League Baseball Players Association took exception to the comments of Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos:
“Every day you get more information. And we’ve had time to connect with 27 of the clubs — obviously the Astros and (Nationals) being in the World Series, they were tied up — but we had a chance to get a sense of what the other clubs are going to look to do in free agency, who might be available in trades,” Anthopoulos said, according to the union.
FoxSports.com
So the guilty reading is that GMs are talking to each other to decide which team gets what free agent. The less guilty reading is that Anthopoulos was doing his due diligence as a GM and finding out what holes teams are looking to fill via a trade, and in that discussion free agents might come up. For example,
GM1: “You have a hole a third base, we can help you.”
GM2: “We’re thinking of going the free agent route for third base.”
GM1: “Our youngster will give you half the value at 1/20 of the price.”
Isn’t this what trading is about, finding out what will mutually benefit both teams? Isn’t that the more likely explanation for talking to all other teams?
Tony Clark needs to concentrate on getting players to free agency at a younger age. How about any player who complete their seasonal age 26 season and has been with an organization in at least five calendar years can be a free agent. None of this days of service crap. Teams get two prime-years of service, then players get to see what they can earn.
If you start from the premise that teams are unwilling to get rid of the draft (which is probably the reality), then I really like this suggestion. High schoolers (generally drafted at 18) would have 8 years of team control and collegiate athletes (drafted at 21) would have 5 years. This would provide an incentive for teams to bring their best players up as soon as possible. You could also do something like putting in restricted free agency where teams have a right to match the age 26 contract offers, but not later free agent offers.
Another alternative would be to tie free agency to seasons since the draft, with high school draftees getting an extra 2 seasons of control. So someone drafted out of high school in 2019 would be a free agent after 2027, and a collegiate player would be a free agent after 2025. For college draftees, especially, this would be a major improvement; it is currently very hard for them to get to free agency before 30.
All good ideas. I think Clark and the MLBPA are creative enough to fix this, however. They want the teams to act like they did in the 1980s, but teams are a lot smarter about the value of players. The MLBPA should go for a big shakeup, but my guess is they’ll go incremental and wind up doing very little.