The thing that sticks in my craw about free agency is that before ANY player makes it through 6 or 7 years to make it to free agency, they have already made at least several million dollars even under today's rules. It makes it real difficult for me to feel any real sympathy for any player who thinks they are being mistreated.

That being said, I certainly don't have a problem with anybody getting as much as they can, and using any means available to them to enhance their value.

I don't, however, agree that driving a wedge between the players and management, much less between players and the fans, is in anybody's best interest.

I know player agents, of course, would not ever agree that many players in years past may have been overpaid. And now since the front offices have tools available to them to more precisely determine what a player's value is going forward, the are able to adhere to contracts with more favorable terms. While many contracts in the past worked out to be of acceptable value, we all know that many put teams in positions where they were unable to be competitive because of albatross contracts. We have had a few of those right here in Minnesota (think Phil Hughes, Joe Mauer, Ricky Nolasco, many more). But think about other such deals, like Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriquez, Prince Fielder, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jason Hayward, Yu Darvish and the list goes on. Do you really blame management for their caution.

I think in today's environment, more players may find benefit in negotiating long term extentions while they are in the productive years of their contracts and still under team control, thus locking in bigger pay days early, then be willing to accept what the market bears when they hit the market in maybe their early 30's, instead of maybe at 29 or 30.

Another market force at work here is that there seems to be an abundance of very productive young players coming through the pipeline right now. Is that maybe because modern analytics has made teams more productive in preparing their young players?

The players I really have empathy for are the ones that will end up without a contract at all. And there will be many.

I failed to fully elaborate about what I see as limiting current teams from being fully competitive because of albatross contracts. We have the Los Angelos Angels, Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Miami Marlins, Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, Arizona Diamondbacks, San Francisco Giants, and even the Dodgers are all either currently or very recently curtailed competitively because of very large unproductive contracts they carry on the books. All those unproductive contracts restrict what is available to teams to pay other players. 

Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts.

I agree that it's hard to generate sympathy for millionaire players. But when the "other side" is billionaire owners, I think we can throw the whole, "who do you sympathize with?" question out the window. It's not about who you sympathize with, it's merely about how you believe the growing revenue stream should be divided between ownership and labor.

There's a good case to be made that labor has done a poor job of assuring their side continues to get its fair share. But that's because their side has sucked at presenting a unified front and being willing to take a firm stand. If/when that changes, the status quo may change. 

I'm not going to hold my breath, however.

I don't know that we need to sympathize with either. Nor do we need to demonize or be jealous of either the players or owners. 

Lost in all these discussions on how the players are going to make the FA situation return to the days of yesteryear, on how ineffective their union was, and how to make the next CBA an advancement for players salaries, working conditions, and security is one overriding fact. Unions are dead. If they aren't, they are on life support, and a hand is on the plug. This isn't coming from some anti Union guy,I had 13 years vested in a national union, before circumstances caused me to become self employed. That worked for me, it doesn't for everyone. Anti union comes from many areas. Shareholders in public companies being the worst, then management, and some sides of the political spectrum. But the oddest, most confusing and the most damaging anti union mentality comes from the workers who would benefit from union representation. Union workers who want the benefits but don't want to pay the dues. Workers who vote in elections against representation and their economic security. Workers who vote for right to work political candidates. But, back to baseball. If the current majority opinion in the country holds, that being that unions are not needed to represent the average worker, then I see no path for the union representing MLB players to win any significant changes. The average fan has little sympathy for a player making more money in a week, than he will make in his life. His appreciation of a unique athletic talent doesn't extend that far. See Mauer, Joe! Thus, trying to get a public to sympathize with MLBPA's effort to improve the players lot, when said public Isn't interested in collective bargaining to improve their own seems something past a daunting task. Without the backing of the fans and public, it's likely an impossible one.

Maybe the players should have different unions based on service time? I work for the state of Minnesota and we have multiple unions at the same department. If the newer players and minor league players had their own unions then they might receive better representation at the end of the day.

Great input, all. Some interesting points.

I think one problem is that today's players are woefully unaware of what their predecessors went through. Ask a player today what the "reserve clause" is/was and how come it is no longer in their contracts. I wonder how many could give you an accurate answer.

When the minimum wage for a union member is in excess of a half million dollars per season, it's understandable, I suppose, that they are more willing to just complain about things their bosses do that piss them off than to actually do something about it which could put them at risk of losing that money, even for a few weeks.

So, I suspect they'll just go on complaining about the people they work for (which, after all, isn't much different than what 99% of fans who are not self-employed do, too.)

problem here is the players and the agents.  Owners keep asking for a hard salary cap as a  bargining tool for concessions elsewhere.  Players need to force a minimum spend on the owners to force owners who are just raking in profits to make their teams more competitive by spending money.  Say 100,000,000 is the minimum (new TV contracts will make this amount seem small) (and this may include taxes and benefits).  Maybe reduce FA to 5 years (even though this will hurt small market teams) or end the manipulation of service time.  

Biggest issue is there are three types of players, stars and  superstars, who want big money without caring what it does to the team, midlevel who make good money, but a lot of them are paid more than they are worth, and the fillin-ins, your basic replacement level players who seldom make much (in relative terms), and the minute they make more that a couple of million are usually the first cuts if a younger player is close to as good.

I do not know how to handle this, but the owners can easly play groups off against one another, plus the new statistical data which is traceing player decline to the 31 - 33 age range instead of older.

This is not counting the minor leaguers who at the lower level get a raw deal or many who want to go forward having to play in independent leagues for peanuts. 

Maybe you have to get a higher luxury tax factor to prevent teams with large markets from just ignoring the tax and  buying the better players.  Otherwise maybe go back to 16 teams, force all teams to spend like 250,000,000 a year and  end  this charade. 

Well written article. I agree it's the players own fault that things have started to trend against them in recent years. But it should also be noted, the unfavorable trends started from a point at which the MLB Players union had the best deal...and was arguable the most powerful union, not only in professional sports, but that ever existed in any business.

Unfortunately for the 'top' major-league players, things won't get materially better any time soon. The only solution for the rank and file is a floor on salaries. That will never happen without a firmer ceiling. Add to that the minor league dilemma. Revenues are very unlikely to grow sufficiently to provide BOTH a materially bigger chunk for the Major leaguers AND a bigger chunk for the minor leaguers. And the major leaguers are going to lose that PR battle all day long.

Also, any negotiating approach leveraging arguments that players deploy tools for "maximizing health and performance, maintaining/improving tools and athleticism, and mitigating age- and usage-related decline"....this is a losing strategy from the start. Such tactics will only rationalize shorter seasons and/or more players on a roster. In either case, it will result in LESS money in the individual player's pocket, not more.

I think the owners and commissioner will make concessions only if the game becomes more entertaining.  They have accumulated so much leverage through metrics and exploiting the controlled period of a player's career.  The result is that the players are younger and contracts are shorter.  This, in turn, has led to fewer balls in play and imo, a less enjoyable product.

I think the players will need a work stoppage of some length but it's difficult to imagine much concession unless the owners are convinced the sport is in trouble.

The players simply didn't see it coming. 

They were fine with the structure as long as Ricky Nolasco got 48 million and Ricky Nolasco got 48 million for years upon years.  

Then the number guys came along and noticed that the league minimum guys were just as productive as the Ricky Nolasco types being paid 48 million and they just stopped doing it and they stopped collectively as a group and this activated the trap door in the CBA that was always there. 

Now that number guys are consistently refusing to pay longer term contracts to players in their 30's... the players are going to be forced to fight back by demanding that they reach free agency earlier.

It will be a battle between the owners and players for control of the 27 year old. I side with my front office within the framework of the current agreement because it was agreed upon... but I side with the players for a much better future agreement on their behalf. 

If I were the commissioner... I'd tell the owners to throw some free agent bones out there to keep the peace. That isn't happening... the owners are squeezing on the front end and now the back end. Therefore the players have no choice but to band together and fight back. 

It will be ugly.