League Updates Rules

Inflation

I have three items for you today:  the offseason salary cap, the pre-emption price for first-round rookie draft picks, and the minimum bids for free agent contracts of varying lengths.

 

  1. SALARY CAP:  $96,750,000

According to our rules, the salary cap we will use for the entire offseason, including setting our opening day rosters, is the Opening Day salary cap from the 2017 season, before the monthly $500,000 bonuses.  So our salary cap this offseason will be $96,750,000.  You will have to be under that cap to draft in the Rule 5 draft, the Rookie Draft, and the Free Agent Draft, and when you turn in your final Opening Day roster.

 

2.  First Round Pre-emption Price: $12,500,000

According to our rules, the first round pre-emption price is set at 12% of the salary cap plus $1,000,000. That works out to $12,610,000.  I round it off to the nearest $250,000.  So the First Round Pre-emption Price will be $12,500,000.

 

3.  Minimum Bids in Free Agency 

For the first time in several years, I’ve done a little study to see what real baseball players are willing to accept in annual salary for contracts of different lengths.  I’ve tried to focus only on players who are true free agents.  Those signing contracts while they are still arbitration-eligible usually don’t have the leverage to secure a true market prices. Since most of our free agents are true free agents, to be realistic we need to look at 2017 market prices for true free agents.

 

Here are the minimum contracts in force in 2017 and beyond that actual free agents signed.

1 year –– MLB minimum wage.  For our purposes that’s still $500,000.

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2 years — $1,625,000 per year (Barnette, TEX). Descalso ($1,750,000) and Amarista ($1,800,000) were close.

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3 years:  $2,666,667 per year (Nate Jones, COL) Clayton Richard, SD could be counted at $2,250,000 per year if you connect the salary he made in 2016 to the two year “extension” he signed to stretch his contract to 2018. But that’s not how we I did things this time.

4 years: $6,000,000 per year (Dunn, COL).  Next was O’Day, Baltimore.

5 years:  $10,250,000 per year (Salvador Perez, KC). Jean Segura’s $11,590,000 per year is next on the list.

 

I will propose, as part of the package of reforms I am assembling, that we raise our minimum bids as follows:

1 year — no change, still $500,000

2 years:  from $1,000,000 to $1,500,000

3 years:  from $2,000,000 to $2,500,000

4 years:  from $5,000,000 to $6,000,000

5 years:  from $9,000,000 to $10,000,000


NOTES:

  1. Current contracts would not be affected.
  2. These are minimum price hikes of 0%, 50%, 25%, 20%, and 11%, respectively.  These prices have not increased since 2004.  The CPI has gone up 30% since 2004.
  3. Notice that the bulk of the bottom-feeders listed here are pitchers – especially relief pitchers.  It may not be realistic to pretend you can sign a slugging third catcher to a price only relief pitchers will take.  At some point I may try to work up a position-specific list, but not this year.

 

I am not asking you to approve or reject these increases yet. I will propose a package of improvements after Dave and I have had a chance to meet and talk about what’s possible from the technical side.  If you have suggestions or other printable reactions, the comment section is open.