We are now halfway through January and are in the middle of
a free agency cycle that is highlighted by two premiere talents. In a sport
that suppresses player earnings for nearly a decade, opportunities to sign
youthful megastars at the height of their potential is largely uncharted
territory. Even with that reality currently sitting before us, players are
watching as organizations hand out moderate deals and scrutinize anything that
truly would move the needle.
At the current juncture, there’s no less than 50 major
league caliber players still awaiting a home for the 2019 season. Multiple teams
have yet to sign a player to a big-league deal, and even more are looking at
spending thresholds that fall significantly short of anything reflecting actual
revenues. We’re still talking about athletes becoming millionaires in this
entire scenario, but owners are sitting on wads of cash that have them all
starting at sums best described with a “B.”
There’s little reason to deny significant flaws in the
current CBA structure. Owners took the MLB Players Association to the woodshed,
and that has never been more apparent than the past two winters. You can bet
stronger negotiation tactics will be employed during the next round of
discussions but coming up with ideas in order to spark improvement is the first
step. While we won’t see anything implemented right now today, there seems to
be one avenue to create buzz and heighten fan interest.
Looking across the landscape of the three major sports, fans
hang onto the opportunity to watch transactions occur at a breakneck pace.
Whether it be the MLB trade deadline, NFL free agency, or either of those
instances in the NBA, players moving at a fast pace gives fans something to
gravitate towards. The success that Major League Baseball sees mid-season could
potentially be harnessed over the winter as well.
We can talk a certain threshold of dollars needing to be
handed out, and there could even be a mandate put on percentage of revenues
being spent. What if the league decided to create a free agency window? By forcing teams to conduct negotiations
between a certain time period, you’d allow agents, players, and organizations
to all have their cards on the table together. Inciting some sort of bidding
war for talent could be a nice by-product of this exercise, and a sense of
urgency would have fans involved in the progress their perspective team is
making.
In this proposed scenario, one of the largest hurdles would
seem to be what to do beyond a presented window of opportunity. Inevitably not
every player would find a deal and you can’t simply ask them all to accept MiLB
pacts or something of that ilk. Finding an incentive for teams to sign players
during the free agency period, while also working in the best interests of
players, would seemingly marry all attempted goals together.
At the end of the day, I don’t think there’s any way some
drastic changes won’t be taking place. We’ll see multiple propositions as to
what they may look like, and eventually different options will come to
fruition. For now, we’ll have to continue this waiting game while a significant
number of talented players wonder where spring training will take place.
