Gleeman: The players who are just dying to be traded
From SABR member Aaron Gleeman at Baseball Prospectus on July 21, 2016:
The current system for free agent compensation incentivizes impending free agents to get themselves traded, as any player dealt during a season is not eligible to receive a qualifying offer the following offseason. For top-level free agents that distinction matters little, since teams are gladly willing to forfeit a draft pick to sign them, but for mid-level free agents, hitting the open market with draft pick compensation attached can suppress their value so much that otherwise interested teams don’t even enter the bidding. It’s a badly flawed system that takes millions of dollars from veteran players looking for their first (and in some cases, only) big payday. Maybe the next collective bargaining agreement will eliminate the flaw; until then, we talk about it.
Not only can the qualifying offer crush a free agent’s market during the offseason, it can influence decisions made by teams at the trade deadline, as front offices look ahead to the offseason. For instance, when asked about Rich Hill thriving on a one-year deal and the perception that Oakland definitively plans to trade the 36-year-old left-hander, with free agency around the corner, A’s front office boss Billy Beane recently told Peter Gammons: “We would have no problem making him a qualifying offer.”
That certainly benefits the A’s, who can now bring additional leverage into trade negotiations by knowing they’d either be able to re-sign Hill to a one-year deal or snag a draft pick if he departs as a free agent. However, it does anything but benefit Hill, who would be forced to pick between accepting the qualifying offer to remain with the A’s on a one-year contract or taking his chances in free agency with the draft pick compensation weighing his market down. For a 36-year-old who has bounced around a ton and is looking for his first multi-year contract, that stinks.
Read the full article here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=29887
Originally published: July 21, 2016. Last Updated: July 21, 2016.