Szymborski: Which players lose out in 2020 service-time agreement?
From Dan Szymborski at FanGraphs on May 21, 2020:
This spring, one of the stickiest issues in the negotiations between the owners and the MLBPA was that of service time credit, a subject that has long caused labor friction. If the 2020 season occurs, the issue of service time credit will largely take care of itself. But what if there is no 2020 season? The lost salaries are hard enough, but the lost service time would have made those losses even greater. Using ZiPS to consider just 15 prominent free agents-to-be after the 2020 and 2021 seasons, I estimated that those players alone would lose roughly $316 million on their next contracts.
In return for $170 million in guaranteed money — an advance if play happened to recommence this year — and agreeing not to sue for their lost salaries, the players struck a deal. If 2020 is not played, the free agents-to-be in 2021 will still hit the market this winter, as players will be credited for the same amount of service they accrued in 2019.
Read the full article here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/which-players-lose-out-in-the-2020-service-time-agreement/
Originally published: May 22, 2020. Last Updated: May 22, 2020.