Players want change after market spurns free agents
While Manny Machado agreed to a pending $300 million, 10-year contract with San Diego and Bryce Harper is likely to top Giancarlo Stanton’s record $325 million, 13-year deal, many less-than-superstar veterans have been routed on the free-agent market.
Neil Walker’s salary dropped from $17.2 million to $2 million in two years. Greg Holland was cut from $14 million to $2 million this season. Daniel Murphy fell from $17.5 million to $10 million.
Players want change, and management could be open to negotiations for alterations to the collective bargaining agreement as part of an extension of the current deal, set to expire in December 2021.
“It’s really clear there’s been a redistribution of how clubs are looking at veteran players,” agent Scott Boras said Wednesday. “We have a clear problem in the industry of a non-competitive cancer. Like any patient with a malady, we have to address it immediately. Otherwise it is going to get steadily worse.”
Of the 111 announced agreements among the 164 players who exercised their free-agency rights after the World Series, 36 were for minor league contracts and 26 were one-year deals for less than last year’s average salary of just over $4 million.
In all, 46 players got one-year contracts, 19 two-year deals and seven three-year agreements. Just three longer contracts for free agents have been announced: left-hander Patrick Corbin’s $140 million, six-year deal with Washington, outfielder A.J. Pollock’s $60 million, five-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers and pitcher Nathan Eovaldi’s $68 million, four-year package with Boston.
Clubs are replacing veterans with younger players earning at or near the $555,000 minimum who lack the roughly 22⁄3 years of major league service needed to be eligible for salary arbitration. In the age of analytics, cheaper may not be better, but often it’s not much worse.
Spending on big league payrolls dropped last season for the first time since 2010, an $18 million fall to $4.23 billion, according to figures compiled by the commissioner’s office and obtained by The Associated Press.
RIVERA DENIES CLAIM
Just weeks after becoming baseball’s first unanimous Hall of Fame selection, Mariano Rivera is defending himself from accusations in his native Panama that he has failed to support two children he had outside his marriage.
The former Yankees’ closer called the demands filed against him in the Central American country “unfounded.”
“I have always acted … as a good family father,” the 49-year-old told local media.
Rivera’s comments came as he is being asked to appear before Panamanian judicial authorities to answer accusations that he has failed to fulfill his obligations to support the boy and girl, ages 11 and 15.
ELSEWHERE
Reds: Former Marlin Derek Dietrich agreed to a minor league deal with Cincinnati, which plans to carry four players on the bench. The 29-year-old’s versatility made him attractive. Dietrich, who was designated for assignment after six seasons in Miami, can play various positions in the infield and outfield.
Mets: Infielder Jed Lowrie will have an MRI on Thursday on his left knee. Lowrie, beginning a $20 million, two-year contract, experienced pain in the back of the knee last weekend after running, an issue he never felt before. Lowrie hit .267 last season for Oakland and set career highs for home runs (23) and RBIs (99).
Yankees: Aaron Judge always talks about the process of learning, So what did the right fielder learn from last year?
“Don’t get hit on the wrist,” he said at Yankees camp in Tampa.
The right fielder, after hitting 25 homers before the All-Star break, ended up playing in only 112 games in 2018. He missed much of the second half with a chip fracture in his right wrist, the result of getting hit by the Royals’ Jakob Junis. Now he says, “I’m 100 percent healthy.”
Giants: Buster Posey most likely will not catch in any spring training games until early March, manager Bruce Bochy said. Posey, who had surgery in August to address a hip impingement and repair a torn labrum, has been catching pitchers’ side sessions in camp so far.