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Friday, August 27, 2010
Move over Carlos Ruiz, make way for Andres Torres
Entering 2011, Andres Torres will have 3+ years of service, making him eligible for arbitration. That means that as long as the Giants keep offering him arbitration for 2011, 2012, and 2013, he’s stuck with them. He has been a free agent multiple times prior to 2009, back when he was considered no good. Now that he’s considered good, well, that’s off the table. Entering 2014, he’ll once more be a free agent. He’ll be 36 when that happens.
Andres Torres is the kind of guy, like Carlos Ruiz, that the MLBPA simply throws to the wolves, uninterested in closing the gaps in the CBA. There’s no reason that the Giants need to maintain exclusive control on Andres Torres.
The entire point of the “6 years of service” rule is so that the teams that developed those players in the minor leagues for 1-4 years aren’t left with nothing to show for it after 2 or 3 years. It’s clear that there should be an age-based threshhold (in addition to service years), that once a player is say 29 years old, then the service time rule no longer applies. (The NHL uses age 27 as one threshhold, and since NHL players peak about 2 years before MLB player, then 29 would seem to be a fair point.)
I doubt that MLB and MLBPA care about doing the right thing here. This is a negotiating point, so that means MLBPA has to give up something to get that. Since this gap in the CBA has such little value to the MLBPA membership (and MLB teams too) OVERALL, what would be a fair trade to add in an age-29 free agency threshhold?
R.A. Dickey, 35 years old, just over 4 years service entering 2010, so the Mets will be able to bring him to arbitration for 2011. He debuted in 2001, has played at least part of 8 MLB seasons, and is in his 14th professional season.
On the bright side, he’s probably got a decade of pitching left as a knuckleballer who finally learned to be effective.