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Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The “Free” Agent Compensation System
As the first league to dip its toes into non-slavery, MLB and MLBPA couldn’t go all in, so they had to craft these “compensation” systems (since adopted, and then afterwards rejected by the NHL/NHLPA). Over at SOSH, Eric Van says:
I was thinking of starting a thread for brainstorming a better system. It seems to me that teams that sign players should lose picks and that teams that lose them should get picks. That part is right.
To which I replied:
I think before you proceed, you should explain why this is “right”, considering that other sports don’t do this. And if it is “right” to restrict the amount a “free” agent ballplayer can sign, then perhaps a more honest approach would be more instructive. If we want to ensure that a ballplayer is completely free, then any compensation system (if it is even determined that one is needed), doesn’t need to come at a cost to the signing team.
I had earlier asked Bill James:
Before we can even talk about “fixing” it, how about your view as to the objectives of such a system, which is unique (compared to NHL, NFL, NBA), and has it been meeting that objective. How about scrapping it altogether? And how about allowing the trading of draft picks (which again, MLB is unique in not allowing it). To the extent that you need these “Type A”, etc, salary paid in the last 3 years of arb-eligibility would seem to be an easy way to handle the issue, without getting all “sabermetricy”.
Bill replied:
The objective of the system is to award the compensation draft picks in the order of the value of the players being lost to free agency. Ranking players by salary over the last three years would succeed sometimes, and it would fail sometimes--like the current system. I think we could do better. We could never develop a system that satisfied everybody all the time, but we could do better.
So, here are the questions:
1. Do we want to have human beings declare themselves completely free of a team’s grasp at some point in their careers, or not?
2. Does your answer differ among NHL/NFL/NBA/MLB?
3a. If you do not think we should have a completely free ballplayer at some point in his career, what kind of restriction or compensation system would you want to see?
3b. If you do think a player should be completely free at some point in his career, what is the mechanism to cause that freedom? I think the NBA is 4 years (though someone can correct me here). The NHL is 7 years or 27 years of age, whichever comes first.
4. What else do you want to say?
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