The future of baseball may rest on the "Alec Burlesons"

[mattmitchl44]

These 1-3 WAR players IMO will see few contracts being offered from teams with strict budgets. There's a very
real possibility of those players aging out faster.

Those veteran players are more jeopardized now by how cheap it is to replace them with players teams can pay the ML minimum to for three years.

If you make the pay for young players more representative, it makes veteran 1-3 WAR players more competitive in terms of salary.

And all teams will still have to fill out 26 man rosters. And part of the arrangement is a guarantee that the total amount going to players is going to go up from $5.28 billion in 2025.

If more money is going to the players as a whole and less money is almost certainly being able to be thown at superstars/stars by capped teams, the money has to flow to productive young and "average" veteran players.

[Bomber1]

It's easy to demonstrate that, if the economic system of baseball were "just" based on actual production, Alec Burleson should have probably already make $12+ million (a prorated ML minimum for 2022, 2023; about $3.5 million for 2024; and about $9 million for 2025) for his ML career. Under the existing system he's actually made just over $2 million ($3 million of you count his original $700K signing bonus when drafted). So his account might be considered about $10 million "in arrears" right now.

And that "in arrears" isn't related to "the owners should just pay more money to the players." It's based on that, for example, $5.28 billion went to pay player salaries in 2025, Burleson (2.1 fWAR) produced about 1/500th of the total "value" in MLB in 2025, so $5.28 billion/500 = ~$10 million (a more detailed calc gets to ~$9 million). So, even given just the size of the "pie" as it is, Burleson has been far short of getting his slice of the "pie".

He will make $3.3 million for 2026, but he if has another season consistent with 2025, he'll actually fall about another $6 million "in arrears."

In short, under the current system - even if Burleson remains healthy and productive as he was in 2025 - he'll never make up for what he already is "in arrears" in ARB-1, ARB-2, or ARB-3. Under the current system, Burleson's only hope of making up what he will be "in arrears" by the time he's through his first six years is to:

(1) remain consistently healthy
(2) remain consistently productive and
(3) then convince some team to give him a contract in FA which, in addition to paying him for what he does going forward, makes up for what he is "in arrears" from his first six seasons.

This systematic situation affects the vast majority of players as they work through their ML career, and for a sizeable fraction of them likely never gets balanced out in the long run if they never get that FA contract that balances the books.

This is where the owners need to come to the table with a proposal that does much, much better for this vast majority of players early in their careers - there needs to be a transformation to the system that puts these "Alec Burlesons" less "in arrears" from the beginning. If the owners want enough players (51%?), enough "Alec Burlesons," to support a new CBA that gives the owners what they may want (salary caps, salary floors, etc.) to improve competitiveness in MLB, winning over enough players to that CBA, IMO, has to be based on addressing this situation for players in their early careers.

What if a partial reason Burleson has a roster position is that he is a bargain. He replaced a player that was
less of a bargain it worked extremely well for AB. He's been questionable at making the roster the 2 prior seasons.
To ramp up the salary of an accumulative 0.5 WAR player prior to 2025 may also create less opportunity to establish himself. The 2025 season was rewarded in not just 3.3M but in more opportunities like a
starters position.

I support the midrange player as much as anyone. They typically are the ones to be squeezed. There
are FA's that go unsigned now. Edman getting that contract was unique. Donovan's value is also partially due
to his cost. He may not be as lucky as Edman in his FA search.

If teams replace AS level players with the next great prospect what happen win a 1-2 WAR player
cost too much. I see these 0.5-2 WAR players out of the game at 30 or trying to grab a Spring training
invite in this current system which definitely wouldn't increase their career earnings.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about a new paradigm system that completely blows everything out of the water.

For example, in the case of Burleson, I noted that you could say he's made $2+ million but probably should have earned closer to $12+ million over 2022-2025.

Without going all the way into the details of the math, I'm looking a new system - between a higher ML min. and starting to make a new take on ARB adjustments after 1 yr. of service time - that might have paid Burleson closer to $5 million over 2022-2025. And then for 2026, I'd probably having him making about $5 million, based on his 2025 performance, vs. $3.3 million.

So, by the end of 2026, I'd have Burleson having made like $10 million instead of $5.5 million and he'd be that much less "in arrears" going into 2027.

That may not look like a huge difference in the context of a $5.28 billion industry in player salaries, but I think it would be very meaningful difference on level of individual players, in particular for guys who are "average" to "marginal" players who may have short careers and who moreso need to cash in when they can. If Burleson suffered a career ending injury this season, walking away from MLB having justifiably made $10 million instead of $5.5 million would make a huge difference in him and his family being "set for life".

In my conceptualization, even if it means Juan Soto gets $550 million instead of $750 million so that other $200 million can go to 40-50 "Alec Burlesons," I think that would be good for baseball.

The only way your conceptualization works is if the union and management sets salaries for all players.

No more individually-negotiated contracts.

Hard to see the MlBPA going for this.

For who - Soto?

The Sotos of baseball make less long term because this "paying young players better" is connected to a salary cap/floor.

Ultimately a salary cap of ~$250-$260 million bites into what even the biggest market teams can afford to pay superstars. So superstar/star AAVs come down (as they should - I noted elsewhere that on a pure production basis Soto was probably paid twice what he was actually worth last year), young productive players get more (as they should), and MLB gets a cap and floor which improves competitiveness (as it should).

The only thing to add is a further commitment for the owners to ensure that total money going to the players increases by 3% per year (it went up by 2.3% from 2024 to 2025, so 3% is in the right ballpark) to assure the players that this transformational change isn't going to substantially drop what they are getting a group.

Your concept - players get paid based on their “contribution” to overall WAR.

Me - that eliminates individually-negotiated contracts.

You -??

Am I missing your concept?

[mattmitchl44]

It's easy to demonstrate that, if the economic system of baseball were "just" based on actual production, Alec Burleson should have probably already make $12+ million (a prorated ML minimum for 2022, 2023; about $3.5 million for 2024; and about $9 million for 2025) for his ML career. Under the existing system he's actually made just over $2 million ($3 million of you count his original $700K signing bonus when drafted). So his account might be considered about $10 million "in arrears" right now.

And that "in arrears" isn't related to "the owners should just pay more money to the players." It's based on that, for example, $5.28 billion went to pay player salaries in 2025, Burleson (2.1 fWAR) produced about 1/500th of the total "value" in MLB in 2025, so $5.28 billion/500 = ~$10 million (a more detailed calc gets to ~$9 million). So, even given just the size of the "pie" as it is, Burleson has been far short of getting his slice of the "pie".

He will make $3.3 million for 2026, but he if has another season consistent with 2025, he'll actually fall about another $6 million "in arrears."

In short, under the current system - even if Burleson remains healthy and productive as he was in 2025 - he'll never make up for what he already is "in arrears" in ARB-1, ARB-2, or ARB-3. Under the current system, Burleson's only hope of making up what he will be "in arrears" by the time he's through his first six years is to:

(1) remain consistently healthy
(2) remain consistently productive and
(3) then convince some team to give him a contract in FA which, in addition to paying him for what he does going forward, makes up for what he is "in arrears" from his first six seasons.

This systematic situation affects the vast majority of players as they work through their ML career, and for a sizeable fraction of them likely never gets balanced out in the long run if they never get that FA contract that balances the books.

This is where the owners need to come to the table with a proposal that does much, much better for this vast majority of players early in their careers - there needs to be a transformation to the system that puts these "Alec Burlesons" less "in arrears" from the beginning. If the owners want enough players (51%?), enough "Alec Burlesons," to support a new CBA that gives the owners what they may want (salary caps, salary floors, etc.) to improve competitiveness in MLB, winning over enough players to that CBA, IMO, has to be based on addressing this situation for players in their early careers.

What if a partial reason Burleson has a roster position is that he is a bargain. He replaced a player that was
less of a bargain it worked extremely well for AB. He's been questionable at making the roster the 2 prior seasons.
To ramp up the salary of an accumulative 0.5 WAR player prior to 2025 may also create less opportunity to establish himself. The 2025 season was rewarded in not just 3.3M but in more opportunities like a
starters position.

I support the midrange player as much as anyone. They typically are the ones to be squeezed. There
are FA's that go unsigned now. Edman getting that contract was unique. Donovan's value is also partially due
to his cost. He may not be as lucky as Edman in his FA search.

If teams replace AS level players with the next great prospect what happen win a 1-2 WAR player
cost too much. I see these 0.5-2 WAR players out of the game at 30 or trying to grab a Spring training
invite in this current system which definitely wouldn't increase their career earnings.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about a new paradigm system that completely blows everything out of the water.

For example, in the case of Burleson, I noted that you could say he's made $2+ million but probably should have earned closer to $12+ million over 2022-2025.

Without going all the way into the details of the math, I'm looking a new system - between a higher ML min. and starting to make a new take on ARB adjustments after 1 yr. of service time - that might have paid Burleson closer to $5 million over 2022-2025. And then for 2026, I'd probably having him making about $5 million, based on his 2025 performance, vs. $3.3 million.

So, by the end of 2026, I'd have Burleson having made like $10 million instead of $5.5 million and he'd be that much less "in arrears" going into 2027.

That may not look like a huge difference in the context of a $5.28 billion industry in player salaries, but I think it would be very meaningful difference on level of individual players, in particular for guys who are "average" to "marginal" players who may have short careers and who moreso need to cash in when they can. If Burleson suffered a career ending injury this season, walking away from MLB having justifiably made $10 million instead of $5.5 million would make a huge difference in him and his family being "set for life".

In my conceptualization, even if it means Juan Soto gets $550 million instead of $750 million so that other $200 million can go to 40-50 "Alec Burlesons," I think that would be good for baseball.

The only way your conceptualization works is if the union and management sets salaries for all players.

No more individually-negotiated contracts.

Hard to see the MlBPA going for this.

For who - Soto?

The Sotos of baseball make less long term because this "paying young players better" is connected to a salary cap/floor.

Ultimately a salary cap of ~$250-$260 million bites into what even the biggest market teams can afford to pay superstars. So superstar/star AAVs come down (as they should - I noted elsewhere that on a pure production basis Soto was probably paid twice what he was actually worth last year), young productive players get more (as they should), and MLB gets a cap and floor which improves competitiveness (as it should).

The only thing to add is a further commitment for the owners to ensure that total money going to the players increases by 3% per year (it went up by 2.3% from 2024 to 2025, so 3% is in the right ballpark) to assure the players that this transformational change isn't going to substantially drop what they are getting a group.

Your concept - players get paid based on their “contribution” to overall WAR.

Me - that eliminates individually-negotiated contracts.

You -??

Am I missing your concept?

I'm not suggesting paying anybody directly based on WAR. I'm using WAR to illustrate what nominal players' values are.

I'm suggesting:

1) a higher ML minimum, maybe $1.25 million
2) a revised ARB system that start after one year of service time and is more aggressive at closing the gap between prior year performance and pay for the following season
3) five years to FA instead of six

For example, in Burleson's case maybe he would have gotten $1.25 million over 2022-2023 if he had about a year of service time over those seasons.

Because he wasn't productive (in fact negative fWAR, if you want to measure it that way), he gets a $1.25 million salary for 2024 (ARB-1).

He's more productive in 2024 (worth about $4 million, if you measured it by fWAR), so maybe he gets a $2.5 million salary for 2025 (ARB-2).

He's more productive in 2025 (worth about $9 million, if you measure it by fWAR), so maybe he gets a $6 million salary for 2026 (ARB-3).

So he makes about $11 million from 2022-2026 instead of about $5.5 million.

You can measure "production" many ways for setting the ARB-1, ARB-2, ARB-3 salaries. It doesn't have to be by fWAR. I just use it because I find it valid and convenient.

Conceptually, I'd change the implementation to ARB to be more about setting a next year's salary to really pay the player for what they did the prior season (and, hence, it could go up or down) as opposed to the current system which most just keeps pushing salaries up even for players who haven't been producing (e.g., Gorman, Walker, etc.). In my model, Gorman, for example, should have gotten paid much better in 2024 based on what he did in 2023, but shouldn't be being paid much about the ML minimum in 2026 for what he did in 2025.

[renostl]

These 1-3 WAR players IMO will see few contracts being offered from teams with strict budgets. There's a very
real possibility of those players aging out faster.

Those veteran players are more jeopardized now by how cheap it is to replace them with players teams can pay the ML minimum to for three years.

If you make the pay for young players more representative, it makes veteran 1-3 WAR players more competitive in terms of salary.

And all teams will still have to fill out 26 man rosters. And part of the arrangement is a guarantee that the total amount going to players is going to go up from $5.28 billion in 2025.

If more money is going to the players as a whole and less money is almost certainly being able to be thown at superstars/stars by capped teams, the money has to flow to productive young and "average" veteran players.

Strong point.

Stars will still get paid. It's the entertainment business. They should without caps.
There's was more to Soto to the Mets, Ohtani to LAD, or keeping Vlad in Tor, than the buying of production.

I also of opinion that players need to produce something at MLB level before seeing more money. Would
the draft money change as a corresponding move?

Would players like Gorman, Pallante, Nootbaar, and Libs get the 200%-300% increase
in pay that they received after their 2025 seasons in your system?

$780k isn't bad compensation. Comparative to other players your point is valid comparative to
us before proving much of anything in their vocation not really. AB only has 2025 as a resume.

[mattmitchl44]

Stars will still get paid. It's the entertainment business. They should without caps.
There's was more to Soto to the Mets, Ohtani to LAD, or keeping Vlad in Tor, than the buying of production.

Stars will still get paid - they'll just get somewhat less, and most of them should get somewhat less. What the biggest market teams have shown a willingness to pay - with basically the exception of Judge and Ohtani - has actually gotten out of control relative to their production.

If teams are capped at $250-$260 million, they are going to start shying away from dumping $60 million a year into even a Juan Soto.

I also of opinion that players need to produce something at MLB level before seeing more money. Would
the draft money change as a corresponding move?

Changing draft slot values is beyond the scope of this discussion.

Would players like Gorman, Pallante, Nootbaar, and Libs get the 200%-300% increase
in pay that they received after their 2025 seasons in your system?

Productive young players would do better under the revised system. But, other than seeing a higher ML minimum, if you are NOT productive, you are not necessarily going to do better.

Bottom line - be productive early in your career, you get paid better and faster.

[renostl]

Stars will still get paid. It's the entertainment business. They should without caps.
There's was more to Soto to the Mets, Ohtani to LAD, or keeping Vlad in Tor, than the buying of production.

Stars will still get paid - they'll just get somewhat less, and most of them should get somewhat less. What the biggest market teams have shown a willingness to pay - with basically the exception of Judge and Ohtani - has actually gotten out of control relative to their production.

If teams are capped at $250-$260 million, they are going to start shying away from dumping $60 million a year into even a Juan Soto.

I also of opinion that players need to produce something at MLB level before seeing more money. Would
the draft money change as a corresponding move?

Changing draft slot values is beyond the scope of this discussion.

Would players like Gorman, Pallante, Nootbaar, and Libs get the 200%-300% increase
in pay that they received after their 2025 seasons in your system?

Productive young players would do better under the revised system. But, other than seeing a higher ML minimum, if you are NOT productive, you are not necessarily going to do better.

Bottom line - be productive early in your career, you get paid better and faster.

Different POV.

It will negate as many players as it boosts. As in one of your first poste suggest AB stays healthy he'll
get paid. I may have misunderstood a portion of your discussion was about being in arears. AB will have received
$6.6M by the end of 2026 including all monies from the Cards. 2 seasons of production regardless of what he does in 2026. He'll have 4 years of service time. Those signing bonuses count, imo.

Your proposal has merits. It also won't benefit all as you point out, making it even
more difficult to get approval of. Salary caps and the creations of pardon my term here, a socialist vs
a capitalistic structure seems to lead to a probable no. Sure they should get a fair share, sure they
should show production too.

The cut short careers due to injury are easily negotiable. Change required service times It is already in place just create
more inclusion. Pensions, medical benefits do exist support by both the teams and the players.