As spring training rolls around and each Major League Baseball team reports to either Florida or Arizona to prepare for the start of the season, some of the sport’s biggest stars are startlingly absent. The 2018-2019 free agent class featured perennial superstars such as Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, two players on a Hall-of-Fame track who would undeniably make any team better with their talents. Pitchers Craig Kimbrel and Dallas Keuchel are both reliable veterans, the former being one of the better relief pitchers in the game who helped lead the Boston Red Sox to a World Series title in 2018, and the latter having won a Cy Young Award for best pitcher in the league back in 2015. Machado recently signed with the San Diego Padres for a record $300 million over ten years, while Harper is reportedly seeking a deal north of that figure. Yet as spring training begins, Harper, Kimbrel and Keuchel all remain unsigned, along with dozens of other quality major leaguers still seeking a fair contract.
Overall, there are multiple explanations for why these players remain on the market with just over a month until the season starts, and none of them are promising, nor do they bode well for the future of the sport. One possible explanation is collusion amongst the owners of the franchises, which has happened in the past and led to a players’ strike. Essentially, collusion is the depression of salaries across the sport which results from owners collectively agreeing to pay players less than what they are worth. Another possibility, not unrelated to collusion, is that team ownerships might simply not want to spend money on free agents when young players are much more affordable. Under the current financial system, players don’t hit free agency until after their sixth year of service time. Players that have not yet hit free agency are much cheaper than the alternative, which is signing players on the open market. If team owners do not want a hole burned through their pocket, they can opt to employ young players instead. The problem with this approach is that team owners are all absurdly rich and can comfortably afford to sign any free agent they choose; baseball has a loose salary cap in the form of a luxury tax, so the only real consequence to spending lots of money on a competitive team is to, well, spend a bit more money. The Red Sox went over the luxury tax last year to bring in free agent J.D. Martinez, who ended up being an integral part of their lineup and was one of the many reasons why they were able to win the World Series last year. For billionaire owners, spending a bit more money for a shot at a World Series title should be well worth their investment.
As free agents remain unsigned with the start of the season right around the corner, it’s worth acknowledging MLB’s failure to institute a fair system for players’ salaries. As with any job, the players of MLB deserve to be paid fairly for their services, which is to provide entertainment to the fanbase.
The top-flight free agents will eventually get their money; Machado got his, and Harper will not settle for less than what he’s worth. But as spring training gets going, the mid-market free agents like Kimbrel and Keuchel will continue to unfairly get shut out of receiving their fair pay. MLB is a billion-dollar corporation; it’s time for the owners to pull their weight.
Carter Rogers, a Contributing Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at CRogers21@wooster.edu.