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I've posted this already on my blog, but I'll repost here instead of retyping everything.
Baseball's new CBA: A deathblow to small-market teams
Lost in the excitement over the new collective bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Assiciation are two small, but extremely significant and completely damaging changes that will hurt every team that struggles to pay for players who will win a championship. Gone are the days of draft pick compensation for lost free agents and here are the days of slotted bonuses for draft picks a la the NBA.
Make no mistake, these two moves could not be any worse for the bottom-third revenue teams in the league. It is no secret that plenty of teams, specifically the Oakland A's, have maintained the ability to compete through the draft. Many of the players on their 40-man roster are only there because guys like Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Johnny Damon and others left for greener (as in the color of money, certainly not uniform color) pastures. Without such shrewed drafting and making the most of the lost superstars, Billy Beane's A's wouldn't be much better than the Royals or Pirates. Now, the A's will need to make the most of that one first-round draft pick each year. With the low success rate of baseball's top picks, Beane and the other small-market general managers will have a much more difficult job of building a farm system with domestic players.
Perhaps even more damaging, though certainly designed to benefit the small markets, is the new slotted bonus plan. While specifics aren't yet known, if the formula is anything like the NBA's this is going to be bad, bad news for teams with less revenue. On the surface it seems great: No longer will Small Market Team A have to pass on Super Prospect B because Scott Boras demands a bajillion dollars. Nope. Now that team will get that prospect and Boras won't have any say in the matter. Great, right? No more "settling" for Joe Mauer when Mark Prior is there for the taking!
But in all seriousness, this is horrible for those teams. In the past, the small markets could pass on the super-expensive prospects and settle for quality, but less pricey commodities. By doing this, a team could then have some money to spend on a free agent, or more importantly, to retain their own players. With the new landscape of the business of baseball, a player like Barry Zito will almost certainly be traded at the deadline of their contract year regardless of their team's standing. If a general manager isn't absolutely convinced his team is a contender for the World Series, he's a seller. After all, teams simply can't risk losing their All-Stars without getting a single thing in return. Oh, but in four years that #1 pick they just overpaid might be ready for the big leagues. Maybe. If his arm doesn't fall off or if he doesn't lose interest in the game or if any number of things that keep prospects out of the majors doesn't happen.
I wonder how much people will love this new CBA when the Pirates lose the next Brien Taylor and the hope of retaining Jason Bay in a few years. The deck is already stacked against these teams, and the new CBA has just made it nearly impossible for them to compete on a yearly level. Someone a lot more suspicious of motives than me might accuse Bud and friends of deliberately forcing a handful of teams out of business. After all, he wanted contraction, didn't he?
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