Broken system gives T.O. power
As salaries drop, Rogers’ deep pockets allow team to score big players
The Blue Jays delivered on their promise to spend big this off-season, but elsewhere around Major League Baseball most teams seem more concerned about cutting costs than fielding a competitive team.
The gap between the haves and the have nots continued to grow this winter, a trend that began long before the coronavirus. An economic recession has cost the league billions in revenue and now it’s being used as an excuse to drive down player salaries even more as franchise values soar.
According to the MLB Players Association, the average annual salary in 2020 would have been $3.89 million (U.S.) if a full season had been played, down 4.2 per cent from 2019 when the average was $4.05 million. The year before, it was $4.1 million.
Salaries have been trending down for three consecutive years. That’s unusual because prior to the latest dip, the average had not decreased in backto-back seasons since the union started tracking the data in 1967. Before 2018, the only decreases were in 1987 (when teams were found guilty by an arbitrator of collusion against free agents), 1995 (after a lockout) and 2004.
“We have been consistent in our position that the current trends in our game need to be addressed regarding the lack of incentive to compete and the need for the system to better reflect the value created by players throughout the service time spectrum,” union head Tony Clark wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “While there are other forces at play, and concerns that we have in addition to the above, we look forward to discussing each of the issues I just highlighted as a way to move our industry forward.”
The wealth in MLB has migrated to the coasts, and the teams in the middle have been left fighting over scraps. Of the top 30 free agents as ranked by MLBTradeRumors at the start of the off-season, only five have signed with a team in the AL or NL Central divisions. The White Sox got closer Liam Hendriks for $54 million (four years), the Brewers signed infielder Kolten Wong for $18 million (two years), while the Twins signed Andrelton Simmons and Nelson Cruz to one-year deals. It has been crickets everywhere else.
There are still more free agents left to sign, but per the current payroll estimates from Cot’s Baseball Contracts, teams in the AL and NL East will pay out an average of $132.47 million in salaries this season while teams in the West will average $132.37 million after right-hander Trevor Bauer agreed to join the Dodgers. In the Central divisions, the average is $99.67 million and with the big-market Chicago Cubs in the middle of a rebuild, that number figures to drop in the coming months.
The discrepancy existed long before the emergence of COVID-19. Baseball, a sport without a salary cap, has long relied on big markets such as New York and Los Angeles to prop up the rest of the league, but
the gap figures to widen even more following a season without ticket sales and the strong likelihood that another season without much revenue from the gates is on the way.
The Blue Jays are immune to these issues, at least for now, thanks to the backing of deeppocketed owner Rogers Communications. While most teams were cutting costs, Toronto was looking to add. General manager Ross Atkins began the off-season with less than $70 million in commitments for 2021 and the flexibility to double that with an extravagant shopping spree.
The available resources meant the Jays became one of the league’s power players, for at least one year. Along the way they picked up a valuable infielder in Marcus Semien, who upgrades the infield and can be used as a perfect example of just how stingy teams have become in the current climate.
Prior to 2020, Semien’s departure from Oakland seemed like a foregone conclusion. He was projected to earn more than $100 million on his next deal, which would have been far too expensive for Hollywood’s “Moneyball” team. The landscape changed after Semien had a down season and instead of looking for a multiyear pact, he was planning to settle for one and the opportunity to re-establish his value.
A return to Oakland should have been a given. Semien is a San Francisco native who had been with the organization since 2015 and felt indebted to the team. In his first season with the A’s, he committed 35 errors at shortstop, but the A’s never wavered. They stuck with him at the position and allowed him to grow. By 2019, he was a finalist for AL MVP.
Semien knew the A’s wouldn’t have the resources to sign him long-term, but he wanted to stay and was more optimistic about a short-term deal. With a payroll below $75 million, surely common ground could be found for a guy who became the face of the franchise alongside Matt Chapman. Even a one-year reunion proved to be a non-starter for the Dollarama of baseball teams.
“Well, I mean, we called them,” Semien said about the A’s this past week. “I’ll just leave it at that. We called them. It was just something I felt like I owed to my family — not only my wife and kids, but my parents and people who got to see me play at the big-league level — to call them and say, ‘Hey, Marcus would like to play short,’ and it didn’t work.’ ”
There are 15 teams in the AL with five post-season spots up for grabs. The Orioles, Red Sox, Tigers, Rangers and Mariners have already raised white flags before training camps open. It might not take long for the Royals, Cleveland and a team from the West to follow suit.
That’s great news for the Jays, who are trying to become contenders, but bad news for the league. Salaries are trending down, and so are the number of teams trying to compete.
Get ready for another labour dispute when the collective agreement expires at the end of the year because the system is broken and, based on recent trends, it will take more than patchwork solutions to get it back on track.