New Analysis regarding Contracts and dwindling Free Agents

[Moorestown Big Dogs]

It occurred to me while working on trades recently that there is a clear line in Contract prices linked to Rookie seasons for players that I am guessing reflects when these Contract Leagues were started.
(My guess is 2012 as the first season)

Check out these numbers regarding the 38 players who are currently under Contract for $10+

Rookie year      # of players

2002                    0
2003                    0
2004                    1
2005                    2
2006                    5
2007                    1
2008                    3
2009                    2
2010                    5
2011                    5
2012                    7
2013                    2
2014                    0
2015                    0
2016                    0
2017                    1 - Strahm
2018                    0
2019                    1 - Soroka
Plus 3 players who came from being established players overseas (Tanaka, Mikolas, Kikuchi)

So, in the five years leading up to the start of the league, 22 players. In the six years since we started, 2 players. I really am concerned that this pattern is likely to continue, and by that I mean that we will have drafted 75-90% of the usable players as prospects, and that the ones who slip through will get auctioned during the season when, due to limited Roster and Cap Space, only a few owners will be bidding and so the players will go from $1 to $7 or so (leaving Goldschmidt aside, Mercado was the highest contract I recall at $7). That will leave all of the players in the league with low dollar contracts and so that aspect will become less of a factor. This will only be continuing gradually, but by 2025, when even Trout, Machado and Harper are in decline, Free Agent Frenzy will be nothing, as all decent players will easily be resigned and teams will still be under the cap. I respect the changes that were instituted last year, and they may help some, but I do think more radical change may be necessary a year or three down the road.

Looking forward to hearing other people's thoughts on this.

[Easy Freese]

Very interesting research. Really appreciate all the work you put in with these research projects you do. I don't have any context for that number so im not sure if 75-90% is high or within normal range. 90% seems high but its tough knowing without a frame of reference. I agree though with your general observation about the trend and the conclusion that prospects are likely the main reason. I think that long term the new rules with prospect salaries will help with this disparity, even if it will take to to see it starting to have an impact. Also, its important to note that this only reflects players currently under contract. This doesnt account for the players who were signed for more than $10 at one point but are no longer owned above that amount for whatever reason. Obviously you cannot know that without more information that you probably don't have access to but I think that should be considered to. I think the last thing that I'd add is that, while purely speculative on my part, my sense is that more expensive players will also typically tend to skew older since those players have likely longer track records of success and thus more likely to induce managers to make greater cap commitments to these players who have proven themselves some more.

Sorry if I am coming off dismissive of your conclusions. Not trying to do that at all. Just trying to make sure we consider other things as well when having this discussion in order to have a more complete understand of the situation. Again, thank you for the hard work and the initiative you put in to doing these reports. FWIW, I don't necessarily disagree with you about more radical changes potentially being needed. The board consulted with many people and proposed other options than what was ultimately decided upon as well to speed up the timetable on them taking affect or the impact they have, and without going into detail, all I can say is that many people very strongly did not like the idea of having drastic changes to accelerate rookie contract salaries. While I would be in favor of such rules, managers love nothing more than having cheap prospects that become cheap star major leaguers, and it is difficult to get people to make changes that may be against their own self interest even though it may improve the greater competitive health of the league.

[Moorestown Big Dogs]

I took another look at this subject. We still have 38 players signed at $10 or more, although a different set from 2 years ago in some cases. This time I used Yahoo's pre-season Top 100 players as a guide as to which players "should have been" in that high priced contract group. And in fact 15 players were both in the top 100 and among the 38 players at $10+. However, only one player was in the the group of 38, in Yahoo's Top 100, and also started their career after 2012. And that was Raisel Iglesias, signed at $10 on the nose.

Our owners are starting to adjust by signing players to exorbitant contracts simply because they have the Cap space and need to use it (Dom Smith as our 11th highest contract at $22, Austin Nola at $15, and several barely eligible to be auctioned players like Ty France at $17, Cronenworth at $15, or Elieser Hernandez at $11.50 are good examples). This leaves us with less unused Cap, but it is a distorted market.

As the "true value" 14 players age and move on, we will have even more Cap to spend on these scraps. Since I love researching and finding prospects and having them pan out, I do not think the answer is to shrink our prospect rosters or to change their "Call-Up" price. But I do think we will need to keep working toward a plan that gets more players to the Free Agent market earlier in their career. This probably would be through higher re-sign costs, but I would love to hear other options if anyone has ideas. Also, I will be interested to see what (I hope) MLB and the Player's Association hammer out next Fall/Winter. They are also dealing with players wanting to get paid more early, and owners will need to trim back in some way if Free Agency comes earlier.

[Stark Direwolves]

I would be in favor of starting up an entirely different league with rules adopted with this stuff in mind but I don't want sweeping radical change in this one, except maybe lowering the salary cap a touch (now that CFL is in town jacking prices, lol)