No 'deGrom Refuses to Sign Contract' Thread Yet?

[Guest d'Kong76]

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/14900603/feeling-undervalued-jacob-degrom-declines-sign-new-york-mets-contract-protest
If this was The Harvester the internet would be broken.

[Ceetar]

It's almost like players are realizing being under team control and making near the minimum for so long is not quite inline with the actual value they provide. Especially for pitchers and late-starters like deGrom.

[Guest d'Kong76]

I don't follow what other teams do with stars of this caliber, but
the amount of the "raise" seems a little insulting.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Good for deGrom. He's been one of baseball's best pitchers since he arrived and he's making the baseball equivalent of just about minimum wage.

Question: What are his real options? What if deGrom were to, hypothetically, refuse to sign this season's contract and instead, sat out the entire season in protest? Would he still be under Mets control next year? I mean, there's no reserve clause anymore. But he still wouldn't qualify for free agency. Would he have to go through the draft again to re-enter the game? But he's not an amateur anymore, either.

Edited March 4, 2016 by Guest

[Frayed Knot]

Question: What are his real options? -- None.

What if deGrom were to, hypothetically, sit out the entire season in protest? Would he still be under Mets control next year? -- Yes

I mean, there's no reserve clause anymore. But he still wouldn't qualify for free agency. Would he have to go through the draft again to re-enter the game? -- Well there IS, in effect, a reserve clause for those who have yet to achieve FA status.



This is also nothing new. Jeter and Wright, among others, publicly grumbled their way down this same road at a similar time in their careers with no long-lasting bad blood between them and their team.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Frayed Knot wrote: Well there IS, in effect, a reserve clause for those who have yet to achieve FA status.

Makes sense. Otherwise there'd be a loophole the size of an alien mothership UFO.

[Edgy MD]

He can see what the Frontier League is paying.

Or he can file an anti-trust lawsuit. And considering baseball is the only league with an explicit exemption — although they all seemingly have implicit exemptions — good luck with that.

[Frayed Knot]

Really all that happened all them years ago was that they got rid of the concept of the perpetual reserve-clause state that existed in the pre-Marvin Miller era and hit upon the kind of 'tiered' [pre-arb / arb / FA] system that still rules today (with some minor tweaks along the way).

One would think that clubs wold rather have the good publicity rather than the half-million or so bucks they save by telling powerless players that 'you'll take this and you'll like it'. But I suppose that they'd still run up against the idea that whatever they wound up offering the player would still fall far short of market value so may not end player bitching anyway, and that there's been no evidence that there's any long-term harm in doing what they're doing.

[Ceetar]

Frayed Knot wrote: Really all that happened all them years ago was that they got rid of the concept of the perpetual reserve-clause state that existed in the pre-Marvin Miller era and hit upon the kind of 'tiered' [pre-arb / arb / FA] system that still rules today (with some minor tweaks along the way). One would think that clubs wold rather have the good publicity rather than the half-million or so bucks they save by telling powerless players that 'you'll take this and you'll like it'. But I suppose that they'd still run up against the idea that whatever they wound up offering the player would still fall far short of market value so may not end player bitching anyway, and that there's been no evidence that there's any long-term harm in doing what they're doing.

Also any bone they toss now comes up in arbitration which is a modification of last year's salary. So unless it's the 100k or so they gave their guys this year, whatever you give you're giving 3-4 times over.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Besides, they have to pay Blevins $4,000,000 this season. Blevins.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Or he can file an anti-trust lawsuit.

So now I'm playing out this hypothetical in my head by wondering how a player situated as deGrom is can go about filing an anti-trust suit against MLB. I'm wondering (thinking out loud here in cyberspace) if deGrom would have to refuse to sign any more contracts and sit out baseball in order to maintain that suit. Because if he's under contract and continues to play for the Mets, I'm wondering if he lacks standing to sue. Without knowing this off the top of my head and without doing any kind of research, I can come up with arguments on both sides of the issue to demonstrate that deGrom would/wouldn't have standing to sue even if he continues to play for the Mets.

But if deGrom were required to sacrifice several years of his career while his lawsuit makes its way to the Supreme Court (assuming that the SC would even want to hear that case -- no guarantee) then he'd be a real martyr for this cause, and the chances that any player would challenge MLB in this fashion are slim.

[Edgy MD]

It would take a pack of players. Good ones. Or, I dunno, a union.

But the union chips away the reserve clause bit by bit, rather than trying to get it thrown out whole hog. And considering that the league has that stupid exemption, that's probably a good strategy.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: It would take a pack of players. Good ones. Or, I dunno, a union.

Ooooh. A class action!

[Benjamin Grimm]

I know that there's nothing compelling the Mets to be overly generous at this point, but they really should have offered deGrom more than 20 per cent over the major league minimum.

[Frayed Knot]

The problem with anti-trust suits in this type of situation is that he (or they if more players are involved) would be arguing against rules that were agreed to via collective bargaining. That would make this route very UN-like the old days where the reserve clause was easier to fight because it had been forced on them without any such consent (and even then look how long it took to quash!!).

The NFL players went through this a while back. They actually had FA-gency before MLB players did but they then bargained it away (in exchange for better health benefits IIRC)*. In trying to get it back via lawsuits they were told that, because the then current rules had been agreed to via collective bargaining, the remedy for it would need to come from the same process. Eventually they did get it back (the Reggie White era FA contract was one of the first under the new/restored rules) although in doing so they also agreed to, and stunningly continue to allow, the 'franchise' and 'transition' tag system that keeps many of the top players out of the open market each year.




* FA technically did exist in the NFL throughout the '60s & '70s but the compensation was so punitive (something like 2 players off your roster plus 2 top draft picks plus the GM's first born or whatever) that, in effect, it was nonexistent. I remember Walter Payton going FA but being contracted by no one even though in the prime of his career.

[Edgy MD]

So the best bet for assaulting the system is for a bunch of the agents to get 20 or so of the top undrafted prospects to agree to disregard the draft, hold out and refuse to accept any offers from their drafting teams unless/until other teams consent to engage in good faith negotiations to make competing offers.

It's unlikely to happen, but as amateurs, they wouldn't be bound by the CBA. Minor league prospects not yet on the 40-man roster could do the same thing.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Maybe the best way to challenge MLB's antitrust exemption would be for the attack to come from somewhere other than a player. Like an entity engaging in or trying to engage in MLB-related business, for example.