With the start of the season, well, starting, service time manipulation is in the air. Prospects who are better than many of their MLB level teammates are being demoted to the minors in an effort for their major league club to gain an extra year of contract control. And while service time manipulation isn’t quite as rampant as it once was, it still exist.
Under the current CBA, players must achieve six year of service time to become free agents. Service time is defined as being on the MLB active roster or the injured list. A player must accrue 172 days of service time to have a full year of time count for that season. Once a player has six years accrued, they are eligible for free agency the following offseason. There are also minimum salary and arbitration pay rules around this, but the core point is players want days on the active roster. The more time they spend on the active roster, the more they chip away at their time, and in theory they are performing well enough to remain on the roster and get paid well when they are ultimately free agents.
As you can expect, teams are subtly nudged by the rules to keep players below six years of service time. While arbitration can get expensive for great players, it’s still cheaper than paying for those players on the open market and retaining them. And thus, service time manipulation has been the norm for highly regarded prospects who have yet to debut but are probably good enough to start with their team on opening day.
171 days: that is the magic number teams need to keep their players service time for their first year under. Doesn’t matter if it is 169, 170, or 171, it just cannot be 172 days. The difference between 171 days and 172 days is literally a year. And it’s no surprise, that many prospects (notably Kris Bryant as a Cub) are called up exactly two weeks into the regular season when it is impossible for the to hit 172 days regardless of how long they spend on the active roster the rest of the season. And while two weeks without a player that year isn’t much in that season, it isn’t about that season. It’s about five or six seasons from now and having the player still on the roster.
Recently, the new CBA made a small crack in service time manipulation, mandating a few new rules:
Players that finish first or second in Rookie of the Year are awarded a full year of service time regardless of how long they were on the roster that season
Teams are rewarded with draft picks for each player that finishes top three of rookie of the year voting and/or top five in MVP or Cy Young. This pick is after the first round.
Still, a draft pick, even a nice value between the first and second round, may not be worth an entire year of service time for a team to promote the player. Think about what a team like the Seattle Mariners would rather have: one extra year of control of Julio Rodriguez or the 35th overall pick in the 2023 draft. The expected value of age-2X Rodriguez is 4+ WAR player that season. The expected value of the 35th overall pick is probably just ~4 WAR for their entire career.
The issue with this is that the holders and time keepers of the MLB service clock are the MLB teams themselves. They control when the clock stops and starts, and thus, set the balance of time for players.
Maybe (probably!) there is a better system? One system I like is the NHL’s 27 and 7 system. I’m just going to copy and paste directly from The Athletic here on what that system is:
An NHL player becomes an unrestricted free agent when his contract runs out and he has either accrued seven seasons or is 27 years of age or older. It can also happen to a younger player who hasn’t accrued such time in the league, but doesn’t receive a qualifying offer.
Don’t worry about the qualifying offer part for now, and just focus on the core of the idea: a player is a free agent when they cross two of three flag posts:
The player’s contract must be expired
The player must be 27 or older
The player must have accrued seven seasons
While a player can’t qualify on just #2 and #3, they just need to hit #1 and either of #2 or #3 to be a free agent, not all three.
A quick point: a “season” for an NHL player in regards to service time is being on the roster for 40 games (30 for goalies). The NHL plays an 82 game season, so in order to keep a player from getting a full season, hockey service time manipulation would require a player be kept out for basically half the season - a much higher bar then the MLB. And even then, they are free regardless at age 27 anyways. We’d see far less (and maybe even none) service time manipulation in baseball if teams had to wait until after the All Star Game to promote a player rather that two weeks like it is now.
NHL players are still subject before age 27 to the ideas of service time manipulation but it’s such a long pause of the clock necessary that it just doesn’t happen. And even then, there is an end in sight regardless at age-27 (assuming they are out of contract).
So how could this work in the MLB? I think it could be tweaked a bit to fit the format of baseball development paths and aging curves. One of the biggest issues with the current rules (to me) are for college players. Those that qualify under the normal path (finishing their junior season) aren’t typically drafted until they are 21 or 22 years old. They then spend at least their draft year and the next season in the minors, and those are just the high end prospect types. Thinking back to Kris Bryant. He was a great college hitter, was taken second overall, and just destroyed minor league pitching. He was drafted at age 21, reached AAA the next season at age 22, and despite the blatant service time manipulation (which he eventually filed a grievance over and lost), he debuted at age 23. That’s basically he fastest path players take to the majors under the old rules. The new rules can push that up by a season, as we saw with Spencer Torkelson. Not only was he a great college hitter, he was one of the best ever, was taken first overall, made his minors debut at 21, and made the Tigers opening day roster at age 22. While that isn’t the normal path, even under the new rules, the high end college players can be expected (if all goes well) to be in the majors by age 22 or 23.
Even if a player like Torkelson blazes through the minors and gets a full year of service time in their debut season, they won’t be free agents until six years after their debut season, which is often after either their age 29 or 30 depending upon draft age (Torkelson is on path to be a free agent after the 2028 season, in which he’ll be entering his age 29 season). And while that doesn’t seem so bad, as MLB players routinely sign contracts into their mid-to-late 30s, it really only gives college players one bite at the apple of free agency unless they want to just go for a pair of shorter team deals which are riskier than getting that singular long payday.
Or think of the player who got the most money in free agency this year: Aaron Judge. He signed a nine year, $360M deal, which starts during his age 31 season.
While high school players are subject to the same rules, it’s a little “better” for them as they have a 3-4 year age advantage, even if some of that age advantage is eaten up by a longer development path to the majors. And for July 2nd international free agents, they are routinely eligible for free agency by the time they are 25, 26, or 27, setting them up for at least two apple bites should they choose.
So what we want is a system that smushes all players closer to each other when it comes to free agency age, since age is what matters the most here because it very much dictates the length of your next contract(s). Teams would probably be willing to spend slightly more on a slightly worse player if he were 28 rather than 33.
My thought is something close to the 27 and 7 rule the NHL has but with two modifications:
27 years old - we’ll call this the age flag post
7 years since drafted - we’ll call this the time flag post
A player has to hit the later of the two, or said another way, both
Rather than having free agent be dictated by service time, this is taking the proverbial stop watch out of the hands of the team and smashing it on the ground. I guess it’s actually putting the stop watch in the hands of God or the parents that conceived the player because it’s based on age, but whatever, let’s leave that one alone. One of the flag posts for a player is simply what year were they born. The second flag post shares a house with the player’s age, but they are more like roommates than bedmates. Player draft year is tied a little to their age given the rules for college player draft eligibility, but it isn’t defined by it.
A players draft year is defined as the year they were drafted and signed their contract with that team, and a player gets credit for a “full year” in that year (so a player drafted in 2023 has the year 2023 count as one of their years).
Also we define “age” as the age the player will be on 12/31 of that year, to avoid players being held back due to a late birthday (something entirely out of their control).
Let’s look at three examples here:
Joe Van HighSchool - JVH is an 18 year old high school player, born on 12/31, who was selected in the 2000 draft (just going back in time here to deal with more round numbers for an example). Joe’s first year towards his eight needed years is 2000. Joe is eligible for free agency either in 2006 (seven years since being drafted - remember 2000 is year one) or when he is 27 years old on 12/31, which would be after the 2009 season. Since the rule is the player has to hit both, he wouldn’t be eligible for free agency until after the 2009 season, when he will be 27. Under the current rules, if Joe was drafted at age 18, he’d likely spend 3-4 years in the minors, and assuming no service time manipulation, he’d have six years in the majors. That would put him at free agency at age 28 or 29 (18 to 21 or 22 in the minors, six years in the majors spanning 22 or 23 to 27 or 28).
Junior Collins - JuCo is a 20 year old junior college player who is draft eligible, born on 12/31, who was selected in the 2000 draft. JuCo’s first year towards eligibility is 2000, so he hits the time based flag post in 2006 (you’ll notice this flag post date never changes in these examples obviously). JuCo turns 27 during the 2007 season. Since he needs to hit both flag posts, the one he has to wait for his age, thus, he won’t be a free agent until after his age 27 season, heading into his age 28 season. Under the current rules, he’d spend likely his age 20, 21, and 22 seasons in the minors (or his age 22 season would be manipulated) and be eligible for free agency likely at age 28 or 29 (again, if his service time is manipulated).
North West State - NWS is a 22 year old college player who is draft eligible, born on 12/31, who was selected in the 2000 draft. NWS’ first year towards eligibility is 2000, so he hits the time based flag post in 2006. NWS turns 27 during the age 2005 season. Since he needs to hit both flag posts, the one he has to wait for is the time flag poll since he has hit the age one first. NWS will hit the time flag poll in 2006 as mentioned already, so he will be a free agent heading into his age 29 season.
While it still doesn’t fully fix college players, it helps them likely get to free agency a year or two earlier than someone like Aaron Judge or Kris Bryant did.
The tricky one here might be for international free agents, who are as young as 16 years old when they sign their first pro contract and spend a half decade in the minors. Ronald Acuña Jr. signed at the age of 16 in 2014 and debuted in the minors the next year at 17. Under the 27 &7 system, he’d have burned two years of the time flag post before he even turned 18 and would fulfill that criteria by the time he was is 22 years old. However, he is still subject to the age flag post, and such would still be under control by the Braves for another five years. On a blanket statement, we can generally say July 2nd prospects don’t make the majors until they are 20 or 21, and with six years of service time, that would set them up to be a free agent after their age 25 or 26 season (service time manipulation notwithstanding). The 27 & 7 rule delays their free agency by a year or two, so that’s a net loss for them. However, given the embedded longer control structure, it might cause teams to invest more in international free agents (and the bonus pools need to be expanded but that’s a different post).
Here is a visual of how each type would look. Red formatting on each flag post means the player has not hit that one, with green obviously meaning they have. Double green being the year the player hits both. The blue formatting is the season/age they would be signing their first free agency contract heading in to.
There is a balance here needed unfortunately. It’s weird to say but…you don’t want separate rules that would allow college players to reach free agency too quickly relative to high school players because that could potentially cause teams to draft college players less. If the rule were all college players are free agents at age 26 or 27 categorically, then teams would only have college players on their MLB team for likely only 2-3 years? Depending on their age at draft. College seniors would be even more hurt here possibly, since they can often be as old as 24 and would be free agents shortly after being promoted to the big leagues.
The goal isn’t to find the best system for the players, it’s to find the best possible system for the players. Team’s aren’t going to agree to a structure where they spend the first overall pick on a player just to only have him on the team for three years.
There is also too the development path of players. You probably don’t want teams being forced to just promote their players as fast as they possibly can if it is to the detriment to the development of the player. If you set the free agency eligibility too quickly, a team might push their prospects harder than they should be because they want to get every ounce of cost controlled years out of them. Players are paid for future production, which is based off past production. If you do things that could hurt the past production part - like calling up a player too early - then you are hurting futures dollars that player could otherwise have earned.
Look, no system is perfect here. Players want to get paid, teams want to control their costs and have players they made a big investment in be on their roster for as long as they can. I think the 27 & 7 system here would be more player friendly than the current system, without something that would outright screw teams over.