How Last Year's CBA Impacts Each Year's Rookie Class
In today's issue, we look at an element of the most recent MLB-MLBPA labor agreement that rewards teams with draft picks for calling up star prospects sooner.
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Pregame Pepper: Here’s How A Few Top Young Players Have Started The 2023 Season
Leading Off
New Rules Allow For Early Looks At Top Prospects
By Benjamin Chase
Over the years, Major League Baseball teams have been wary of the bottom line and managed their top young players by manipulating the arbitration system, ensuring top prospects got just enough seasoning to show they were capable in the Major Leagues but not enough to cost the team money down the road. If the player succeeded, the team had a player for six full seasons. If he did not succeed, another partial season would be stacked upon that partial season and eventually, enough service time would accrue for the player to finally reach free agency and own their own future.
The new collective bargaining agreement signed by MLB and the MLB Players' Association last spring brought with it a new atmosphere to encourage teams to promote their top young players, with rewards at hand for those who did so. The Seattle Mariners will receive an additional draft selection, which will be the 29th overall pick in July, because Julio Rodríguez won the American League Rookie of the Year last year and spent enough time on his team's roster.
Along with that, there are rewards for the players, with Adley Rutschman receiving a full year of service time because he finished second in the AL ROTY voting behind Rodríguez, even though he was not up long enough to have accrued a full season's service time.
The Effects on 2023
The new rules are being strongly felt this season after a gentle introduction last season. The rule to determine if a player is a top 100 player uses Baseball America, MLB Pipeline, and ESPN's top prospect lists before the season to determine the eligibility for a team to earn a potential draft pick. Let's take a look at how close the players who qualify are (to qualify, a player must be on at least two of the three lists).
After reviewing the three lists, 93 players potentially qualify to earn their respective team a draft pick by being in the top 100 list of two of the three ranking services. After averaging the rankings of each of those 93 players, the results were impressive.
From the top 10, the top two -- Gunnar Henderson and Corbin Carroll -- both opened the season in the Majors along with two more (Anthony Volpe and Jordan Walker). Beyond that, two more players in the consensus top 10 opened the season in Triple-A in Francisco Álvarez and Grayson Rodriguez, with Rodriguez already having been called up by the Baltimore Orioles to make his MLB debut this week.
This is true throughout the list. Overall, of the 93 players that qualify, 17 opened the 2023 season in the Majors, though four of those are opening the year on the injured list. Of the remaining players, 29 opened the 2023 season in Triple-A.
Even some of the players who will open the year in Double-A, such as Eury Pérez, Ricky Tiedemann, Gavin Williams, and Andrew Painter will all have the opportunity to impact their respective Major League clubs, provided health, as long as they continue their impact trajectory.
Impact of New CBA
If you've perhaps not heard, Minor Leaguers are now under their own CBA, with the required amount of players ratifying the CBA within 24 hours of the agreement being sent to players and MLB owners unanimously ratifying the agreement Monday.
This will impact the pay structure of the minor leagues significantly, allowing Minor League players to earn more than double what they previously earned for a minimum salary at every level. Housing will be paid for by the teams, and many clubhouse amenities are being improved by teams in the new deal.
Sadly, this deal also comes at the cost of up to 450 Minor League jobs as the owners can reduce the domestic reserve list by 15 players per team. This is on top of reducing the Minor Leagues to 120 teams a few years ago, meaning that in less than five years, Minor League Baseball has lost over 1,000 roster spots as part of increasing wages and increasing benefits.
That said, these negotiated benefits are already reaping significant impact, as can be seen with the number of top prospects that we should see in 2023 in MLB. Better facilities and better pay should allow those prospects to be in better financial shape and better mental health when they arrive in MLB as well. That's a significant step forward.
Double-A, High-A, and Single-A all open their seasons tomorrow. Check out MiLB.tv for some of your favorite prospects and tune in!
Benjamin Chase is a newspaper reporter in rural South Dakota with an intense passion for baseball. He writes about prospects for Rotoballer and is part of the weekly Pallazzo Podcasts prospect show on YouTube. You can find him on Twitter @biggentleben.