The Comp draft pick is hurting free agency.

[Can_of_corn]

Of course all parties knew. Maybe not the agents and their players. But the union sure did.

I will excuse the players since a lot of them don't even have a proper high school education but the Agents had to see it. It's blatantly obvious.

[MatthewW]

No. He regected the QO. As have all players.

Ahh. I stand corrected. Ortiz accepted arbitration in Dec 2011. Before qualifying offers...

[DrungoHazewood]

I am not seeing what is unfair about 14 million for a year's work.

So where is your fairness line? How much do you make? If you're told that there's a technical reason out of your control that your employer can cut your market-based salary by 25% is that fair?

[Can_of_corn]

So where is your fairness line? How much do you make? If you're told that there's a technical reason out of your control that your employer can cut your market-based salary by 25% is that fair?

1- I would be making a fair market based salary (the QO)

2- I would be free to find another field of endeavor

3- I would be free to take my services overseas

4- I have the choice to refuse the lower offer for a period of a few months and then be free to sign with whomever I wish

5- I would have agreed to the system as a loyal member of my Union.

[DrungoHazewood]

1- I would be making a fair market based salary (the QO)

2- I would be free to find another field of endeavor

3- I would be free to take my services overseas

4- I have the choice to refuse the lower offer for a period of a few months and then be free to sign with whomever I wish

5- I would have agreed to the system as a loyal member of my Union.

Does your employer have a strict domestic monopoly on the services you provide? Do your skills erode at a rate where you're essentially useless at 35, thereby forcing you to earn as much as possible up to that point, and heavily disincentivizing #4?

[weams]

Are we back to comparing the entertainment industry (baseball) with the real world? It's apples and oranges.

I always find that to be the stumbling block. Cal Ripken is like Paul McCarney as Lew Ford is like weams.

[geschinger]

Structure as well... Can't compare it to other businesses where goal of companies is to maximize profits and destroy their competitors. While the Yankees goal is to win, their goal is to have their competing businesses do well enough to grow the industry as a whole.

It's also hard to compare it to the real world in other ways... If Google wanted to hire the best 100 engineers they could do so, they aren't limited to only hiring 25 at the highest level. If we're comparing baseball to the real world that is terribly unfair, artificially limiting the number of jobs available.

Players naturally want to make as much as they can but the rules have to be set that help the collection of teams maximize the total revenues of the industry as a whole and as a result sometimes things are optimal for specific players.