Major League Baseball (MLB) players can be free agents after 6 years. If they show enough ability throughout previous seasons, they can make a huge contract with their original team or the other teams. Ichiro made 90 million dollars for 5 years contract with the Seattle Mariners, and Alex Rodriguez, who will meet FA requirement after this season, already got tremendous attention because people wonder whether he can make another huge contract. Baseball players’ salaries are paid with their previous years’ stats or outcomes. An outstanding ability or result, such as what Ichiro or A-Rod has shown, make the teams willing to invest in them. That’s because these teams need their talent. A high salary is not the target of criticism; at least this society follows the market economy theory. Especially in the professional sports field, if players have enough capacity, they have sufficient qualification to earn such a successful business. However, what if they cannot show sufficient talent for their high salary? Professional players are not like auto dealers. Auto dealers can make income after they sell vehicles, but baseball players contract with teams before players make outcomes. Under the current FA system, nobody takes responsibility even though they don’t do enough work. There are no cut salaries and no fines. The next FA, obviously, will be affected by this awful work. (If this guy wants another huge contraction, then we can call him crazy.) In any case, a team which has already spent large amount of money suffers because of him. Certainly, some big leaguers did such a good (actually terrible) job. In 1999, Maurice Vaughn contracted with the LA Angels for 6 years and 80million dollars. In 2000, Darren Dreifort contracted with the LA Dodgers for 5 years and 57million dollars. And in 2001 Chan-ho Park contracted with the Texas Rangers for 5 years and 65million dollars. They should be shamed with their awful stats for multiple contraction years. Their results were miserable. Who can say that this is a stat of million dollar baseball player? If there were no multiple year contracts, and if they contracted for one year, wouldn’t they prevent this bad result?
Certainly, some players did a good job and their works satisfied their salary. Besides, some of them are evaluated lower than their real talent suggests. I’ve seen some of these undervalued players who did really outstanding work. I’m not sure whether there is another system that can replace FA system. Nonetheless, I can surely say that there is no way to ask a responsibility if high salary players make poor achievement. Actually, professional players, especially among some pitchers, who meet the requirement of FA, try to hide an injury or pitch beyond their ability. Another point of view, isn’t it a sort of cheating?
I doubt whether professional players should take a responsibility for their terrible results. Isn’t MLB worked as a market economy?
2 comments:
The reason why you'll probably never see a better contract situation in baseball is because of the player's union. The baseball union has negotiated for guaranteed contracts, whereas the cotracts in football are not guaranteed. While we can all sit here and talk about how much it would help the game to eliminate guaranteed contracts, it's hard to envision any scenario where the player's union would give up that right.
With that being the case, can you think of a solution or compromise that could be reached?
It’s comprehensible but I don’t like it. If the F.A. contract system was changed, this problem wouldn’t happen. I think that salaries should be divided by how much players contribute. I mean if we reduce the base salary and raise a proportion of the player’s salary by bonus, this problem can be solved.
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