I propose the following changes to the CBA FA Qualifying Offer/Compensation Rule

Do away with the signing team's draft pick loss.  This has never been fair.  FA's lost money because teams were unwilling to sacrifice a draft pick to sign a player.  It was also unfair to teams that did not receive a 1st round pick because the signing team had already sacrificed their 1st round pick for signing some other FA.

Add 2 additional qualifying offer tiers, making 3 tiers in all, somewhat like the old type A, type B, and type C system.  The qualifying offers would be based on the average salaries of players in each of the tiers (average salary of top 100 or 125 players for tier 1 FA's, average salary of the next 100 or 125 players for tier 2 FA's, and the average salary of the next 100 or 125 players for tier 3 FA's).  

Teams could choose to make tier 1, tier 2, or tier 3 qualifying offers to their FA's.  Compensation for tier 1 FA's would be sandwiched into the middle of the 1st round, after the teams with sub-.500 records the previous year and ahead of teams with .500+ records the previous year.  Compensation for tier 2 and tier 3 FA's would be similarly sandwiched into the 2nd round and 3rd round.

This would give teams more flexibility.  As an example, they could offer their closer a tier 2 (or tier 3) qualifying offer.  Their compensation would be less, but the odds of the offers being declined would be higher, thus increasing their odds of receiving at least some compensation (third round picks are still pretty good).    

Of course, this would increase the number of FA's tied to compensation, which in turn would lengthen the 1st three rounds of the draft.  Effectively, some (otherwise) 2nd round picks would become 1st rounders, some (otherwise) 3rd rounders would become 2nd rounders, and some (otherwise) 4th (and probably some 5th) rounders would jump into the 3rd round.  So, teams making tier 2 qualifying offers may only receive a 3rd round level player as compensation and tier 3 offers may effectively be 4th (or 5th) round talent.  This reduces the value of making the offers, but does not eliminate the incentive all together.

There are a number of ways that this basic system could be tweaked, such as having only 2 tiers, but over all, I think this is a far superior system.  I welcome modifications to this plan as well as other, completely different systems.

very good suggestions, but i think the system we have is just fine.  the proof of that is that of all the free agents, only 2 have been impacted negatively.  i say that, b/c all but bourn and lohse are signed. 

since 9 of 11 free agents who rejected their qualifying offers signed, seems the system is not hampering free agents from getting the large, lengthy contracts they desire.

duckymedwick7 wrote: very good suggestions, but i think the system we have is just fine.  the proof of that is that of all the free agents, only 2 have been impacted negatively.  i say that, b/c all but bourn and lohse are signed. 

since 9 of 11 free agents who rejected their qualifying offers signed, seems the system is not hampering free agents from getting the large, lengthy contracts they desire.

Thanks for the positive feedback ducky.  I (respectfully) disagree that the current system is"just fine" though.  As you say, only 2 players receiving qualifying offers are unsigned, but the impact on those who have signed is unknown.  I venture to say that it is non-zero.  Plus, teams lose valuable talent because they have no other options.  On top of that, there have been other "grumblings" about the system (ie: I am not the only one complaining about it).

One possible negative aspect to this system would be that teams on the .500 bubble would have an incentive to lose a few more games so that their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round picks would come before the respective FA compensation picks, but this could be minimized by reducing the number of picks that would be created in each round.  This could be accomplished by raising the $ amount that would have to be offered for each tier.  Ideally, there would only be about 10 or 12 tier 1 FA's and not too many more than that for tiers 2 and 3.  With a little bit of math and logical deduction, the total number of qualifying offers could be kept under 40 or 50.  Even 60 (an average of 2 per team) would not be too bad if half of them were tier 3.

By sandwiching those picks between sub .500 and plus.500 you are giving a .500 team incentive to
Lose a couple games to gain 5-10 draft position in 1st 3 rds

We had same idea but i take forever typing on my fancy new phone

nbr1hawkeye wrote:

duckymedwick7 wrote: very good suggestions, but i think the system we have is just fine.  the proof of that is that of all the free agents, only 2 have been impacted negatively.  i say that, b/c all but bourn and lohse are signed. 

since 9 of 11 free agents who rejected their qualifying offers signed, seems the system is not hampering free agents from getting the large, lengthy contracts they desire.

Thanks for the positive feedback ducky.  I (respectfully) disagree that the current system is"just fine" though.  As you say, only 2 players receiving qualifying offers are unsigned, but the impact on those who have signed is unknown.  I venture to say that it is non-zero.  Plus, teams lose valuable talent because they have no other options.  On top of that, there have been other "grumblings" about the system (ie: I am not the only one complaining about it).

It feels like deja vu, as this same discussion was the very subject of the still-active "The end of free agency as we know it" thread. Is there any reason these two threads should not be merged?

As a part of the earlier discussion, I reviewed the new contracts of the qualifying free agents here. At that point, Soriano had not yet signed, so six of the nine had deals. They all look pretty good.

merge 'em...lol.

Domeboys wrote:

nbr1hawkeye wrote:

duckymedwick7 wrote: very good suggestions, but i think the system we have is just fine.  the proof of that is that of all the free agents, only 2 have been impacted negatively.  i say that, b/c all but bourn and lohse are signed. 

since 9 of 11 free agents who rejected their qualifying offers signed, seems the system is not hampering free agents from getting the large, lengthy contracts they desire.

Thanks for the positive feedback ducky.  I (respectfully) disagree that the current system is"just fine" though.  As you say, only 2 players receiving qualifying offers are unsigned, but the impact on those who have signed is unknown.  I venture to say that it is non-zero.  Plus, teams lose valuable talent because they have no other options.  On top of that, there have been other "grumblings" about the system (ie: I am not the only one complaining about it).

It feels like deja vu, as this same discussion was the very subject of the still-active "The end of free agency as we know it" thread. Is there any reason these two threads should not be merged?

As a part of the earlier discussion, I reviewed the new contracts of the qualifying free agents here. At that point, Soriano had not yet signed, so six of the nine had deals. They all look pretty good.

I apologize for starting this new thread and I wouldn't object to merging this one with the free agency thread.  In my defense, I intended to focus the discussion on an alternative CBA compensation system.  My primary intent, other than generating other ideas, was to give the owners, general managers, and players union (as well as all of their lawyers) an idea for future consideration.

Domeboys wrote:

It feels like deja vu, as this same discussion was the very subject of the still-active "The end of free agency as we know it" thread. Is there any reason these two threads should not be merged?

As a part of the earlier discussion, I reviewed the new contracts of the qualifying free agents here. At that point, Soriano had not yet signed, so six of the nine had deals. They all look pretty good.

I won't disagree with your analysis on the impact to FA's offered qualifying contracts (though I am not necessarily agreeing with it either), but there is another aspect of the system that is completely ignored.

That is the impact on teams that could not offer their FA's a contract (because of the prohibitively high salary requirement), even though some of those FA's were important parts of the team.

Having a 2nd tier (at the very least) would have addressed this problem.

No apology required, hawkeye. The other thread began in a similar place as this with concern about the current system. It sort of morphed into a more specific Bourn/Lohse free agent discussion (after an unusual diversion), but the subjects are intertwined. I can leave this one up since you felt it was unique enough. As it is the off-season, we are hardly overloaded with topics.

nbr1hawkeye wrote: I won't disagree with your analysis on the impact to FA's offered qualifying contracts (though I am not necessarily agreeing with it either), but there is another aspect of the system that is completely ignored.

That is the impact on teams that could not offer their FA's a contract (because of the prohibitively high salary requirement), even though some of those FA's were important parts of the team.

Having a 2nd tier (at the very least) would have addressed this problem.

I tend to agree with Ducky that the system seems ok, so I will let others comment who have strong thoughts about a change.

I will mention though, that unless the problem is deemed to be huge, the chances of the union and MLB negotiating a major change in the middle of a current CBA period seems unlikely to me. Since they are just one year into this contract, the next major opportunity for change is still almost four years away.

Domeboys wrote:

I will mention though, that unless the problem is deemed to be huge, the chances of the union and MLB negotiating a major change in the middle of a current CBA period seems unlikely to me. Since they are just one year into this contract, the next major opportunity for change is still almost four years away.

Unfortunately for those of us who don't like this aspect of the CBA, I think you are right.

going forward, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.  this being the 1st year of the new cba and draft pick compensation system, we're all learning as we go. 

might we see more borderline stars, lohse types that is, accepting the qualifying offer, and will that influence less teams to offer in year 3?

I realize that making suggestions (at this time) about the MLB CBA is jumping the gun (by quite a bit).  But I'll try to extend it a little further.  

The total number of FA's offered qualifying contracts as well as the number of FA's in each tier could be restricted by the salary levels of each tier.  If teams had had my 3 tiered system and the qualifying contracts were $15M for tier 1 FA's, would the teams that made qualifying offers have made the same decisions?

Maybe the Cardinals would not risk making a tier 1 offer to Lohse, but they might feel safe offering him a tier 2 contract, at say, $10M.  The risk is equal to the difference between a first round pick (approximately #15 to #25) and a second round pick (approximately #55 to #65).  That is a fairly significant difference in terms of perceived prospect talent.  In this case, it is a $15M risk (assuming they are very confident that Lohse would decline a tier 2 offer, but were very uncertain what he would do if offered the tier 1 offer).