The Impacts Of New CBA On 2022 MLB Rookie Class

Baseball is finally here and it seems the lockout may have yielded some positive benefits already in 2022.

Following the lockout, the pre-arbitration bonus pool was officially implemented. The bonus pool’s existence has either directly or indirectly led to one of the best rookie classes MLB has seen in a long time .

Perhaps shedding light on service time manipulation and creating some safeguards to assure more fair pay for high achieving pre-arbitration eligible players has encouraged teams to roster their best players, regardless of service time.

This season, four of Baseball America’s top ten prospects (Julio Rodriguez, Bobby Witt Jr., Spencer Torkelson, and CJ Abrams) made opening day rosters and made their Major League debuts this season. If Riley Greene hadn’t gotten hurt in spring training, there’s a good chance half of BA’s top 10 prospects would have made their MLB debuts before service time eligibility limits hit.

This is astounding considering the criticism that evolved around service time manipulation over the past few seasons. Although the issue has not been completely resolved, it would seem that the new bonus pool is making an impact on teams’ roster decisions.

As noted by Matt Eddy of Baseball America, it seems that a large part of this influx of young talent is due to prospects being Major League ready on teams that have playoff ambitions. With the expanded playoff field, this certainly would incentivize teams to have their best 26-28 players on the roster in order to prioritize winning over saving long term money.

Another element at play here is that it seems that service time manipulation has about a 50/50 chance of paying off.

Obviously, the Kris Bryant story was one of the more egregious service time manipulation stories. In the end the Chicago Cubs’ window of contention was much smaller than they anticipated which led to their fire sale in 2021.

The takeaway here, was that after all of the criticism surrounding Kris Bryant’s service time, the Cubs were able to save some long term money, but they ended up having to trade Bryant for two prospects. Caleb Killian and Alexander Canario rank as the number 7 and number 20 prospects in the Cubs’ 15th ranked farm system.

Not the haul the Cubs might have anticipated at the onset of Bryant’s career. The juice may not have been worth the squeeze.

Players like Fernando Tatis Jr., Ronald Acuña Jr., and Wander Franco all ended up signing long term contract extensions that ran well through their arbitration and early free agency years.

We are also seeing the trend of team friendly extensions taking precedence over service time manipulation. Such is the case for Pirates third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes. Although he was not a service time manipulation case, he is another case of a player having his arbitration and early free agency years bought out.

This might be the new norm as it seems as though this is a much more PR friendly, low risk investment than holding players back.

For instance Ronald Acuña’s contract has been heavily criticized for its low AAV. Recent trends we’ve observed from the free agent market seems to reveal that not many teams want to spend a lot of money. The teams that do want to spend money may not be ideal destinations for players who want to compete for titles.

Therefore, Acuña’s $12.5 million AAV deal gives him some long term financial security while the Braves continue to have the financial flexibility to continue to build winning teams. It’s kind of a win win. Additionally, Acuña has not played a full season since 2019, so the contract is not looking that bad for either side so far.

Then there’s the bonus pool, which may soften the blow of losing that extra year of service time for both player and team if said player is a high enough achiever to warrant the additional money.

Although the bonus pool may not have fully resolved the issue of service time manipulation long term, it seems to have alleviated some of the tension around the issue. Additionally, it seems to have had other impacts on how teams think about, pay, and utilize their precious young, cost controlled talent.