March 31st, 2020: MLB-MLBPA Agreement, 29-Man Roster, 2020 Draft, Qualifying Offers, Mattingly-Clark

I did not expect to watch as much baseball as I have during the shutdown (by "watch" I mean have on in the background as I do other things). Since what was supposed to be Opening Day, I have rewatched the 2017 AL Wild Card Game, Game 1 of the 2019 ALDS, the Gleyber Torres walk-off home run against the Indians game in 2018, last year's crazy Yankees vs. Twins game (the Aaron Hicks catch game), and this game against the Astros. I think today's rewatch with be Game 3 of the 2017 ALDS (the Greg Bird home run game). Baseball makes for comforting background noise these days. Hope you're all staying safe. Let's get to today's thoughts.

1. MLB and MLBPA agreement. As expected, MLB and the MLBPA resolved many shutdown-related issues late last week. The players approved the agreement Thursday and the owners ratified the deal Friday. It's a done deal. Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel have a great breakdown of the agreement, so I recommend checking that out. Here's what the particulars mean for the Yankees.

Service Time & Free Agents

Financially, MLB and the MLBPA made a fair deal, I think. The players get full service time if there is no season and pro-rated service time if there is a season (if they play 100 days, 100 days would count as a full season, etc.) and the owners only have to pay them the pro-rated portion of their salary. MLB will advance the union $170M, which won't have to be paid back if there is no season. The service time agreement means James Paxton will still become a free agent this winter. DJ LeMahieu and Masahiro Tanaka will become free agents as well -- guaranteed contracts will not be pushed back a year -- and the Yankees will have club option decisions to make for Zack Britton and Brett Gardner this offseason. As far as roster machinations go, there is no significant change here other than the Yankees not having to pay their players as much as expected in 2020.

Luxury Tax

According to Alex Speier (subs. req'd), luxury tax will be calculated using full season luxury tax hits this year, which is what I suggested last week. The luxury tax bill will be pro-rated, however. Cot's has the Yankees' luxury tax payroll at $258M right now. Based on that payroll, their full season luxury tax bill would be $21.9M as a second time offender (and their top 2021 draft pick would move back 10 spots). If they play only 100 games this year, or 61.7% of a 162-game season, the Yankees would only owe 61.7% of that $21.9M, or $13.5M. If there is no season this year, no team would owe luxury tax, but rates would not reset. The Yankees would be considered a second time offender in 2021. The luxury tax would skip a year, basically.

The Draft & International Free Agency

As is often the case, the MLBPA sold out amateur players during negotiations with MLB. They've sold them out so much that I'm not sure they can even use them as a bargaining chip much longer. MLB can move the 2020 draft back to as late as July 20th and shorten it to as few as five rounds. Bonus pools will stay the same as 2019 -- usually there's a 5% or so increase each year -- and players can only receive $100,000 upfront. They'll be paid half the remainder of their bonus on July 1st next year, and the other half on July 1st the year after that. Undrafted free agents will have their bonuses capped at $20,000. Oh, and MLB can do it all again in 2021. They can shorten the draft again next year (to 20 rounds this time, not five), the bonus pools will stay the same, and bonuses will be deferred. The top 100-150 prospects or so will be (mostly) fine and the bottom tier prospects are in the same boat with their small bonuses. The mid-range prospects, the guys who sign for something like $250,000 after the fifth round in a typical draft year, are the biggest losers. Now it's $20,000 or nothing. As for international free agency, MLB can push the 2020-21 and 2021-22 signings periods back to the following January so they occur across a calendar year rather than July 2nd to June 15th. Competitive Balance Round draft picks and international bonus slots can not be traded this year. J.J. Cooper and Eric Logenhagen, two people much smarter than I when it comes to draft matters, wrote about what these rule changes mean for the game and how amateurs are impacted. In 5-10 years (maybe less), I think we'll be able to draw a straight line from these draft changes to MLB eliminating a couple dozen minor league teams, something we know they want to do, and a straight line from these international signing period changes to an international draft. MLB has wanted to cut costs associated with the draft, international free agency, and the minors for years now and there's no reason to believe they'll let the draft and international free agency go back to normal in two years. Seems like MLB successfully leveraged the pandemic -- the illness and death of their customers -- into those cost savings, and the MLBPA went along with it. This is very bad for the game long-term. They're going to lose a lot of talent to not only other sports, but other professions. For many guys, playing baseball will no longer being financially feasible, so they'll go get a 9-5 out of school. Jacob deGrom is a former ninth round pick who received a $95,000 signing bonus. Those long shot success stories will become increasingly rare, if not completely eliminated. "It is unconscionable in this climate to change negotiated CBA provisions and reduce the agreed upon bonus schedule due players. Owners used the circumstance of the pandemic to revise terms of the ‘20 and ‘21 agreement,” Scott Boras told Jon Heyman. Anyway, I wrote a little about the upcoming international free agency period recently. I'll have more on what the draft changes mean for the Yankees in a bit.

Transactions Freeze

MLB has finally implemented a transactions freeze. No waivers, trades, free agent signings, contract extensions .... basically anything that involves changing a 40-man roster player's contract status until Spring Training resumes. Non-40-man roster players though? They're out of luck. They're still eligible to be released, traded, whatever. The Yankees optioned Thairo Estrada, Deivi Garcia, Ben Heller, and Mike King to the minors before the freeze kicked in Saturday. Those are paper moves that, as far as I know, don't really change anything. No one is collecting service time now, and those four players will still get a piece of the $170M advance, and they'll presumably be brought back to Spring Training 2.0.

Suspensions

Suspensions will not carry over into 2021. Domingo German must serve the final 63 games of his 81-game suspension this year, but, if MLB plays fewer than 63 games, his suspension will be considered satisfied and he'll be an eligible player come Spring Training 2021.

Lingering Issues

The regular season schedule and postseason, obviously, and no one knows when baseball is coming back. Anyone who says they do is lying. Baseball will return when COVID-19 has been sufficiently contained, whenever that is and whatever that looks like. The agreement says the MLBPA must sign off on everything, so MLB can't unilaterally implement a schedule and postseason format. "Each of the parties shall work in good faith to as soon as is practicable commence, play, and complete the fullest 2020 championship season and post-season that is economically feasible,” the agreement says, according to Ron Blum, and the two sides are open to playing without fans in the stands, in neutral sites, into November, so on and so forth. All that good stuff we've heard previously. Also, I have no idea what the agreement means for J.A. Happ's vesting option. Will they pro-rate the criteria (165 innings or 27 starts)? They have to, right? What if the season is canceled? No idea. We'll find out eventually, I'm sure.

2. 29-man roster. I have not seen this reported elsewhere, but Bob Nightengale says teams are expected to be able to expand their rosters to 29 players when baseball resumes. That passes the sniff test. Teams were given three additional players following the 1995 work stoppage, and MLB and the MLBPA are committed to playing as many games as possible this season. More doubleheaders and fewer off-days make expanded rosters a necessity, not a luxury. It is possible, if not likely, all the injured Yankees except Luis Severino will be ready to go once Opening Day arrives. Giancarlo Stanton (calf) is healthy, James Paxton (back) and Aaron Hicks (elbow) are in the middle of their throwing programs, and Aaron Judge (rib) is going through the healing process. If the season does not start until, say, July 1st, the Yankees could have all four of those guys available. Here is the potential Opening Day 29-man roster:

Prior to the shutdown Aaron Boone indicated Lyons was in the mix for the final bullpen spot -- "Tyler did really well for us last year ... He has thrown the ball well this spring, so he is certainly in that mix," Boone told George King -- so I included him as one of the three extra players, but it could just as easily be Avilan or Heller or King or Otero. MLB might prohibit teams from using all three extra spots on pitchers, though I have to think they'll be allowed to use two spots on pitchers. Protecting arms is the entire point of expanding rosters. Paxton being healthy pushes Loaisiga into the bullpen, and Hale pitched well enough last year to get another look this year. Cessa, Hale, and Loaisiga can all go multiple innings, and having several relievers who can chew up innings figures to be priority with a condensed schedule. The four-man bench comes together easily with Hicks, Judge, and Stanton healthy. Gardner is not going anywhere, Higashioka will be the backup catcher, Tauchman is out of options, and Wade is the obvious candidate to be the backup infielder. (Estrada was sent to Triple-A prior to the transactions freeze this past weekend, suggesting the job is Wade's.) Gardner and Tauchman on the bench means no room for Frazier. Three outfielders on a five-man bench is at least one too many, especially when you consider who makes up the starting outfield. Ford? Eh, maybe he gets one of the extra spots, though there will be fewer first base and DH at-bats available with everyone healthy. I think that would make Herrera the favorite for the extra bench spot. He can play the infield and the outfield -- that would allow the Yankees to, say, get Gleyber and LeMahieu off their feet in the late innings of a blowout rather than only one of the two -- and he switch hits, so that's another layer of versatility. The Yankees would have some 40-man roster issues to figure out with the 29-man roster I've laid out above -- Severino is a 60-day injured list candidate, though the Yankees would still need to open two spots for the other two extra non-roster guys -- but that's a bridge they'll cross when they come to it. There is still a long way to go between now and Opening Day -- for the first time since the 1994-95 work stoppage, we don't have a defined Opening Day and are just waiting things out -- and I'm sure there will be setbacks and other injuries before we get there. For now, that is the perfect world 29-man Opening Day roster, and my word, it is glorious. That's about as stacked as it gets.

3. 2020 draft. As noted earlier, the 2020 draft has been overhauled as part of the MLB-MLBPA agreement. MLB can shorten the draft to five rounds this year, and while I've seen a few reports indicating MLB has not ruled out a 10-round draft, I expect it to be five rounds. MLB will rarely pass up an opportunity to save a buck. The bonus pools aren't changing this year, so, for all intents and purposes, we have all the pertinent information for this summer's amateur draft. Here's where the Yankees sit:

• First round: 28th overall ($2,493,400 slot value)
• Third round: 100th overall ($581,600 slot value)
• Fourth round: 130th overall ($434,400 slot value)
• Total bonus pool: $3,509,400
• Bonus pool plus 5% overage: $3,684,870

That's it. Unless MLB shortens the draft less than expected*, the Yankees will have only three picks this year after surrendering their second and fifth round selections to sign Gerrit Cole. The Yankees have consistently paid the 75% tax to exceed their bonus pool the maximum 5% -- exceed the pool by more than 5% and you forfeit next year's first rounder, and no team has ever done that -- and they'll probably do the same this year. Because Competitive Balance Round picks are no longer tradeable this year, the Yankees can't swing a deal to add a pick after sacrificing two to sign Cole, so that's it. That's their expected draft situation. Three picks and a little less than $3.7M. Yeesh. That'll put a dent in the ol' farm system, eh? With this few picks, there's really only two possible strategies: play it straight and take an appropriate prospect with each pick, or blow it out and spend huge on that top pick while punting the other two picks to reallocate bonus pool money. What the Yankees do will depend on the draft board. If a top prospect slips to that 28th pick, as unlikely as it may be, it might be worth putting all your eggs in that basket. That's what I'd do with this few picks. If that doesn't happen, then just take the best (affordable) player at each pick, and deal with it. Prior to the shutdown Carlos Collazo (subs. req'd) had the Yankees selecting Auburn righty Tanner Burns with their first round pick in his latest mock draft -- "(His) proponents see some similarities to another former Southeastern Conference star, Sonny Gray," says MLB.com's scouting report -- though that was a long time ago, before amateur baseball was shut down, so who knows? With so few picks, the farm system is going to take a hit regardless. Nailing that first rounder becomes that much more important. "It really makes it more of a challenge. You haven’t seen the player. Did he get stronger? It makes it hard. It’s a little bit of a  challenge ... Rely on quality information (we already have) and work with that," amateur scouting director Damon Oppenheimer told George King when asked about drafting players without seeing them much this spring. 

* For what it's worth, J.J. Cooper says the Yankees would gain another $909,700 in bonus pool space should MLB go with a 10-round draft this year. Not a ton, but certainly better than nothing. Giving up one high pick and one middle rounds pick to sign a guy like Cole is a move you make 100 times out of 100, but it does come at a real cost, especially now that the draft has been shortened. (The Yankees also forfeited $1M in international bonus money to sign Cole.)

4. Qualifying offers. As best I can tell, the qualifying offer calculation will not change this offseason. It'll be the average of the top 125 full season salaries, not the top 125 pro-rated salaries. That makes sense. That way Mookie Betts gets an $18M or so qualifying offer rather than something ridiculous like $5M. The Yankees have three notable impending free agents: DJ LeMahieu, James Paxton, and Masahiro Tanaka. Right now, you could easily see all three as qualifying offer candidates in a few months and none of the three as qualifying offer candidates in a few months. There's a long way to go between now and the offseason, but the shutdown and shortened (canceled?) season has complicated the qualifying offer calculus. Consider everything the Yankees have to, uh, consider:

Can they afford him? LeMahieu, Paxton, or Tanaka on a one-year deal worth $18M or so is a fine deal in a vacuum. Maybe a little overpriced in some cases, but nothing crazy. What about after the shutdown though? The Yankees might be a little more budget conscious after losing a chunk of this year's revenue, and not want to risk the qualifying offer.

Can other teams afford them? Financially, it's safe to assume the Yankees are better equipped to get through the shutdown than most other teams. If other teams can't afford free agents though, that makes it more likely players will accept the qualifying offer, and the Yankees might not want to go there for baseball reasons. They may prefer the flexibility, similar to not giving Didi Gregorius the qualifying offer this past offseason.

Draft picks are at a premium. A shortened draft means picks are that much more valuable. It's too late to get an extra pick this year, but three qualifying offers means the Yankees could get three extra picks next year. That's a big deal with the draft being shortened and an international draft presumably on the horizon. The Yankees are going to pay luxury tax this year, so all they will be entitled to is a compensation pick after the fourth round, but that's better than nothing.

I'm getting way ahead of myself thinking about qualifying offers. We have to see how much season gets played, if any, because that'll drive financial decisions. We also have to see how the players perform, and, in Paxton's case, how he comes back from injury. My super early and probably incorrect hunch is we will see very few qualifying offers after this season because the free agent class isn't great to begin with and because teams will inevitably clamp down on spending, so that $18M or so qualifying offer becomes more risky and less appealing. Betts will get one no matter what. He's that good. J.T. Realmuto will probably get one as well, though I think the Phillies will overwhelm him with an extension offer at some point this summer. Beyond those two, there might not be any qualifying offer candidates after a shortened season. It's fun to dream about three extra picks in a shortened draft, but it's so very unlikely, and besides, it would come at a great cost to the MLB roster. Given where they are in their contention window, the Yankees would much rather have LeMahieu, Paxton, and Tanaka on their roster in 2021 than three extra picks after the fourth round.

5. Mattingly for Clark. With a hat tip to Grant Brisbee (subs. req'd), Sam Miller dug up a gem of a throwback trade rumor last week. During the 1988-89 offseason, George Steinbrenner agreed to trade Don Mattingly to the Giants for Will Clark. Peter Gammons had the original scoop:

Mattingly was told during the (1988) World Series by sources outside the Yankees that Steinbrenner had made a deal with the Giants that would have sent Mattingly and pitcher Rick Rhoden to San Francisco for first baseman Will Clark and pitchers Atlee Hammaker and Craig Lefferts. But the Giants had backed off trading the two left-handed pitchers when they learned that another San Francisco southpaw, Dave Dravecky, had a tumor on his pitching arm.

Woah! Mattingly was a soon-to-be 28-year-old megastar who hit .311/.353/.462 (128 OPS+) with 18 homers in 1988, and he'd hit .332/.376/.541 (150 OPS+) since 1984. Rhoden was in his mid-30s and he'd been a solid innings guy the previous two seasons (4.09 ERA and 102 ERA+ in 378.2 innings). Mattingly signed a three-year contract in Jan. 1988 and was two years away from free agency. Rhoden, who was traded to the Astros later that offseason, had a year remaining on his deal. That's what the Yankees would've given up. Two years of peak Mattingly and one year of late career Rhoden. This is what they would've received (1988 stats and 1989 season age in parenthesis):

• 1B Will Clark (25): .282/.386/.508 (160 OPS+) with 29 homers
• LHP Atlee Hammaker (31): 3.73 ERA (109 ERA+) and 3.77 FIP in 144.2 innings
• LHP Craig Lefferts (31): 2.92 ERA (113 ERA+) and 3.28 FIP in 92.1 innings

Clark was four years from free agency at the time and the two pitchers were both one year away from free agency. Mattingly was the bigger name player, no doubt, but he was also older than Clark and not as good a hitter -- 29 homers in Candlestick Park would have been approximately 209 homers in Yankee Stadium -- and closer to free agency. Rhoden would have been replaced by Hammaker, a comparable pitcher, and the Yankees would have also received Lefferts because I guess the Giants were feeling generous? Clark was among the game's most devastating hitters in the early-1990s -- he hit .308/.377/.502 (150 OPS+) from 1989-92, the four years of control the Yankees would've acquired -- and while Mattingly was great in 1989 (.303/.351/.477 and 133 OPS+), his back started to betray him soon thereafter, and 1989 was basically his last season as a top tier hitter. At the time, we all would've hated the trade and been staunchly against it, especially since Clark already had a well-earned reputation for being a jerk. In hindsight, gosh, that would have been some trade. The Yankees would've received the better and young hitter, a comparable and younger pitcher, and a third pitcher for the hell of it. At the same time, how could anyone complain about the way things turned out? Trade Mattingly and Rhoden for Clark, Hammaker, and Lefferts and everything -- everything -- changes. Maybe the Yankees are a few games better in 1991 and never have a chance to draft Derek Jeter sixth overall in 1992. Maybe they trade a young and unproven Bernie Williams for an established veteran at the 1993 trade deadline seeing how they were tied for first place on July 31st. Clark never really had a decline phase -- he hit .307/.394/.495 (125 OPS+) in the final five seasons of his career (ages 32-36) -- but the Yankees probably would've given him a long-term contract at some point, which probably means no Tino Martinez. We know how Mattingly's and Clark's careers played out in real life. We have no way of knowing how their careers would've played out in an alternate universe following this trade. It would have changed their career trajectories entirely. Clark was the superior player from 1989-95 but the Yankees would not have necessarily gotten that Clark, and so much other stuff had to go exactly right for the late-1990s dynasty to happen that I can't imagine anyone would be upset this trade didn't go down. This isn't the Cliff Lee non-trade or passing on Bryce Harper, two moves that still leave us (or me, anyway) wondering what could've been because the Yankees haven't won a World Series since. The Clark-Mattingly trade fell through, and while the dynasty came nearly a decade later, it's not hard to see how the trade could've completely changed the course of franchise history, and not necessarily for the better even though that trade is a slam dunk win on paper.

6. Remembering a random Yankee: Blake Parker. Next up in our series fondly looking back at forgotten Yankees is Parker, a recent Yankee. We've already covered Erick Almonte, Nick Green, Aaron Guiel, and Brandon Knight. The Yankees traded Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller (and Ivan Nova) at the 2016 deadline and Brian Cashman had to rebuild his bullpen on the fly in August. They needed warm bodies to cover innings. The Yankees signed lefty Tommy Layne on Aug. 9th, three days after he'd been released by the Red Sox, and the next day they claimed Parker off waivers from the Mariners. Both joined the bullpen immediately. Parker settled into a middle relief role and he was better than I remember. He allowed nine runs in 17.1 innings but seven of the nine runs came in two appearances (three runs and one out on Aug. 29th and four runs and one out on Sept. 23rd). Two runs in his other 16.1 innings as a Yankee? That's about as good as August waiver claims get. Parker's finest moment in pinstripes came against the Blue Jays on Sept. 6th. The Yankees took a 7-4 lead into the ninth inning, but Bad Dellin showed up. Here's how the inning started:

• Jose Bautista walked.
• Josh Donaldson walked (the runners later moved up on a wild pitch).
• Edwin Encarnacion singled against the shift (one run scored).
• Russell Martin struck out.
• Dioner Navarro walked to load the bases.
• B.J. Upton beat out an infield single (one run scored).

The infield single was a little chopper between first and second that Mark Teixeira fielded cleanly and flipped to Betances, but Dellin missed the base. Upton was safe, a run scored, and suddenly the lead was down to 7-6 with the bases loaded and only one out. Betances had thrown 40 pitches up to that point and he was pitching for the third day in a row, so Joe Girardi took him out and went to Parker. With an 8.32 Leverage Index, Parker made the second highest leverage relief appearance by a Yankee in the 2010s. He struck out Kevin Pillar for the second out of the inning -- Pillar fouled away a hanging splitter in a 1-2 count then took a breaking ball right down the middle -- but he left a first pitch breaking ball up to the next batter, Justin Smoak, and it led to one of the Yankees' most memorable defensive plays of the last decade (GIF via NY Yankees Throwbacks):

You can see Parker's entire seven-pitch relief appearance here. Gardner's catch gave Parker the save and seemed to push him up the bullpen pecking order. Two days later he pitched the seventh and eighth innings in a tie game against the Rays, and Girardi used Parker in a more traditional seventh inning role the rest of the season. He finished his Yankees career with a 4.96 ERA (3.94 FIP) and 15 strikeouts in 17.1 innings, but again, two terrible outings really skewed his numbers. Parker was solid overall. As part of their annual 40-man roster cleanup, the Yankees lost Parker on waivers after the season, and he was great with the Angels the next two years (2.90 ERA and 3.55 FIP from 2017-18). He split last year between the Twins and Phillies, and was in camp with Philadelphia as a non-roster guy this spring. Parker, 34, has been a serviceable journeyman for the better part of a decade -- his MLB career started in 2012 and he's now on his sixth team -- and part of that journey was spent in the Bronx. Dellin's meltdown and Gardner's catch gave Parker a signature moment in pinstripes.

(Send your questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)