News flash: Three Major League Baseball players complained about their salaries this spring.
Not news, right?
This wasn't Gary Sheffield complaining that he's being disrespected. No, instead a slew of baseball sophomores decided that the long standing salary structure isn't good enough. Under baseball's rules, any player with less than three years of service time is not yet eligible for arbitration. They can try and negotiate a salary with their team, but the team is under no obligation to meet the player's asking price. In fact, the team can simply renew the players contract for an amount of their choosing without the player's consent. It's been done like this for a long, long time and it's not very often that you hear a player complain.
We heard it from three players. It started with Prince Fielder of the Milwaukee Brewers. Prince was anything but stately when he said:
"I'm not happy about it at all. The fact I've had to be renewed two years in a row, I'm not happy about it because there's a lot of guys who have the same amount of time that I do who have done a lot less and are getting paid a lot more. But my time is going to come. It's going to come quick, too."
In 2007, Fielder made $415,000. On Sunday, the Brewers raised him to $670,000 for the 2008 season for more than a 50% raise and certainly not chump change despite the numbers thrown around the majors the last six months.
Fielder is at a couple of disadvantages: he's a product of the me generation, born in the eighties where everyone was owed a life, a lifestyle, and a crapload of money. And, he plays for the Brewers, which provides little life and even less money.
In case you didn't know, Prince is the son of Cecil Fielder, aka Big Daddy, the former slugger of Tigers and Yankee fame. Big Daddy apparently filed for bankruptcy in 2004. I can't find any reference to where his finances are now, but if his gambling addiction is as bad as reported, it may not be good.
Nick Markakis of the Orioles was next on the shafted list and he was reportedly "miffed." He was quoted in the Baltimore Sun as saying:
"That's just how the Orioles feel. I don't have much of a choice. I'm just going to have to deal with it."
Markakis was raised up to $455,000 from $400,000 last year. He didn't post near the numbers Fielder did and his road splits suggest that Camden Yards helped him a bit. He's also at the disadvantage of playing for a team that is not only run by a disheveled front office, but is also in the hopes of getting younger for cheaper.
Our last candidate is Jonathan Papelbon of your World Champion Boston Red Sox, who made these comments before learning what his actual salary would be:
"I feel a certain obligation not only to myself and my family to make the money that I deserve but for the game of baseball. Mariano Rivera has been doing it for the past 10 years and with me coming up behind him I feel a certain obligation to do the same."
Papelbon has been with the club for two and a half seasons and he's already equating himself to Mariano Rivera, despite the fact that he wanted to be a starting pitcher last year. He made $425,500 in 2007. Do you know what Mariano Rivera made his second year in The Bigs? $131,125. It wasn't until Rivera hit arbitration that he received a significant raise.
Papelbon's assertion that he has an obligation to "the game of baseball" to make as much money as he can is laughable. Is he serving baseball by complaining about the salary structure in place? Is he serving his team by openly complaining about a contract that hasn't even been determined yet? Jonathan Papelbon is currently in the business of serving himself. Looking at what Mariano Rivera is making after twelve years of major league service is hardly a comparison.
Papelbon wasn't finished talking:
"It's a tough situation for me right now. I feel like with me being at the top of my position, I feel like that [salary] standard needs to be set and I'm the one to set that standard and I don't think that the Red Sox are really necessarily seeing eye to eye with me on that subject right now."
This needs to be looked at line by line:
"It's a tough situation for me right now." This indeed is a tough situation. Jonathan was forced to live on $425k last season, a figure most Americans don't see unless they're the CEO of a major corporation. But for a simple baseball player, it's a tough situation. Impatience can be difficult.
"I feel like with me being at the top of my position..." Top of his position? Paps is good, but he ranked 10th in the majors in saves in 2007 and third in ERA for closers while pitching the second fewest innings of the top twelve guys.
"I feel like that [salary] standard needs to be set and I'm the one to set that standard and I don't think that the Red Sox are really necessarily seeing eye to eye with me on that subject right now." This is where it really falls apart. There is no underlying standard to what an above average player is supposed to make at this stage of their career. That's the point of the system. The Red Sox aren't seeing eye to eye because they are working within the system. Papelbon is complaining about it, not working in it.
Papelbon was eventually given a salary of $775,000 for the 2008 season.
This salary structure is in place for a specific purpose, which is to help control the inflated salaries across baseball. There is no way to put a limit on free agent salaries without instituting a salary cap, which Papelbon will probably tell you, flies in the face of what is best for the game of baseball. Since players like Johan Santana can only be paid by a handful of big market teams, there needs to be a structure in place that allows the Oakland A's, the Milwaukee Brewers, and other small market clubs to compete.
One of the ways to achieve that is by controlling the cost of young players. The first two years basically reside at the major league minimum and then a raised contract. After that, it's arbitration or a negotiated salary.
It's a reasonable system in place to protect an unreasonable market. And logically, does it make sense to give a player like Papelbon a five-year contract worth $75 million after two and a half seasons and 160 innings or pro ball? Does that compare to Mariano Rivera on any level?
The players have done very little to prevent the escalating salaries in baseball. A salary cap probably isn't the answer given how ridiculous the NBA cap works. The last thing you want to see is a player getting thrown into a deal simply to clear room for another player to come in. It's made a mockery of NBA trades.
Giving the players more control of their salaries so early in their career would be the death knell for many small market teams. It is this structure that gives the Brewers, etc the ability to compete at the level they are. The simple fact is that all three of these players will have their day in the monetary sun. And if, by some circumstance, they flame out before then, they probably wouldn't have deserved the big bucks in the first place.
I propose that in the next collective bargaining agreement, the players offer to relinquish unilateral control of baseball's drug testing policies. In return, maybe the owners can rework the salary structure.
I'm not counting on either of those happening.
Scott Ham can be reached at scotth23@hotmail.com