Tanking Allegations Resurface

Let the whining begin!

I just read an article by Jon Tayler casting aspersions on the Phillies for taking advantage of the market to sign Jake Arrieta to a team-friendly deal, and thereby becoming one step closer to making the play-offs. Tayler accuses the Phillies of engaging in that new dirty word in baseball, “tanking.”

The word “tanking” has some seriously negative connotations to it. It creates the notion that a team is essentially throwing games in order to play the rules to get high draft picks and more pool money. 

But before getting judgmental, consider who this nomenclature helps. It is designed specifically to arouse fans’ emotions, to push their teams to sign high-priced free agents. That’s right, if you are not signing high-priced, then according to certain sportswriters you are tanking. And who does signing high-priced free agents help?  Sports agents. Sports agents negotiate the deals for the players, and take a cut of the salary as their fee. The higher the prices on the free agents, the better for the sports agents. Accusing teams of tanking, therefore, helps the agents put pressure on the teams so that the agents can sponge more out of the system. 

But this Winter has seen sports agents totally misread the market. One agent in particular, Scott Boras, stands out. Boras engaged in old school tactics not fit for an atmosphere dominated by analytics and the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. Boras encouraged his clients to hold out for long term deals at high salaries well into Spring Training. In the end, those types of deals were not forthcoming. 

The assumption in most of the criticism is that a player in his thirties who has performed well in the past deserves to reap the reward with high salaries and the security of multi-year contracts. But why?  Many teams have suffered the effects of signing a big name player to such long-term deals, only to find themselves stuck with an aging player no longer performing up to his past standards. An aging player is on the decline, and thus not that valuable in the long-term. 

Allegations of tanking ignore the cycle most baseball teams experience.  A team works hard to get competitive. The team is in the thick of the play-off hunt for a few years. Then the talent ages, and the team enters a process of rebuilding. When a team rebuilds, it is just logical that it will take it best assets, and use them to create potential. Thus, rebuilding teams trade star players for packages of prospects. In such an environment, signing high-priced free agents makes no sense. 

At any rate, the same market forces will not be in play in the upcoming off-season. The two best players expected to hit the free agency market, Manny Machado and Bryce Harper, will be in their mid-twenties and thus in the prime of their careers. They should command much higher salaries than the free agents from the past two years. 

This is all to say that a player’s age has much to do with his value on the market. Players in their thirties will just have less demand than players in their twenties, generally speaking. Those hitting the free agency market in their thirties generally have to thank the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which allows a team more control over a player for his first six years of service, and penalizes teams for having too high a commitment in salaries. 

If players really want to situation to change, it is better to focus on that agreement and change the structure, rather than throwing around accusations of “tanking.”

Quite frankly, I have very little sympathy for sports agents who are unable to read the market and simply expect their clients to receive multi-million dollar contracts simply because of service time and past performance. 

By: William J. Kovatch, Jr. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Hall of Fame Should Reverse the Slight to Dick Allen

Image
Despite a career average of .292, 351 total home runs, 1,119 total RBIs, the 1964 NL Rookie of the Year award, seven All-Star appearances, and the 1972 AL MVP award, during his fifteen years of eligibility of 1982 through 1997, Dick Allen never garnered more than 20% of the vote from the BBWAA for Hall of Fame induction. The oft-cited reason for this has been the character issue. Baseball writers viewed Allen as a divisive figure in the clubhouse. Bill James has accused Allen of “manipulat[ing] racism as an explosive to blow his teams apart.” But far from manipulating racism, Allen was a victim of racism, who was saddled with an undeserved reputation because of his reactions to regrettable treatment by players and fans alike.  Allen broke into the major leagues in Philadelphia, a city Curt Flood described as “[t]he nation’s northernmost southern city.”  Philadelphia was infamous for its treatment of Jackie Robinson when he broke the color barrier in 1947. The Phillies, led b
Read more

Jimmy Rollins: The Best of the Phillies Shortstops

Image
From a certain set of Phillies fans, Jimmy Rollins gets no love.   It’s hard to see why.   Rollins is only the all time Phillies leader in hits (2,306) and doubles (479).   In stolen bases, he’s second only to the legendary Slidin’ Billy Hamilton, whose numbers may be inflated due to how stolen bases were credited in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.   He’s second only to Mike Schmidt in extra base hits and total bases.   In triples, he is third behind Hall of Famers Ed Delahanty and Sherry Magee. Certainly, in a team that has suffered through the likes of Steve Jeltz and Ivan DeJesus, Rollins has been a highlight of the shortstop position. Having grown up in the 1970s, I loved Larry Bowa.   He was a team leader.   In his twelve years with the Phillies, Bowa batted .264 with 1,798 hits and 421 RBIs.   But, in his fifteen years with the Phillies, Rollins edges out Bowa, his mentor, with a .267 average, and 887 RBIs.   Additionally, Rollins’ career fielding
Read more

Dick Allen: Integrating Philadelphia’s Baseball Culture

Image
Much of what has hurt Dick Allen in reaching the Hall of Fame has been his reputation in the press of creating racial divisions on the teams for which he played. This is a reputation that has been perpetuated unfairly. To the contrary, Allen has been caught in a world where American society in general, and baseball in particular, has had to come to grips with racial discrimination. While white America preferred to sweep the problem of racial discrimination under the rug, players such as Allen were outspoken, refusing to let the issue be covered up. It is his outspokenness, when many Americans preferred to turn a blind eye to societal ills, that handicapped Allen’s chances of being inducted into the Hall, and which to this day haunts his candidacy.  Some have called Allen Philadelphia’s Jackie Robinson. And rightly so. Allen’s career was marred by racial discrimination by fans in Philadelphia. His endurance of this mistreatment, while acting as one of the greatest power hitters o
Read more