Rob Manfred's new contract plan probably won't impact SF Giants

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred continues to steer the ship of baseball like an Exxon Valdez captain after a night of cocktails. Manfred's newest idea? Limiting long-term contracts.

Rob Manfred this evening said that he and owners are interested in limiting the length of MLB player contracts.

Tony Clark responded: "Anyone who believes that players would ever endorse an assault by management on guaranteed contracts is badly mistaken" https://t.co/i52queRWHm
— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) April 19, 2023

At the Sports Business Journal’s World Congress of Sports conference in Los Angeles, Manfred told attendees that for years, baseball owners had been interested in a "limitation of contract length."

"Obviously players love it, it gives them financial security for a very long period of time," Manfred said. "The difficulty — and I think players will come to appreciate this as time goes by — those contracts result in a transfer from the current stars to yesterday’s stars."

That's the poetic Manfred wording that baseball fans have come to expect from the steward of the game. Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Dodgers lobbed him a softball question to set up Manfred's response, asking if "contracts clearly past the life cycle of that player" should be limited.

Of course, this issue doesn't apply to the SF Giants under Farhan Zaidi, who are loath to give out deals longer than three years. The lone exception is Logan Webb's recent five-year extension, though even that one buys out three free-agent years.

Other than that, the largest deal for a position player was Mitch Haniger's three years and $43.5 million. For pitchers, it's Anthony DeSclafani's three years and $36 million.

There's no guarantee a player will even last the three years, either. Tommy La Stella received Zaidi's first three-year contract, but the team bought out the final year of his deal.

The Giants did agree to a 13-year deal with All-Star shortstop Carlos Correa, but... something happened.

Did Manfred's weird pitch about "yesterday's stars" resonate with the players? No, it did not.

Players Association executive director Tony Clark said, "The public statements from Rob Manfred about the owners’ desire to limit guaranteed contracts is just one more in a series of statements attacking fundamental aspects of baseball’s free market system." He added that "Anyone who believes that players would ever endorse an assault by management on guaranteed contracts is badly mistaken."

13 months of labor peace was nice while it lasted. Manfred is disliked by seemingly everyone in baseball, to the point where he had to insist to an ESPN interviewer that he didn't hate the sport.

But he has been successful at clawing back at player salaries, both with increased luxury tax rates limiting spending and the qualifying offer system depressing the free agent market. All of those measures are presented in the guise of "competitive balance" but the real aim is to keep money for the owners, instead of the players.

The luxury tax system is also the main driver of excessively long player contracts. Because the tax system is based on the annual average value (AAV) of contracts, teams are highly incentivized to tack on extra years to a deal.

Are Xander Bogaerts and Manny Machado really going to be productive players at age 40 when their contracts end in 2033? Almost certainly not, but the Padres are saving money on the front end on "competitive balance" taxes.

It's a disingenuous argument from Manfred, who clearly knows extremely long deals are a result of baseball's own policies - and superstars having leverage. In the same talk, Manfred championed the luxury tax system that's the main reason these deals are so long.

Still, the change to contract lengths won't be happening any time soon. The current CBA runs through 2026, which means the SF Giants won't have any limitations to the number of years they offer to Matt Chapman this winter. Which he will decline to sign with the Dodgers.