Nationals Arm Race

Carter Stewart is going to be a heck of a trail blazer. photo via PerfectGame

(tangent from our Nats miseries; yes we just got swept in NY, yes our manager needs to be whacked, yes the team is in serious trouble for 2019.  We’ll talk about it more next week).

Here’s a quick story about Carter Stewart.

He was a top prep player last spring, recording the highest spin rate *ever recorded* on his curve ball.  He was the 9th overall pick of the 2018 draft, couldn’t come to an agreement with the Braves over medicals (not related to his elbow or shoulder fyi .. they were related to MRIs of his wrist, stemming from a skateboarding injury apparently incurred when Stewart was a kid), didn’t sign, bailed out of his 4-yr college commitment to Mississippi State, enrolled in a Florida JuCo so he could do one-and-done in college and re-enter the 2019 draft, played this spring and didn’t wow the scouts (despite sterling statistics) and saw his draft projection (and thus his bonus) fall to perhaps an early 2nd round status.

So what is he doing?  He’s doing what Scott Boras  has dreamed of for two decades representing (ahem, “advising”) amateur players: he’s doing an end-around on the MLB draft.  Stewart announced that he’s opting out of the MLB draft, and signing a 6yr, $7M deal in Japan.

And its a brilliant plan.

Here’s how the numbers work.  Lets say that, for sake of argument, Steward got drafted in 2019, signed for $2M (a stretch frankly, but useful for this conversation).  Here’s likely how the next 6-10 years of his life would go:

• 2019: signs, $2M bonus.  Barely plays, since most prep pitchers spend their draft year in XST learning how to be a pro.
• 2020: XST and then GCL time as a minor leaguer earning $1200/month for 6 months.  Call it $10,000 in total salary for ease of calculation.
• 2021: pitches full season in Low-A as a 21-yr old.  Another $10k in salary
• 2022: moves up to high-A.  Maybe we’ll even give him AA.  10k in salary
• 2023.  He’s not breaking camp with the team, even if he merits a rotation spot .. so he starts in AAA for a few weeks, then moves up and basically earns a full MLB pre-arb salary of $575k.
• 2024: 600k as a 24yr old, 2nd year pre-arb; he earns a small raise

Total earnings through 6 years of service: $2m + 30k + 575k + 600k = $3,205,000 total pay.

So, now he’s through 6 pro seasons, he’s at the end of his age 24 season and he’s got two full years of MLB experience after 4 minor league seasons … and he’s facing another two full pre-arb seasons thanks to service time manipulation in 2023 (which everybody does), taking  him through 2026/age 26, then 3 years of arbitration that limits his salary drastically versus what he’s worth on the open market … and he hits FA in 2029 after 10 years of team control … possibly with a Qualifying Offer tagged to him (unless they CBA it out of existence).

INSTEAD, he signs a $6M deal to go to Japan for those same 6 years, nearly doubles his potential pay, gets legitimate pro experience, and comes out of his experience as a completely free 25yr old.   Oh, and if he hits incentives he can actually triple that $6M pay.  If he had played by the rules of the MLB system at the end of 2024, he’d still be facing another FIVE seasons of artificially limited pay.

Oh, and if he burns out (like a lot of HS arms) and never gets to the majors … he’s got basically 3 TIMES the pay versus his projected bonus.

It makes one wonder; why hasn’t this happened before??  This is a complete no-brainer plan for huge chunks of pro prospects.  If you’re a college-aged top 5 pick making $4-$5M of bonus and perhaps facing just a year and a half in the minors, no.  But consider what Mason Denaburg is now facing (our first round pick out of HS last  year).  He signed last year for $3M … and has YET TO PITCH for our organization now a 1/3rd of the way through his 2nd pro  season and still hasn’t been assigned.   Unless Denaburg is the second coming of Clayton Kershaw, he’s going to spend a good chunk of the next  3 years in the low minors, earning less in a month than major leaguers earn in a day.

The downside to this is, of course, a 19yr old kid from Florida has to go halfway around the world to a culture and a language he doesn’t know.  Sounds daunting … except for the fact that MLB basically has half its minor leagues in the same position, importing non-english speaking talent from the DR, Venezuela, Mexico, etc as well as a slew of other international players who end up here w/o knowing our culture or language.  It isn’t the end of the world.

Honestly … I hope he blazes a path towards forcing MLB to take a pretty hard look at its entire draft and pay structure, which is incredibly tilted towards the owners as the MLBPA has failed for more than 2 decades now to stem the tide of owners chipping away at younger players salaries and earning possibilities.  And, given the embarrassment baseball  (and Oakland) just went through having their 2018 1st rounder Kyle Murray very publicly reject a $4M+ bonus amount and a guaranteed contract offer (specifically outlawed in the last CBA but offered here) so as to go pro in the NFL … it makes you wonder if there’s a need for a revamping of the system.

I hope this isn’t a one-off; I hope Stewart succeeds in Japan and makes a mint coming back to the US as a top-line 25-yr old un-encumbered free agent.  Because that might really spur some change.