NEW YORK — The home clubhouse at Yankee Stadium is a far cry from the IMG Sports Academy.
Neil Walker went to IMG in Bradenton, Fla., to participate in the spring training camp for free agents, the first of its kind in more than 20 years. He was there until the Yankees called with an offer, one he was quick to accept. He was glad to leave the camp. But more importantly, he had a job with a contender.
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It used to be that above-average players in their 30s found new homes in free agency with relative ease. Either contenders would bring them in to complement their cores, or lesser teams would sign them to keep their rosters relatively respectable and potentially use them as trade bait to stock up on prospects at the trade deadline. Veterans were somewhat valuable commodities and had competition for their services.
Except for the most elite free agents, that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
Walker posted at least two wins above replacement every year between 2011 and 2017, according to FanGraphs’ version of the metric. He didn’t get a substantial call until early March, when the Yankees expressed their interest. It was a startling development, one radically different from the plan Walker and his representatives at Excel Sports Management had laid out.
“We obviously targeted a handful of teams we thought were the best fit going into the offseason, and the Yankees were on that list as well as several other teams,” Walker told Sporting News. “And when some of those other teams made deals or trades or picked up some free agents, we kind of scrapped that and moved to the next group. And as we got closer to spring training, in February, the Yankees were still a possibility. At that point it was take what was possibly available. The Yankees were the one team to make a solid offer.”
Walker is playing on a $4 million salary just a year after accepting the Mets’ $17.2 million qualifying offer, tendered because of the anticipated competition for his services. He played well enough between New York and Milwaukee that he posted 2.2 fWAR and figured to be in demand once again this past winter.
Many players who were on the market over the offseason could tell similar stories. A number of veterans had to settle for much less money than they expected to get. Some had to go as far as to take minor league deals or to venture into independent leagues.
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The immediate reason why is clear. Teams around the league have placed an emphasis on making their rosters younger and cheaper. Young players typically either make the big-league minimum salary or not much above it. They come with low-risk years of control built in to their contracts, and can often be shuttled back and forth between Triple-A and the majors to make the roster more flexible. Stocking the roster with young, controllable talent can lead to higher profits and help a team stay under the luxury tax.
It makes perfect business sense. It also freezes out baseball’s veteran middle class, of which Walker is squarely a part of. There’s little doubt that, one way or another, superstars such as Bryce Harper and Clayton Kershaw will be paid gobs of money in next winter’s coming bidding war. The rest of the veteran class has to wait and hold its breath.
There were also whispers in some circles of possible collusion among team owners to drive prices down. No concrete proof has ever surfaced to support the claim, but it did seem odd that the dynamics of the free-agent market so suddenly changed. It seemed almost every team in baseball suddenly decided that it wasn't too keen on the idea of signing mid-level veteran free agents anymore. Walker primarily blamed the age factor when asked why he thought the offseason went the way it did, but left the door for other ideas.
“There could be a lot of different reasons,” he said. “But it seemed to me that teams were putting more of an emphasis on age, probably especially as it refers to the middle of the market guys, middle-upper, middle-lower guys in terms of position players. They felt like they could find ways to pay less for the opportunity for some young guys. ... I don’t know anything for certain but the fact that there was a lot of guys in a similar position, who had played for a long time but may not per se be above All-Star level, whatever the case may be, were kind of suppressed, which leads me to believe that the belief is that they could get similar production from younger, cheaper guys.”
The age-based push isn’t just occuring at the big league level, Walker said.
“I’ve spoken to a few guys who ended up signing,” he said. “One’s with the Long Island Ducks, and [others are with] other independent league teams, and they were kind of in the same boat, even in just looking for Triple-A, Double-A jobs or big league camp invites ... and a lot of them were kind of given the same runaround."
The emphasis on youth is understandable here as well. Fewer veterans mean more spots for prospects to get more playing time, as well as smaller salaries. Minor league salaries are paid by the parent organization, not the team itself.
One imagines that if the cost-saving benefits aren’t the primary motivation for mid-level veterans being squeezed out, it certainly doesn’t hurt in the eyes of teams. There’s no shortage of teams racing for the first overall pick and running a barebones payroll at the moment, the only real aberration being the Padres’ mega-deal for Eric Hosmer.
“It seems like teams are putting more of an emphasis on building for the next year, or for two years down the line,” Walker said. “So it’s one of those where we hope that it doesn’t continue to the degree that it possibly could.”
There’s been quite a bit of discontent among players. The Cubs' Kris Bryant has spoken about his desire to fight for more guarantees for players. The Dodgers' Kenley Jansen went as far as to say that the players may have to go on strike when it’s time to negotiate the next collective bargaining agreement. Walker didn’t take things that far, but said that there are “probably certain ways to push the envelope” in the upcoming negotiations.
Walker is just one of many players to be caught in the middle, and he’s one of the lucky ones. He found a job before spring training began to wind down. He signed with a contender. He got a big league deal. He may be struggling at the plate, but he’s better off than Mark Reynolds, who had a renaissance season with the Rockies and still had to settle for a minor league deal with the Nationals after Opening Day. Logan Morrsion hit 38 home runs and wound up with a one-year deal with the Twins. Melky Cabrera just signed a minor-league deal Monday.
“I think every organization and every situation is different,” Walker said. “But from an economics standpoint, you have teams that don’t spend a dollar in an offseason. It’s alarming from the player’s side.”
Even before he hit free agency, Walker played every year of his career on a one-year deal. He could have been non-tendered or cut by the Pirates or Mets at any point, as unlikely as he made it given his level of play. The implicit agreement in baseball’s current contract system is that the players give teams six or so cheap years of play, and in return, they’ll be paid what they’re worth and more in free agency.
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Unless a player is a superstar, that simply isn’t the case any more. Walker said he’s prepared to play out the rest of his time in the game on one-year deals. Perhaps even just a few years ago, a player with his statistical history would have been given some sort of greater job and income security. Walker has made millions from playing baseball and does not lack for comfort. That does not change the fact that the system as a whole has come to not uphold its side of the agreement for the players, especially those like Walker.
The Yankees called up Gleyber Torres on Sunday. He’s the team’s top prospect. Like Walker, he plays second base. Walker could become expendable to the team rather quickly if Torres plays well and he isn’t needed at first base if and when Greg Bird comes off the disabled list, or even sooner when the younger and more versatile Brandon Drury makes his return. Baseball’s pay is guaranteed, so one way or another, Walker will get what he signed for.
Perhaps the team would send Tyler Austin down instead. If Walker is the odd man out, though, he’ll venture back into a difficult free-agent market and hope to latch on somewhere else.
His start to 2018 may just be a bad slump, brought on by his first taste of the American League, more time than ever at a position other than second base, and a long stretch of bitter cold. But he’s fighting to prove that he belongs. He had to prove at the free-agent camp that he could still play. This is the next hurdle.