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Originally Posted by VERVE
The article essentially states as long as the player is well-informed of the contract and all its tangibles, there is no pressure from MLBPA and the player can sign with whomever. ANother case of this is Cliff Lee signing for less than market. The big point here the players are within their rights to sign a new contract despite salary. The MLBPA do not have any influence or authority to dictate otherwise.
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I don't think you understand. Yes, in the end the player can do what they want. That's obvious. As I've said, there's no recourse from the MLBPA. That's a very different thing from applying pressure to the players that undervaluing yourself will have an impact on your peer's contract negotiations and that players before them have made sacrifices that are putting them in this situation. Sure, the players can ignore that and sign whatever they want, but do you honestly think most guys are just shrugging that off?
And like I said, the article headline states one thing, but everytime the union leader gets quoted he keeps going back to "but understand that this is going to have an impact on other guys". When someone makes a statement and always follows it up with a "but" clarification, usually it's the clarification that's important.
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Some examples of players from 2015 (there are others from years before) signing with their current before hitting free agency:
Estrada-blue Jays
Anderson-Dodgers
Cahill-Cubs
O'Day-Orioles
Rasmus-Astros
Utley-Dodgers
Wieters-Orioles
Young-Royals
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Well, for starters, we are talking about David Price, not average or fringe players.
Second, several of these are players (Wieters, Rasmus) accepting qualifying offers which is completely different since it isn't a contract negotiation.
Third, most of these players had draft pick compensation attached to them which does have a impact on their value.
But most importantly of all, which of these players took a hometown discount? That was the point at hand. Obviously, players do sign contracts before their free agency begins - no one is disputing that. But the point you and others are claiming is that players take hometown deals before free agency begins because it's the only offer on the table. None of these deals have anything to do with that.