The Guide To The Screwed Up International FA Market
Posted: July 12 15, 11:30 am
Jonah Keri, as always, kills it.
LA = Friedman, who blew out his budget and paid the penalty in Tampa the first year of this current CBA. Not to this grand an extent, but he signed a lot more players and paid a few million in tax to do it. He has the bolded thing up there figured out.On the July 2 signing day last year, for instance, the Yankees didn’t just go after one top guy; they signed nine of MLB.com’s top 25 international prospects and annihilated their budget limit in the process.
This year, the Dodgers took it a step further. In the process of spending that $40 million–plus on signings and penalties, L.A. actually traded away some of its international budget space in exchange for several minor league players. This increased the penalties on their international spending, but if you’re prepared to go over your allotted cap by $20 million, a few hundred thousand here or there hardly matters. Because of the spending-cap penalty, they won’t be able to sign any big-time international prospects next year, but they don’t care. Rather than signing maybe one expensive player each year and staying within the rules, they realize it makes more sense to sign five expensive players in one year and then sit out the next. When money doesn’t matter, these are the kind of calculations you can make.