 | Feature Article: In the major leagues' new economy, many free agents are listed year to year |
 The LA Times is reporting Big-money, multiyear contracts are becoming increasingly rare, with more and more players settling for one-year deals and often having to wait until late winter to sign. Clubs say it's just a sign of more austere times, but some players and agents harbor suspicions.
Reporting from Phoenix - Last year was a solid one for Orlando Cabrera.
No shortstop in the American League started more games, had as many at-bats or more chances in the field than he did. Only Derek Jeter had more hits.
Clearly a summer like that would pay off in the winter — or so he thought.
Instead, Cabrera spent the off-season sitting by the phone waiting for a free-agent offer that never came. So, less than three weeks before spring training, he signed a one-deal with the Cincinnati Reds.
"Five years ago everybody wanted to be a free agent," said Cabrera, who got a four-year, $32-million free-agent deal from the Angels in 2005, when baseball operated in a different economic environment. "I was trying to compare it with the real estate market. Houses that would sell for $2 million five years ago, if you put them up for $500,000 [now], you don't get anything."
Cabrera, who played for Oakland and Minnesota last season, isn't the only one feeling that pinch. Of the 216 major leaguers who became free agents this winter, only 26 signed multiple-year deals — just eight for more than two seasons. A hundred got no big league deal at all.
Compare that with 2006, when 29 players — including journeymen such as Justin Speier, David Dellucci, Frank Catalanotto and Chad Bradford — signed contracts for at least three years and $10 million.
Now, players who once pointed to free agency as a way to earn job and financial security find themselves begging for an invitation to spring training after their contracts run out.
For teams, the new economic landscape is a better one. Before, expensive long-term deals that looked good at the time they were signed often became albatrosses.
The Dodgers, for example, will pay $12.7 million this summer to three players — Juan Pierre, Andruw Jones and Jason Schmidt — who are no longer with the team. The Angels owe $5.25 million to Speier, whom they released in August, and must pay Gary Matthews Jr. $21.5 million through next season even though they traded him to the New York Mets.
"You always want to be flexible," said Angels General Manager Tony Reagins, who inherited the Speier and Matthews contracts from former GM Bill Stoneman. "When you get locked into one player for — just round figures — 20% of your payroll, then that player goes down, you have some problems. Because you're locked into that contract for four or five, six years."
To read more..
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-0330-baseball-one-done-20100329,0,6186781.story
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