Following the 2026 season, I believe Major League Baseball will experience a lengthy lockout. In my opinion, it’ll be worse than the 2021-22 stoppage that resulted in the current five-year Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the owners and the MLB Players Association (MLBPA).
Heading into Year 4 of the current five-year iteration of the CBA, one of the positives from the player’s standpoint came with postseason awards.
Specifically focusing on the AL and NL Rookie of the Year voting, an excerpt from MLB Trade Rumors following the 2023 voting explains it in simple terms:
“In order to disincentivize service time manipulation, the MLBPA and MLB agreed to include a prospect promotion incentive in the Collective Bargaining Agreement that was agreed to prior to the 2022 campaign. As a result of the incentive, players with less than 60 days of service time entering the season receive a full year of service time if they finish in the top two of Rookie of the Year voting, so long as they were featured on at least two preseason Top 100 prospect lists from ESPN, Baseball America, and MLB Pipeline.”
I wasn’t optimistic the Cleveland Guardians were going to extend Tanner Bibee until they made the announcement after 3 p.m. ET on March 22. Bibee met all those qualifications and by virtue of his runner-up finish to Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson in 2023, he gained a full year of MLB service he wouldn’t have had prior to this current CBA.
While it’s too soon to gauge how it’ll impact the 2024 Top 2 in each league – Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes and San Diego’s Jackson Merrill in the NL, to New York’s Luis Gil and Baltimore’s Colton Cowser in the AL – we’ve seen the impact of teams eschewing service-time manipulation in favor of fielding a more competitive team. In turn, it’s enhanced the fan-experience when the young stars of tomorrow shine on the big stage.
Following Bibee’s new deal, five of the seven domestic players who were Top 2 finishers have signed extensions (New York Mets pitcher Kodai Senga signed a free agent deal out of Japan).
So who are the other two players who have yet to ink long-term deals? Surprisingly, it’s two stars from the Baltimore Orioles. Not only did Cowser earn Top 2 status in 2024, superstar teammates Adley Rutschman (2022 runner-up) and Gunnar Henderson (2023 winner) have been the products of a revamped Orioles farm system that just a decade ago was a quagmire under the late Peter Angelos and his family’s ownership.
Billionaire David Rubenstein is now the controlling owner of the O’s, with a hopeful fanbase that yearns to see homegrown and superstar talent retained. Ace Corbin Burnes preferred location over money, so it would have been hard to re-up the one-time Cy Young winner.
Yet, Rustchman has reached the first of three arbitration eligible seasons, and Henderson will be eligible come next year.
So why aren’t they under long-term control?
In Rutschman’s case, he was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 MLB Amateur Draft out of Oregon State, signing for an $8.1 million signing bonus.
In addition to other income – through endorsement deals and other MLB opportunities – he’s also set to make north of $5 million in 2025. If Rutschman continues ascending as I’d project him to do, he’d be looking at a floor of $200 million across six-to-eight years in free agency following the 2027 season, where he’d be close to 30-years-old ahead of the 2028 campaign.
For Henderson, he pulled off Barry Bonds-like feats at the plate in 2024. Unlike the extension that fellow superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. signed with Kansas City ahead of last season, Henderson is in good position to match or better that potential comp.
The other big factor in Henderson’s favor? He’ll be 27-years-old for at least half of his first free agent year in 2029, with his birthday on June 29. Teams will reward youthful free agents on the market because of how rare they are to hit free agency.
The final figure on the contract won’t be as much as Juan Soto’s $765 million mega deal, but we could potentially see a nine-figure bidding war start at a number beginning with four, or three at worst.
Does letting Burnes go open the pathway for Rubenstein to extend one of the franchise’s cornerstone superstars? Can either even reach an extension at this point?
Rustchman has more secured in the bank already and is closer to free agency than Henderson. A superstar catcher is hard to find in this day and age.
Then you have the other end of the spectrum with Henderson. The Orioles have had a glut of infield talent matriculate to the big leagues – including Jordan Westburg and Jackson Holliday – that an argument COULD be made that Rutschman is more indispensable.
Baltimore’s farm system has churned out quality big leaguers for the past few years now, with the one criticism being a still-weak pitching development pipeline. It wasn’t until Mike Elias took over that the franchise started expanding its analytics and international amateur departments in recent years.
It may seem unfair to punish the franchise for developing and landing the talent to this current competitive window by seeing one or both of these core stars walk. What will Rubsenstein and Elias do over the next few years?
That’s a conundrum they will need to figure out… and quickly.
