The new normal in Major League Baseball is slowly taking shape, in a business currently shuttered.
At least one team ownership has already dictated a budget rollback in 2021, and front-office executives from other organizations believe they will get similar orders. Some scouts expect a wave of furloughs to come down after the June draft, and expect that many baseball lifers sidelined might never again find work under the MLB umbrella. The revenue spigot is turned off and almost everyone is impacted.
Through serendipity and an unexpected consequence of their respective contract negotiations or circumstances, however, some players have more protection than others -- and some players are taking a more significant hit than their peers.
Players who have deferred money in their deals -- like the Orioles' Chris Davis, the Nationals' Max Scherzer, and A.J. Pollock of the Dodgers -- are better positioned to retain earnings.
When Davis signed his seven-year deal with the Orioles, Baltimore owner Peter Angelos insisted that a lot of the money be deferred, with zero interest. Deferred salary in baseball is not designed like a 401(k) plan, with money drawn from each paycheck set to the side; rather, the payment schedule is simply drawn out over a greater period of time. Angelos' goal, at the time of negotiation, was to get the present-day value of the Davis contract under $120 million -- and while the deal was originally reported at $161 million, the elongated disbursement schedule pulled the present-day value to $119.5 million. Davis' seven-year contract ends following the 2021 season, but he'll draw $42 million from the deal from 2022 to 2028, or an average of an additional $6 million for each of the seven seasons.
Almost all of Davis' peers are not receiving any money during this MLB shutdown, beyond their share of the $170 million lump that the union negotiated for players. But in Davis' case, about a third of his compensation was punted to a future date, and is safe. So is the 2020 salary of Zack Cozart. Following two seasons of injuries and ineffectiveness, the Angels unloaded Cozart in a winter deal with the Giants, surrendering top prospect Will Wilson so San Francisco would take the last season of Cozart's three-year, $38 million deal off their hands. Just 34 days after that trade, the Giants -- who regarded Cozart merely as the vehicle through which they were able to add Wilson -- released the veteran.
That happened in January, and the timing turned out to be lucrative for Cozart. If the Giants had held Cozart through the first weeks of spring training, through the shutdown, then he would be in the same position as just about all of his peers, with his salary disappearing. But when Cozart was cut from the roster, the Giants were locked into paying his 2020 salary.
Dellin Betances hasn't thrown a pitch for the Mets, but, as it turns out, he will be the highest-compensated player in the organization for a lot -- and maybe all -- of 2020. Just before Christmas in the offseason, Betances signed a one-year contract with the Mets reported to be worth a guaranteed $10.5 million. But because of an accounting preference by the team, more than half of Betances' deal was structured in a signing bonus of $5.3 million, and regardless of whether the Mets play a single game this year, he gets that money.
His 2020 salary, subject to the money lost to the coronavirus pandemic, is $2.2 million, and he also is line for a $3 million buyout if the Mets don't pick up his 2021 option -- and again, no matter what happens with the 2020 season, the money in that buyout is shielded.
Pitcher Ross Stripling avoided arbitration with the Dodgers when agent Matt Laird negotiated a $2.1 million deal in early January, long before there was any sense that the coronavirus might interrupt the season. But the vast majority of Stripling's deal was constructed in a signing bonus of $1.5 million, a design that worked for both sides -- and in the end, saved Stripling a lot of money.
Typically, agents don't like to backload contracts too steeply, with a lot of the salary pushed off into the future. But a small handful of players benefit from that kind of structure this year, including Madison Bumgarner. The left-hander signed a five-year, $85 million deal with the Diamondbacks over the winter, but he is slated to make just $6 million in salary in 2020 -- with his compensation jumping to $19 million next year, $23 million for the 2022 and 2023 seasons, and $14 million in '24.
Other players have been much more luckless. Marcell Ozuna was given a qualifying offer of $17.8 million by the Cardinals last fall, and he rejected that before signing a one-year, $18 million deal with the Braves -- a short-term bet on himself. With a big 2020 season, Ozuna could've launched into free agency again next fall and set himself up for a multiyear deal.
Ozuna has made $26.4 million in salary before this year, and his '20 salary would've represented 41% of his career earnings. But now that is in jeopardy, as is the opportunity to cash in with a long-term deal in the fall.
Jake Odorizzi battled through injuries and crested in 2019, posting a 3.51 ERA and making the All-Star team for the first time. The Twins extended a $17.8 million qualifying offer for Odorizzi and he accepted what was to be the most lucrative salary of his career, by far. But that payday could be lost, and it's unclear what kind of opportunity Odorizzi will have to pitch this summer before going into what is expected to be a larger pool of free agents in the fall.
Michael Brantley turns 33 next week, in what is supposed to be the 12th year of his big-league career. With baseball shut down, however, Brantley might lose some of the highest salaries of his career: After the 2018 season, the respected veteran signed a two-year, $32 million deal with the Astros, a contract expected to just about double his lifetime earnings.
But that is on hold, like so much else in the baseball world.