So Dexter Fowler’s free agency wasn’t exactly what he had hoped. Coming off of a career year which helped catapult the Chicago Cubs into the playoffs, and into the NLCS, Fowler was set to break the bank as the top centerfield free agent on the market.
Once the free agency period began, that is when the Cubs gave him a qualifying offer, which Dexter declined (there has been one player ever to accept a QO), and he was set to earn a multi-year deal on the open market.
But as the days, weeks, and months went on there was little news on the Dexter front. So little news that Dexter began to curse the qualifying offer process. Since Fowler was given the QO, if any other team besides the Cubs were to sign him, they would lose their first round pick and the Cubs would then gain a compensation pick between the first and second rounds of the MLB draft.
With payrolls and salaries growing to insane levels, team executives hold those draft picks on a higher pedastal than Squints held Wendy Peffercorn. Because of this, Dexter failed to have any real action on the market until teams began to report to camp.
That’s when the Baltimore Orioles came calling.
Rumors were running crazy that Baltimore had offered Dexter a three year deal worth about $35 million. It seemed that all was set, and players on the Orioles had even expected Dexter in camp.
And that’s when things started falling apart…
With most baseball insiders claiming the Dexter to Baltimore was a done deal, we still ended up seeing this happen one crazy morning in Mesa, Arizona.
Look who's back?! @DexterFowler is a #Cub again! pic.twitter.com/yqG8Z6PYXm
— Kelly Crull (@Kelly_Crull) February 25, 2016
Soon after there was some verbal jarring between Dexter’s agent (Casey Close) and the Orioles, but we learned Fowler had ultimately decided to stay in Chicago on a one year $13 million deal than go to Baltimore. While you assumed there was some shaddiness, we really were privy to the details… until now.
In an interview with Peter Gammons, Dexter told the whole story, and the insane request the Orioles made to get him to sign.
“We never really were close,” says Fowler. “They wanted me to pay them what they said the draft choice I was costing them was valued at. They wanted me to pay them for the pick. So we said, OK, then give me an opt-out after one year, and they said that’s something they won’t do.”
This is unheard of! The Orioles were expecting Dexter to pay them an estimated value for the pick they would lose by signing him. Dexter, who was almost backed into a wall, felt the need to pay Baltimore for their loss of a future player, even though they weren’t interested in bending at all for Dex in return.
It is completely understandable why he and his agent broke off talks, and why he will be roaming centerfield at 1060 Addison this summer. It also points to a serious issue with baseball’s qualifying offer system, and how it causes good players to go through experiences like this in order to find their next deal.
NBC Sports had something interesting to say on this (it’s a very interesting read so I encourage you to click).
Furthermore, that this is a negotiating tactic for teams against players illustrates just how poorly set up the system is against players. Players are often portrayed as greedy, but the Orioles were valued at $1 billion, according to Forbes last year. The 27th pick in the first round is worth around $8 million, per research done by Matthew Murphy at The Hardball Times back in 2014. It’s unknown how close that figure is to the Orioles’ internal calculations, but it’s a good reference point at the very least. The QO system essentially took $8 million out of Fowler’s pocket. More, really, if you subtract the $13 million from the Cubs from the supposed $35 million he had negotiated with the Orioles.
While team owners want to haggle over every penny paid to the players, the sport overall is much better off when the players are well paid and receiving a fair percentage of revenues. As Nathaniel Grow of FanGraphs illustrated last year, the players have been receiving an ever-decreasing percentage of revenues. It stood at 56 percent in 2002, but fell to 38 percent last season.
When the MLBPA sees their players receiving a smaller piece of the pie, along with many players speaking out about how the qualifying offer system, and we covered the MLB service clock earlier this year in regards to Kris Bryant, it could spell work stoppage unless the MLB is prepared to give something back. The league is setting a dangerous precident, and fans may not understand when they see players earning $20 million or more per year, the share of revenue is disturbing to a labor union. With baseball finally regaining the steam they had before their last work stoppage, one now could kill their business for several years to come.
This is a larger issue which could result in a gridlocked labor dispute. This time we may see two Cubs as the face of the dispute, let’s just hope it’s figured out after a potential Cubs World Series.
