Rosenthal: New CBA forced teams to improve

A little-known aspect of the CBA — the market-disqualification program — is helping force a select group of teams to operate more competitively than they did in the past.

The way the program works, revenue-sharing proceeds for teams in the 15 largest markets will decline by set percentages over the next three years, and disappear entirely by 2016.

Teams that previously received such funds — Toronto, Atlanta and Washington, among them — had little incentive to field better clubs. Why bother? By increasing revenues, they lost revenue-sharing dollars.

The new CBA flips that equation.

Teams that are about to lose their revenue-sharing income are more motivated to make money. And teams make money by winning.

Jeffrey Loria disputes that notion.

Indians and Michael Bourn agree to a four-year, $48 million contract | HardballTalk

That’s unexpected.

According to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports, Bourn has agreed to a contract with the Indians. The deal is worth $48 million over four years and includes a vesting option for a fifth year which could push the total to $60 million.

Mets’ path to sign Bourn still cloudy

The Mets want this resolved, or else they will issue a Bourn ultimatum.

Maybe the New York Mets can pull the whole thing off and sign free-agent center fielder Michael Bourn without losing their first-round pick.

David Prouty, executive counsel of the players’ union, told The Boston Globe that he is in talks with baseball regarding the Mets’ desire to keep their pick if they sign Bourn.

One source with knowledge of the discussions said the team stands a “decent” chance of winning its argument that its first-round choice should be protected.

(The Mets had the 10th-worst record in the majors last season but fell to No. 11 — the first unprotected pick — when the Pittsburgh Pirates did not sign their first-rounder and, as compensation, moved back into the top 10).

Yet, the Mets’ path to Bourn still might not be clear.

Other clubs might have greater interest in Bourn than is being reported currently — and those clubs could sign Bourn without needing to wait for the union and baseball to resolve the draft-pick question, potentially in arbitration.

Passan: Scott Boras’ title of ‘Mr. January’ faces stiff challenge from MLB’s new rules on free agency

Mr. January is a nickname bestowed on Boras by owners flabbergasted by his propensity to snag large free-agent deals after New Year’s Day. Boras, long the sport’s villain, is the protagonist in this tussle, because baseball’s new rules governing the draft have destroyed the free-agent market for Adam LaRoche, Kyle Lohse, Michael Bourn and Rafael Soriano – the latter three of whom are Boras clients…

The new draft format included fixed bonus pools for teams based on the previous year’s record; the worst teams would get the most money. A separate rule transformed compensation for free agents who left. Teams would have to offer a player a one-year deal worth the average of the highest-paid 125 players in the major leagues the previous season – about $13.3 million this year. If another team chose to sign one of those players, it would forfeit its first-round draft choice and the bonus-pool money that came with it – unless it was a top 10 pick, in which case it would lose its second-rounder and the accompanying bonus value…

The pool system limits flexibility and creativity, leaving teams even more reticent to plunge into an already-inflated free-agent market when it’s tied to the draft.

“We’d love any of them if we didn’t have to give up our pick and pool money,” one GM said this week, and others have echoed his sentiment, frustrated that two disparate entities commingle in such fashion. Players are even angrier, and agents say they’ve had trouble explaining how stars in the future could be hindered by a rule that MLB promises it did not implement to create a false market…

When Zack Greinke and Anibal Sanchez got get-out-of-jail-free cards because they were traded midseason – only players who spend the whole season with one team are subject to compensation rules – and the interest in Edwin Jackson dwarfs that of Lohse, the system is broken. There’s a chance Mr. January weasels out of it like he has so many other problems. There’s also a chance some of the best players out there have to pull a Ryan Madson and take a one-year deal, and we saw how well that worked out.

Four players flap in the middle of this hurricane, which seems to spin with no end. Per usual, MLB and Scott Boras, the provoked and the provocateur, are in its ugly eye.