I'm curious how this will work out over time. For these top guys, this isn't exactly chump change -- it's not big money by baseball standards either obviously. But somebody like Rutschmann might well $3-5 M in his pocket before he hits arb. Add in his signing bonus. It's even more reason for him to go year-to-year and hit FA as soon as possible. On the other hand, in the top 10, Alvarez, JRod, Harris and Clase signed buyouts this offseason. Do we think they got more than they would have?

For most players, I assume this will be pretty trivial. The bonus is only about $1 M by the top you get to the #10 guy (all that are listed in the article) but it covers the top 100. It's $50 M total and nearly 1/3 of it goes to this top 10 so the other 90 spots average just $400 K each ... guy #90 might be getting something like $50 K.

It also becomes a CBA negotiation football. We'll see no/small increases during a deal then the MLBPA will try to get a big jump in the pool (in $ and # of players) each CBA ... or will trade that off for concessions elsewhere.