Baseball is in a period of change. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has been on a quest to make improvements and appeal to a younger generation.....but 19-year old Carter Stewart just threw him a curveball that Manfred surely wasn't expecting.
We talked about baseball's challenges earlier this month in MLB IS FAILING ALL THANKS TO ITS FAILING LEADER and one of the common themes we have seen in the past two seasons is how free agency is for the birds. It's not what it used to be and teams are not spending big money to go after quality guys like Craig Kimbrel and Dallas Keuchel, who are STILL unemployed (though not for long). Carter Stewart has chosen a much different path.
Multiple sources have the scoop, but Jeff Passan at ESPN has a good story on it HERE. We won't see Stewart in a MLB uniform for a while. Instead, Stewart has SHUNNED the draft and according to sources he will sign with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of the Japanese Pacific League by the end of the month. His deal will be a six-year contract worth $7 million plus incentives and it will be a groundbreaking deal that could have long-term consequences for Major League Baseball's amateur and professional affiliates.
Stewart could have signed a deal last year with the Atlanta Braves and gone the traditional route.
"Stewart, who was chosen by the Atlanta Braves with the eighth pick in the 2018 draft out of a Florida high school but did not sign after they reduced their signing-bonus offer due to an alleged injury, was expected to be chosen in the early second round of this June's draft. By signing with Fukuoka, which has won four of the past five Japan Series, Stewart would guarantee himself significantly more money than he would have made with a major league organization -- and could theoretically join the major leagues as a 25-year-old free agent."
Even first round drafted baseball prospects rely mostly on their big signing bonuses before working through the minor leagues on very low salaries. Once they get to the majors, players still don't make much until they become arbitration eligible or sign an extension like Luis Severino and Aaron Hicks did this off season. So really a players long-term future is a gamble. An early-career injury (like one the Braves were concerned about with Stewart) could prevent even the most talented players from getting more money. Stewart no longer has to worry about this.
So it's no wonder why Stewart's agent Scott Boras wanted to avoid all of this. For years he has manipulated baseball. You've probably heard someone somewhere say he is "bad for baseball" but he's helped players score deals in MLB and has tried to use the lure of taking a player to an independent league in hopes to gain leverage. It's never really worked until now.
So who knows what happens next in Stewart's journey. At 25 he could choose to come back to MLB based on the posting system or we may not ever hear about him again. For now, we wait and see what happens to Stewart. Does he succeed in Japan? Does he regress or is he just a bust?
Time will tell. Baseball is changing, and Manfred doesn't have an answer for this yet. Good thing Japanese teams are only allowed to have four foreign players on their rosters, so it's unlikely that Stewart started a big trend but he certainly could be the example.
Stewart has a much bigger deal than Major League Baseball was going to offer. Looks like he outsmarted everyone.
--Jeana Bellezza-Ochoa
BYB Managing Editor
Twitter: @nyprincessj
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