MLB salary structure needs updating

As the second half of this MLB season begins, Cody Bellinger, an outfielder and first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers, is a primary candidate for National League MVP, leading the league in wins above replacement (WAR). Josh Bell, an outfielder and first baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates, has 84 RBI — on July 11! Willson Contreras, the Chicago Cubs' feisty catcher, needs three homers and two RBI to match his previous career highs — with almost half the year to go. Ronald Acuna Jr., an outfielder for the Atlanta Braves, is the reigning NL Rookie of the Year — and getting better.

Each of those players was in the NL's starting lineup in Tuesday's All-Star Game. None is older than 27. Their combined 2019 salary: $2,436,000 — or, in other words, less than the Marlins are paying 36-year-old Sergio Romo to be their closer.

Major League Baseball's collective bargaining agreement with the players' union runs through the 2021 season, so in theory there shouldn't be much to worry about now. But be clear: Saber-rattling began in earnest at the All-Star Game in Cleveland. The numbers above are a major reason, with 2½ seasons to go before this officially becomes a crisis, players are openly discussing what might be next.

It's important to understand the shift we're seeing on the field — a shift to youth that made Freddie Freeman, at 29, the NL's oldest starting position player in Cleveland — hasn't coincided with a shift in how players are paid.

So all of this matters — now. The game is getting younger.

"It is undeniable that young players are getting to the big leagues faster," Commissioner Rob Manfred said in Cleveland. And when they get there, they wait to get paid. The issue is significant enough that MLB has offered, for the first time ever, to open negotiations on a new CBA while the existing one is barely at its midpoint.

Consider the players' plight: Since the start of the 2017 season, Alex Bregman of the Houston Astros and Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees rank seventh and ninth, respectively, in total WAR, according to FanGraphs. For their efforts, those two players have made $3,630,000 combined during that time. That's right. Two of the most exciting players in the game had an average salary of $604,983 during a period when, even accounting for Judge's injuries this season, they produced more than all but a handful of their peers.

For a player's first three major league seasons, a club essentially assigns the player his salary, starting at the collectively bargained minimum ($555,000 in 2019) with, typically, small raises the next two years. That's how Judge, in his third full season, can be making $684,300 this season.

For the following three seasons, players' wages are determined through arbitration; they earn a salary based on previous players with similar service time and similar production. That's how Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon, in his sixth full season, can make $18.8 million. Only after six years can a player enter the open market of free agency.

It has been a good system that has benefited the players enormously. It just no longer works.

Baseball's rise of youth has coincided with a decline of the aged. Major league front offices, most bolstered with brains that could make millions on Wall Street rather than calculate WAR or sharpen defensive metrics, no longer pay premiums for 30-something players just because of their track records.

How to fix it? Maybe get players to arbitration faster.