Dear Mr. EFL Answer Man:
If I release a player, on an unexpired Veteran contract in the EFL, who is not a free agent yet in MLB — ie, he is still subject to unilateral renewal or arbitration — do I get at least some relief from his salary if, after I’ve announced the DFA, his MLB team renews his contract or he undergoes arbitration? Or does relief flow my way only when he’s been able to negotiate a new contract as a free agent?
Signed: Yennier Angel Janson Nathaniel Justin Zach Tyler Gregory Vientos owners
Dear Owners:
Let’s start properly, by reading the relevant rule 3.A.1.e:
The obligations under a Veteran players’ contract endure until they expire by their terms, unless the player dies or retires, or another MLB or EFL team contracts with the player after the player has been DFA’d.. If the player’s salary under the new contract with other team(s) is not at least equal to the player’s salary under his EFL contract, the EFL team remains obligated to pay the balance of the salary above the amount paid by the other team(s).
Relief arises when the player contracts with an MLB or EFL team after his EFL team DFA’s him. The rule is inelegantly written — I hope you have gotten rid of whoever wrote these rules and replaced him with someone competent — so it creates two possible sources of confusion:’
- When is a player “DFA’d” ?
- Does the contract have to be with a different MLB team than his previous contract? That is, does a team renewing pre-arbitration player, or signing an arbitration-eligible player, trigger salary relief for the EFL team if the player isn’t changing teams, or maybe doesn’t even have any say in the matter?
When is a player DFA’d?
For the purposes of this rule, the player is DFA’d when the EFL team abandons the right to keep him — which happens when the DFA is posted on our transactions page. We have relatively recently created the DFA Grace Period, which serves as our version of the 48 hours (I think it is) that MLB teams have to arrange trades for their DFA’d players. Our DFA grace period extends to the next roster deadline — ie, practically to Opening Day during the off-season. (MLB owners have never complained — at least not to my knowledge — about the unfair advantage this gives EFL owners.)
Does the player have to have had the freedom to negotiate his contract and/or choose to go to a different MLB team for us to get relief?
No. The relief is not a matter of justice to the player. It’s a matter of nixing any notions by MLB or other EFL teams that they are going to get to free-ride on EFL owners. If the MLB (or other EFL) TEAM has a choice of whether to employ the player or not, and they decide to employ him, what they pay the player is deducted from the EFL team’s obligation to that player. So if they renew a pre-arb or arbitration-eligible player who is on an EFL veteran contract named Yennier Angel Janson Nathaniel Justin Zach Tyler Gregory Vientos at some measly figure ($179,000, say), then Yennier Angel Janson Nathaniel Justin Zach Tyler Gregory Vientos gets $179,000 from the MLB team and the rest of his EFL salary from the EFL team.
