Julio Rodríguez and Student Debt
Well, we officially have a trend. Eighteen months ago, Fernando Tatís Jr. signed a 14-year, $340 million contract with the San Diego Padres before ever playing a 162-game season. Then last offseason, Wander Franco signed an 11-year, $182 million extension with the Tampa Bay Rays after playing less than a full season. And now Julio Rodríguez has topped them all, signing a massive, confusing deal* worth somewhere between $210 million and $470 million.
*To try to break down the specifics of J-Rod’s deal: It starts with a seven year extension, worth $120 million that goes from next season through 2029. After the 2028 season, though, the Seattle Mariners can pick up an option on Rodriguez. The length and value of that option depends on where Rodriguez finishes in league MVP voting over the next eight seasons, but the lowest it will be worth is eight years and $200 million; the highest is ten years and $350 million. But if the Mariners DECLINE that option, then Rodriguez has his OWN option, worth five years and $90 million, that he can pick up after 2029; presumably that would only happen if something goes very wrong.
If you add in the deal the Atlanta Braves reached with Ronald Acuña Jr. after his first season (8 years; $100m), and the deal the Washington Nationals offered Juan Soto this year before trading him to San Diego (15 years; $440m), there is a clear new business strategy in baseball: Sign your young, talented players to VERY long contracts before they ever even come close to reaching free agency.
As a socialist baseball fan, I find this strategy very annoying. The salaries in these deals are so massive that you can’t really feel bad for the players in question – no matter how Rodríguez’s career turns out, he will end it with generational wealth. And it’s obviously good for the sport if fans can root for their team’s best player for a long time, without worrying he’ll leave in free agency (although I wouldn’t be so sure that these long-term deals mean a player will stay on the team long term – ask Rockies fans how that worked with Nolan Arenado).
But it’s also clear that these deals are the result of a huge power imbalance between players and owners. Since baseball players generally do not reach free agency until six years into their careers – and only even reach arbitration after three years – then a player’s only hope for getting paid close to what they are worth in those first three years is by signing one of these extensions. So it’s very tempting to take the money that’s offered, even if that means you might never reach free agency in your prime. After all, there’s no guarantee that you won’t get injured, or have some other career setback before becoming a free agent, and so you might never get another chance to cash in. And even if you do everything right, the Soto example shows that they might ship you out of town if you don’t take the deal.
So what, though? Who really cares if a few millionaires leave some extra money on the table in exchange for financial security? Well, I wouldn’t really mind, except for who ends up with that money left on the table: the owners. Without young free agents like Tatís and Rodríguez, the market for all players is depressed, and since baseball has no way to compel teams to spend money, then whatever they save on these extensions can just be pocketed, instead of reinvested in other players.
This is what happens under capitalism, which is a system of individualized risk and privatized gains. Players can choose to sign extensions or not, based on their own situations and belief in themselves, and it’s impossible to know at the time if it’s the right call. Sometimes players will take the money and regret it when they’re underpaid in their prime; sometimes they’ll get hurt and never land that big free agent contract. But the overall effect is that owners limit free agency and protect their own bottom lines.
It might not seem like such a travesty when you’re talking about a baseball player who will make at least $210 million, but this phenomenon of individualized risk is not unique to this situation. Just last week, with the controversy around student debt relief, we saw how it comes up in more typical ways. The cost of higher education was foisted on individuals, who took on debt to pay for college and grad school. Individuals made different decisions based on their circumstances and appetite for risk: some went to cheaper schools and took on less debt; some didn’t go to college at all; others got advanced degrees to improve their earning potential; etc. You can debate whether each individual decision was “right,” but the overall effect is clear: The workforce got more educated, and student debt exploded.
What’s weird about the student debt debate is that the government doesn’t even expect most of that money to be paid back. The people who owe the money don’t make enough to ever pay it off. So the debate is almost an ideological one about who ought to be RESPONSIBLE for the loss. For many people who have internalized the logic of capitalism, it is very important that the borrower be held responsible on an individual basis, as if the choices individuals make occur in a vacuum.
But just as you can zoom out from Julio Rodríguez’s contract and see how the overall trend in baseball benefits the owners, you can zoom out from each individual student loan and see how the overall trend harms workers. To paraphrase Marx, people make their own history, but they do not make it as they please. The tradition of all the dead generations – and the latest collective bargaining agreement – weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.