Somewhere in a board room -- or possibly over a Zoom call -- on Monday afternoon, the deadline for Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association to agree on an international draft starting next season came and went without an agreement in place.
The Players Association had objected to the concept all of last winter and into the early spring, so when the two sides couldn't come to an agreement in early March, the issue got tabled. The two sides would continue negotiating the issue into the summer, with the proviso that if they agreed on an international draft by July 25, the current free agent compensation issue, involving qualifying offers and compensatory draft picks, would cease to exist.
Conversely, a failure to come to an agreement would mean the current system would remain in place.
That's what happened Monday afternoon -- no deal, so, no change to the system.
You may be thinking: So what? And in most cases, you'd be correct. But Monday's development has far-reaching implications for this winter, especially for the Red Sox.
Here's why: now that the qualifying offer remains in place, the Red Sox stand to reap some additional draft picks should they, as expected, lose a number of their high-profile free agents-to-be.
It stands to reason that three players of the eight or so potential free agents might be worth a qualifying offer: Xander Bogaerts (should he opt out), J.D. Martinez and Nate Eovaldi. We won't know exactly what the qualifying offer figure will be until later this fall, but if recent history is a guide, it should be somewhere in the neighborhood of $18-19 million. (The figure is derived from determining the mean of the top 20 percent of player salaries).
The Sox can make those qualifying offers to all three players. If the players reject the offer, they become free agents, and the Sox will get additional draft picks after the second round next July. If they accept the offer, they'd be bound to the Sox for 2023 at the prescribed figure.
That's a significant influx of picks that could come to the Sox, and for an executive obsessed with stockpiling prospects, it's a significant haul.
So what does this mean in the short term?
The trade deadline is now just a week away (Aug. 2). The Red Sox remain on the periphery of the wild card race, and there's a case to be made for them to hold an auction for some of their better veteran, in the hopes of getting prospects in return.
However, in recent years, the return on rentals -- that is, players set to become free agents after the season -- has been shrinking on an annual basis. As the industry zealously guards its prospects, fewer and fewer teams want to give up any quality young players for two months or so of a veteran player.
Monday's news, then, means the Red Sox might be more tempted to hold on to the likes of Bogaerts, Martinez and Eovaldi, even if they should fall further out of postseason contention in the coming week.
Why give up three of your better veterans if you're just going to get, say, the 10th-best prospect in someone else's system? And trading off the trio would send a signal to the fan base that the team has officially given up on the rest of the season. Who will become the everyday DH in Martinez's place? Who plays shortstop if Bogaerts is moved? Who slides into the top spot in the rotation to replace Eovaldi?
Trading those three would likely consign fans to two full months of non-competitive baseball, the likes of which the Sox have played as injuries have torpedoed their roster in the last three weeks. That doesn't sound very appetizing.
Meanwhile, if the Sox hold onto the three, there remains the possibility that, fully healthy by mid-August -- minus Chris Sale and Kike Hernandez -- the team could at least have the potential for a hot streak that could catapult the Sox into a wild card spot, while offering the safety net of compensation after the season.
A number of team sources were unsure what Monday's development would mean for their team, but each acknowledged it would be a factor to consider should the team be weighing a selloff early next week.
The fact the qualifying offer (and attendant draft picks) will continue to be in place gives the Sox some options that could have been taken off the table had an agreement on the international draft not been reached. For a franchise unsure of exactly what path to take in the next week, that could be significant in the decision-making process.