In every other profession, you can quit your job and go work somewhere else. In baseball, you have to earn that right. A player needs six years of major league service time to become a free agent — free to sign with any team, for whatever the market will pay. Until then, his team controls where he plays and, for the most part, what he earns.
This system has been at the center of baseball labor disputes for decades. It is the mechanism through which teams buy star-caliber production at below-market prices. It is also the mechanism players have fought to shorten, modify, or replace in every CBA negotiation since the 1970s.
Under the current CBA, service time is measured in days on the major league active roster. A full season equals 172 days of service, which counts as one year. Players accumulate service time toward two key milestones:
Three years: Salary arbitration eligibility. A player with three or more years of service can submit his salary case to an independent arbitration panel, which typically results in a significant raise above the minimum salary. Some players with between two and three years of service can qualify for arbitration early under “super-two” rules if they rank among the top service-time players in their class.
Six years: Free agency. A player with six or more years of service becomes a free agent after his contract expires and can negotiate with any team. This is when players typically earn their largest contracts. Ten years of service gives a player fully vested pension benefits.
For the first three years of a player’s major league career, his team has nearly total control over his salary. The team must pay at least the minimum ($780,000 in 2026), and may offer modest raises, but there is no requirement to pay anywhere near market value. A player who produces like an MVP in his first two seasons might still earn close to the minimum.
This is why the 2022 CBA created a $50 million pre-arbitration bonus pool: to give top-performing young players additional compensation during the years when their teams benefit most from below-market salaries. But the pool is a supplement, not a replacement for the system — teams still control the player and his salary.
Because the difference between 5 years and 364 days and 6 full years of service is the difference between team control and free agency, teams have a strong incentive to delay calling up their best prospects. By keeping a major-league-ready player in the minor leagues for the first few weeks of the season, a team can push back his free agency clock by an entire year — gaining an extra year of team control at below-market rates.
This practice, known as service time manipulation, has been one of the most controversial issues in baseball labor. The most high-profile case involved Kris Bryant, who was kept in the minors at the start of the 2015 season despite being clearly ready for the majors. The move gave the Cubs an extra year of control, and Bryant later filed a grievance (which he lost).
The 2022 CBA attempted to address this by creating incentives for teams to keep their best prospects on the opening-day roster, but critics argue the measures don’t go far enough. The next CBA negotiation could bring more fundamental changes, including proposals to tie free agency to player age rather than service time.
Once a player reaches three years of service time (or qualifies as a super-two), he enters salary arbitration. In this process, the player and his team each submit a salary figure for the upcoming season. If they can’t agree, an independent panel of arbitrators hears both cases and picks one number or the other — there is no splitting the difference.
Arbitration significantly raises salaries compared to the pre-arbitration years, but it still typically pays less than the open market. Players go through up to three years of arbitration before reaching free agency, with their salary generally increasing each year based on performance and comparisons to similar players.
MLB has proposed tying free agency to a player’s age (such as 29½) rather than service time, which would eliminate the incentive for service time manipulation. However, this could also extend team control for some players — a player called up at age 21 would currently reach free agency at 27 under the six-year system, but might not be free until 29½ under an age-based model. The details matter enormously, and the union will scrutinize any proposal carefully.
In MLB Strike 2027, free agency rules are one of the key CBA issues you negotiate. Shortening the path to free agency makes players happy but concerns owners about losing their best young talent sooner. Every adjustment moves the approval meters.
FanGraphs: MLB Player & Contract Data
Baseball Reference: Free Agency
Spotrac: MLB Free Agent Tracker