Free agent
Who is the free agent in baseball?
Are there any categories of free agency?
The free agent is any player who can sign a contract with any franchise in the MLB. That rule came into effect in 1972 in the aftermath of the Flood vs Kuhn court case. The 1976 reform brought a wider range for them.
Bargaining Collective Agreement created three types of free agents in the league: Type A, Type B and unclassified. Any team losing one player of that type gains some privileges. Type A free agent equaled the top draft pick from the team signed that player plus supplemental draft pick in the upcoming seasonal draft as the compensation. Type B to whom they had offered arbitration granted the compensational draft pick. Teams who lost the unclassified free agents did not receive the compensation in the case when they didn’t offer the contract to the classified free agent. This system ended with the 2012 Collective Agreement. A player automatically becomes the free agent when it reaches six years of the league service time. The player mustn’t be under contract for the following season.