By: Brady Shick

Brady Shick is from Sagamore Hills, Ohio and recently graduated from Bowling Green State University. He is currently seeking opportunities to pursue a career in Baseball Operations.

July 7, 2025

Every team in Major League Baseball (MLB) looks for a way to get a foot up on their competitors. In past drafts, teams have taken high school prospects higher than they are projected and try to sign them away, with more money than projected, from the college for which they committed to play. One of the most common ways and most controversial is through service time manipulation. Service time is a value system that equates the number of days a player spends on the active 26-man roster for each Major League team. Service time is then used to determine when a player reaches arbitration with his respective club. Small market teams are normally the main culprits of manipulating their players’ service time, but almost always headlined each season by the Pirates. The most common way to manipulate is through the Super-2 deadline and the debuts of top prospects.

The Super-2 deadline normally takes place in the end of May or beginning of June every year and is the cutoff date for players to gain an extra year in which they are arbitration eligible, which normally takes place after three years of service time. If a player is in the top 22% of service time compared to those in their rookie class, they gain an extra year where they can go to arbitration to make more money during that season. If teams wait to call up a prospect later they can save money to use in free agency.

Teams like the Pirates constantly use this strategy with examples being Gerrit Cole, Austin Meadows, Tyler Glasnow, and most recently Paul Skenes. Notable stars called up after the deadline include Bobby Witt Jr (Kansas City Royals), Byron Buxton (Minnesota Twins), Elly De La Cruz (Cincinnati Reds) among others. Most of these players eventually went on to free agency, signing with other teams or being traded prior to reaching free agency.

2025 and Super-2 

Within the last week, Major League Baseball has seen two of their top minor league prospects come up to the big leagues in Jac Caglianone (Royals) and Roman Anthony (Red Sox). Caglianone, a former two-way player, hitting and pitching at the University of Florida, has dominated across both AA and AAA levels in the minors. This was all while learning a new position (right field). Caglianone made his Major League Debut without playing a full season in the minors and after dominating in the lower levels. 

On the other hand, Roman Anthony has been as dominant as anyone in the minors this season batting .288 with 10 homers in 58 games. He was also the top prospect in all of Minor League Baseball’s second visit to Triple-A. Many scouts across the industry were perplexed as to why he hadn’t gotten the call to the big leagues yet. Major League executives were less confused on his arrival time to Boston. By holding Anthony until this time of the season the Red Sox let the Super-2 deadline pass and gained an extra year of pre-arbitration control on Anthony. All of this was done for the Red Sox to save a few extra bucks while continuing to fall out of the division and wild card standings. 

The Red Sox aren’t the only team following this practice. The second ranked prospect in the minors, Bubba Chandler (Pirates), is currently pitching in Indianapolis. The Pirates have called up three other pitching prospects from Triple-A all of whom were on staff with Chandler and none of whom have pitched as well as he has. This is just another instance of the utilization of the Super-2 deadline for baseball.

Dying Practice

Many fans will remember that the 2022 MLB season was delayed due to a players’ strike. One of the largest gripes by the Players Union was the service time manipulation by front offices across the league. Finally, after three plus months of a strike both the owners and players agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement with this issue somewhat resolved.

The solution was for owners and front offices to be incentivized to call up their top prospects at the beginning of the season. If a top prospect makes the Opening Day roster and then wins his league’s respective Rookie of the Year award, that team receives a pick after the first round in the next draft. A team will also receive an extra pick if that prospect finishes in the top three of the Cy Young or MVP awards before he reaches arbitration. However, a team is only eligible for one pick each draft and each player’s success can only be responsible for one extra pick. Since the inauguration of this rule, the Orioles and Mariners have benefitted with Adley Rutschman finishing second in the Rookie of the Year race in 2022 and Julio Rodriguez winning Rookie of the Year that same season.

This new system also can have negative consequences for front offices. Last year’s National League Rookie of the Year did not make the Opening Day Roster for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Had Skenes been up since day one, the Pirates would have received an extra pick in this month’s draft, but due to the new rules this wasn’t the case. Additionally, because Skenes won Rookie of the Year he was awarded a full-year of service time and the Pirates lost the extra year of pre-arbitration they were fighting to maintain.

Future of the Super-2

Service time manipulation has been a big issue for years within the MLBPA and it looks like a better solution is coming. Potentially, long gone are the days of prospects not making their debuts until early to mid-June thanks to the potential for an extra draft pick. However, baseball might be the hardest to predict a prospect’s future. There are plenty of guys that take a year or even a couple to figure out the big leagues. With so much uncertainty teams and front offices will continue to find ways to lengthen their competitive window and service time manipulation is the most accessible. But for the fans hopefully they can see a Travis Bazzana (Guardians) or a JJ Weatherholt (Cardinals) on an Opening Day roster.