Where the surplus ends and the open market begins.
The open market and the aging-curve trap, the qualifying offer, and posting the foreign professional.
The open market and the aging-curve trap.
Free agency is the one market where a team pays a player his open-market value, converted from his projected win value into dollars. And the read runs the contract against the aging curve, because a player reaches free agency after six service years, typically entering his thirties, so a long free-agent deal pays present dollars for the decline phase.
A 6-year, $162M deal for a 30-year-old prices out near $8.5M per win at signing, but the aging curve says the WAR falls from 4.1 toward 0.7 across the term, so the back years pay peak dollars for decline production. Free agency buys the decline phase, and the read prices exactly that. Free agency buys the aging curve: present dollars for the decline phase, not the peak that earned the deal.
Illustrative engine read on the real open-market pricing and aging-curve trap (projected win value converted to dollars per win, read against the decline curve after six control years). Composite free agent, demonstration figures flagged v0 and current-as-of.
The qualifying offer and compensation.
The qualifying offer carries draft-compensation consequences that the engine folds into the true cost of a signing. A departing qualified free agent costs his new team draft capital and returns a pick to his old one, so the sticker price is not the whole price.
A qualified free agent costs his new team draft capital and returns a pick to his old one, so the engine folds that compensation into the true cost instead of pricing the contract alone. And the whole mechanism is flagged current-as-of, because a proposal to eliminate the qualifying offer is live in the current negotiation. The qualifying offer is part of the price, folded into true cost, and flagged as a rule that may not survive the CBA.
Illustrative engine read on the real qualifying-offer compensation (draft capital forfeited by the signing team, a pick returned to the old club, folded into true cost), flagged current-as-of. Composite figures.
Posting the 25-plus foreign professional.
A player posted from a foreign professional league who is 25-plus with six seasons is a true free agent, not the under-25 international-amateur fork. He is priced here at open-market value plus the posting fee to his former club, and the page shows the boundary explicitly.
The 25-plus, six-season posted player is a true free agent, priced here at open-market value plus the posting fee to his former club, while the younger posted player is sent to International Signings as an amateur. The age gate is the fork, and this is the free-agent side of it. Over the age gate, a posted player is a true free agent: open-market value plus the posting fee, priced here.
Illustrative engine read on the real 25-plus posting (a true free agent priced at open-market value plus the posting fee, the age-and-service boundary that sends the younger posted player to International Signings). Composite player, demonstration figures flagged v0 and current-as-of.
The engine prices the signing at dollars per win against the projected decline and folds the compensation into the true cost.
Pay the open market. Price the decline.
Free Agency prices the one open-market signing at dollars per win against the aging curve, folds the qualifying-offer compensation into the true cost, prices the 25-plus posted player as a true free agent plus his posting fee, and flags the December 2026 CBA proposals in place.