The Prospect Promotion Incentive was instituted as part of the latest collective bargaining agreement prior to the 2022 season. As the name implies, its designed to incentivize teams to more quickly promote their top prospects to the majors and avoid service time manipulation to gain a seventh year of team control over a given player. If an eligible player wins the Rookie of the Year award or is a finalist for either the MVP or Cy Young award before he reaches arbitration eligibility, then his team will be awarded a pick immediately after the first round of the following years draft. Over the first three years of the incentives existence, four players have earned a PPI pick for their team: , , and all did so by winning their leagues Rookie of the Year award, while did so last year by finishing second in AL MVP voting. Thats more than one player per year bringing in an extra pick for their team, and that collection of some of the leagues brightest young stars would have otherwise been prime candidates for service time manipulation; all were viewed as among the games best prospects, and all except Carroll had not yet signed an extension with their club although both Witt and Rodriguez would do so later on. The Mariners, in particular, had a history of manipulating service time with their best prospects including a surrounding their handling of then-top prospect . In the cases of Rodriguez, Henderson, and Witt, the club in question evidently felt that the combination of a potential PPI pick and a full season of their top prospect in the majors was the better choice to pursue than the po sibility of a seventh year of team control. The fact that players who finish in the top-two of Rookie of the Rick Tocchet Jersey Year voting are awarded a full year of service time even if they have not yet reached 172 days naturally surely factors into that calculation as well; the Pirates held star right-hander back from their Opening Day roster and ended up with the worst of both worlds when he won the NL Rookie of the Year award last year. Not only did they not receive a PPI pick for Skeness win after he wasnt included on their roster to begin the year, but his win cost them that extra year of team control gained by holding him back in until May anyway. 2015 NL Rookie of the Year surely wouldve appreciated the opportunity to get that same bump in service time and move his free agency up to the 2020-21 offseason. Not all instances of the PPIs influence are quite this cut-and-dry, however. One recent trend regarding PPI-eligible prospects has been for clubs to put potential Rookie of the Year candidates on their Opening Day roster (or promote them early enough in the season so that they retain PPI eligibility) before giving them a short run in the majors and optioning them to the minor leagues if they dont excel. The Cubs recently did exactly this with top infield prospect , who was promoted back today after making the Opening Day roster, struggling in 18 games, and then spending a month at Triple-A. The Orioles have used this tactic when handling the promotions of and , as well. Exactly how much those demotions had to do with service time and how much they had to do with performance can be debated, but its a method that allows a team to e sentially hedge their bets by only extracting that extra year of team control once the PPI-eligible player has struggled enough in the majors to make a top-two finish in Rookie of the Year voting extremely unlikely. Aside from those cases, there are also some teams that seem completely undeterred from holding down their top prospects by the PPI. The aforementioned Pirates fall into this group even after the debacle with Skenes last year, as theyve shown no inclination towards promoting top pitching prospect despite his dominance at Triple-A and the clubs struggles at the big league level. How do MLBTR readers view the incentive? Has it been a succe s because its allowed players like Skenes to earn a full year of service while getting players like Henderson the opportunity to break camp with the big league team on Opening Day of their rookie seasons? Or is the fact that players like Chandler are still being held down in the minors while players like Shaw and Holliday have been sent back to Triple-A once theyre no longer good bets to bring in a PPI evidence enough that the system is ineffective? Have your say in the poll below: Does The Prospect Promotion Incentive Work? Yes, it's an effective tool to encourage teams to promote their young stars even if it's not utilized by every team. 56.55% (1,226votes) No, teams have continued to hold down their top prospects too frequently for it to be considered a succe s. 43.45% (942votes) Total Votes: 2,168 Jaromir Jagr Jersey