## Facts

- Alvin Earl “Junior” Moore, a rookie third baseman for the Atlanta Braves with less than one year of Major League service, signed a one-year player contract for the 1977 season.
- The contract included a “special covenant” providing that Moore would judge whether he received sufficient playing time; if dissatisfied, he could demand a trade to a club he approved.
- The covenant further provided that if an approved trade could not be completed by the end of the 1977 season, Moore could elect to become a free agent.
- Under the MLB–MLBPA Basic Agreement then in effect, free-agency eligibility depended on meeting a collectively bargained service-time minimum (well above Moore’s service).
- The Basic Agreement also contemplated “special covenants” in individual contracts that benefited players, subject to league presidential approval.
- The league president refused to approve the special covenant, concluding it conflicted with the collectively bargained reserve/free-agency structure by effectively granting a sub-service player early free agency and affecting league-wide competitive and contractual expectations.
- The MLBPA filed a grievance on Moore’s behalf challenging the disapproval, asserting that a player-benefiting special covenant could not be rejected on the ground that it altered club control.

## Issues

1. Whether an individual-contract special covenant that accelerates free-agency eligibility is invalid because it conflicts with the Basic Agreement’s service-time-based reserve and free-agency system.
2. Whether the league president may disapprove a special covenant that benefits the individual player when the covenant would impair collectively bargained rights and expectations of clubs under the Basic Agreement.

## Decision

- The arbitrator upheld the league president’s disapproval of the special covenant.
- The arbitrator found the Basic Agreement’s service-time requirement for free agency to be part of a collectively bargained league-wide structure, not a term that a single club and player could effectively shorten by private agreement.
- The arbitrator concluded that “benefit to the player” did not, by itself, authorize contract terms that alter the Basic Agreement’s reserve/free-agency framework and affect other clubs’ collectively bargained interests.

## Legal Principles

- Special covenants in individual player contracts may provide added player benefits, but they cannot conflict with or reconfigure core structural provisions of the Basic Agreement, including the reserve system and service-time-based free-agency eligibility.
- Contract-approval authority includes power to disapprove player-benefiting covenants when they are inconsistent with the collectively bargained allocation of rights among clubs and players.
- The collectively bargained service-time period operates as a minimum league-wide term of club control that cannot be waived in a manner that changes the agreed free-agency system for individual players.

## Conclusion

The arbitration sustained management’s refusal to approve a “play me or trade me” clause that could lead to early free agency, holding that individually negotiated special covenants cannot override the Basic Agreement’s league-wide reserve and free-agency structure even if they benefit the player.


Alvin Moore & Atlanta Braves, MLB-MLBPA Arb. 77-18 (1977)