Major League Baseball hosts an annual symposium on arbitration wherein delegates from each team come together with the league to make recommendations for upcoming arbitration hearings. There is a ceremony near the end of the symposium when a “championship belt” is awarded to the team that best accomplished the “goals set by the industry,” per The Athletic’s Marc Carig. Passed annually from one year’s winner to the next, The Belt is a chintzy, plastic “prize,” intended as a moment of levity and morale for what can be a difficult process on all sides. In this thoughtful article, Carig digs into the arbitration process, its history, the toll it takes on those involved, and of course, The Belt.
Clearly, given the tumultuous relationship between Major League Baseball, the owners, and the Players’ Association, the optics here aren’t great. However harmless the intent (or however private), an award for essentially best limiting the earning potential for players is not likely to sit well with the MLBPA – or the public for that matter. MLB confirmed existence of The Belt, explaining it as “an informal recognition of those club’s salary arbitration departments that did the best.” This season, the finalists were the Astros, Braves, Cubs, Indians, Rays, and Twins.
Executive Director of the MLBPA Tony Clark reacted with a statement (via Twitter), saying, “That clubs make sport of trying to suppress salaries in a process designed to produce fair settlements shows a blatant lack of respect for our Players, the game, and the arbitration process itself.”
as much as some ask why this should concern the average fan, i think everyone agrees this is wrong and disgusting. Shame on the league, them and their $10 plastic belt.
I do not agree to that. Isn’t the arb process a head to head, team versus players to determine a players salary? Both sides will do what they have to in order to win. Doesn’t Boras do the same??? c’mon!!!
Boras does the same—only with the ethics of a used car salesman.
What evidence do you have of Boras’s ethics? He does the job his clients hired him to do. You not liking it has nothing to do with whether he’s ethical. You think a player shouldn’t have a shark working for him when he’s negotiating with a billion dollar corporation that has shown it will manipulate every rule on the book — and lobby Congress for new ones — to press their advantage?
I’d go buy my own team if I had a dollar for every time people on the internet took their silly intro to soc dialectics and used them to characterize the players vs teams dynamic like it’s Pollyanna vs Sauron
Hey dimitrios in la – buy into more owner-propaganda why don’t you.
Boras is actually good for players, bad for owners. Owners control the media, they tell you Boras is bad, and then now you think Boras is bad, because the media told you. Moneyball is the same thing – they made a book and movie about a guy saving billionaires money on the players who made them the money in the first place.
We should never ever feel bad for billionaires, for any reason, ever, because they ruined the world. “Each billionaire is a policy failure”.
Your worldview is showing
The book seemed to outline how to sabotage your predecessor’s excellent drafting and scouting by underachieving while pretending to be creative. There must be two different versions we read….
Idk, business owners rewarding business owners for saving money. I don’t get why this is news. Big deal.
“Intended as a moment of levity”…. get it?
Disgusting is a bit hard, but the optics are horrible. The fact is the guys in that room make a fraction of what those players make and they earn their money.
Defend this you billionaire apologists
You’re right. The belt is made of plastic?
It should be made of Platinum.
Yeah they could get some really cool ones made. I’ve seen them online.
It’s not so simple.
Thanks for the input, genius
I’ll be your huckleberry JD. Since you like to dictate how others should spend money….
Why hasn’t major league baseball expanded since 1998?
The longest drought since expansion began in 1961..
Why haven’t there been rich billionaires starting a new franchise in your precious city of Montreal? Or Portland? Charlotte? Nashville? San Antonio?
Spare us your self-righteous bullcrap. You cheer for a baseball team with the deepest pockets in baseball yet for years couldn’t pay up a first round draft pick or spend anywhere near needed to dominate the AL East. Two playoff appearances since buying the team in 2000. Yet you pat the ballclub on the back needlessly.
Defend that.
Since aj preller took the helm in San Diego. No player has reached a hearing. Sounds like a good practice to keep players happy
If I’m offended by this, what can be done for me? I don’t like how the MLBPA was treated, and it triggers me to read this article. Can comments be turned off for this post? Thanks TC.
i dont think theres any reason to turn comments off. if theres one person who’s willing to argue that thr common sentiment here is unjustified id be surpised.
It appears JJB’s comment is facetious.
JJB’s comment was also stupid. Making a comparison that trivializes domestic violence is stupid, and making light of people’s legitimate mental health needs (i.e., by trivializing triggers) is stupid.
Smh
Is this really what people think we sound like?
Get a life, the MLBPA is just as bad.
They should have had a celebration from winning 6 of 10 cases.
Players and their agents try to get more, owners try to pay less. That’s why it’s called arbitration. What’s the big deal. It’s just for fun, awarding the belt.
Clark just sounds like a whiner.
okay, guess i recsind my above reply. you do realize how bad this looks, trivial in and of itself or not, in the context of the issue at hand?
have you seen what the league did with free agency? they are trying to do the same with arbitration!
Ok but awarding a belt for it? Really
Outrage culture at its finest
Ah yes, keep this status quo going then. SMH
You sound like a 1%er apologist.
And you sound like a dumb teenager who needs a safe space
Clark is a bozo.
devil commish! reinstall message boards first!
yeah, anyone know what happened to the comment sections on MLB.com articles?
I’m a self proclaimed expert of this. Comments are becoming a thing of the past. They’re going extinct.
MLB.com removed it. (while ago actually last year)
Writing was on wall when they erased all the posts, one day, randomly. (think to change from livefrye, to mlb.com proprietary comment system) Because it’s MLB.com, and not ESPN, I have hope, one day, mlb.com comment section will make a comeback.
It’s actually pretty lame they deleted it without some kind of heads up. I used to talk with the same people on a regular basis and now have no way of communicating with them.
That is the saddest thing I’ve read in a while. But probably not in the way you’re thinking.
Says the guy commenting on a baseball site. The irony of your comment probably went right over your head. There’s nothing sad about enjoying talking to people about baseball. Don’t feel bad for me.
Great Article, DougieJones, on the matter. don’t read the Atlantic for news, but the public outcry, over their removal, echo exact my own: I feel very strongly about this. It’s why I don’t get mad, when they remove (mod) comments, here to prevent cesspool, from posts like SoCal
https://www.theatlantic.com/letters/archive/2018/02/letters-comments-on-the-end-of-comments/552392/
As for SoCalBrave, reported.
They went from a proprietary system to Disqus to Livefyre to nothing.
Ok. Some time in the latter portion of it, they cleaned out the comments… u could still post. That was annoying.
In convo with DC, I wrote it foreshadowed the removal of posting, and I was right
Pathetic sock puppet attempt. 0/10
I miss the days of commenting on the prospect lists.
The “Belt”, if they’re going to have one, should go to the team with the fewest arbitration hearings. Actually negotiating a mutually agreeable deal, and avoiding the need for third party resolution, ought to be worth much more than winning the largest number of public disputes.
The article is far better than this synopsis. TC adds his opinion in this excerpt which clouds the depth or the piece. The Athletic is well worth the subscription as the articles aren’t standard fare.
saleswoman for the athletic?
The full article is definitely well worth a read.
How are we supposed to believe you, if you didn’t say: “Subscription required and recommended?”
Manfred has always come off as arrogant and out of touch. This really confirms it. The MLBPA and owners have terrible leadership
Manfred and Clark deserve each other. They’re engaged in one of the most pathetic suck-fests in the history of organized sports.
Until today, MLB players and their union never realized that teams attempted to suppress their pay scale during arbitration hearings.
Haha
My god I just don’t believe it. A system in which the teams want to see a bigger figure and the player wants to see a smaller figure… Jesus this is an outrage
This seems far too silly to be raising ire and getting bunched over.
Society is far too sensitive over this minor stuff. Bigger issues to get energetic about than rich people arguing and getting their feelings hurt.
Thank you! I can’t believe people care so much about this.
Wonder what team has won the belt the most?
WWE WTF
I mean, I very much, highly doubt an owner has ever entered to discuss arbitration with the main thought being “I really need to win that belt this year”.
Oh come on, don’t be saying things that aren’t paper thin union platitudes…
Only way to solve this is a cage match between Manfred and Clark.
clark wins with cobra twist.
I had a visual of Manfred talking to the late Mean Gene while holding the belt, “WHATCHA GONNA DO BROTHER, WHEN ARBITRATION RUNS WILD ON YOU?”
All the final teams have good, or great chances of making the playoffs this year.
But who actually won?
I need to know.
Tony Clark from the top rope!
I can’t believe in this day and age that people still think it is okay to use their money to open a business and then do whatever it takes to maximize their returns and profits. Can you believe the nerve of these people. Next thing you know, the guy who spends more and moves first and fastest will feel like he has increased odds of more success. It’s outlandish to think such a world exists. Everyone knows that business should be non profit and the workers/employees should make all the money while the investor makes none. I don’t understand why it is so hard to understand.
Capitalism is about a free market economy. The most important part of a free market economy is competition. Period. MLB exists in a closed market economy due to a special anti-trust exemption which allows them to operate in a closed market environment. Monopolies are bad for capitalism. Like terminal, lethal bad.
Not true,
Some are needed, electric companies, water companies are all monopolies.
Someone tries to have a little fun, and all the babies go nuts.
The MLBPA should have had a championship dinner for win 6 of 10 cases.
You’re talking about monopolies with GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED, fixed pricing. Those industries became monopolies due to being a component of national infrastructure where multiple distribution companies in the same area would create servicing disasters. Furthermore, those services are considered essential and required for modern living and the cost of getting into that industry is cost prohibitive.
This isn’t about “fun.” This is about working together across multiple organizations to pay employees less money by collusion.
While the intent behind the process may have been a joke, it shows a collaborative cross-team effort to keep wages down. Considering it would likely meet the definition of collusion, it’s stunning the league would be so tone deaf as to continue to endorse this activity.
Owners and front offices are clearly drunk on their power at the moment and this event will likely lead to far more serious ramifications depending on Tony Clark’s level of incompetence.
i hope parents of young kids and future parents realize there is less and less opportunity for their kids in the future. other sports will attract more talents especially domestic talents. then and only then baseball executives find out what they have been doing with salaries would come back to bite their collective behind!
With NBA roster sizes as they are, and the fear that letting a kid play football makes them a bad parent, really all there is is MLB and MLS.
Boo freaking hoo
I know right. People getting excited because guys are getting less money to play baseball and we aren’t outraged by it. I don’t remember the last time Dallas Keuchel stood up and said, “ You know our fans don’t make as much money as we do, but the owners charge our fans $10 for a beer that cost $.50, and I think as players we should be outraged for our fans. They already have to pay parking and high ticket prices!” Yeah I missed those articles.
Players are not getting less money. The old guys are getting fewer years on their contracts and teams have decided to extend younger players and pay them in their prime.
read!
Which calculates to less money. It’s all about money.
People are “getting excited” because an obvious instance of the way ultra-wealthy are further consolidating power and wealth through illegally ripping other people off.
The players should have a bird shaped trophy that goes “CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP” and award it to the worst owner every year… although it WOULD be difficult deciding who sucks hardest.
AUSTIN!!! IT WAS ME AUSTIN!!!
Hey Tony Clark where should your fresh supply of crying towels be delivered, To your house or in your luxurious office oh wait you don’t have to choose where to take delivery we’ll just send a fresh supply to your home & to your office.
Who is Clark kidding – “suppress salaries”? Arbitration inflates salaries because even when a player “loses” he still wins because he gets a raise. Now if teams could arbitrate a player’s salary down, then Clark would have a point.
It’s clearly salary suppression.
If these pre-arb players went to the open market, they’d obliterate pre-arb and arb salaries. It’s a joke.
This isn’t a problem in and of itself. The problem is how it looks when the league rakes in more profits every year, but player salaries have actually decreased the past 2 years
100% correct.
Yep. Average wages for everyone have been stagnant since 1975 but billionaires and millionaires have flourished. Baseball is turning into that system – the haves and have-nots. The Harpers and Trouts will be fine, but the mid-tier guys are going to struggle. And if you think with reduced payrolls somehow ticket prices will go down…well, how’s that working out so far this season?
That’s hilarious. Let them have their fun.
Their “fun” is pocketing the profits they should be paying Kimbrel and Keuchel, and everyone else who took a pay cut this offseason after owners made record-setting profits last year.
If this kind of behavior doesn’t sway fans back to the players’ side, then I don’t know what will.
What a complete embarrassment.
Go hide in your safe space with your coloring books
what i don’t understand is why there is a symposium in the first place. for organizations to gather and share ideas about reducing the salaries of players is a little collusion-y in the first place
Dear Internet,
I’m offended
Everything wrong with the financial system in this league, and *this* is what gets Tony Clark worked up. I just want to give him a big hug and buy him ice cream.
This is just insulting to the players and fans, at this point I actually WANT a strike. ALL MLB owners are ruining the game because of their own greed and they refuse to stop.
Will every non-postseason team receive a participation trophy after the season? Perhaps a buffet-style banquet at the winter meetings.
Disgusting story. Absolutely terrible. I do not want a strike, but it seems inevitable when you see stuff like this.
How dare those owners “make sport” of a sport!