It’s make-or-break time for MLB and the MLBPA on forging a path to baseball in 2020. With some significant negotiations looming this week, ESPN’s Jeff Passan runs through some of the biggest questions facing the league. The battle between players and owners is rife with potential roadblocks, and it’s not just the conditions of 2020 that are at stake. With the CBA renegotiation still in the (what-now-feels-like distant) future, both sides are aware of the impact any concession can make to the bigger picture. The way this week’s negotiations are handled could reveal the potential the two sides have of forging an effective working relationship moving forward. One would think now would be an ideal time for opposing sides to come together, and yet it’s just not as simple as that when billions of dollars are at stake. There are countless people and opinions to take into account on both sides of the aisle. While we await a loaded week of negotiations, let’s check in on how teams are handling their non-player-and-coach employees…
- Teams are taking a variety of approaches when it comes to their employees in the wake of COVID-19, but the Angels have come under fire for taking a more drastic approach than most, per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. The Angels will be furloughing employees from nearly every department, including, in the words of Rosenthal, “weakening its amateur scouting department heading into the draft.” The optics aren’t great here for the large-market Angels, especially when clubs like the Brewers, Giants, and Phillies have made commitments to retaining their staff at least through October. The Blue Jays also recently made the decision to keep employees’ on their full-time salaries through October 1, tweets John Lott, a frequent contributor to The Athletic. The Brewers have been the most aggressively pro-employee, per Rosenthal, committing to keeping their staff on through the entirety of the baseball season. The pro-employee approach is laudable, though not necessarily all that shocking coming out of Milwaukee. The Brewers have increasingly stepped into the spotlight in recent years as a progressive organization, from the supportive atmosphere provided players to making special efforts to get Milwaukee residents in to see games to their very team-building approach. The Angels, meanwhile, might find tough sledding ahead when it comes to signing undrafted amateur players. Without their typical scouting infrastructure in place, those relationships will be harder to build in an open market, and it’s possible the decisions being made by ownership today will have far-reaching consequences for the organization’s future.
- The Rays, meanwhile, are readying to return to the field. Camp will re-open on Monday for a small collection of 15 to 20 players, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Those players involved will still be keeping a separation of six feet from other players, and workouts will be limited. Still, it’s a positive sign to see players start to congregate again around a playing field. It’s also, no doubt, a risky proposition, but so long as safety precautions are followed and we don’t see a breakout of cases among these players, these workouts could be a harbinger of more baseball to come.
- Baseball is back already in some places of the world, of course. The KBO is about 17 games into their 2020 season, and they’re about to get a lot more popular. A new deal was announced for ESPN to become the English-language home of KBO games set to broadcast around the world, per ESPN’s Santa Brito. Play-by-play announcers will continue to provide commentary while social distancing. ESPN will soon be broadcasting KBO games “throughout Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean (including the Dominican Republic), Europe, Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia.”
Just give the players 100% of their salaries. They get paid while being on the IL. Why would this be different. F
This is how I feel. Unless there is a contract clause saying if the league can’t play you don’t get paid, a contract is a contract and they should get paid.
There is a national emergency clause in the CBA that states players receive no money in the event of such an emergency, if no games can be played. A national emergency was declared in the US in March. MLB did give the players 170 million, but it was well within their rights to give them nothing.
That is exactly what their contract says.
Theres still revenue when theyre on the DL.
There is still some revenue now from licensing including merchandise, video games, and limited television (MLB Network, rebroadcasts of old games on both national and local sports channels, etc). It’s not zero. Because not all revenue streams (or expenses) are public (or made available to the players union), it’s hard for us to judge what the teams and MLB are still earning, what they will earn if the season starts, and what they will forego if those games are before empty stands.
One of the worst things a sports owner could ever hear is “public audit”
The players have already agreed to taking prorated salaries for the year. The billionaire owners just need to not be greedy and honor that. And if guys like Blake Snell dont want to come and honor that than ok stay at home and dont get paid.
The difference is no games played versus games played. If you can’t grasp that, then no point discussing further.
Because the season is not active. When a player is on the IL the season goes on. The season has not started. Your example is weak. Try again.
Milwaukee Brewers = Class
It seems that way-where as Arte Moreno, notsomuch.
so stupid both sides cant agree that this deal is a one-off
What I never want to hear again: “Players don’t benefit when times are good for owners … ”
Hello? That’s because players have never wanted a split of revenue … never negotiated for it. They preferred to have a set income structure.
“Our contract calls for a straight proration of salary.” Unless, of course, games are played without fans. In that case all bets are off. That’s in the contract as well.
I predict that MLBPA will accept a 15-20% salary reduction and that 2020 salary will then be prorated. For an avg MLB salary of $5M that would mean about a $1M cut to $4M and then half of that for an 81 game season ($2M).. That’s no financial disaster.
You should educate yourself on the history of MLBPA and MLB because you don’t seem to know very much.
Please feel free to correct me. I stand by every word I wrote.
I’m not your teacher, that’s why I said educate YOURSELF, I’m not trying to be an a$$, sorry if it came across that way. You are welcome to not educate yourself and remain ignorant on the topic but clearly there is a lot you don’t know about the history of negotiation. If your going to make blanket absolute statements you should probably know more about the topic.
I agree with your sentiment, he’s over simplified this all, but dont be the guy whos like “I know something you dont” and then end your point. Either share a point or be an observer. What you did here is antithetical and embarrassing.
I’m not going to teach this person 55 years of contentious negotiating between the MLBPA and MLB, google is your friend and his. I don’t claim to know anything that everyone else couldn’t know, all anyone has to do is google and read.
You haven’t demonstrated that you know anything, either.
I’m not sure I agree with Sandman philosophically (that is, if I understand their point of view correctly), but they made a claim and provided evidence.
You said “You’re wrong” and gave no evidence. No one is asking you for a dissertation, but I would agree with Bkbk that you come off rather poorly here by not elaborating on “you’re wrong.”
This season is a unique circumstance that the two sides have no history dealing with. A lockout or a strike would be a really bad look. If ballpark revenue is 40% of an owners usual take, having the players meet them halfway, or almost halfway ( 15-20% rollback on their pro-rated salaries ) sounds entirely reasonable. If both sides want baseball this year, both will have to compromise their current positions.
ok
I love all the internet experts on here. How about you all just wait until next week when those involved actually make the decision for themselves. I don’t know about you guys, but I love baseball and I want a season, BUT I DON’T GAF ABOUT THE DETAILS
I don’t know how old you or sandman12 are but I’m going to assume you are millennial’s, I say that not as a bad thing but if you both are under 30 you have grown up watching baseball in an unprecedented time of labor peace in MLB. But for those of us that are a little older the road to labor peace was very bumpy, 3 or 4 strikes/lockouts from 75-95, 3 collusion grievances filed on the owners in the 80s. For older then myself they probably have memories of the reserve clause and owners paying players whatever they feel like. One theme throughout all of the negotiations was that MLB wanted a CAP with a revenue split but they didn’t want to open the books to the unions for the split, they pretty much just wanted the players to take their word for it, which is something they still what them to do today, as pointed out by Vizionaire in his comment. Also how would this work with a team like the Blue Jays? As is well known teams get a lot of value in local television contracts, well the Blue Jays don’t collect a dime from SportsNet (I don;t know how they manage that), but in that case Rogers pockets all the commercial revenue and nothing would to to the player pot.
Anyone under 30 has lived in a baseball boom, no real wars over money because there is just so much to go around, its truly been the financial golden times for MLB. Now that there’s some trouble in the financial wonderland I totally anticipate the owners reverting to type.
The reason I say google it is that if I even tried to give an idea of how unethical the owners have historically been in negotiating with the players it would be a massive post and I wouldn’t be doing the topic much justice, very good writes – much better then myself – have written on the topic extensively and without an agenda.
@abgb123 Well you just did what you said you wouldn’t do, and it happens I agree with most of what you said about the history of the relationship between the owners and players. It seems many younger fans simply don’t have any memory of the labor disputes of the fairly recent past so they disbelieve anyone who tells them how bad it’s been in the past, and the degree of damage past labor disputes did to the game.
We hear quite a few suggestions that the players have no leverage at all in this situation because the owners can simply go out and find another 750 ballplayers. A person can only say such a thing if they are simply ignorant of what happened in 1994. Suffice to say we’ve been there and done that and it was catastrophic to the reputation of the game. In fact the fan reaction to MLB’s hiring of third-rate amateur scab players in 1994 was so negative it led directly to the next scandal. Ownership was so much in need of diversion from the mess they’d made that they averted their eyes from the rampant use of PEDs. Took them years to see how big a mistake that was. So that’s why we’ll be talking about those asterisks forever.
Ownership has to pull back the kimono on their books now if they if they are going to have any hope of building some degree of trust with the players. If they don’t it will all come back to haunt them next year, and us too if they allow the situation to turn into a repeat of the 1990s. I honestly don’t expect them to see the light. The decision-making structure in MLB is just too fragmented and chaotic and it puts the commissioner in a perpetually weak position. Ownership is probably going to need another deathbed conversion and we the fans will have to suffer through it, even the fans who don’t know that it has all happened before.
Rogers owns Sportsnet and the Blue Jays. Rogers receives whatever revenue they earn. There is your answer. Their owner owns the team, the media and the narrative.
union has always wanted revenue split the way nfl or nba do. owners never have wanted to open books which were needed to share the revenue. the owners proposed revenue sharing only because of partial season and no fans in stadiums. they still would not open books which means players would need to trust owners blindly. that ain’t happening!
If players trust the owners they will still stand to collect many millions of dollars in salaries. Not a bad deal even if the owners aren’t trustworthy. It Beats sitting out and no one makes anything.
i guess players have backbones.
Find a place to play that has at least 97,732 seats and place wreathes on each of the seats. That’ll do it for today. Again, no baseball. Stop this foolishness.
Just cancel the season already. It’s not going to happen, no matter what they do, no matter what agreement they come to, they are never going to get a season in.
End. Of. Discussion.
And even if they do somehow find a way to start one, the odds of finding a way to finish it without a person contracting the virus is almost impossible. It’s only going to take one to bring the entire season back to a halt.
They don’t need to have zero cases…hello?
you!
arte moreno, spend some of your billions!
The Angels might need a quick refresher course in “winning the battle but losing the war.”
And… MLB and the MLBPA would do well to approach this coming week with the idea that a HUGE part of baseball’s future may well be on the line here. I agree with the tone taken in this article; ugly negotiations might not be doomsday, but they also might.
I dont think doomsday is the case but death by a thousand cuts is certainly obtainable in the near future-
They are just stretching out right now for the big fight next year ( Cba)
Like Ive said many times I think they will get thru both, but they arent doing the future of the sport any justice playing this out in public- Its insanity
MLB is leaking info to the press, the P.A. not so much.
PA doesn’t have anything to leak.
@bruce So you know exactly what the P.A. is asking for? Pass the bread cuz you have the baloney.
wont make a difference for the Angel’s… we suck at getting amateurs anyways
Tough Sledding ahead
Teams will have the additional expense, no doubt, of having to shuttle their better prospects into their Spring Training facilities, at some point (again, assuming there isn’t a minor league season). They might have some really good workout regimes, but there’s nothing like live competition, as they say. And I’m sure teams want their coaching staffs earning their keep by working with (especially) their higher level propsects.
Plus, the draft is coming; they’re going to want at least SOME activity for the players they draft/sign.
Years back MLB had an agreement with the P.A. concerning the CBA. The CBA expired and both sides agreed to play the season under the condition that no changes could be made to the expired CBA. OWNERS during the season said they were and did stop paying into the players retirement fund. The players then struck.
Years later MLB was fined 210 million dollars for colluding against fee agent players.
There is a history of owners lying to and cheating players.
Oakland owner, John Fisher, gave the finger to Oakland/Alameda County this week and there hasn’t been any mention of it here on Trade Rumors. What’s up with that, Jeff?
Damn this is not a collective bargaining negotiation. This is an extraordinary case, due to the pandemic. Both sides need to understand whats at stake and get something done. As long as other sports are finding ways to get back to playing, MLB had better do the same or they will be sorry.
Both sides – ownership and players.
Common sense is sorely lacking I’m afraid
Correct me if I’m wrong, but what games would the scouts be scouting right now? Wouldn’t all the scouting reports be in already?
None…………but Video, interviews, talking to previous coaching, background checks,
medicals, finding out signability will all still suffer greatly
The amatuers have already put in the work…the scouts has now just begun
Not that big of a deal with the Angels
There scouting dept for pitchers has been furloughed for years already
If they come to an agreement and have an 81 game season. Will they play the games in their own stadiums? Or play all in Arizona/Florida to limit travel?
In regards to Arte Moreno.All will be forgiven when the stadium plans are released
The Brewers opinions and comments are stretching things pretty far.
Both of them?
Arte Moreno is a massive scumbag. Perfect owner for the angels. Represents Orange County perfectly.
Okay, Karen.