The Major League Baseball Players Association has filed a grievance against the league, claiming that MLB did not negotiate in good faith to play as many games as possible in the shortened 2020 season, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports. The MLBPA grievance seeks as much as $500MM, which Sherman suggests is the equivalent of roughly 20 games of additional pay.
At this point, the timeline for a potential resolution isn’t fully clear. Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic report that the grievance was actually filed two weeks ago, adding that the league has argued in response that 60 games was the maximum possible due to health and safety reasons. Of course, the league itself submitted proposals for larger numbers of games, although it did so with additional salary cuts which MLB knew to be a nonstarter in talks with the union.
Both the Post and the Athletic note that the league has asked the union to fast-track this grievance so that a resolution may be reached in advance of the looming expiration of the collective bargaining agreement on Dec. 1, 2021. However, it also seems viable that the union could drag out the process so that an eventual concession to drop the grievance can be used as a negotiating ploy in those CBA talks.
The crux of the grievance seems to stem from the language in the March 26 agreement reached between MLB and the MLBPA last year. That agreement stipulated that the league would make its “best efforts to play as many games as possible.” Less than a month after striking that accord, the two sides were embroiled in a new debate, once it had become clear that it would not be possible to have fans in attendance. The union left open a window for owners to pull back on their commitment to prorated salaries, as language within the March agreement stated that the two sides would “discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators.”
The result was an ugly, months-long debate that played out in the public eye. A new agreement was never reached, and commissioner Rob Manfred eventually implemented a 60-game schedule under the terms of that March agreement. Players were paid the prorated version of their salaries — roughly 37 percent of what they initially stood to earn with a full, 162-game slate. Service time was also prorated, such that one day on the MLB roster in the shortened schedule amounted to roughly 2.77 days of service time. Incentive clauses and the conditions to trigger vesting options in player contracts were prorated as well.
Now, it seems the two sides are set to spar once again over the vague and nebulous language in that March agreement — this time against a more immediate backdrop of collective bargaining negotiations. If the two sides can’t agree on some form of settlement, the grievance will eventually be heard by a three-person arbitration panel. Because one member of that panel represents the union and another represents the league, the outcome will effectively boil down to the ruling of the lone, mutually agreed-upon third party.
Rob Manford: “D’oh!”
I’m not a fan of Manfred, but many people give players an easy pass in these situations. A year ago, we were stuck in an unprecedented=in-current-society situation that required understanding and flexibility. Ideally, both MLB and the players would have made getting games in a safe environment underway the primary goal, with financials understood to be negatively impacted but understandable. Instead, the players have made money a very clear priority – money that isn’t earned when fewer games are played and less revenue is brought in due to a lack of fan attendance and such.
There’s a bit of a reckoning that has to happen here. The fact is that most fans come to the parks for teams first, not for players. If my favorite team suddenly had every player unavailable and had to bring in less talented guys, I’d still root for them same as always, with perhaps a bit less enthusiasm due to the weakened quality of play. But if the opposite happened, and my favorite team vanished and its players went to roster the Nashville Music Notes or something…you can be darn sure I would lose a ton of interest (and, therefore, investment into the league).
Yes, the money professional sports brings in is pretty ridiculous, but it’s a free market and fans pony up. But the players love to act as if they’re the primary attraction, when it’s quite clear (as proven by college sports, which sees players come and go with high frequency and programs that thrive with dedicated fan bases) that the love of teams comes first.
Rather than feel fortunate that love of teams and sport has led to ridiculous revenue that they get their deserving portion of, the players have revealed a sense of entitlement to obscene riches. In a pandemic year in which the ability to play any games and still make millions of dollars should have been appreciated, the union tried to play a leverage game to get as much of the pie as it could. Yes, the league and owners tried to protect their chunk of revenues too, but franchises have expenses that need to be paid, with enough fixed expenses that the pandemic was set to take a disproportionate hit on profits and even drive losses. The players coming out with less riches doesn’t change that, relatively speaking, it would still have been riches.
We’ve seen similar behavior in the NFL too. The inability to have in-person offseason work and the reduced offseason time clearly impacted the quality of the play on the field – teams looked out of sorts, and offensive scoring shot through the roof as defenses were far behind the eight ball – and yet NFLPA representation hasn’t minded outright lying to fans, declaring that virtual offseasons should become the new norm because according to them 2020 proved that virtual work doesn’t hurt the product on the field. It couldn’t have been more of a lie, but hey, way to use a special exception pandemic year to try to leverage for the guys you’re representing (who are amply compensated for their hard work) to work less hard in the future, because why not?
While Manfred could have handled things better, I wonder how much better he could do when player unions are able to operate in such a selfish way and not be put to task for it. I don’t excuse owners and leagues, much less defend them – they have it great too – but the unions have crossed some ugly lines and exhibited some outright grimy behavior. This grievance seems like more of that – players feel entitled to something they didn’t earn. Not cool.
I really wanted to know, so I’ll share my findings. The article is 524 words, the comment above is 606 😮
All about greed. On ALL sides.
Move on, pigs (owners, agents and players).
Brilliant
Well said.
I’ve felt for a few years now that the MLBPA is North America’s version of the recently rebuffed Euro soccer ‘big’ club owners. Totally unaware of where the money is REALLY coming from ….which is the working person’s pocket, be it ticket sales, subscription fees, merchandise, catering, corporate nights out, etc.
This comment completely ignores two important facts: one the owners have consistently refused to open their books to the MLBPA so those expenses you speak of are obscured and two while fans support teams when teams start losing fans stop showing up and spend less on merchandise etc.
So what? Neither of those justify the rigid and unconstructive positions that MLBPA often takes. Their unwillingness to delay the season to allow for vaccination, for example. Lots of companies engage in collective bargaining and keep their finances private. None that I know of need to open their books to the bargaining agent as a precondition to the bargaining agent acting like adults.
Delaying the start of the season was just one issue in MLB’s proposal, which also included the DH for 2021 and expanding the playoffs, bringing in huge revenue without sharing it.
MLB will have to open their books if they claim inability to pay, which will make the discovery process in this grievance very interesting. More interesting than the grievance claim itself.
There’s a good chance that this grievance gets settled as part of the next round of CBA talks.
Nor do those businesses have antitrust exemptions, receive forced welfare from communities to build stadiums and infrastructure, or have guaranteed astronomical growth in the value of their individual franchises.. Your defense of the baseball ownership group, while cleverly presented, is laughable.
Its funny how so many fans want to trash the players, who haven’t seen a raise in half a decade, but will give owners pass after pass despite their underhanded ways,
Good faith? Not from the owners.
The players hold the cards if they would only play them.
Simple negotiations.
We want to have a deal, but we don’t know what we are dealing for or with.
The owners won’t negotiate in good faith.
We just want a deal so we can play.
Tell it, the same way, from every player and offer nothing beyond that.
Simple.
If the players don’t like it, they can simply not play or take their talents to another professional baseball league. If we are picking sides, I’ll take the owners side since there are only 30 getting rich. The players salaries are the onus for attending in affordable for most people and there are more of them. Frankie Lindor is a nice player but he is the epitome of selfishness
It’s the reluctance to improve salaries of young players (especially in the minors) that wrangles me.
The MLBPA has set out to create the ultimate free market, but they don’t seem to understand that sometimes the supply outstrips the demand.
@Tony Carbone:
“…the players, who haven’t seen a raise in half a decade…”
MLB Minimum salary, 2016-2020–
$507,500
$535,000
$545,000
$555,000
$563,500
But lots of the MLB min salary players are much better than very average six year vets who are pretty much guaranteed a $1m plus payout on an MLB deal while the top few players take a HUGE portion of the free agent share..
Not to mention the awful working conditions for MiLB players in the lower levels.
It does when one side is claiming significant losses in revenue and demanding a reduction in compensation. I
OlC2021 that’s a pretty piss poor reason to support one side vs the other. Furthermore the owners are already rich and last time I checked most people are paying to see the product on the field and not the old non athletic guy sitting in the owners box
The fact that people pay to see the “workers” and not the owners has no real impact on distribution of dividends…. otherwise you’re trying to rework the very concept of capitalism… I’ve always found the “no one pays to see the owners” argument to be childish and naive. It’s simply not how business works.
This will hinder talks from occurring. Baseball will almost definitely be canceled in 2022.
Get over the owners giving financial information access to anyone. Privately held companies do not do that nor should they do that. It is not to their advantage to do so. Keep kicking that dead horse, never going to happen. You can get a glimpse by looking at the Braves.
Showing the books is mandated by labor law in a grievance procedure when the employers claim inability to pay, which the owners have done in previous public statements.
Dicovery is going to be a very contentious issue in this grievance.
So what? Seniority always has benefits in a union. Players go into the profession knowing the rules and the opportunities. As long as the rules don’t change illegally, they go in with their eyes open.
If you were a business owner, would you let everyone look at your books? Think what it would mean if not only your employees, but your suppliers and customers and their lawyers were diving through all your bookkeepers hard work.
@ Tony Carbone— You must not have looked at the Major League salary history. The minimum has gone up in the last 1/2 decade by $. $56000.00 contrary to your claims. That is a lot larger of a % increase than most of us have seen in the last 5 years. If you want someone to take your side, you might want to have correct information to use as evidence for your argument.
You know, the whole MiLB salary thing can be really misleading. Take a look at the draft signing bonuses.
From Fangraphs, the slot values for all 10 rounds (317 people) drafted in 2019. None of the slot values are below $142,200. That’s a lot of guaranteed money which supplements MiLB player salaries. Even if a player were to spend 5 years in the minors, you’re adding nearly $30,000/yr, minimum, to their annual income.
blogs.fangraphs.com/2019-mlb-draft-signing-bonus-p…
Sure a handful of players don’t get bonuses, but the vast majority do. Players go the extra mile to make sure that information is excluded from the stories about how destitute they are.
Doesnt apply here dont want to pay and cant pay. The law is also based on work performed. They didn’t play so does not make sense here at all.
I would think that VERY few of the players in the minors right now received bonuses. Most minor leaguers aren’t really prospects.
Prior to 2020 the draft went 40 or more rounds. Not 10.
Steveb MLB players as a whole have seen their percentage of revenue fall each year while MLB has had record revenue increases. From 2016-2019 MLB averaged a 12% increase in revenue. Are any of those increases in MLB MINIMUMS 12%?
They should’ve taken a percentage of the gross when they had a chance. They gambled and they lost.
It is not a free market, not even close to being a free market.
It is a monopoly subsidized by taxpayers. MLB has an exemption from anti-trust laws permitting MLB to block competition. MLB decides what teams can be in the league, thus eliminating competition through non-market barriers. MLB and the players union decides under what conditions individuals can become players. Note the union does not represent or work in the interests of players in the minors or those with ambitions of playing pro ball.
A fan of baseball, not of MLB as an organization or of the players union. Each is looking out for their own immediate interests and not the interests of the game. Sad. Expecting no Major League Baseball next season. Guess I will have to get my baseball next year via Little League, high school and college ball.
Skeptical, there is no real way for there to be competition. Without exemptions, the NFL and the NHL both faced new leagues in the last 40 years. Stadium leases and network contracts along with contracted talent prevented either from succeeding long term.
There are numerous ways to have competition, but the consequences of competition are often not pretty and people do not to deal with them. The current system is not the only way of organizing the “baseball market”. It works in certain ways, but fails in others.
Of the big four professional team sports in the US, baseball is the only one not to have a rival league formed since WWII. We saw rival leagues for football, basketball and hockey. The most successful were in football and basketball where the rival league was able to “force” a merger. The AFL merged with the NFL and almost doubled the size of the pro league. (The WFL failed miserably but that was mostly due to bad business decisions and failure to know ones market) The ABA merged with the NBA. Even in hockey, teams from the WHA merged into the NHL when the WHL was dissolved. Only baseball has seen no rival created and that is probably due largely to its antitrust exemption and the mature nature (limited growth) of the baseball market as opposed to the football, basketball and hockey markets of the 1960s and 1970s.
That’s not correct. In the late 1950s Branch Rickey & William Shea started up a third major baseball league, called the Continental League. They had 8 locations ready to go. Long story short- MLB was afraid of a challenge to its anti-trust exemption so it cut a deal with the Continental League in which there would be expansion into those locations. The original eight locations sound familiar today– NYC, Denver, Houston, Minneapolis-St Paul, Toronto, Atlanta, Dallas-Ft Worth & Buffalo. Only Buffalo has never received a MLB franchise, yet the Blue Jays are currently playing their home games there (its their AAA franchise).
Football merged in the 60s but failed in the 80s. Basketball wasn’t a merger, the NBA absorbed four clubs to stop salaries that they then could not afford. There was no cable never mind the Internet then. Now rger
Football merged in the 60s but failed in the 80s. Basketball wasn’t a merger, the NBA absorbed four clubs to stop salaries that they then could not afford. There was no cable never mind the Internet then. Now there are more teams and too few profitable locations left. They simply can’t build more baseball or football stadiums in most big cities and baseball in the winter or football in the summer won’t work weatherwise.
Thanks for the great info. That said, I’m not sure if the antitrust exemption is still needed today.
Minnesota was never an expansion team. They were previously the original Washington Senators.
Skeptical. The MLB market has exploded since the 1960’s and 1970’s, doubling attendance and having the largest % rise in revenue of any major sport.
So what? Aren’t owners entitled to make a profit?
According to Scott Servais baseball. Isn’t really a team sport but an individual one.
Not a chance in hell I’d pay the same money to watch Replacement players. I’m not saying these guys are worth it cause they are not, but if I am spending “best” money, I’m spending it on the best and nothing else.
No fan will. We saw that the only other time the owners tried to lock out the players and bring in inferior level talent.
Unfortunately for your argument and MLB, Manfred said publicly that he could impose a season length and was not willing to return to the negotiation table as REQUIRED by the March 2020 agreement. Not cool. MLB is screwed.
Players were entitled to 100% of their contracted salaries regardless of season length in 2020 and every season.
Manfred was signatory to an agreement wherein the players took a cut in salary as long as Manfred negotiated in good faith. MLB then proposed season lengths that were much longer than the 60 games they ultimately played. Then reneged and refused to negotiate further.
MLB loses this one..
Both sides: “Let’s cut open the goose and get all the golden eggs at once!”
Good post. Those doing the directing get rich but then the goose is dead.
I don’t think there is any way we have baseball, on schedule, next year. Lots of bad blood in both directions. Very very sad.
It’s hard to imagine there won’t be a lengthy strike or lockout. The most disturbing part is you have two people with nothing but disdain for each other “negotiating” the next CBA, and both are willing to burn baseball to the ground if that’s what it takes.
Right. Regardless of how you feel about either Manfred or Clark or who should get what blame, a work stoppage of some sort is looking increasingly likely.
I read you post in Gandalf’s voice for some reason?
Manfred is an idiot who doesn’t even know the game.
Clark is just dumb.
Things don’t look good for us fans or The Game moving forward.
heeeere we go. both these clowns need to go
Sadly, I completely agree.
Again Manfred and Clark are not equals here. One guy is in charge of everything. The other is a union mouthpiece with some leverage but not any real power. Quit comparing the 2 guys as if they are equals its nonsense.
Its actually quite reversed. Manfred is a mouthpiece for the owners.
But the owners are in charge dude. They own everything. The players are not. Again these sides are not equal.
Ok, let’s just agree that both Manfred and Clark are mouthpieces…with very big mouths. Can we also agree that both should go, especially Manfraud?
You don’t get it. People want to assign blame equally here. Or worse they want to blame Clark which comes off as scapegoating. Manfred is the boss. Nobody else is anywhere close to his equal here.
Manfred and Clark are equal.
Players and owners are equal.
Manfred and Clark are just mouthpieces. I’d argue Clark holds more influence over players than Manfred holds over owners.
Owners own clubs and sometimes stadiums. Players own the product, their talent. Owners provide the method of distribution of the product, but if Players refuse to go our and play the game there is no product.
Players could lobby congress to blow up the whole antitrust exemption system mlb is under, thus lifting the exclusivity of Owners holding a monopoly on teams. Players choose not to.
It’s 2021. Strikes are a thing of the past. There is soooo much money to be made or lost now that the players know they can’t strike. And thats why they don’t have any real leverage.
Back in my day we understood if you want to take 2 steps forward you might have to take a step back. But these millenial flakes don’t get it. Just a bunch of paper champions living off the backs of the guys who came before them. Not leaving this world better than they found it.
Ok Boomer
I don’t agree that Manfred should go. He did excellent work last year bringing the season in during an international pandemic ffs. What is that he has done that is so abhorrent? Not caved in to the MLBPA? Oh, the horror!
That’s it. He’s done a good job for the owners, maybe even a great job. I think some of the posters are hung up on the fact that the poor, downtrodden players, are having to choose between food and electricity.
Clark needs to go and someone with ZERO baseball experience needs to be brought in.
This is a business, negotiate that way.
Manfred is the boss until the owners disapprove of his job. the owners are in charge, not Manfred.
You may not like Manfred and not appreciate his actions, but he is way ahead of Clark in every way imaginable. Read up on Manfred and what he has accomplished, then compare that to Clark’s resume. Not even close to Manfred. MLBPA misses Marvin Miller, Don Fehr, and even more so Michael Weiner.
Everyone is doing better than before except for rookies stuck on six year deals, where three of those years are league minimal salary. Needs to be resolved somehow.
The players are in charge they are the product. No players. No revenue for the owners. The owners still have long term commitments to pay for ballparks and other labor contracts that are not up after this season, but they will have no revenue without the players.
No owners, no league, no paychecks for players. Why can’t you get that both sides bring something to the table?
@gwynnn … OK, ignorant Gen-Z’er. Come back when you’ve grown some hair and gotten some dirt under your nails.
Joel, no one compared them as equals except for you… all I said is that they both need to go… please read better next time.
Put MLB on the IL
I agree
Put Manfred and Clark on Release Waivers!
Irrevocable please.
If that March 26 agreement was made with the assumption that at least partial attendance would be allowed, well, then the fact that attendance wasn’t allowed changes things quite a bit.
That’s the way I read it. The PA will have to show how much they were willing give up, relative to what MLB was willing to give up.
I agree and even the teams suggesting a higher number of games cpcan in hindsight be argued as optimistic. How could Miami and St. Louis last year have gotten more games in? Maybe with five inning tripleheaders . Hey, that way Boras can use complete games pitched again in future negotiations for starting pitchers.
Tony Clark cared more about single hotel rooms on the road and single aisle seating on the flights then actual money for the players
When I read all the comments directed at Tony Clark personally it seems weird. This is NOT on one guy. Not at all. This is an institutional problem.
Oh and now I notice your picture. Strike 2……..
And the institution with the biggest problem is the union.
Joel Peterson
This is NOT on one guy.
====================================================
It really is mostly about Clark. Clark negotiated a really bad deal. That gets the players PO’d. That undermines the entire process.
Nonsense. Clark is fighting with both hands tied behind his back. And you placing all the blame at his feet is lame scapegoating.
Who defends corporate America in 2021? Nobody I know. Nobody with any sense.
The players’ union kicked the crap out of the owners for about 30 years. This time, the owners kicked the crap out of the players. How is this not Clark’s fault?
And this has nothing to do with Corporate America. With BB’s antitrust exemption, few of Adam Smith’s rules apply to them.
This is the idea that you are going to have one man, with less education than I have, going up against a room full of Harvard lawyers with 30 years of labor experience.
So you are saying for 30 years the players have been getting over on the owners?????
Lol no……
Yes 1 guy going up against a bunch of corporate lawyers. It’s not a fair fight. If you understand that then I don’t see why you can’t figure the rest out.
LOL!
Salaries have gone up a gazillion % since the 70s. And they went up every year, until Clark took over.
There are other things going on. Baseball was getting more and more popular for many years but things have changed. The pendulum is swinging back the other way. That’s not Tony Clark’s fault to blame him is insanely lame and ignorant.
You want to defend rich peoples right to get richer cool. But it’s nonsense.
So what are you saying here? That the $6B that the players make is somehow noble, and the $6B that the owners make is not? Nonsense. Both sides want the most money they can get, and I begrudge neither side their position.
And that has nothing to do with Clark doing an awful job.
How many games have you been to recently?
The gravy train is about to run dry. There were less and less people going to games BEFORE Corona. Baseball isn’t doing well at all. It’s living off of its past instead of making history. And when you do that you eventually become history.
Joel Peterson19 mins ago
How many games have you been to recently?
The gravy train is about to run dry. There were less and less people going to games BEFORE Corona. Baseball isn’t doing well at all.
=========================================================
The last game I went to was last Saturday.
forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2019/12/21/mlb-sees-re…
Don’t confuse attendance with total revenue. In-person attendance is down slightly, while TV revenues are off the charts. It is not doom-and-gloom time yet.
Joel: Being against “corporate America” kinda loses its nobility when it’s in the defense of millionaires complaining they’re not paid enough… these absurd comparisons of MLB to regular businesses are nuts. Whatever happens, players are certainly NOT underpaid…. the security guards might be… even the accountants… but the players? Gimme a break
Yes the players are underpaid. Again a select few are rich but most are underpaid. Baseball doesn’t start and end with Bryce Harper and Mike Trout there are thousands of baseball players out there. Minor league players are treated incredibly bad. Look up what those guys make. And you basically have to be a minor league player before you can be a major league one.
I am a Cardinal fan. Yeah we got a pile of overpaid guys on the team. Goldschmidt, Arenado, Carpenter, Miller plenty of them.
But then there are guys like Daniel Ponce De Leon and Johan Oviedo. Guys who are doing their job. But because of lame loopholes in the rules the organization uses them for big league performance then sends them down to the Minors during what should be their rest days dp they can pay them minor league wages. That’s WRONG!!!!
The fact that Goldschmidt is being paid more than Oviedo is because the players want it that way. The owners don’t care about how the money is divvied up. They only care about the percentage of revenues are paid out.
If the players are willing to accept a 2% increase, I’d bet real money that the owners would increase the minimum wage by 50%. It is the current MLB players that sold out the amateurs in the draft.
Minor league players are underpaid, absolutely. Not Major leaguers though.
In the end, the players have all the power in the union as they get to vote (at least the player’s reps do on behalf of the players). Tony Clark is merely a mouthpiece for the union. The players ultimately decided to take this deal, not Tony Clark.
I blame Clark, the players, and their agents. But Clark should either not have presented it, or told players to reject it.
LOL … What we are seeing is the aftermath of the Curt Flood Decision. To this day, there is little a team owner can to keep an asset that he invested millions of dollars and several years to train and develop. IF the asset ever develops is a financial risk of its own.
And managed to get the Draft down to 5 rounds by rejecting a deal.
Do you really think the Draft is a priority of the MLBPA? Only players on the 40 man are union members. Very few of the drafted players will be in the union in the short term.
$500M is nothing. Tatis, Jr. earned 2/3 of that by playing a week in the big leagues.
He’s also been the best baseball player in league this year if u go by value per at bat…
It’s true VpAB is a key analytic, second to only XwOBALoNY (expected weighted on-base average league offset next year).
@bot No, he has not. He definitely has not been the most valubale player per at bat so far. He’s been good, but not that good.
if we voting on this … im throwing Patrick Mazeika name in there .. 5 ab 3 RBI 2 of which were walkoff game winners
baseballpun2 hours ago
Tatis, Jr. earned 2/3 of that by playing a week in the big leagues.
================================================
You do realize that this is Tatis’ 3rd year in the league, right?
Baseball is not a game at that level. It is a revenue business. Fans watch games. Players and owners watch revenues. There is too much money in sports and that means gimmick ball like runners on second to start extra innings, bogus inter-league rivalries and the rest. You don’t see baseball on free tv in most of America so casual fans without a pay service ignore it. Football thrives because of free broadcasts every weekend. It’s no longer the love of the game. It’s the love of money that makes baseball an after thought.
Most of those things would apply to basketball. Gimmicks (three-point line, then shortening the line, turning it into a game of outside shots). Most games are played on “pay tv”. Yet, basketball has trived.
Its the speed of the game thats killing baseball not what you described.
Basketball is played in a season where majority of the places it’s cold and gets dark early. Not much other things to occupy your entertainment time.
A lot more time to sit back and watch a game.
That also confuses me on the ratings. The NFL is a weekly event where it is reasonable to set aside 4 hours to watch your team once a week.
Baseball they play 13 games every 14 days and it’s in a season where it’s lighter outside longer & the weather is nice where most ppl enjoy being outside.
It’s much easier to catch a couple innings over the course of a week and follow in the media than to devote undivided attention to every game.
It just seems to me tv ratings are an unfair parameter to compare sports.
NBA, NHL, NFL are available on national frrr TV every weekend. MLB is not. Most of America is a mlb desert so people flipping free channels never see it . By the time the playoffs advance to the series you are stuck listening to Joe Buck and if that is not a buzz kill I don’t know what is.
I wish baseball players had to live like the rest of us for a few years. Try choosing between keeping the lights on or eating food. Millionaires crying about getting 500 million more dollars doesn’t really garner much sympathy from me. I don’t care that the owners are billionaires. You honor the contract you negotiated and you do what the boss says.
Most baseball players are not rich. A select few are and they prop those guys up to make it look like all players are rich. But they are not.
By my estimation, the RS have 14 guys that never have to work another day, and another 3-4 that have a lot of money, but not set for life yet.
The Red Sox 25 man does sure. But there are a LOT more baseball players in their organization than that.
Again they prop up a select few. And BTW most teams don’t have that many. The Red Sox are burning their championship money from.the last decade or so. Most teams don’t have half that many.
@joel…do you think you are the voice of reason? I’ve read just 2 or 3 of your comments and each is condescending.
I wish more people realized that the billionaires, and the politicians they essentially employ, are the ones who created and maintain the system where people have to choose between electricity and food. The billionaires aren’t the good guys.
Since we have food stamps, why would you have to choose between electricity and food? Wouldn’t the choice be between electricity and something else?
Man we live in the wealthiest society in the history of the world. I have a wife and 5 kids and a business I work by myself to support all that and I prob average 30 hours of work a week. There’s signs all over the area I live, Midwest, starting wages at 18 an hour. Work, manage your money, and there will always be opportunity in this country.
And stop hating on other people who work that make more than u. Our country needs people coming together against Corp America – not being divided Bc of it.
I own my own business also. But I am 40 years old and it took me most of my life to get where I am now. I wasted years and years working for greedy corporations. I wasted money on college.
Life is tough fella. Just because things are going well for you now doesn’t mean it’s time to get righteous about what others are doing.
Corporations, almost by definition, aren’t greedy. They sell the best product they can make, at a price determined by the market. They pay their employees the going rate for their particular skill set.
Nothing else works. If the product doesn’t work, no one buys it. If you charge above-market prices for that product, no one buys it. If you pay below-market wages, no one will work there.
Dude yeah that’s all great…..
….except any extra money goes to the guys at the top. It NEVER goes to the guys actually doing the work. And as corporations grow the gap between what their leaders make and the people who make their product grows too.
The concept of making a product that sells is simple. It’s the process that is messed up man.
Joel Peterson8 mins ago
It NEVER goes to the guys actually doing the work.
=====================================================
Who does the money go to?
1-The owners
2-The investors
3-The people with the best skills.
4-People with lesser skills
5-People with poor skills.
I am category 4. I make decent money because I have an MBA in accounting. People with no particular skills get paid less.
In addition, most companies can’t afford to pay category 5 people more money. Why? Because their competitors don’t. If your product costs 10% more than mine, because you pay your employees 10% than I do, it a beautiful thought, but no one will buy your product, you will go bankrupt, and your employees will be laid off.
Dude……
The owners and investors are the ones making the ridiculous amounts of money they don’t need or deserve. I am very familiar with accounting actually. You could work for yourself and make a lot more money. You wouldn’t get the security of the job you have now. But you could absolutely make more money.
I am reluctant to get into this discussion, but how do you determine “need or deserve”? Who draws those lines?
Dude I don’t know ask the CEOS AND CFOs for these companies. They are the ones with the crayons……
No way. You don’t get off that easy. You always have all the answers. You have a lot of vitriol for certain people and you aren’t shy about sharing it. So go ahead and explain……
“Corporations…are not greedy.”
Wow.
Dude its not my responsibility to fix baseball. It’s not my job. But as a fan I sure as heck can speak about what’s going on.
You want to be real. I think pro sports should be government jobs and the government should benefit from the money they make off of it. Not some owner who was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time with a pile of cash. That’s what I think.
Man, you couldn’t be more oblivious to your surroundings. Corp America is completely set up by the US Gov. The reason baseball does political things like move the draft from Atlanta to Denver is Bc they are told to do so. It has nothing to do w popularity or consumer demand. Same w television and newspapers – they are going to produce what they are told – not what they consumer demands regardless of consequences of consumer buying the goods. All social media conforms regardless of how unpopular their decisions are Bc they are told to do business that way. The worlds financial system conforms and controls the world Bc it’s intentionally set up that way.
There is no greater poison than Corp America. The immorality of Hollywood and porn and greed effecting the world is worse than ever. Pull your head out of the sand !
1-I could make more money, but I like working for wealthy corporations. The pay is good, the benefits are good. I get paid even if they have a bad year.
2-Actually, the people that make things for us, and make our lives easier and better, do deserve the money. There is no point in my life where I begrudged Bill Gates a dime of the money he earned.
You have to weigh how much you have in life because of the folks that make PCs, MS, our printers, our phones, etc. You had nothing 30 years ago.
3-As a not insignificant ancillary benefit, my 401k has done really well. Why you ask? Because of Corporate America.
I always recommend to those who are anti-Corporate America, to give up their PCs, their internet, their phones, and their TVs. Don’t give any money to these billionaires.
retire2110 mins ago
“Corporations…are not greedy.”
Wow.
=====================================================
Who do you think owes these corporations? I do. Well, me and 50,000,000 other people like me. And yes, I would like a good return on my investment. Is that greedy?
I figured it out. You are Tom Bradys brother and your attitude comes from living in his shadow all these years.
Your 401k is in for some trouble the next couple years. The stock market has been strong with everyone sitting around bored with nothing else to do. When that changes so will the market. Trust me with what I do for a living I know how this works.
It’s not simple. Who takes all of the risks? Who has to follow federal and state guidelines? An employee simply clocks in and puts in his hours. The employee agrees to a salary. No one can force an employee to stay. U wanna make $15-20 hr? That’s easy.
What risk is an owner of a baseball team taking?????
Absolutely none at all.
Joel Peterson22 mins ago
Your 401k is in for some trouble the next couple years.
==========================================================
I’ve heard this from one person or another for 50 years. And they’ve been wrong for 50 years. A good friend of mine has always been a Wall St. contrarian. And once every 2-3 years, we’d have a correction, and he’d be right, for a short while. One time, he took to the Top of the Sixes. The Dow had dropped to about 1,000 and he was celebrating. It’s gone up 3400% since then. Fortunately, I never listened to him.
House of cards fella. Again boredom is what has created this hot market lately. I sell toys I know what’s going on. My toys didn’t suddenly become better over the last year it’s boredom and its going to change. Prices are going up everywhere the economy is in real trouble. 30 years ago we were too good for china’s crap. Now we need their crap to survive. And we aren’t getting it. You will see. Trouble is coming.
Joel Peterson6 mins ago
House of cards fella.
===============================================
It is always a house of cards, and disaster is always around the corner. In the last 100 years, how many 5-year periods have seen a net market drop? How many 10-year periods have seen a net market drop?
I feel like this is how the negotiations for the new TV deals went. Some baseball nerd citing past profits while not being aware of what’s going on today right now.
America isn’t as great as it used to be fella. Between the last 4 years and all the damage we did starting a war back in 2001 it’s not what it used to be. Hard to find news articles about this because nobody hear wants to hear it. But it’s true. And thats going to impact you in the near future in a negative way.
Which alternative reality do you live in? I know it is not the United States.
Like I said, I’ve been hearing about the demise of the US for 50 years. And it hasn’t been true in 50 years.
Isnt this the guy who killed his pregnant wife and dumped her body in Frisco Bay? He has all the anger and arrogance….
Yee-up.
I refuse to feel penalized because I had the wherewithal to somewhat successfully navigate a capitalist economy.
No one should.
The rules are the same for everyone.
Thats a lame take. We are all in this together.
And no the rules are not the same for everyone. If you are born into money you have a better chance of success.
A few years ago, I was grouse hunting up near the Canadian border.
In a little meadow my dogs got into something they didn’t want to leave alone. I went over & checked it out. It was the remains of 2 large bucks. They’d starved to death.
But.
It appeared they had been trying to work out their differences in a primal fashion. Their antlers had gotten – apparently – inextricably intertwined. So they were locked together as they died.
“We are all in this together.”
Sure are.
Have a good morning, fellas.
Joel: the rules ARE the same for everyone. Yes, whether you’re born rich or poor factors in immensely as to how easy or tough a ride you may have, but the rules are the same for everyone. Seeing as 100% human social equality is pretty much impossible, consistent rules are the best we can probably hope for.
Oh I don’t expect 100% societal equity. But we should be trying. If you stop trying……well…….
Consistent rules get taken advantage of by crooked people. Life changes the world changes. And yes even baseball has to change too.
Joel: yea I can agree with that. I just took issue with your original wording.
We are not all in this together, that’s just naïve. Why don’t you go tell that to all the criminals, surely that’ll make them stop doing bad things.
We are in this together to the extent that we have an agreed-upon set of laws and rules. Past that, it is every person for themselves. And this is the only way the world makes progress. If everyone wanted the same $75k/year, 9-5 job, no one would stay up nights to invent things, and then invest their life saving to create a company to sell things.
The choice is usually the same. Would you prefer:
A-A nice computer, with a 24 in hi-def screen, or
B-Have Michael Dell not be a billionaire?
Most baseball players never make it out of the minors, and live out of a suitcase half the season.
@bhambrave
That’s true, but those players are not members of the union. They really won’t be involved in the negotiations. They will be used as pawns by both sides, however.
Right. Minor leaguers are not part of this conversation. They’re not part of the union. That’s the union’s choice.
That’s the problem that ppl don’t seem to understand. For 6 years maybe a bit longer they are employees. After their initial contract runs out they become basically independent contractors signing negotiated contracts. Only difference is most independent contractors don’t have unions backing them.
In a sense they are employees but they also have individual contracts both sides have to abide by.
Minor leaguers do have to choose between keeping the lights on or eating food. Doubt any owner can say that.
Perhaps they should seek a more reliable source of income.
I was going to say something similar. I have a friend that went to Vegas to be a professional poker player. He could’ve worked at the post office and had a lifetime of security. He took the road less traveled.
But that’s a choice. No one is forced to try to become a professional BB player.
RIP baseball 2022
So they’ll settle for 300M, which is an additional loss of 10M per team this year….not any fun when you’re in Tampa or Pittsburgh.
Or they’ll just drop the suit, as the article suggests, as part of the CBA negotiations.
2022 ain’t lookin’ good…..
I think they’ll be fine. Tony Clark is relatively useless, but he has the ultimate hammer with the expanded playoffs. Before, he was horse trading, not his forte. Now, all he has to do is ask for a 3% increase with no expanded playoffs.
The owners won’t have a good response. 3%/year is fine, but they will know they need to kick in more in order for the union to expand the playoffs. All Clark has to do is basically nothing.
Nothing is all Clark has ever done. That’s why they are in the shape they are in. I get some of the hate for Manfred but the reality is, he has taken the MLBPA to the cleaners in the CBAs. The days of Marvin Miller are long gone.
Clark has gotten the players to vote with him. That makes him successful.
I’m starting the New Market Maulers.
time to humble the union. Lock them out for 2 years, the billionaires will be fine. The fans will be fine. The players will be bankrupt…. time to show who has the real power.
Sick of it all.
Dude baseball gets less popular by the day. Nobody is winning here trust me….
forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2019/12/21/mlb-sees-re…
Dude your ignorance is staggering. Trust me.
Not true. MLB has had its revenue increase nearly every year through 2019. In 2021 they have new TV contracts that added $2.1 billion to MLB revenue.
In 2019 MLB had the largest number of people watch a live game ever. It just wasn’t all in the stadium or on network TV. It was on cable TV, subscription packages, and streaming too.
Attendance was still higher than in any season before the mid-1990’s. In the 1970’s the average attendance league wide was 13-19 K per game. In the 1980s attendance ranged from 19K to 26K. Compare that to 28,199 in 2019.
Unless you’re a billionaire yourself, rooting against unions is shooting yourself in the foot
Unions are corrupt too. Unions turned a job building cars into a career that any moron would be lucky to have back in the 70s and 80s. Is that a good thing? Not really. Factory workers shouldn’t get paid serious money in my opinion. What it turned into is a job people were simply lucky to find. And that creates a new set of problems.
Yeah! It created a strong middle class, which is no longer strong and now shrinking. How dare they! We need to limit it to haves and have nots!
“Right to work!”, amirite? FFS.
I hear you man. But those old union jobs presented a new set of problems. I mean gosh automobile unions are exactly why American cars are not made as well as foreign cars. We USED TO make great cars before the unions took over. The only people who won back then were the employees everyone else lost.
The best cars sold at a reasonable price are built in the US by union workers. They are just not Ford or Chevy. They are Toyota and Hyundai.
Players will form a new league with new owners. There are more stadiums and more billionaires. They can be replaced. The talent level of the current MLB players cannot be replaced. There are a limited number of people that can play at the level we as fans demand to see.
The current owners who are locked into long term stadium deals and labor contracts with other workers will suffer the most.
The fans have already shown unequivocally that we will not pay to see A and AA caliber players in MLB uniforms. We will not watch them on TV. Want to know the
JFC can these two be fired already?!?! FFS just show good faith for once in either of your tenures???? Please for everyone’s sake.
So how did the television contracts pay out last year? Were the $ amounts also prorated? I assume they were. What percentage of total revenue do these contracts represent to the the league? I would think these numbers would help determine whether or not the league made a “good faith effort” to play the greatest number of games.
They weren’t prorated. They were guaranteed. The national TV contracts all increased in value for MLB in 2021.
Manfred said publicly that he could impose a season length and that he was not going back to the table to negotiate. He said he was not negotiating in good faith.
MLB had already said that they could safely play a larger number of games. They just wanted to players to take a larger chunk of the loss in revenue. The players were already taking the lion’s share of the lost revenue in salary cuts.
Obviously Manfred is a cancer to the health of the sport, but Tony Clark is just as bad. It’s time for the players to get that through their head and get competent representation.
That’s nonsense. The power that Manfred has compared to Tony Clark is incredibly different. Putting this all on Clark is lame. And it comes off weird.
How is it weird that you blame the head of your union for negotiating a deal that the players are now complaining about? That’s incompetent leadership by Clark. I’ve read all 2047 of your comments in this thread. You come off as a burner account for somebody with your fierce protection of Clark. Nobody is saying Clark and Manfred have equal power. Clark has botched his job as leader of the Union, that shouldn’t even be debatable.
Strongly disagree that Clark is bad at his job.
Within maybe one minute of reading the basics of the last CBA, it was obvious that the cap was going up 2% pa, while revenues probably went up 6% pa. And the contract a fair bit worse than that. Some of the blame goes to the players and their agents, but how was this not a bad job by Clark?
Dude it wasn’t a fair negotiation. And if things don’t end up fair you don’t sit on your pile of money and say “you should have known better” that’s incredibly lame. Both sides need each other. This isn’t accounting fella. The owners can’t replace the players and the players can’t replace the owners. This isn’t like your job pal….
Both sides want as much as they can get. Negotiations aren’t always fair. This isn’t a matter of hugging it out. When I sell my house, I want the most money. When I buy one, I want to pay the least amount of money. That’s just the way the world is.
And it is exactly like my job. I want the most money. My employer wants to pay less. Same as the players and owners.
Sure that’s all true.
Except baseball isn’t a free market. You keep comparing your situation to theirs but it’s not the same. 50 years ago the pro sports teams were legally screwing these guys over. Today not a bunch has changed except a select few get paid like they hit the lottery.
And let’s not get started with the housing market. That’s a mess in itself. If you are buying a home today good luck tomorrow….
I’ve heard that one too. I grew up in The Bronx. I can’t tell you how often I heard that The Bronx was burning down. I bought a house 5 blocks from where I grew up. I’m still here. Doom and gloom aren’t always around the corner.
New York is just like baseball.
Living off its past for years but not making new history. It’s fun to be on the top of the mountain. But like Tom Petty Said coming down is the hardest part.
So now it is baseball, and the stock market, and NYC that are falling apart?
Clark led the union into an agreement that they presently complain about. Doesn’t sound like he’s very good at his job.
XLB baseball. Coming soon to a town near you.
Welp, here we go again.
Just be lucky we had ball last year.
Not saying MLBPA doesn’t have a point, but why so long to file? Oh yea, it is going to be used as a bargaining chip in this CBA. 2022 season will likely not start on time. This is going to get ugly.
that’s presuming a grievance filed earlier would have gotten done with any swiftness during the pandemic.
why can’t MLB file a countersuit for the same amount ? How in God’s name can you have a situation where an agreed upon third party can decide if you need to fork over an additional 500 million. What if they had sued for 5 Billion ? Why can’t MLB go to a regular court ?
What would be the grounds of the countersuit? Going to an agreed third party to resolve is part of a contract that both parties agreed. What does the amount matter? Just because they sued for that amount doesn’t mean that’s what they will get, if anything. Why would they go to a regular court when they agreed to go elsewhere?
Ps- if you’re wondering “how in gods name a third party can decide”, look at your phone contract, I’m certain there is an arbitration clause, you won’t go to “regular court” either.
Three letters. CBA.
I wonder if any upcoming big name free agents sign overseas because at least they know they will get their games in or they just get fed up with America being an absurdly stupid country run by complete idiots at all the highest levels of society.
An obvious ‘no’. No one in the world pays anything close to what we pay our baseball players. The idea is ludicrous. If you are a 4A player, or someone that is too old to play in the US, sure. But a big name, no chance.
Big asian names yes. And that happened last offseason. Other players- good enough to play in majors will go but not stars as they’ll surely still get more money here. But tides are changing no doubt
more overreactions incoming! gosh, people need to chill. this is nothing. the only difference between baseball and other sports is things like this are less public. there will be a 2022 season. both sides know it would be problematic for there not to be.
Dude come on.
The sports world is changing. Not that there is ever a good time for a strike. But this would be a very bad time for one for baseball.
Me and you still care about baseball. But kids coming up don’t. Baseball is in real trouble and so are the other sports too.
Speaking as an old time fan, ( since the ‘50’s), baseball is losing me too. I’ve resigned my long time season tickets because “fans” that were around me, wanted to do hardly anything but party and ruin the experience for me. Now, before folks get their shorts in a wad, I’m not saying all fans are like that. I’ve been to games at all 30 MLB cities, and only had bad experiences at 3-4 of them.
I’ve been going to games since the 70s, and people wanted to party then as well. If I had to take a pure guess, I’d say that fans are better behaved now than 50 years ago.
I agree DS. Unions and Corp America live in courts suing each other over and over. No owner even batted an eye at this
I agree, the 2022 season will start on time, they cannot afford a lockout/Strike and both sides know it,
Grievance was filed as an attempt to add additional leverage in the new CBA, Owners will throw out a concession and the Grievance will be dropped in the CPA.
Going to be a HUGE concession. Huge!! Players salaries have sunk to the lowest percentage of MLB revenues since the 1970s. Then the commissioner admitted publicly that he was not negotiating in good faith after signing the March 2020 agreement with the players. The MLBPA has MLB bent over a barrel right now. Expect big changes in the players favor coming for whenever MLB resumes.
Pads Fans55 mins ago
Going to be a HUGE concession. Huge!! Players salaries have sunk to the lowest percentage of MLB revenues since the 1970s. Then the commissioner admitted publicly that he was not negotiating in good faith
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1-Kindly document where Manfred said “I am not negotiating in good faith”. And not your interpretation, I’d like to see where Manfred admitted it.
2-The players got horribly greedy. They beat the owners every year, and thought it would never end. The owners offered them a huge cut of the revenue, and the players refused, It probably cost them $1B a year.
This is just absurd
Strike 1???
kidcrumpet3, I don’t like it.
I love it.
Look, $500M is about 16M per team, or the equivalent of a 2-year contract for a middling 4th or 5th starter. But this obviously does not portend well for the CBA negotiations . Hard to believe anyone would strike or force a lock-out, but then again it’s also hard to believe that there won’t be one.
It’s seems easy to hate on the players as their salaries are always published and discussed and judged versus performance and the owners don’t open their books to show their income. It makes it too easy to hate on the players
Part of the issue is that most of the owners have money and an education. And they stay quiet and allow their lawyers to do the talking. Some of the players can’t stay quiet and say some really stupid stuff. When Patrick Ewing said ‘it is all about putting food on the table for my kids”, virtually everyone in the NBA must have cringed.
Yeah the players have a face and a name. Greedy corporate America doesn’t. It should. In 10 years it might change but today they don’t have a face and a name. And they hide behind that and do some of the most ruthless things you can imagine.
Patrick Ewing has more than enough money. But the owner of the Knicks???? He has so much money he truly doesn’t live in the real world.
I don’t get your concern about people being rich. It makes no difference to me whatsoever if Bill Gates is rich. Nor do I care if Ewing is rich. It’s not my money. Ewing got rich because I voluntarily handed over my money for Knick tickets. Gates got rich because he developed products that made my life amazingly easier.. I got paid because I could adapt the use of Excel into our accounting systems.
And I long for the days of manual ledgers, not.
For every Bill Gates out there……
…..millions, and I do mean millions of people have to live at or below the poverty line. Like I said before we are all in this together. If one guy is taking too much it effects you whether you want to admit it or not.
We don’t need billionaires. Nobody does. Why you root and cheer for them I don’t know.
I don’t root for them. I buy their products, which is why they are billionaires. That’s the system. I wound up at the corner pub. It was crowded and the owner makes a lot of money. That’s because It’s a nice place that is always crowded.
I could’ve gone to another dive, where the owner was poor, just to be egalitarian. But why should I? I’d rather have a good time, and I don’t care if the owner gets richer.
I’m curious. Where do you get your PC, and interent, and TV from? Are you one of those people that buy the products that make other people billionaires?
Fella some things we have choice and some things we don’t. And if it were up to guys like you we wouldn’t have any choices at all. But you see what happens is when that happens prices go up. Once these big corporations eliminate the competition they raise prices. They all do it. And thats the part you don’t understand.
Wal mart strategically took over the entire country and eliminated millions of small businesses along the way. And the more they do it the higher the prices go. Amazon is doing the same thing now. They eliminate the competition with good prices but then they raise the prices once there is no longer competition. If you think you want that you are wrong.
So you never buy at Amazon? A little short-sighted, imo.
I use to go to Home Depot to buy my lawn mowers. The prices were high, and the selection was nearly non-existent. When they finally sold be some broken down piece of junk, that I had to return, I went on line and got a top lawn mower for less than the piece of crap I returned.
When I buy my annual set of running shoes, I couldn’t find a store that sold my favorite brand. I go on Amazon and two click slater, they deliver my brand to my house.
I go on Atkins once a year. The local CVS sell like four different items, at 100% markup. I go on Amazon, save 60%, and have a 100 items to choose from.
Yeah, but his intro to made up class teacher told him that rich people are bad, so now he will continue to espouse that idea without any critical thinking.
I refer to the as True Believers. They don’t have the ability to question what they are told.
I particularly like this version of True Believer. If you though society sucked, and chose to live up in Alaska, and hunt and build your own shelter, and disconnect, I would respect that decision quite a bit.
But Joel bought a desktop with a CPU made by Dell, and beautiful screen made by Hewlett & Packard, uses Bill Gates OS, and Google to connect to MLB-R.
But hates the fact that everyone is making money off of it. He thinks that all these people’s time, effort, and genius, should be supplied to him for free.
Ahh and therein lies the rub. There is no MLB without the players. The owners tried that once when they put scabs on the field. Inferior players. The fans DID go elsewhere. They did not spend money on overpriced tickets to games or $12 beers and $6 hotdogs. The fans simply did not show up to watch in person or on TV.
There’s no MLB without the owners either. Billionaires willing to deal with the odd and often hostile business environment of MLB don’t exactly grow on trees.
It would be almost impossible for either side to survive. For all the people that say that fans come to see the players, none of the fans are going to the local field to watch, even if it was an AS team.
And the players don’t have $10B to build stadiums.
In this case its the opposite. A LAWYER named Manfred said publicly that he could impose any season length he wanted and cut off negotiations. He did not negotiate in good faith as required in the March 2020 agreement with the MLBPA that he was a signatory on. MLB lost this lawsuit last year when he opened his mouth.
Money and education do not equal intelligence.
Rich people problems. They must be nice.
I support the Union on this one and hope they get something out of it.
They can’t even field anything near a full team in 2021. The fans are getting the shaft when organizations like the Yankees have a major Covid outbreak and put out any healthy body they can find. It’s hard to believe that I can be fully vaccinated for 3 months, yet MLB players can’t do the same. The product on the field is bad enough even without the Covid absences.
Almost all of the people in the Yankees organization that have COVID right now are vaccinated.
History shows the Owners rarely win these kind of arbitration results, so even if they are right ( which I believe they are ( see the Yankee situation right now as Exhibit: A)), I fully expect the players to actually collect on the $500m, instead of simply using it as a bargaining chip.
Sweet. Laying the foundation for a positive and friendly negotiation for the future!
It is not about a positive relationship. It is about greed.
that ship has long since sailed
This stuff is getting old. Hard for me to tell who is more greedy. The owners make megadollars but still take all the financial risks (albert pujols for example). The players kick back and demand more and more without risk, just have to make the team by taking a fellow union brother’s job (great union, huh?). Call the WAHbulance, both sides need help.
You want to talk Pujols we can.
Sure the Angels owner took a lot of risk. But what about Bill DeWitt the Cardinals owner. Did he take a risk? No he didn’t. He gave Albert that massive extension on the back of 3 of the greatest years a baseball player has produced ALL TIME!!! If that’s risk then sign me up. Moreno is an attention starved idiot who deserves the bed he made.
Pujols was an example I pulled off the top of my head. His Cardinal deal was good at the time, Pujols took the short path to easy money, he could have waited to sign. Then the Angels end up overpaying Pujols for what he did in St. Louis. They gambled and lost. Still had to pay him. There have been hundreds of bad contracts since free agency began. Owners pay out the nose no matter what. Yes, the owners make the offers, but usually take a financial hit. History shows free agency seldom pays off for the team, but they have to do what they do in hopes of winning. Sometimes a free agent earns the money and that’s great. But the players usually don’t and it’s TFB for the team.
JerryBird30 mins ago
This stuff is getting old. Hard for me to tell who is more greedy.
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You have to think of it differently. There is a pot of gold out there worth maybe $10-11B. Both sides want a piece of the pot. It is not a matter of greed. This is no more than you wanting the best salary you can get.
My view is that, once I pad my $50 for a ticket, and my $13 for a beer, it isn’t my money any more, and I don’t care who gets what piece of it.
I don’t know. You make sense, but something inside keeps me from agreeing with you. It’s a lot to pay $50 for a ticket and $13 for a beer. If I walk away from the sport, I still help pay for the players’ salaries through my cable bill. It keeps going up at the same rate as sports salaries or whenever they make a new sports deal. You pay no matter what. Like I said, it just gets old. Sorry, I needed to rant. I’ll reevaluate my thinking if I can.
The $50 was special because my brother is an Expos fan. And $13 for a 24-ounce beer is more than fair, considering what the local joints charge. It doesn’t matter right now, but on a warm July night, I would try to incorporate some exercise into getting to the stadium. I once walked from midtown to 161st St. Ice cold, brand new keg, and I couldn’t give the lady my $13 fast enough.
Ah, the memories of an old man!
I’ve been watching baseball for sixty years now. I used to honestly LOVE when the game was played on a field and not in a court of law…
I’m with you on that. The current state of the game keeps me from enjoying the actual sport. I guess that’s the problem for me.
Me as well, JerryBird. Covid, in an odd way, also hurt a lot. Once the networks started showing old games, then older and older as the crisis worsened, it truly reminded me HOW different the game was even 20 years ago. Baseball today is simply not the baseball I fell in love with.
The real kicker was a replay I watched of the 1965 All-Star game. Aaron, Mays, a youngish Pete Rose… ALL were still playing in a meaningless exhibition game in the ninth inning…
It’s still the most beautiful sport out there (when they get away from a courthouse and into a stadium), but nowhere near as beautiful as it was. I also truly hate the fact that anybody who has a good season now (player or team) , and especially a breakout season, is (probably rightfully) subjected to “what’s he taking?” or “how are they cheating?” Sucks in a big way that we can no longer accept by default that a guy or a club is good.
The great bluesman BB King passed six years ago today. He said it best. The thrill is gone.
Well said, my friend. I appreciate it.
The real risk for the owners and players is if they decide to go on strike ( players) or lockout (owners) is fans get fed up and simply do not come back. Look at Oscar and Grammy ratings for example.I personally got aggravated over the kneeling and lost interest in the NFL.
The fans will always come back. We are like an abused spouse . We know we should never come back, and then… we come back because we choose to forget, we never learn. I came back after 1994, but it was about 10 years later. The next time, I guarantee I will not be back.
It’s time to fix a busted system
Create a salary cap and don’t play until the players cave.
Baseball has a de-facto salary cap with the luxury tax system. After the current CBA was implemented, there were five teams over the tax threshold, and all five got under to reset their taxes. Now there is only one team in the top bracket.
What is needed is a salary floor- just don’t call it that because that smacks of salary cap. Tax all teams who fail to spend under a certain threshold, say $125 million, or half the top tax bracket.
Too many teams are gaming the system by accepting and pocketing revenue sharing dollars and not spending it on payroll. They’re not trying to win, and the fans suffer and the game suffers. That’s just one big issue that must be addressed.
Do you think there is enough talent to justify that? If not you’ll see what you saw when the NBA did this with mediocre players being paid far more than they’re worth just because the team needs to spend money.
The players union would LOVE a salary floor. Cant do any kind of salary floor or salary cap without 100% revenue sharing. Can’t expect a team with a $200 million per year in total revenue including existing revenue sharing to compete in terms of dollars spent on player salaries with a team with $600+ million in total revenue.
Now of you can get the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Giants, and the few other high revenue teams to give a third of that to teams like Tampa, Oakland, Cleveland, Miami, etc…, THEN you can start the negotiations for a salary floor.
Not a “floor” technically, just as the competitive balance tax is not a cap, but it’s been getting harder and harder to the point where every single team that was above the cap at the start of the current CBA got under it and reset their tax.
So put a tax on the lower end of the pay scale. If players agree to a dollar for dollar tax above the highest threshold, there should be the same tax below the lowest bracket.
And yes 1984wasntamanual, there is not only enough talent, but more than enough revenue to justify a tax at that relatively low level.
Teams all pay 48 percent of local revenues, including gate receipts and local TV revenue, into a pool to be divided by all teams. All national TV revenue is equally divided, except for MLB’s own central fund which is now mainly streaming products.
While this gives smaller market clubs more money, it also provides some disincentive to win, since the benefit of winning is only immediately shown in live attendance, and that is almost halved. So they should also allow some of the smallest market clubs to keep a larger share of those gate receipts. I would not expect a large shift in revenue being shared, but the growth of local TV contracts in larger markets has widened the gap of disparity, and MLB is nothing if it’s not competitive.
Of course they didn’t negotiate “in good faith” they negotiated based solely on what was an acceptable loss. The 60 games, or roughly 30 home games without attendance made up roughly the number of what each team would have lost anyway. The MLBPA really has no room to complain. When the owners wanted more games early the players said no, when the players wanted more games later the owners said no. It’s on both sides
Actually, the MLBPA has this won. MLB made proposals for season length. They said we CAN play this many games safely, then reneged and said that they could impose any season length they wanted to and didn’t have to negotiate in good faith. They sunk themselves.
BEFORE the March 2020 agreement the commissioners COULD set any season length as long as players were getting 100% of their salaries. The March 2020 agreement changed all that. Manfred and the owners failed to uphold their end of the deal. This lawsuit is already won by the players.
To quote the great Al Bundy, “STEE-RIKE!”
Why wasn’t this grievance filed like 9 months ago?
So what we’re saying is the next round of CBA bargaining may be a touch contentious?
U.S. Americans’ pervasive subservience to their billionaire oligarchs is always a pitiful sight. Plebs fans defending the greed and unscrupulousness of the franchise owners, be it MLB, NFL or NBA, while dumping their own lives’ frustrations on the players, never ceases to disgust me.
What a stark contrast to European sports culture and overall standards of civilization, where fans forced U.S. billionaire owners to abandon their perverted plans of a European football franchise league with their tails between their legs.
waldfee2 hours ago
What a stark contrast to European sports culture and overall standards of civilization
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Yup, every time I read about a soccer game in Europe, the first thing that comes to mind is
‘man, those dudes know how to fight. Not only that, but they go from city to city to get into brawls’.
An equally moronic post. This isnt 1980. Soccer fans are actually more loyal to their clubs than American fans. In lower leagues fans even help with cleaning the stadium after matches. We are too good for that.
It wasnt US billionaires moron. It was Spanish and Italian clubs that couldnt compete financially with the English clubs and needed the ESL to level the playing field financially.
The wounds are still too fresh from last years “negotiations” for me to be able to care about this. Like everyone, I hope cooler heads prevail this time. And perhaps there are smarter people at the table… and this doesn’t play out on the front page of the newspaper.
I have decided to “identify” as an MLB starting 2nd baseman. Can I get a cut of that 500 mil?
Probably the lowest paying position with the most players who can play it. Cant you be a 5 tool CFer or a catcher that can hit?
Who are you quoting?
How about a starting pitcher? There’s a huge shortage
I always thought the two best positions to skate in professional sports were the backup QB and the LOOGY. Good enough to be professional but not good enough to have any expectations but with the benefit of every team needing them, while getting a pretty high respective salary. I know now they LOOGY doesn’t really exist, since they have to get 3 outs.
Good. The owners will do everything they can to get as much money as they can. The players are entitled to do the same.
Except even if they win the players won’t actually get any additional money in the end, as the owners will just cut free agent spending again to make up for it.
Well, most players aren’t free agents, so cutting spending on free agency would only affect a portion of players. Also, what you’re describing is collusion and the MLBPA has already won a grievance for that specific situation.
It seems that a lot of people don’t understand the rules governing collectively bargained benefits.
It’s not collusion. He’s saying that if teams are forced to spend money due to this issue, they’ll have less to spend in free agency since they have budgets.
Clark will mess this one up too. Gosh, must be hard to find someone who can actually lead the MLBPA. There hasn’t been anything to cheer about with Clark leading the way.
Just another bargaining attempt by MLBPA headed into negotiations for what is likely a strike/lockout scenario. If this was so important, it would have been filed during the season last year and at least during the off-season. Nope, had to wait until now so they can try to push it through during the season.
MLBPA has a slam dunk case in this one. They have already won.
So many deep and entertaining posts. But I haven’t seen a single one about the article stating that “…the crux of the grievance seems to stem from the language…”
What we have here is a failure to communicate, back in March 2020 when the agreement was being drawn up. Both parties are at fault for allowing such nebulous language into it to create avenues for grievances in the first place, even during an unprecedented situation. I would expect that the CBA negotiating parties will pay more attention this fall..
So the MLBPA wants to throw its free agents under the bus again, huh? Why don’t they realize that if they win this grievance that the owners will just cut their spending by a similar amount next offseason, just as they made up for the money lost by paying full prorated salaries last season by cutting spending last offseason?
All you guys are doing is redistributing MLB player salaries in a way that increases the salary gap even further than it was before!
Kinda emulates real life the past few years, doesn’t it?
The owners CAN’T cut their spending. They are going to have to INCREASE their spending on player salaries because the players have them over a barrel with this lawsuit.
Let me back up. Owners have been cutting back on player salaries for nearly a decade. Players in 2021 will make about 37% of total revenue for a game that does not exist I they don’t play. No fan is going to the ballpark and pay the ticket prices we are forced to pay or buy $10 beers to watch AA or lower level players play this game if the MLB caliber players are not on the field. We know that because owners tried scab players before and it didn’t work. The players want and deserve half the revenue they create by being on that field.
Manfred said publicly that he was going to impose a season length. He came right out and said that he was not going to negotiate in good faith as REQUIRED in the agreement they signed in MArch of 2020 with the players where the players gave up part of their salaries. Something the players were not required to do. They could have insisted on being paid 100% of their salaries regardless of season length or fans in the stands and according to the CBA that is what the owners would have had to do legally. All they asked for in return for taking a huge salary cut was that MLB negotiate a season length in good faith. MLB failed to do so.
This lawsuit is a slam dunk. The players have already won. And because its such a slam dunk and because the CBA is up at the end of the season, the players are going to ask for AND GET a much larger slice of the revenue pie which means players will be paid MORE, not less.
Because of the rash of cases of service time manipulation we will see the players asking for free agency earlier and service time being counted differently (once you are called up that counts as year 1 regardless of days on the MLB roster) and an increase in major league minimum salaries.
Again, because the owners failed to negotiate in good faith last season they are going to have to accept things they didn’t want in an attempt to make this lawsuit go away.
Now the owners are going to file a grievance to the players for trying to stop the games if they were not paid fully, that they did not care if there were not fans at the stadiums and many clubs had it very difficult to cover, juts like most companies and workers had to take less in order to survive.
It is a really shame as a fan to see the negotiations start like this, looks like a crash no matter what and soon they are going to get us tired as a fans.
No can do. The players already had an agreement they perform under. Its called the CBA. They did not have to agree to play for even one dollar than they were contracted for. They made an agreement to do so in good faith. They did their part. The owners did not. They jacked things around and even after proposing schedules and numbers of games they drug it out and did not negotiate a season length in good faith. This is 100% on the owners.
You should know by now that nothing is 100% one side 0% other side if you see things like this probably you are not very subjective.
The agreement you are talking was sign march or april were no one knew how things would evolve, that even today we have no full attendance, so why you feel players deserves 100% salary. But what botter me the most about players was their unwillingness to negotiate in times of emergency.
I hope everyone enjoys this season because these two cannot co exist and will never agree on a new CBA, meaning there will be no 2022 baseball season
Wrong. Of course there will never be another strike, the players are to greedy to skip a game.
Go auto-intercourse, MLBPA.
I hope your blind cries for fair compensation lead to exactly what that would be: pay-for-play.
Contracts that are calculated vs actual contributions rather than days on a calendar.
Every inning played has a dollar value. Slump and get benched? Get paid less.
Injured and not working? Get a pre-determined (small) percentage of your pay.
Perform, and participate? Get paid for the innings played.
That’s how the world works. Welcome to Eath.
There is no MLB without the players. We already found out what happened to fan numbers when the owners tried to run out scabs instead of real players. Fans fell away in bunches.
MLB owners will lose this lawsuit one way or another. Either they lose in court or they lose in terms of huge concessions in the CBA negotiations.
If the owners were not greedy and had negotiated a season length in good faith, if they had even just played the number of games THEY proposed, then this would not be happening. ALL of this is on the owners and the commissioner. 100%.
And its hilarious. They are going to take this up the wazoo.
Bold prediction. Wrong, but bold.
The owners would lose their investment on the team if MLB failed, but most of them have other sources of income. Do you think the players would find alternative sources of income? Perhaps, but I find it hard to believe, at least immediately.
I’m on the owners side. The players look foolish on this. Total greed. This hurts the image of MLB, it’s a total cash grab.
The greed was the owners not negotiating a season length in good faith. The players took the brunt of the revenue loss in 2020 with 63% cuts in salary. The owners lost little if any money. They just didn’t make as much profits.
This is a slam dunk for the players union. Manfred said on several occasions that he had the right to set the season length at any number he chose. He said publicly that he was not negotiating in good faith. What he didn’t have the right to do is set player SALARIES at any number he chose. By not negotiating in good faith on the number of games he cost the players hundreds of millions and if this makes it to court the players union will win.
The owners negotiated in good faith. They actually lost money. The players just made less than expected, a big difference. You have this typical fan mentality that if the owners don’t roll over for the players, then they’re being greedy. At a time when everyone was trying to minimize going out in public the owners are to be chastised for wanting to limit games played? It’s what they were supposed to do. The players were being unreasonable and they, and you are going to get hit hard by reality. Then they’ll complain about greed and how unfair everything is.
Last year was the first year I watched less then 10 college football games and no Steeler games… I did not miss it. Besides that I generally do not watch the garbage coming out of Hollywood ( except Godzilla versus Kong). If MLB shuts down I can say goodbye to the Yankees and just have the Islanders and PGA Tour for my sports fix.
This is hilarious!! MLB is totally f’d. This is a slam dunk for the MLBPA. Manfred and MLB did not act in good faith and even said so publicly.
If the players union drags this out until after the season as is probable, they will get some huge concessions in negotiations for the new CBA just to drop this lawsuit.
Will Manfred lose his job over losing the owners a half billion plus another $50 million or so in attorneys fees for his total screw up in 2020?
You’re Koamalu
“MLB did not act in good faith and even said so publicly.” – Do you have a source for this? I can’t find anything when I google.
I asked Pads for that also, in another post. He’s got nothing. He made probably 20 posts in 20 minutes, but didn’t defend one of them. Pretty odd.
He is Koamalu and he does not have a source. Just like he didn’t have a source for Luis Campusano’s charges being reduced to a misdemeanor in November. Or for James Shields and Nolan Arenado agreeing to waive their opt-out clauses as part of a trade.