TODAY: Thursday’s discussions involved such topics as PED policies, the joint domestic violence/sexual assault/child abuse policy, special events, procedures for filing grievances, and scheduling, ESPN.com’s Jesse Rogers writes.
DEC. 15: Since Major League Baseball instituted a lockout in the early morning hours of December 2, there’s been little known back-and-forth between the league and the MLB Players Association. Evan Drellich of the Athletic reports this evening that the sides aren’t expected to discuss the game’s core economic structure until sometime in January. The parties have, however, been in contact about other issues and are expected to meet in-person tomorrow to discuss issues outside of core economics.
Disagreements related to core economics figure to be the most important, contentious issues to hammer out. Such topics as the service time structure, playoff expansion and the competitive balance tax are among the areas of import for both sides that could be difficult to iron out. Agreeing on the core economics structure figures to take ample bargaining time, and that the sides won’t even address the issues again until January is the latest confirmation that the lockout figures to drag on for quite some time.
In the aftermath of the lockout, both Commissioner Rob Manfred and MLBPA lead negotiator Bruce Meyer publicly expressed a willingness to continue negotiating. Yet Drellich hears that neither side has initiated talks regarding core economics in the nearly two weeks since then, even as they’ve engaged on less contentious matters.
There doesn’t seem to be much belief that meetings regarding core economics before January would serve much of a purpose, though. Drellich hears from individuals on both sides of talks who suggest that a sit-down within the coming days or weeks would likely have only resulted in negotiators “saying the same things to each other over and over.”
As Drellich points out, there doesn’t seem to be a ton of urgency for either side to move off their initial demands at this point on the calendar. During the winter months, owners aren’t losing gate revenues while players aren’t forfeiting game checks. Major league transactions are frozen, but that alone doesn’t seem to be enough of a motivator for either side to alter their bargaining positions.
The league’s owners are clearly content to wait through a transactions freeze, having voted to lock the players out unanimously as the previous collective bargaining agreement expired. MLBPA executive director Tony Clark, meanwhile, suggested to reporters on December 2 that the freeze wouldn’t affect the players’ negotiating resolve. “Players consider (the lockout) unnecessary and provocative,” Clark said at the time. “The lockout won’t pressure or intimidate players into a deal they don’t believe is fair.”
It’s possible both sides will begin to feel more pressure to move closer to an agreement as the scheduled start of Spring Training nears. As things currently stand, the first exhibition games are scheduled to begin on February 26, 2022. Of course, there’ll need to be some time for players to report and to get into game shape before jumping right into game play. In the immediate aftermath of the lockout, Bob Nightengale of USA Today suggested the sides viewed February 1 as a “soft deadline” for a deal getting done to avoid interruptions to Spring Training.
just stupid. why are you wasting time? smh maybe I was being idealistic thinking they’d both realize they were on the clock here…
As I recall from 2020, the owners don’t care much about canceling games as long as they get the playoff TV revenue. This could last quite a while unless the players move much closer to what the owners are offering.
addsup – That’s precisely what I’ve been saying. Why would the owners care about losing games in March thru May? Ratings are usually down then because of NBA/NHL/College Hoops. And attendance is it’s lowest those months too, who wants to sit in rainy/freezing/snowy conditions to watch a baseball game?
It’s all about the postseason, I’ll be very surprised if they play 162 next year.
TV money. Over 2/3 of all revenue in MLB is from TV. That is no longer guaranteed money. No games = no money for the owners. Gate take is such a small portion of revenue that it doesn’t really matter how many people are in the seats. The owners do not lose money if there were less fans, they just make less profits. See Liberty Media Corp shareholders report for confirmation of that.
Those games count just as much as the rest of them! That’s what players no longer see to care about.A comeback win in the first week may be the 1/2 lead at the end of the year.
To be fair, I love sitting at baseball games no matter what the weather is
Players want to play a full schedule so they get paid full salary. Owners are the ones who want to shorten the season.
The owners will not get revenue from an extended playoffs like they did in 2020 unless they cave to the much bigger demands the players are making. Also, in 2022 TV contracts are no longer guaranteed. They were in 2020 due to the “natural disaster” that COVID represented. A lockout is not a natural disaster. If they miss games, including spring training, the owners don’t get paid anything and TV makes up more than 2/3 of total revenue in baseball. The players have no vested interest in moving closer to what the owners want. They don’t have to. Its much easier to insure income for a player in the event of a lockout than for the owners to make up lost TV revenue.
The owners are under far less pressure than the players. The best thing for owners is for this lockout to continue at least until just before Spring training. The less time the players have to negotiate contracts with other teams the more likely they are to accept the initial offer. I know the MLBPA says they won’t but that would mean the players are willing to give up regular season paychecks to prove their point. I find that unlikely. Players are only major league caliber for so long. Owners can make their money until they die. The owners are also so rich they will notice the lack of income a lot less than players do.
The players goal should be to end the lockout as soon as possible. The owners goal is likely to have the lockout last as long as possible while not missing any regular season games. All the owners will be wealthy for the rest of their lives either way. For hundreds of players they are wagering their entire livelihood on this. The longer it lasts the more likely it is that some players will fracture from the group and be willing to agree with owners demands just so they can get their paychecks. I expect this to go very slowly until February. I think the lockout ending in January is a pipe dream because most owners probably would rather have it last longer.
Am I the only one who thinks “provocative” is an odd choice of words for the MLBPA to use? It almost makes it sound like a good thing. It makes me think of a sexy lady from some B grade movie.
The owners are under far MORE pressure than the players. #1 reason is that if games are not played they get no revenue at all. The past two season they got paid all of their TV money because of “Act of God” or “Natural Disaster” clauses in the TV contracts. TV deals are more than 2/3 of all revenue in MLB. The owner also will not be getting ticket revenue. The players on the other hand have had their union putting together a war chest for 4 years. The union also took out insurance to make sure they had money to cover at least some of the players contracts. Since they would not have had any checks until April in any case, they don’t have to even start thinking about money until then. The owners will start losing money on February 26th if they have not resolved this.
@outinleftfield
I disagree. While I don’t have their TV contracts, the little we do know is that the agreements are for a specific number of games. The ESPN contract for example is for 30 games per season. They will substitute games later in the season for those that are missed. We would need to examine every contract to determine the impact on the RSN contracts which broadcast the non national games. In some cases, the team owns the RSN and can substitute other content and not lose any money. The cash flow is probably monthly across the year and independent of the broadcasts. Because the league does not have any player payroll during the lockout, the teams may be coming out ahead. I will concede we don’t know the contract specifics enough to say.
@outinleft, I also disagree. The players are under WAY more pressure than the owners. The owners, regardless of yearly “income/profits” on their teams, have their investment asset (the team value) appreciating year after year. The Wilson’s “made” a TON of money when they sold the Mets, based on what they paid for them years earlier, regardless of year in-year-out profits. The owners’ teams go up in value year after year whether they play this year, or not. They just have to be patient, just like a long-game investor in the stock market. The players don’t have that luxury. They get older each day/ year, don’t make a dime if they aren’t playing games, and for younger players, and very likely don’t accrue service time during the lockout.
The players need the money now, way more than the owners.
I’m pro-player, so I’d like to see the PA get moving!!
Where is the source on the MLBPA having “insurance” against the season being shortened/canceled? If you can quote it, you can source it.
***Wilpons*** (not Wilsons)
Sorry-darn autocorrect
Agreed @Remove, I know the MLBPA has a small war chest but I have heard nothing about an insurance policy. Seems like the kind of policy that doesn’t exist (especially when you’re shopping for it three weeks before the CBA expires).
I also agree. I’ve never heard anything about the union having enough money piled up to pay the players even if they don’t play. Even if they do it definitely wouldn’t be the full amount and it wouldn’t be all the players. It also wouldn’t last very long. That would require the MLBPA to be worth almost as much money as every owner combined.
The owners spend billions of dollars every year on player payrolls. In fact… The more I think about it the more absurd the concept sounds. The MLBPA is worth about as much as almost every owner in MLB combined? That can’t be even close to true. It has to be made up.
The main thing is the owners are under far less pressure because they have enough money to be able to afford to wait it out. The side with the most money is always under the least pressure in any legal dispute. The owners could stop receiving income and still have enough money to barely notice. Most players would run out of money in a very short time without their paychecks.
There’s no way the MLBPA covers Trevor Bauer’s $45 million salary next year if the lockout keeps going. Not along with Cole’s $36 million, Scherzer’s $43 million, Strasburg’s $35 million, etc., etc., etc. That’s just nonsense. It would cost the MLBPA about $5 billion each year to do that. Close to a billion dollars every month the lockout bleeds into the season.
Bob – The Red Sox own their RSN. During the months of March and especially April, they essentially compete with themselves by often broadcasting both Bruins and Red Sox games simultaneously utilizing a sister channel. And most fans of both teams always choose the more important late season Bruins games over the early season Red Sox games.
So without a doubt, the Red Sox won’t be losing much TV revenue if the lockout drags into May. And while I disagree with the person here who insisted ticket revenue is meaningless (look at last year as proof it’s not), even the big market teams with rabid fanbases struggle to draw fans to early season games. Not just because of the weather and lack of importance in those early season games, but also because most parents don’t like bringing their kids to a game on a school night.
It’s simply a no-brainer for the owners to drag the lockout into at least May. There won’t be much fan outrage during the time of year when baseball is probably the 2nd or 3rd most popular sport being played.
And believe me, the owners don’t give a darn about the “integrity of statistics” with a shortened regular season. Just like they don’t give a darn about integrity with approx half of all the teams making the postseason every year.
@Fever Pitch
The Mariners own 71% of Root Sports. If they cannot broadcast Mariners games they will probably just switch to the Tacoma Rainiers. No loss. The owners are certainly smart enough to write contracts with the national broadcasters to ensure they have a continuous stream of income during the expected lockout. The M’s still have a staff of almost 300 people that have to be paid year around.
yea but your missing a big point. A good percentage of players aren’t missing their paychecks either. It’s the young and AAAA type players that this hurts. Don’t think for a second that the players care about that.
Really? The average salary in the MLB is over 4 million. Very few players need money.
or the owners could cave and we will end up with more And more teams ‘rebuilding’. Which I can’t blame them. The economic state of the game is in shambles. But you think the owners should just lay down and take it. Comical.
@dpsmith, it’s not about average player salary. Only about 50% of players ever make it to free-agency. The other 50% (roughly) are making league minimum or in their 1-4 years of arb (4 for the super-2 guys). I don’t know what the breakdown is between arb players vs. league-min guys,
but there are alot of guys who DO need the money to stay afloat. The PA does have a small war chest to help guys with small “stipend-level” payments to pay their rent/mortgages and to eat if the lockout goes on past the opening of spring training. The idea, from the players’ union is to try to keep presenting as a United front. But the guys making
league mins will crack first. The owners on the other hand, by nature of their deep pockets are more United and in the short term (months-a full season) can totally afford to wait out the union.
@alien Therein lies the rub. With the 3 new national TV contracts and existing local/RSN TV deals, nearly ALL games are already contracted for in 2022. In an article in SportsBusiness 24 early this year, Martin Ross talked about the lack of flexibility by MLB to substitute games in the event of things as mundane as a rainout. There simply are not enough games to substitute in the case of a lockout.
If you think advertisers are going to pay the same rate for ads on “other content” as on an MLB game, you are sadly mistaken. I will give you an actual example, a 30 second spot on the Bally Sports San Diego channel’s Ford Championship Live in prime time, the show about the High School Football Championship in California, for $180. For a Padres game that same ad in the same time frame is $3000-$4800 depending on the day of the week and time of day the game is held. They will sell me a half hour in off peak hours like 1-4 am for the price of 30 seconds on the Padres. I am quite sure that every RSN has similar differences in rates between the MLB games and the fluff filler programming.
The owners will lose big money and that loss will start with the first televised games. As of today those are scheduled for February 26th.
The owners have bills that must be paid, regardless of whether or not they are paying players. Every team has debt and that has to be paid regardless of whether they have revenue coming in or not. Every team has employees that have to be paid regardless of whether they have games or they have revenue coming in or not. We know from the two publicly held teams that most teams have fixed expenses (debt, salaries for non-players, training facilities, maintenance, other obligations) of 35% of total revenue. They still have to pay that even if they don’t have to pay players and they have to pay that without any revenue coming in. If they don’t play games for a full season, then the value of the teams will go down. That $12 plus billion loss in revenue if the 2022 season is a total loss simply cannot be recovered in time to save many of these owners. Yes they are wealthy, but its not like that money is liquid and they can’t collect on equity unless they sell the team in which case they no longer have that cash cow.
Read the articles in the Athletic. The MLBPA has been preparing for this for 4 years. They have built up a war chest and taken out insurance to secure some pay for the players in the case of an extended lockout. Many of the higher paid players have taken out insurance against the possibility of lost income. Then there is the fact that players on guaranteed contracts have to be paid in full whether there are 60 games or 162 and the MLBPA has said that they are not willing to forfeit that right for a lockout like they did during COVID. Even if there is no 2022 season, if baseball starts up again in 2023 the players are guaranteed every penny that is in their contract. Scherzer still gets every penny of his $130 million deal. Robbie Ray still gets every penny of his $115 million contract. That is the way federal labor law works in the case of contracts under a CBA. Lower paid players that are not yet arbitration eligible would suffer if there is no baseball, but those are the very players the MLBPA has built up that war chest to make sure they can survive through this.
Meyer is a top notch labor negotiator and he took those things into account before he even took the job with the MLBPA in 2018.
I love the way you said “stipend-level” payments. They are talking about $10-15k per month and have said they can do that into the summer. Guys making league minimum that get a $10k stipend will do just fine. I earn a very nice income, but would love to get that kind of stipend in the case all my contracts blew up. Players don’t get paid in spring training. At all. Their first paychecks are in April. The owners have been operating under guaranteed TV contracts for the last two seasons during COVID, TV contracts that make up 2/3 of their revenue stream, and they all lost profits. That won’t be the case in 2022. TV contracts are guaranteed in case of Acts of God, not lockouts. The owners know this and they cannot afford to take more losses.
@fever FSG owns a share of NESN. See my other comment about the difference between advertising costs on MLB games vs fluff filler content on the RSNs. The Red Sox will lose 90++% of their TV revenue.
Players on guaranteed contracts will get paid 100% of the amount on that contract regardless of how many games are paid. During the COVID shortened season they took a prorated amount of those contracts, but have already said they are not willing to do that during a season shortened by a lockout. Those guaranteed contracts add up to 70% of all player salaries.
We know from seeing the books of the publicly held teams that with TV contracts making up 2/3 of total revenue that gate receipts don’t make that much of a difference to owners, They lost PROFITS in 2020. They didn’t move out of the black.
If “the owners cave” then there will be less teams tanking. That is the point of the changes the MLBPA wants to see happen.
The Athletic articles referenced on this website.
Its sad that you commenting on an article that is about an article in The Athletic, but it’s obvious that you haven’t read the article in the Athletic.
The MLBPA is not trying to cover the large contracts, those guys are pretty much on their own. They have built up a fund since 2018 with the purpose of keeping the little guys afloat.
Total salaries in 2021 was just over $4 billion.
Its an entirely different subject, but no one is covering Bauer’s salary since its likely he is suspended for 2 years retroactively to the point he was originally put on administrative leave.
Do you mean regardless of how many games are “played”?? You are correct about that. So guys like Scherzer and Tatis and Machado and Trout are still going to get their money no matter how long they are locked out. It is the guys making major league minimum that will be hurting.
@alien If the Mariners are broadcasting minor league games instead of the Mariners they will likely lose at least 90% of the ad revenue,.
I don’t know what the rates are on Root Sports but on Bally Sports South (Braves) and Bally Sports San Diego (Padres) the difference is about 20 times. In other words an ad on a MLB game costs 20 times more than an ad on other content on the network, even other sports content.
TV deals were written so that the owners were protected in case of something unforeseen like COVID happening, but lockouts would not apply. The owners might get a small amount if they own part of their RSN, but otherwise they will probably lose all their TV revenue.
They might also lose money if they own part of the RSN because operating costs could be higher than the revenue they can get from advertising on those other shows.
As we saw during 2020, MLB teams have had no problem laying people off when there are no games. I don’t know about the Mariners, but I would be willing to bet they did the same.
@outinLF FSG owns most of NESN. I have read reports that said anything from 70-80%. They also broadcast the Bruins. They are one of the few that might do ok. They also might lose their shirts since they have to pay a larger share of the operating expenses.
I agree @giantsphan. Sure the older super rich players who have already made a ton of money like Scherzer, Strasburg, Cole, Trout and many of the older guys will be inclined to stick it out. The younger guys won’t. Even players like Acuna, Tatis, Franco and Albies will start wanting the lockout to end pretty soon. Those guys have big guaranteed money contracts but haven’t cashed in on them yet. Then you have other players who still make close to the league minimum. On top of that every game a player misses is just one less game they get to play in their career. It’s not like they can make it up later. The older they get the less they are able to play.
Then you have guys like Juan Soto. Unlike the Covid season it is far less likely players will receive service time for games they didn’t play because of their own choice not to put pen to paper. If this goes in long enough Soto might have to concede another year of control to the Nationals if he doesn’t earn the service time. Even someone like Trea Turner risks losing the ability to become a free agent next year. That goes for hundreds of other players, too. They are risking having to wait an extra year before they become free agents. They really don’t want that.
@outinleftfield doesn’t understand. He is right that the owners really love having that revenue stream but he doesn’t seem to acknowledge the obvious. The owners are far less dependent on that revenue stream for their livelihood than the players are. The owners could invest somewhere else and probably still make as much money. Most importantly they could just retire and live in absolute luxury for the rest of their lives without earning another penny.
Some of the players could do the same thing as the owners but most of them can’t. Even the players who already have a few million really need the money. It seems like a lot to us but when you compare the few million they have to the 10’s or 100’s of millions they would be giving up it’s not even close. The players can only make that money playing baseball. The owners can make their money any way they want. A lot of the current millionaire players would be flat broke in 10 years if they don’t have baseball to keep the money flowing in.
In every single negotiation like this the side with the most money has the most leverage and the most power. They can always just wait it out and bleed the other side dry until some of them run low on cash and come crawling back. It’s inevitable.
Billions will always outlast millions. Baseball is no different. It always works that way. In a tough negotiation it’s not about the income not coming in. It’s about the money each side already has. More money buys more patience. Patience is the best weapon in any negotiation. The billionaire owners will be willing to lose money as long as the players are too because they know the players will run out first.
Reminds me of something my old man would have said about Angie Dickinson
@Please, you nailed it. I agree with everything you stated.
smith – I strongly disagree about players not missing their paychecks. The average MLB career is less than 3 years. An injury could end their career immediately, which means no income. And players are paid only during the regular season, not counting additional postseason income. If they don’t start playing until June, they lose a third of their annual income. That’s a huge chunk no matter how much they make.
On the flip side, owners never have to worry about income. As long as they own a team, they are financially set. They have very little to lose by having the season start in May or June.
So one article behind a paywall? Anyone an Athletic subscriber and wanna confirm if it says anything about the MLBPA having “insurance” against the season being shortened or canceled?
@Remove, I have been listening to all the Athletic podcasts about the lockout. Eno Sarris, Britt Ghiroli and Derek Van Riper talked on Wednesday the 8th about the WHOLE thing. That’s how I learned about the union’s war chest. Not a thing about an insurance policy. It would have come up in the context of the pod when they discussed how the war chest is designed to pay the league min. guys enough to survive (a few $k a month for rent/mortgage and food) to keep the union presenting as a United front. Nothing about insurance. I have two articles I’ve been meaning to read. Will report back after I catch up.
Pretty one sided comment but whatever
The $500 million revenue from the playoffs as currently constituted is small part of the $12.3 billion in revenue MLB made in 2021. Even an extra $500 million in from expanded playoffs would not make up for losing $7.825 billion in regular season TV revenue. I don’t know if anyone else mentioned it, but MLB’s TV deals were all guaranteed in 2020 and 2021 because of Covid. Those deals not being guaranteed anymore will be a big motivation for owners not to let this drag out too long.
Guess I should have scrolled down a little before commenting. Looks like its been covered ad nauseam.
Scratching my head as to why someone feels the need to create multiple accounts and have conversations with themselves on here.
This is the key here… Owners don’t care about losing 20-40 games.
I think there’s a somewhat easy solution here, which is to build incentive structures based on team revenue into contracts. Essentially, you want more money? Help the team earn more money. More promo events. More fan meet and greet type of stuff. More dedicated media time.
Or perhaps a contract structure that allocates some of the owners financial risks to the players, such as in the NFL’s, non-guaranteed contract structure. Between opt outs and buy outs and options we are already heading in that direction.
Relax DarkSide, it’s December 15th.
It maybe, and Ppl say I’m overreacting, but u find it alarming that they have no intent to even begin real talks until 5 weeks before spring training. Esp since they still have free agency and rule 5 draft and an offsets on to complete
@Butch. Feb1 is a soft deadline date for negotiations to be finished, not the date they will start talks.
I’m ready for the end of of world, yall ready?
At least we got baseball oh wait they outsourced that to Asia as well?
Looks like Manfred and Tony Clark are taking the holidays off. The fans will remember.
And a lot of the fans will forget them forever if ANY of the season is lost due to greed on BOTH sides. I walked away from the sport for 3 and a half years after the 1994 debacle. I came back because I was young. I am not young anymore. I will walk away forever this time.
There’s no incentive for the players to negotiate now and actually there’s been nothing but incentives for them to not get it resolved. The looming lockout and transactions freeze on December 2nd spurred a lot more free agent signings in November than we’ve seen in many years. And the longer the lockout continues the more it sets up a shortened “mad scramble” scenario on the other side once players can start signing again, which also favors the players because teams won’t be able to “wait out the market” like they’ve done in past years.
Surely these guys realize how much money and fan interest is at stake and will get a deal done, right?
That’s what I kept saying about tobacco and the US senators getting paid under the table to deny that they cause cancer, emphysema, among other things to allow advertisement to kids. To much money was getting passed around to get a deal done
Completely different scenario
Meh the nhl lockouts only proved fans come back. with their new tv deal in the US that the NHL got it seems to me the best way to get new fans and retain them is all in how the broadcasting/media is done. Disney and tnt taking over coverage from NBC has done more to help grow hockeys fan base in the past 15 years then the damage 2 lockouts (1 for full season) did. Only people lockouts hurt are bandwagon fans, which are easily won back if the resulting product is just as good or better when it returns.
Yep it was great. Then because ESPN was losing on the NBA and NFl they threw money at the NHL. Sadly the NHL took it and ESPN trashed it with ESPN+. This year is a mess and why the NHL got involved with the WOKE, sinking ship that is ESPN, is beyond me.
Players caring about fans? Unlikely sir.
They should be at the table, period. Quit screwing the fans over.
A am absolutely. It’s like they all live in a vacuum. Both sides. They don’t understand the perception from the standpoint of everyone outside of the two sides.
The fans absolutely, positively do not matter to either side. MLB looks after the owners, MLBPA looks after the players. Fans are so far down the priority list, they may not as well be on it at all.
But it’s winter. How are they screwing the fans over in winter? Go watch some football. If this isn’t resolved by February, then start to worry.
I know but it’s the lack of normal off-season, the very public squabbling over 2020 still fresh in everyone’s minds….it just all adds up to a sour taste for the fans.
Who’s ready for another shortened season!?
Shorten the season to 30 games and have an extended playoffs for all teams.
It really all depends on how much the players want. Right now they want to change three foundational pieces of the basic agreement. They may get one, not three.
It’s not a matter of being right or wrong, management is never going to capitulate on three foundational pieces.
I don’t know the specifics. What are the three things the players want?
For the players there are two core pieces that are non-negotiable. They get both or they walk. Service time (which is really 3 different issues) and share of revenue Which is really 3 different issues).
Please work it up within the next month
I sense no urgency to agree to anything.
And who do you think doesn’t want to talk about this?
I’ll give you a hint, it behooves the players to delay until the owners are hurt by the lockout.
The players have to do what they have to do.
More like the time is on owners side. When the players start losing checks is when the two sides will talk
Bigjon, you have it 100% backwards. The players union has taken out insurance and saved up a war chest to make sure players get some pay. Big name players like Scherzer and others have both taken out independent insurance and saved. The players are in a good place. If the TV games don’t start, the owners get no revenue because their are no guaranteed TV contracts in 2022. From the 1st spring training game lost the owners start losing revenue.
@leftout, I think you’re mistaken bro. One: you think the owners rely on a half-full season of tv contracts, Tix sales and Jersey sales to pay their mortgages? Nope. They’ve got billion(s) in assets. And, per my comment above, have their passive investments in their team ownership going up each year. Two: the players lose big time. What makes you think Scherzer-Cole-Mookie-Bryce have insurance policies to cover such weird happenings. I don’t know for certain, but I doubt it. Not so easy to get your 30MM AAV covered by Liberty Mutual. And yes, the MLBPA has a war chest, but it’s super small. It has enough in it to send few $1,000s/month to the lowest paid members of the union so they can pay their rent/mortgage and eat. That’s it. It’s intended to keep the weakest (financially) members from breaking from the larger group.
The owners are greedy business people (smart and successful ones) who know they have the upper hand. That’s why they refuse to even offer a counter proposal to anything the PA has asked for thus far. All they have said is “no.” If the players had any power, the owners would be negotiating in good faith, which they aren’t (at least at this time).
@giantsphan- every time I hear someone saying that so and so isn’t negotiating in good faith, it makes me think people misunderstand the term.
It’s OK for a side to say ‘no’ to what it considers a non negotiable item for its interests and still be negotiating in good faith.
Look at it like this. A taco bell employee gets their yearly review. They decide they want a new corvette company car for their drive through service position. Manager says ‘no’. Employe cries ‘bad faith negotiation’ and complains they didn’t even at least offer a ford or Kia instead.
That’s what some of the mlbpa demands amount to for ownership. It doesn’t matter how badly you’d like it, if the other side is dead set against it (like owners wanting control of every player till almost 30) it’s not bad faith to just say no. Or are players acting in bad faith by not offering a reasonable compromise to owners such as age 28.5?
@ gnatsfan No. He is right about most of that. The owners do rely on TV contracts. Its too much of their revenue not to have to rely on it. Debt service on stadiums, payroll for staffs that they can’t layoff, maintenance agreements on stadiums, maintenance agreements and related costs on spring training facilities, facilities in the DR. Lots and lots of expenses go into running a baseball team and losing all the revenue from their nearly $8 billion in TV deals would hurt bad.
They didn’t get enough money to own a team by robbing a successful business to pay for one that is losing money. They keep their business interests separate. Those billions in assets are not liquid, its tied up in the other businesses they own. Its not like they are going to sell another business just to fund their major league team. Neither is the equity in their team.
The MLBPA started taking all the money from things like their share of jersey sales and use of player likenesses several years ago and putting it all into that “war chest”. That amounts to a couple billion dollars. In the articles on The Athletic, I think it was Meyer that said they have enough to give all the players a “5 figure” per month payment for several months. That probably won’t help someone like Scherzer or Cole make their house payment, but it will keep the vast majority of players that are making MLB minimum or something close to it from missing a mortgage payment or having to sell blood.
You bet you can insure your income stream. Call Lloyd’s of London. He probably knows that they have that kind of insurance because in articles on The Athletic, Scherzer and another players that is part of the PA negotiating team said so.
The players have power in this situation. In fact after two seasons where the owners claimed to have lost money, the players hold all the cards.
while i agree with sentiment …. for that to happen baseball would not happen until like june or july and maybe the owners start to sweat of no playoffs but that means that players probably lose around half their salary and most likely hurt themselves physically with a shorter than normal turn around with being away for so long. This also does not include the covid variant factors.
The owners do not care about the product on the field as long as there are playoffs which is at the end of the season. The only way you truly hurt them is by not having the season / playoffs but then the players earn no money and im not sure if there is a lockout do they have any kind of insurance as that i think is covered by the team / mlb. Also they will most likely not be in shape when it starts without their trainers, dietiticians, gyms, etc etc from the team facilities.
The owners have $7 billion at stake in TV contracts that are not guaranteed in 2022. Even if the players agreed to extended playoffs, that is only $1 billion in revenue and the players are asking for a large share of that playoff money, something they have not received in the past. The players do not have to agree to accept anything less than full payment of their contracted amount of salary regardless of the number of games. They did that for COVID. I sincerely doubt they do that because the owners were reticent to give the players what they are asking for in a new CBA.
I honestly think that if players demanded full salary for half the games owners would just skip the season.
One thing covid showed the owners was a test run on how modern expenses and TV contracts impact a bottom line of missed games. For an owner, all you need to do is take what 2020 paid out and add back in easily projectable gate and concession revenues. QED.
They know how far they can go. And before you think that’s too ridiculous, if the players push too far its easier for the owners to each take a ‘xyz’ million loss in one year if it’s going to save them 10x that amount over the next cba.
@Gas
I believe you are right. When we reach the mid point in the season it becomes advantageous for the owners to cancel the whole season and save the players payroll. The missed national games could be rescheduled into the following season when games resume. Minus the players payroll, any team that is currently losing money will come out ahead.
@Bob I think someone already said this, but I will repeat it. In baseball, other than guys making the minimum, all contracts are guaranteed.
That means that even if they don’t play a single game in 2022 the guys who make most of the money like Scherzer and Cole and Verlander will get paid for their entire contract. In other words if the owners lock the players out for the entire 2022 season but come to an agreement in time to have a 2023 season Scherzer will still make his entire $130 million.
I am not sure what percentage of all $4 billion worth of player contracts are major league minimum, but I do know that one $20 million AAV deal is the equivalent of nearly 40 MLB minimum deals. I would have to do some research, but I would be willing to venture a guess that 65-70% of player salaries are fully guaranteed.
@Pads fans…. you’re also wrong, sort of.
Players only get paid signing bonuses and deferred compensation during a lockout. Nothing else. If there is no 2022 season, players do not collect salary for 2022 and they do not get to shift that salary into future years either.
The contracts aren’t for a term of years with weekly payments. The contracts are for a set group of seasons, and, should there be no season, there’s nothing owed either way, aside from those bonuses that are deemed earned upon signing.
Things change if there’s a partial 2022 season of course, but in order to be owed money there must be a 2022 season.
“COVID variant factors?”
At this point, I fully expect the season to be impacted to some extent.
I thought the point of initiating the lockout was to “create urgency”. Having no discussions on core economic issues does not seem very urgent to me….
Good. Let them think about what they’ll each budge on and what they won’t. Then come to the table in 2022 ready to hammer something out.
I hope you are right. But, I think you are wrong.
they’ve had since the last CBA to do that.
Screw Rob Manfred. Screw the MLBPA. They’re detriments to baseball, not improvements over what was before them. They’ll keep bickering like 3 year old’s arguing over who gets to use the red crayon.
Once again, the rich have cried poor. And it’s just stupid and ridiculous at this point.
I don’t know how we can get Manfraud out of his position, but there has to be a way for the fans to contribute.
Hopefully the season isn’t impacted, because if it is, you can sure as hell bet revenues and earnings for teams will be worse than 2020.
100% with you YanksFan. Bad look for both sides, especially after seeing record-setting spending by a variety of teams this offseason. It’s really hard to sympathize with these players and owners. This is another stain on the game’s legacy, and it’s hard for me to not resent the entire league.
It’s simple, really; stop giving them money. Don’t watch the games on TV or through MLB TV. Don’t go to the games. Don’t do anything that will give them exactly what they want. If enough of us did that, Manfred and Clark would be gone before the midway point of the season. Fight capitalism with capitalism. It would be guaranteed to work.
The problem is—and I’m not saying I’m any different—that we either don’t have the self discipline required or care enough to do what is necessary to force change. I get it. But, then, are we really allowed to complain when the things we seek would fail to come to fruition?
My personal answer is yes, it’s okay to complain about crappy people doing crappy things because they’re crappy regardless, but one must also have enough humility to understand that we DO have the power to bring about change; we just choose not to do so for one reason or another. The same could be said for many things outside of baseball. At the same time, our time on this planet is limited, life is a series of tradeoffs, and we have our own lives and families to worry about. So I can understand those that would choose to do nothing without judging them for it.
Still, in a society so geared toward capitalism such as ours, the one thing that always talks is money. It is the one constant.
@Shea enough people will give them money though. So that in theory will never work unless there’s some mass protest against baseball by fans which seems unlikely.
Oh, I know it would never work in the real world. But in a universe where enough of us did so, it would be very likely have a significant impact. Nice to dream about, I guess.
I actually did this for years. I grew up a Reds fan and when Great American ballpark opened I brought my family back to Cincinnati to be there. The product the Reds put on the field was terrible, the way employees at the stadium treated us was terrible, and in my opinion the stadium is a disappointment. I was already frustrated over the rising price of tickets, and the inability of smaller markets to compete and this experience was the end. I stayed away from baseball from 2003- 2010. I even refused to watch televised games.
In 2010 I moved to Milwaukee and decided to take my son, who was 15, to a game. We loved it and some of the best memories we have came at Miller Park, where we wound up getting season tickets. Now my son is suffering from a very serious illness and I’m so glad we had those memories of games at Miller, spring training at Maryvale and even going back to Great American for an All-Star game.
What really frustrates me is the owners and the players are pricing a lot of people out of being able to make those kinds of memories with their kids. The level of greed is absolutely unconscionable. It’s bad enough that both sides do this, but then to act like they are the injured party and the other side is in the wrong is maddening. When people say they support the owners or they support the players my question is how can you support either? Both of them want to take more of your money in the form of higher ticket prices, higher parking fees, higher taxes for their stadiums, higher concession costs and take a look at how much cable costs right now and understand that the money they are making off those TV contracts is pushing that up as well. I’m not saying they shouldn’t make money – they are smart business people and talented athletes. I’m just saying I can’t support both sides crying like they are the aggrieved party. At the end of the day they will happily destroy the game fans love for a few more bucks and it’s disgusting
Well said Brewers1 and it’s exactly how I feel. I’m sorry to hear about your son and I wish him the best.
@brewers, sorry that your son is not well. I hope and pray that he recovers and that you guys get to watch the Brewers play again. Hang tough!
The problem with that theory is that every time you pay your cable or satellite bill, part of that money goes to MLB. Whether you watch the games or not. Clothing manufacturers will just raise the price on non-MLB apparel if MLB apparel does not sell enough.
Fans cannot win a boycott in the short term. Sure if a fan boycott lasts for YEARS, eventually businesses will stop trying to acquire MLB licenses. But it’s not going to happen,. MLB will get their money from the fans whether they like it or not.
True. I don’t have cable TV so it’s not an issue for me but I know a lot of folks still do, even with the number of cord cutters growing each year. Streaming games, as unethical as some may consider it and as annoying it can be sometimes, does offer one slight workaround for those willing to venture that route.
It’s a moot point anyway because not enough folks would ever be willing to do it unless MLB did something so awful that it motivated the masses.
Yes it will Yanksfan22. In 2020 and 2021 all TV money was guaranteed because of clauses for acts of God or natural disasters built into the deals and COVID fit those criteria. A lockout is neither of those. No games means no money at all coming in for the owners.
Sometimes I think about what if on things. I am not advocating for this, but, what if the owners bring in replacement players. They would still get their precious TV revenue, correct?
Not likely. The networks will not get the same amount of eyes on screens for games with minor league players. The last time the owners tried that the viewership dropped 90%. I am quite sure that the networks have built into the contracts that MLB does not get paid the same for games with minor league players. Not even sure that the national networks would carry those games at all.
Tone deaf.
As long as they keep playing chicken against each other, nothing will get done… for what I could “hear” so far, both sides are not willing to negotiate at all, there’s too much bad blood going on, specially on the players side
Cancel Christmas now, it’s in a lockout over coal or clean energy
Baseball is ruining baseball.
Clark and Manfred should just settle it over a game of Ken Griffey Junior’s Slugfest on Nintendo 64
That’s the one thing Clark has a chance to win on… he should have no part in these negotiations. He’s just not qualified to be in that room and unfortunately Manfred has run circles around him before.
Clark is not in the room. An actual labor lawyer with a long history in labor negotiations is in the room with his team and he is a badarse.
Wow, just letting the time go by. Shame on both parties. When March comes around and they have no deal, I won’t feel sorry for anyone.
Spring training coming July 4th…
I admire your optimism.
He didn’t say what year.
Why so soon? Why not wait ’til February? March? Why not wait and open the talks on what would’ve been opening day?
Sigh.
What the hell are these morons doing? I mean…really? In two groups made up of millionaires and billionaires shouldn’t there be at least one goddamn adult?
All of this makes sense to me. Neither side is going to suddenly change its position on core economic issues a couple of days into a lockout that both sides knew was coming. It’s not until it seems ‘real’, when people start losing money and in some cases careers, that there is any pressure to make tough decisions. Until then, it’s easy to carry on believing your own narratives.
And it’s good they are talking about the less contentious stuff. It’s still important and the more of that which gets settled, the more attractive an overall settlement becomes.
What I expect will happen is that the union will play hardball as long as they need to keep the player agents from knifing them in the back to the media. Eventually the player agents will switch from backstabbing the union to demanding the union settle the work stoppage and it’s at that point we’ll see momentum towards a deal. In the meantime, all the ‘Blame Manfred’ noise is just that.
The owners start losing money on February 26th if there are no games. The players don’t start losing money until April when they would have received their first paychecks.
Yes, and no. If ST doesn’t start in February, the correlation is going to be cutting games off the 162. When that happens, it’ll be with an expectation salaries are prorated. Depending how far that loss of games goes, those are paychecks lost to the players.
Or, just take the other approach. No ST, just run a regular season. They’re playing anyways, just make the games count. I’m sure the mlbpa would love that one.
It’s hard to see the season starting without some sort of spring training, to lengthen pitcher outings and make sure players are in shape. Otherwise, there will be loads of finger-pointing about the lack of preparation.
Largely the MLBPA at this point are ‘rebels without a cause’ who are victims of the largely phoney complaints about the CBA, chief among which is that it undervalues and ‘rips off’ junior stars. Those junior stars of course, are gong to cash in Corey Seager-style under the present CBA if they earn it, and from then on its gravy whether they produce or not. From the flat-out complete wastes of money like Prince Fielder and Troy Tulowitski for example, who collect fortunes sitting on the DL year after year, to the free agent busts from Chan Ho Park to Anthony Rendon, the MLBPA wants nothing to do with an ‘earn your money; approach to player compensation, and the online complainers about mistreatment of junior stars always ignore the other side of performance-based pay, currently largely banned by the Uniform Player Contract.
So we’ll let the all the bubbles about ‘unfair’ player compensation rise to the surface and burst over the next few months, while the players fall in line behind a union without any real issue.
I agree normally I would side with employee rights but the Mbpla is the strongest in the world. They of course want whatever they can get but in principle their gripes are weak and the owners know it. Just consider this, Trevor Bauer beats the crap out of a groupie and still the league pays him 40 mill admin leave…let that sink in next time you think the players have a raw deal
Players contracts are guaranteed. There won’t be any prorated salaries. The players will get paid 10% of their contract whether that is major league minimum or Scherzer’s $43 million.
If you read the articles in The Athletic you will see that the MLBPA has said that they are not willing to have anything less than a full length spring training. Lots of reasons mentioned including player injuries from not being ready, but they can do that.
Hopefully the players wait it out the whole season to hurt the nasty owners.
MLB gotta enjoy the holidays and a good vacation before doing their job
Watch the list of those signing “minor league contracts “ such as Matt Reynolds and Mikael Franco. Looks like MLB teams are subtly assembling Replacement Players to open spring training eight weeks from now.
Those players have been part of 40 man rosters so they are all part of the MLBPA. Those are not the players the owners would bring in to break the picket line. It would be independent ball and lower minor league players that have never been on a 40 man roster. In the new TV deals the owners get no revenue for telecasts of games with non-MLBPA players. I don’t think bringing in scabs is really an option this time.
Maybe we will have Scab players like we did in 95. They can’t negotiate during the holidays. There’s gifts to be bought. Parties to attend. Just like the rest of us, only on larger scale.
As someone who went through a labor strike during the holidays, when the livelihood of your business is at stake you negotiate regardless. Its just selfish otherwise. There ia absolutely no reason for either side not to be at the table right now except hubris
Way to take your time, baseball. The hot stove was grabbing great attention and interest… and not only have you put the fire out, but you’ve peed on the wood so nothing will burn. It’s not good for the game or your product to show such lack of urgency to fix your CBA. So sad.
Let’s not be all doom and gloom here, they are talking and working towards deals on non-economic issues. That’s a nice start.
Spring training will be shortened this year. I actually believe this will roll over into the regular season with Opening Day being delayed.
The MLBPA has said that they will not agree to shorten spring training over concerns for player injuries. I don’t think that will happen.
Owners: “We have them right where we want them. We’ll just wait them out.”
But, also…
Players: “We have them right where we want them. We’ll just wait them out.”
Fans: “F- you. Independent League it is.”
The players have to be prepared to push negotiations into the March and April timeframe to achieve significant gains. Right now either side is losing much. Owners figure the MLBPA will cave, but I’m not sure that’s the case this time around. In fact, the MLBPA should push purposely negotiations into the season as a message to owners for future CBA negotiations.
“push purposely into the season” —- The sport as a whole is slowly dying. Is that a wise strategy for either side?
For contract issues, yes; for increasing long-value, no. The owners should end the lockout and proceed back to the bargaining table. The players will think short term because they’re looking at their own financial gain for their short careers. The owners should be more concerned long term. They in essence are the guardians of the game.
The owners start losing money when the 1st game is not played in spring training. As of now that is scheduled for February 26th. The players don’t get a paycheck until the 2nd week in April in a typical season so they don’t lose anything until then.
What are “significant gains”? If by a seemingly deliberately vague term like “significant gains” you mean economic changes that are going to be ‘significant concessions’ by the owners, you are dreaming if you think that is going to happen in March or April, ir at all, I’ll have some of what you’re drinking.
A few superstar non-baseball injuries and the players association will cave.
Fernando Tatis Jr. for starters… Motorbike accident fail a little while ago. A few scratches, my posterior!
That is what insurance is for and the MLBPA has it. Tatis still gets paid once the season starts, whenever that is.
Manfred and Clark both need to be replaced.
replacing either or both of them will not change anything. The owners will find another lap dog to do their bidding and so will the players.
@tigerdoc616 Exactly. It’s not like these 2 individuals are the only ones complicating the matter.
It’s childish bs… just get together and hammer out an effin deal
There are so many indirect downstream affects from this lockout that nobody considers (esp MLB and the MLBPA).
There are a lot of activities in the off-season that keep the game alive and well. Those activities bring jobs to many people.
From the cancellation of the winter meetings (hotels, restaurants, etc) to the marketing and advertisers that are not allowed to use MLBPA images, there are A LOT of peoples paychecks affected by this.
But by all means dippsiihts, go ahead and wait for the new year.
They consider them, they just don’t care.
They’ll be still waiting for the other to blink in February.
The Commissioner of Baseball should be more than the owners’ mouthpiece. Make someone with status who loves the game like George W. Bush the Commish. Manfraud can represent owners and Clark can still rep the players. W will knock their heads together FOR THE GOOD OF THE GAME!
I don’t understand all of the hand wringing over this. It’s December. There is no baseball now. We’re not missing anything. If February comes around with no resolution, then maybe the season will be affected. Baseball is a source of entertainment. Find a replacement until the season gets under way.
They must all be exhausted from all the efforts they’ve made over the last several months to find offers they knew the other side would dismiss out of hand. Wait until January? Make it February, what difference does it really make? We fans will focus on exciting minor league transactions,
The owners know that in 2022 their TV contracts are not guaranteed as they were the past two seasons. No games = no TV revenue. That includes spring training. Somehow I think the owners are going to give the players what they are asking for because they are not willing to completely give up on a 2022 season which would cost them $12 plus billion in revenue. Not coming off a 2020 season in which they lost several billion in revenue and a 2021 season that saw most teams make only minimal profits. The players hold the upper hand for once.
I can see a world where they figure out 162 games even if the season started in May. Day/Night doubleheaders all over the place. 30 man rosters and seven inning games. Runner on second in every inning after the fourth. Starting pitchers must face fifteen batters unless injury where they must go on the IL for at least ten days.
Hell, you could play a whole season in three months! It would be completely unwatchable, but since everyone will make the playoffs, we can figure it out then!
For the most part, owners have other sources of income… often MANY other sources of income.
Players do not.
Owners can own forever… Players have a limited window of opportunity.
Guess who will win?
Please don’t miss games
Please. Pretty please.
Baseball has an aging & dying fanbase. Any regular season work stoppage would be catastrophic to an already fading brand.
Baseball will need to seek new fans just like every professional sport. But, yes, a delayed season will be an impediment.
Certainly Urban Meyer will now have the time to watch some games.
All the major sports have an aging fan base. It’s not just baseball.
Yeah I think that’s a tired take. Baseball has and always will appeal to all ages, with a focus on younger kids, then Moms and Dads, then the older generation. It’s a cycle. When you poll 20 year olds as they walk out of the club, you’re not going after that age bracket. They’re attention spans are more concerned about what Lebron James said on Twitter. When they settle down and have kids, then baseball is more relevant to them. These are generalizations of course, but I’ve been coaching baseball, basketball and soccer for almost 20 years and have this time and again.
10 years, not 20.
That’s ok.. we won’t worry about it when they start missing spring training games and regular season games either.. we will spend our money elesewhere when that happens and will continue to do so then afterwards.. screw the suckers on both sides
NFL ends early Feb.
NBA ends early June
NHL ends early July
as long as MLB starts up by 4th of July I’m good.. if not I’ll just focus on horse racing ( side note; Tim could you start a horse racing site )until NFL starts back up.
both sides need to realize that no baseball is not as big a deal to more people than either the owners or players think. I love the back and forth discussions at the bar or on here – but in the grand scheme of things MLB is 3rd.. way behind NFL, just behind NBA and way ahead of NHL . Here in my little spot on Long island MLB is about as popular as english premier league..
Who cares. A beer and a hot dog taste just as good at an Independent League game.
A total waste of time. Once the lock down is lifted, be prepare for the trades and FA signings avalanche. The players could also try to command more money that what they’re worth as well.
Corey Seager was definitely not worth over $300 M over 10 years. He’s a player that never has hit 30+homers. He’s the perfect example of what’s going on this off season.
The owners might be overplaying their hand. Between Covid restrictions and fans becoming increasingly disinterested, they will have to rely on TV contracts. Many of these rule changes are head scratchers.
Despite all the hand wringing over this, I don’t see this as a bad thing as long as they can get an agreement and not lose games. Sometimes a time out is needed and by addressing less contentious issues right now it might help build momentum to get agreements on the core economic issues.
Of course the cynic in me says it really does not matter. The owners locked the players out in hopes of putting pressure on them to capitulate to their demands. Players make their money in the regular season, the owners in the playoffs. The threat of lost games is more painful to the players than the owners. Thus this wait puts more pressure on the players than the owners. Will be interesting because the players seem very intent on gaining back what they have lost over the past few seasons and it is not like the owners make nothing on regular season games.
Eat a d*** Manfraud
I don’t watch baseball because of an owner. To me he could have a dump of a stadium but a good comeoetive team and I would be happy. However almost all of the stadiums are nice or are in process to being nice (at somebody else’s expense mostly) but you can’t say the same for the teams’ rosters. 30teams but only about a half-dozen are tolerable to watch as professional organizations. The anti-trust laws keep real competition from happening and I feel it is beyond time to discuss removing these. The ego and cheapness of these owners never stops in amazing me and frankly I have better things to spend my Money and Time on than a corporate welfare system. Owners will be stuck with these really nice stadiums and a ton of promotional items without a paddle. They don’t hold all the cards folks….
I’ll admit my memory is a bit foggy on this, but didn’t Congress threaten to remove the antitrust exemption in 1995 if they(the owners) didn’t get a deal done?
How about season ticket holders withdraw their subscriptions until a deal is struck? Or a mass boycott from us fans of buying any merch? This lax, money-grubbing attitude is so representative of all that we as fans, are sick & tired of witnessing. Sit your fat-cat arses down and get to work already!
Neither side could care less about the game of baseball. This is about greed, plain and simple.
God damn commies!
“Lets wait until the last possible minute until we start talking”
Who cares who has the ‘advantage’? I want to see some baseball! This is the people who invented the golden goose strangling it slowly. Everyone loses if they do not get an agreement, not the least the fans, who are a dwindling lot. If they take too long on this, they may have less of that scarce resource when they start playing.
Agreed stevep! And emphasis on ‘dwindling lot’! The harm these financial arguments cause is dismissed far to easily – eventually too few of us will tune in the next time. I will, but others may not
I want to see a performance contract. A base salary augmented by payments for hits, rbi’s, runs, sacs, etc. Make it league standard so that no matter where a guy plays he gets paid. Play great-GET PAID. Have a bad season, still get base + some, but not top dollar because you sucked,. We have computers, we can make this work…..
This CBA will end in March, both sides lose big time otherwise! Players need to get off the free agnecy and arb changes to move things along. This is a non start for the owners, it hurts teams too much. I think increasing the starting salary to 800 thousand, and a million in year 2 is a good start. NHL pays their rookies more than MLB now! Both sides will agree to extended playoffs and DH, that’s the easy part. The ceiling will be raised to 220 million, The challenge will be where the rest of the money goes.
Here we go…..tune out until the spring, when it becomes critical financially to actually get something done. Until then it will only be hand wringing and debate from the fan side of things – no thanks, been down this road before. This stuff just becomes less tolerable as time goes by and only hurts the game we all love. Billionaires arguing with millionaires is impossible to relate to
Why rush. 2023 is more than a year away.
I’m personally not worried about this at all. The season will start on time. Let’s be honest here, they just lost the majority of a season due to a pandemic and neither side can legitimately afford to lose a second season in three years.
Marvin Miller is rolling in his grave right now.
I’m noticing that a percentage of the fringe roster type guys are signing on to play in Asia a bit more frequently. I know there’s a roster limit of two per team in Japan, not sure in Korea or the other leagues. Could help these players in the future if they post decent numbers, and want to come back after their contracts are up.
I posted some time ago with an idea to basically eliminate one pre-arb year and in turn, expand the playoffs and give the universal DH. I see now the latter is a given, the former not so much.
The free agency, as a whole, has been the basis of most sports work stoppages forever. Miller fought for years for this, to protect players from being indentured servants to their teams. Why do you think the Black Sox (allegedly) did at they did? Because Comiskey was low-balling their salaries. Andy Messersmith. Curt Flood. The entire A’s team in the early to mid 1970s.
That structure is unlikely to change. I really think this is being painted as being for the benefit of the pre-free agent player, but it’s really more about the older free agent player who is less likely to find work for fair market value because more teams would rather pay a “replacement” player (a minimum cost minor leaguer) than a 30-34 year old who has already proved they are capable. The npn-competitive (or tanking) teams who mat be pocketing the revenue sharing rather than putting that money in the team. This is where the beef really seems to be.
It’s not quite collusion like we saw in the 80s, where the owners agreed to cap the value of players, and all the owners agreed. This is big market vs. small market vs. the MLBPA.
Sorry, Angel fans, but when George Steinbrenner had to give money to DISNEY because the team claimed a competitive balance tax payment, I hit the roof.
We as fans and lovers of the sport just want games played, and I am fully on board with that. Yes, it seems to be millionaires against billionaires, and a vast majority of us will never sniff anything close to that to identify with either. Yes, it’s a freaking GAME.
Problem: the current system is broken.
Let me be clear. I’m a Yankee fan, born in 1973 and bred on Long Island. It pisses me off (in a healthy way) how Tampa seems to get our goat every year. But, I respect them because they run the team right. They deserve to play somewhere they can draw. Same with Oakland.
Once proud organizations like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Kansas City and Cincinnati either can’t get out of their own way or just don’t care.
I recall an issue of Sports Illustrated from the early 10s, with a picture of the Royals on the cover IIRC, where an article about them and the Astros stated they would win the World Series in the decade because all of the losing landed them great draft picks that, for the most part, hit. And, they did. The Tigers hit on theirs a decade before. Since then, much like in the other sports, the worst thing you can be is mediocre, because you don’t get in the playoffs and get the added revenue or the high draft pick to improve your feeder system.
This sport has too many teams just mailing it in, hoping to hit on a lottery ticket, and not enough trying to go for it. Uncompetitive teams should no longer be rewarded if they are not using the monies received from the competitive balance revenue towards the team. It refers back to that 30-33 year old free agent who could benefit said team, but the team doesn’t want to spend the money because the rookie is cheaper and they “want to see what they have in their system.”
This is not going to be pretty, kids. Dig out your old Stratomatic and Statis-Pro games. Or, if you prefer electronic, OOTP, Astonishing Baseball or the like. It might ease the pain.
“Until January” should mean January 3, but given that MLB and the MLBPA go out of their way to make things as difficult and as drawn out as possible, “until January” surely means January 31.
If Joe Manchin decides to buy a team there won’t be any baseball for ten years.
Come on fellas, get it done.
@Why, what the heck does Manchin have to do with this?
Absolutely nothing. Those who claim to know much about a topic often know little at all, hence the terrible, politically-infused analogy
Manchin. Manfred. Note the similarity in names. MLB, Congress – note the similarity in the inability to accomplish anything. It’s called connecting dots.
I’d rather they don’t accomplish anything. The less damage they’ll do to this country.
Half the people in this country are below the median intelligence. I’ll take my chances with the political process. But right now there’s no process. There’s a reason we’ve been the best country in the world even though we’re full of idiots just like every other country. We need to get that back. There have been great people on both sides of the aisle. But now, not so much. So I guess I agree with you.
“Half the people in this country are below the median intelligence”
What are you even trying to say? That’s literally how median works. Half are also over median intelligence
I’m to the point, I don’t care anymore
Billionaires vs millionaires, I could less
Cancel the season, hurt the fans, they will still be rich and richer, who gives a hoot anymore
Just buy some robots and have them play the season. I’d like to see a 1,000 mph fastball get jacked into space.
The balls explode at that speed. There are some great youtube videos.
Well, looks like someone actually graduated from Harvard, unlike me who didn’t finish kindergarten. 😀
Get your asses to the table! There’s plenty of money for both sides. No one is going broke here.
It’s not about going broke. It’s about a sport whose revenue has continued to increase over the last decade but players aren’t seeing more. 1) Pre-arb is league min. to 1 mil for a players 1st 3 years of control
2) Arb salaries are typically still under 5 mil
3) Teams aren’t paying 30+ year olds the same Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Lee, Albert Pujols etc. So players are paid essentially pennies of their actual value early in their career, and are no longer getting paid as much past 30 either.
4) The vast majority of players will never get a big contract. In part because 6 years of service time is far too much control.
5) Service time manipulation can cost players millions, by ensuring they hit free agency a year later.
6) 14 of the 30 teams spent less than 90 mil on payroll this last season. The luxury tax last year was 210 mil.
I live in a high-A Midwest League town. I’ll just buy my $10 ticket and pay $5 for parking and have every bit as much fun as driving 2 1/2 hours each way and spending 10x as much to watch an MLB team.
Exactly. I live in the city of an Independent League and it is great entertainment.
I wish fans would strike & demand cheaper seats, lower concession prices, and free parking.
While your at it fix the $15 McDonald meal, The $25 pizza And the $100 gas tank fill. And bring back Doctors making house calls, Grocery checkout people taking the items out of your cart , Bagging them and putting them back in your cart. Oh and those $5 coffee has to go.
And the v cut from subway!
I don’t agree with sentiment expressed above that the owners have nothing to lose by dragging out the negotiations so the lockout stays in place long enough to truncate the season.
Viewership for the 2020 World Series was down 32% from the previous low. Some of that was possibly from fans thinking it was an illegitimate Series; but some of it was probably from fans figuring they could live without watching baseball after having done without it until the season started in mid-July.
If they protract the lockout into the season, they’ll give fans multiple reasons to bail on the game: (1) resentment at the likelihood that owners will just jack up the already exorbitant prices to cover any increases in pay for the players; (2) another extended period without baseball that fans will fill with other interests; (3) a sense that it’s another bogus season because the standard component of 162 games won’t be played; and (4) disgust at the spectacle of billionaire owners fighting millionaire players for a share of a massively profitable entertainment while the fans they gouge at the ballpark work 40-hour weeks for a tiny fraction of what owners and mega-stars are raking in.
The owners can bluff all they want, but they know darn well that it took a goon show of juiced-up sluggers bashing home runs to bring back disgruntled fans after the last strike, and the conspiracy of silence about illegal drugs got Bud Selig and Donald Fehr called to Capitol Hill and threatened with a government takeover of the drug-testing program.
I don’t think the owners want to incur the immediate loss of revenue or the long-term loss from abandonment of interest on the part of the fans. They know how long it took to get the fans back last time.
It sucks that neither side will strongly argue against extending the number of playoff teams. The regular season will be diminished and players will be sat late in the season. That makes for bad baseball. It also screws fantasy league playoffs.
With each passing day, the middle finger to the fans keeps getting longer and longer.
F U MLB; F U owners; F U players.
and, oh yeah…. F U Scott Boras