7:24 pm: Drellich reports (on Twitter) that MLB is no longer pursuing the ability to reduce the sizes of minor league rosters, as it had previously been attempting. Jeff Passan of ESPN adds that while the league could try to shrink MiLB rosters unilaterally, they’re not planning to do so in either of the next two years.
Drellich also reports that the league’s latest proposal wouldn’t include a limit on the number of times teams could option a player to the minors in a given season. Previously, the league had offered a five-option-per-year cap, while the union had been seeking to set that mark at four seasons. The previous CBA did not contain any limit on the number of times a player could be optioned per year, although it generally limited players to being optioned in no more than three separate years.
6:01 pm: Only a week remains before Major League Baseball’s reported imposed deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement to be in place to avoid an interruption to the regular season. The league and Players Association are expected to meet more frequently on CBA issues over the coming days as the threat of losing games gets ever larger.
Today’s set of negotiations wrapped up this evening after the sides spent most of the afternoon reportedly discussing issues separately. After the league and union met for a little more than an hour, leadership on each side spent the bulk of the afternoon discussing things amongst themselves. The sides briefly reconvened at the end of the day before the meeting broke up (as chronicled in a tweet thread by Evan Drellich of the Athletic).
MLB had been “on the clock” after the MLBPA made the most recent core economics proposal last week. The league made its latest counteroffer today, which included small movement on issues like the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players and the draft lottery, Drellich reports (on Twitter). MLB offered to raise the bonus pool allotment to $20MM to be distributed a group of 30 players, a $5MM bump over its previous offers. That’s still well short of the amount sought by the Players Association, which increased its ask on the bonus pool to $115MM over a group of 150 players in its most recent offer. That still leaves a gap of $95MM between the two sides on the bonus pool, which hasn’t existed in previous agreements.
The league also offered to make the first four picks of the amateur draft determined by lottery, a one-pick increase from its previous offers. The union has sought to have the top eight picks be determined by a lottery, which would include all of the previous season’s non-playoff teams (with their odds of landing each selection presumably weighted by that season’s record). The purpose of a lottery system, which has been implemented by each of the NBA and NHL, is to reduce the advantage for teams that finish near the bottom of the standings by declining to automatically grant them a shot at the draft’s top prospects and highest signing bonus pool allotments.
Those movements perhaps represent small progress towards an agreeable midpoint, but there was no change regarding one of the biggest topics of discussion. Drellich tweets that the league made no movement on its previous proposals regarding the competitive balance tax. Where the tax thresholds will be set and what penalties will be in place for exceeding them remain contentious issues. The league has proposed modest increases to the base tax threshold (up from $210MM to $214MM in 2022, ending at $222MM by the end of the CBA) paired with higher penalties for surpassing the thresholds than had been in place previously. The union, on the other hand, has pushed for the CBT to spike to $245MM next season en route to a $273MM mark five years from now; the MLBPA also remains staunchly opposed to heightened penalties for exceeding the CBT.
Both Michael Silverman of the Boston Globe and Tim Healey of Newsday hear that the MLBPA was disappointed by the league’s proposal, with the lack of movement on the CBT particularly underwhelming in the union’s view. Jesse Rogers of ESPN tweets that MLB is actually waiting for a new offer from the union on the tax. The union’s proposal last week didn’t move off its previous offers regarding the CBT, and Rogers hears MLB thus considers it the Players Association’s turn to make a move in that regard.
In addition to the luxury tax, things like the union’s push for earlier arbitration eligibility for some players and the league minimum salary need to be sorted out. That’s in addition to closing the gap on the amount of money to be made available in the pre-arbitration bonus pools and the draft lottery, on which the league budged a bit today. Much remains to be done, although it does seem the parties are more encouraged than they’d previously been by the tenor of today’s talks. James Wagner of the New York Times hears that both sides found extended in-person discussions “helpful,” while Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet called the conversation “wide-ranging.” Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweets that the sides are expected to resume negotiations tomorrow.
This sounds promising. Players- it’s your turn to give a little now.
*Promising that they met for more than an hour this time
$273 million before the luxury tax in 5 years? That’s way higher than any sport’s hard cap. That’s ridiculous. On top of that, the owners raise their offer by $10 million for the pre draft bonus pool and the players (albeit pre-emptively) raise their ask by another $10 million. What are the players thinking? “That’ll teach them to negotiate with us and try to come closer to meeting our demands. We’ll just ask for more than before!”
Well, Hammer, now even I am getting discouraged.
This is the first day I am totally pessimistic about the 2022 season..
Although $273M seems like a huge jump, in context of the current and past CBA, it isn’t. The owners were able to essentially cap the CBT for so long they widened the profit gap, which is fine, but the premise of a cap should rise proportional to the money coming into the game, at least in part.
And, to continue comparing baseball, it’s contracts, it’s teams payrolls, etc to other sports is asinine without also comparing owners profits, game prices, merchandise prices, etc.
You can’t cherry-pick one aspect of monetary concern to use as a measure against a completely different industry simply to make a point because it delegitimizes your comp. By that standard what NBA team is worth $7-$9B?
Right on @Clip
Second YankeeBleacherCreature–good post.,
They’ll get it done. At most a delay in season but I doubt that even. Both have too much to lose here. Yes….they’re greedy but I doubt that they’re that stupid.
Its not about other sports its about how much revenue has grown in MLB and how the players are earning a smaller and smaller share since they are having earnings limited compared to growth.
They are negotiating like a unified group willing to make it hurt enough for the owners to get what they want. Sure looks like they are drawing a line and waiting for the owners to cross it however long that takes. I admire the resolve they are showing, but dont know how long it will take to force ownership into a deal thats better for the players than the last 3 or so CBAs.
$273M in 5 years will probably be below the current level will adjusted for inflation, even if inflation is only 4 or 5 percent.
What other sport plays 162 games with a roster of 26? Their caps aren’t comparable.
273M is less than 3 percent per year increase. starting at 245M
Merely adjusting for inflation in 2022 would put the lowest threshold at $225M, a 7 percent increase. From that point, $245 doesn’t seem so high. That number will be compromised, but those draconian tax rates and penalties are not gonna happen.
Yankee Clipper
but the premise of a cap should rise proportional to the money coming into the game, at least in part.
=================================
Not really, imo.
“in part” can mean something, but if the players want proportional increases, then they are asking for a percentage of the gross, like the other sports. But they cannot ask for the upside of “proportional”, if they do not accept the downside of proportional, should revenues suffer.
It can’t be both.
ChapmansVacuum
its about how much revenue has grown in MLB and how the players are earning a smaller and smaller share since they are having earnings limited compared to growth.
===================================
I’ve been saying this for 30 years. If the players want the benefit of increased revenues, they have to accept of that as part of their contract. The other three majors have done so.
It’s like Matt Damon starring in a movie. He can get his maybe $10M, or he can take $1M and a % of the box office. He can’t have both.
JoeBrady: This has nothing to do with the players getting a portion, rather it’s the team spending limits. I don’t think you can conflate those two concepts when speaking about proportional increases as one is individual and one impacts the team & league overall. There’s no question the league has increased in revenue over time.
If we were talking about players getting proportional increases, I would agree, but I am not.
They need to cap how much they charge the consumer. Prices go up, owners get more money, players get more money, stations selling advertising time get more money.
Consumers continue to be charged more and more for the same crap. Then you start talking about parking, parking barely costs a team anything and they make an insane amount off of it each year.
Anyway, we all know the owners nor the players give 2 cents about the consumer.
As far as the “Cap” goes though it will increase one way or the other, whether the players get close to what they want or the owners, but the fact is that you will still have your NY teams and LA teams out spending everyone, TB and Pitt will still penny pinch their way through the next CBA timeline and the difference between the stars salaries and the bench guys will increase to margins nearly as wide as the NBA.
I’ll be encouraged when I hear they met for 4-6 hours instead of one. Owners aren’t taking this seriously. I hope they lose the season, and both sides go hungry.
I’ve can’t imagine a 4 hour conversation would be helpful. That’s a long time and I don’t see how sitting in the room longer helps. I would rather just have daily meetings that last an hour a piece.
Birdie, the story said union/owners met for 1hour BUT also said leadership on both sides spent “the bulk of the afternoon discussing things amongst themselves”. So 4-6 hours of talks may have occurred.
“Little” is the key word here. MLB basically offered nothing.
I was hoping Kevin Mather was gonna let slip something about the plan for the initiation of the hunger games to his rotary Club?
The owners didn’t give at all. This proposal is a joke. There is a $2 BILLION gap to be closed. $5 million won’t do that.
How are the owners not moving at all yet they’ve literally taken away nothing that was part of the last CBA? They have added multiple items for the players. They are going to raise the CBT, they are going to raise the minimum salary, they are implementing some sort of draft lottery, they are creating a new revenue pool for pre arbitration players, and they likely add universal DH which will add a few higher pay opportunities for veteran players
I don’t get why the owners are any worse than the players. Are they just supposed to say okay and add everything the players ask for? Bottom line, if the players accepted what’s on the table now they’d be better off than they were before.
Increasing tax rates from 20 percent- 32 percent- 62.5 percent to
50%, 75%,100% isn’t taking away?
Plus first and second round draft penalties?
With only a one percent increase in the thresholds per year?
While inflation ran at 7 percent last year?
That’s taking away, big time.
More to the point, they’re giving very little, despite revenues going up by over 1.25 billion just through 2019, and even more in 2021. Players are entitled to a share of that success.
@Buddy Boy: A lot of these commenters have the opinion that the last CBA, which granted the ability for players to get $400+ million contracts, $45 million salaries, no player or team salary cap, even the worst players make salaries better than the average neurologist or cardiologist and the possibilty for some players to make over $8 million before they ever set foot on a professional baseball field, was unfair. They seem to base that opinion on profit and revenue. That’s a little funny because outside of the one publicly owned team in MLB, nobody knows the profit or revenue. The owners offered a deal to the players allowing them to see the books and accept payment based on revenue but the players shut that down hard. That effectively makes the revenue none of their business because they are against being payed based on revenue. That seems to be the reason people complain from what I can tell. Those same people couldn’t tell you how much profit 29 of the non-world series winning teams made last season. I personally find it funny that anyone thinks revenue matters when the players themselves outright refuse to be paid based on revenue. As with any job, if you refuse a salary based on revenue, the revenue is really none of your business. That leaves the players with 2 options: make millions of dollars playing in MLB or don’t. There is never any reason any business should ever open the revenue books to any employees who refuse to be paid based on revenue. That’s why you tell people the revenue! Because the revenue determines how they get paid. Anyone who wants to tell you they know owners overall are making more is just lying. They didn’t see the books and that’s because the players won’t agree to what is necessary to open them up. Every other conversation I have heard is basically a political conversation from people supporting redistribution if wealth and want the players to take as much from the owners as possible because the players have less money than the owners. I don’t care about politics but those kind of opinions are for the voting booth and not for sports or the way a business is run. The players agreed to the last CBA and that’s the standard. That’s fine. Anyone who doesn’t like it personally should only be taking it out on the players who signed it. Last I saw, pretty much every single MLB player did better than life saving doctors under that CBA. In exchange for playing a game that saved zero lives.
So, trust whatever the owners say, take whatever they give you, if you get less than deserve it’s your own fault, BUT don’t fight for better just lay down and take it.
K.
@forwhomjoshbelltolled: Or, actually become a partner and accept revenue based income like everyone else who sees the books. They were offered that and they turned it down. You can’t have it both ways.
You are trying.
You are saying when the players sign a bad CBA in 2016, boo hoo that’s their own fault…OK.
But, then when they collectively bargain for more…”You aren’t brain surgeons and you don’t see the books, so you are getting plenty from where I sit!”
It’s their right to bargain for more, whether they see the books or not. That’s what they are doing.
What’s the problem?
Hammer: I see this misappropriation often, but it’s completely irrelevant. Comparing how much a baseball player makes to a doctor, again a different industry, is comparing apples to oranges. It’s similar to comparing a relief pitcher to a SS within the industry. It’s simply inapplicable.
It’s the same as when people subjectively opine, “players with only [x] years shouldn’t make enough to be rich!”
First problem is:
– “rich” is very subjective;
– next, that’s a statement based purely on one’s own insecurity or envy because the market determines what players make;
– finally, to say they make “enough” money is incredibly ambiguous with no definitive basis or endpoint.
My point? These are emotionally charged statements that skew the conversation from the logical toward the illogical. It defeats any attempt at honest conversation because the initial premise (whether the industry comparison or the subjective financial analysis) is cemented in abstract, emotional postulations.
I respect how the individual feels, but for one to use these as a basis to further fact-based points is a non-starter.
Not at all what I said
Bonus Pool – new
Draft lottery – new
Universal DH – new
Minimum salary – increased
CBT – increased
It may not be the deal they want or end up with, but the owners are not taking away things that were in the last CBA. Saying otherwise is just spin
Are you referring to owners offer to open the books and 50/50 split of revenue in 2020? The season with no fans in stands or local revenue?
Every time MLBTR does a update on a new CBA with get the same tired responses.
I’m for the Players
I’m for the Owners
I hate the owners
I hate the greedy players.
On the players side. They’re a elite class. There’s 600 or so that are good enough to play in this league. They come from all over the world to come to the US to play MLB. Some risking their lives to get here.
They deserve what ever they can get out from the owners.. They have relatively short careers. You know what they say , It’s harder to stay in the majors than it is to get to the majors.
The players that played before, fought for what they have now. And it will continue to be that way.
Just about every player from 1976 on owes a debt a gratitude to Curt Flood.
He refused a trade following the 1969 season.
Ultimately appealing his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Although he lost his case, It brought solidarity amongst the players. They fought Reserve Clause and were awarded free agency.
Did you know in 1998 The 105th Congress Passed the Curt Flood Act of 1998.
The act signed into law by President Bill Clinton, revokes Baseball’s anti trust status (save for expansion, minor leagues and franchise relocation)The act did exactly what fFood wanted; it stopped owners from controlling the players contracts and careers.
One other interesting thing I found out: In 2020, 102 members of the U.S. Congress wrote a letter to the Baseball Hall of Fame co-signed by Players from the NFL, NHL, NBA and MLS asking the HOF to admit Flood.
And let’s stop comparing Professional Athletes with Doctors.
These are their chosen profession. These players have their right to make money off their God given talent. And get whatever they can from the owners. It’s a $9B a year business Sure they don’t save lives. But they sure make life a lot better.
Doctors make damn good money too.
As for the owner. I don’t begrudge them.
There’s a lot overhead in running a team.
The players salary.
Players transportation and housing (Air and Ground)
Medical Staff
A team of Lawyers
Stadium rent
Or if they own the stadium . There’s the up keep.
Front office staff
Most teams pay the Radio and TV Announcers.
They also have the Spring Training Complexes they have to foot the bill for.
For a lot of owners the teams are investments.
And I’m sure for the most part they love baseball.
I know if I was wealthy enough. I would love to own the Angels.
Take Sides if you want. There’s a lot of money at stake.
The CBT increases one percent per year, much less than inflation. It’s a net loss for players.
Plus the CBT taxes are more than doubled and draft penalties added.
It’s a massive loss for players, and a complete non starter.
Minimum salary barely keeps up with inflation in year one, and is then frozen for five years. Another huge loss for players.
Owners think they can make the issue of arbitration eligibility go away for $20 million in bonus pool money spread over 500 players. No way.
They definitely are making proposals that make the players significantly worse off than they were in the last CBA, and they know it.
Idk what you said, just know you said 45 million dollar salary? The Mets were on record to pay the highest salary every to a baseball team and that 45 million was about 1/8th of the payroll. They were going to pay luxury tax penalty out the sphincter? You do realize that the tax on the national debt is now at something like 2.4-2.6 trillion a year? The amount they wanted to add to it with build back better. I didn’t study exponential growth in high school, but anyone who did knows better than where ever you were going with 45 million dollars
Inflation was 5.7% in 2021 5.4% in 2020. MLB revenue inflation has been running higher for several years. Thats also before you factor in all the ways MLB has made money they keep secret from the players.
MLBAM, team owned TV networks, and a few other ways they keep money out of the general fund or revenue. No teams will even open the books since they are such profit machines except the Braves since they are owned by a public company and have to report based on corporate reporting laws.
We know enough to know roughly what total MLB revenue is in the ballpark of, and can easily calculate total salaries of all teams combined. We know they pay minor league players, who outside of picks in the top of the draft dont get 8M or other life changing money, worse than McDonalds workers.
Also your arguing that players make to much compared to other professions, which by extension means that you would rather see owners get even more money when all they did to get the team was already be fabulously wealthy. Make the rich even richer instead of the players who spread the earnings around to family and community more.
If you want players to get payed less get the owners to charge less for games so we all get to see games for less than 100$ per ticket and 35$ per beer…
Im all for more affordable baseball and lower player salaries, but it seems asinine to complain that players wont just take what theyre offered because doctors make less.
Patrick, do you really think 7% inflation will continue? It’s a pandemic outlier..
I hope not. 7% better have been an outlier, but the initial adjustment in these numbers should be 7% from 2021 to 2022.
It’s not a pandemic outlier, it has much more to do with the cost of energy. If it was because of the pandemic, we would be traveling less and gas prices would have gone down.
With the war on oil, that’s not going to change. I’m not saying the war on oil is a good thing or a bad thing but it has much more to do with that and that’s not going away.
thank you.
7% has absolutely nothing to do with the pandemic.
I am a RW environmentalist, so I don’t particularly mind higher energy prices. But some of the politicians are clueless. Germany shut down most, if not all of its nuclear production. It’s a grand gesture and all, but they never had a feasible plan to replace the lost energy.
The net result is more CO2 emissions + higher prices + Russian blackmail. I’d replace coal & oil & gas tomorrow, if I could. The fly in the ointment is that, I can’t.
Sid Bream Speed Demon
7% has absolutely nothing to do with the pandemic.
====================================
Everything I’ve read suggests increased deficit spending moves money into individual hands, The more individuals have to spend, the more that prices will increase.
And the decrease in the number of individuals working due to illness or restrictions, creates higher costs on producers, which in turn creates higher costs.
Brilliant as always Clipper.
We have a new form of anti-gravity energy. The technology was reverse engineered from alien spacecraft years ago. The elite illuminati do not want it used because it would destroy wealth built around the oil and gas industry. Environmentally friendly, it will solve your problems.
Joe, that’s fine. I’m not taking a stand on it, but when you go to war against the energy industry, you are going to have a great deal of inflation.
War is sometimes the answer.
About nuclear energy. If climate change is an extremital threat, I would think nuclear energy is an option. If you are drifting in the ocean in a lifeboat, and a Russian Troller comes along, you may not like the troller, but it’s a much better option than dying in the lifeboat.
It’s why you need a good farm in BB, or else you have to pay whatever the market demands.
I’m not sure it is a simple as I think it is, but the the short-term alternative to nuclear is usually coal. I’m full on board with a renewable future, but Germany knew it had no way to replace its nuclear production in the short-run It was all about the “Grand Gesture”
@Hammer
Supply vs Demand. How many professional baseball players are in the US? Now, how many doctors are in the US?
Of course, you would expect the athletes to be paid more. Hell, they’re sacrificing the well-being of their bodies (less in baseball than in other sports).
Sounds like your upset some Ex-MLB player stole your chick or something.
I think the threat by the players to not agree to expanded playoffs if regular season games are missed woke up the owners which is good. The owners want the increased revenue from expanded playoffs. I am wondering if the total asks of the players exceed the added revenue from expanded playoffs which would basically negate their threat.
Laughable all my optimism from the weekend has been flushed.
Another joke by MLB. They have a $2 billion difference to make up and $5 million ain’t cutting it.
You can say $2 billion all that you want: it’s not going to happen. $66,666,666 per team? That request is DOA. I will be shocked if the players extract a $1 billion wealth transfer.
outinleftfield
Another joke by MLB. They have a $2 billion difference to make up
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Why would anyone upvote this nonsense? Even assuming that the players’ payroll cost as much as $4.5B, a raise of $2B is a 44.4% increase. Is anyone in here receiving a 45% increase?
@JoeBrady He’s known for using multiple accounts. Probably used those to upvote his own comment.
The MLBPA will cave in soon. The deserve nothing and will get nothing. This is what happens we the ask does nothing for the game, Only the agents are getting rich in this system.
How are they caving? Everything being negotiated is higher than the last CBA or new to the CBA in the players favor. It may not be their dream deal when all is done but if they settled now, they have more than when they started this
The deal will be done by the end of the week
I’d be shocked if that happenned.
From your lips….
I enjoy your optimism – even if I don’t share it.
Great article as usual, Anthony- thanks. Hold the line, owners! And don’t give in anymore!! STOP GIVING IN!!!
Use this as a dislike button^^
Because they are only giving in at all out of kindness to players who deserve d no kindness beyond what they already get. Stop giving in!!!
Believe it or not, an agreement, even a bad one, is the best thing for the MLB. Sacrificing games or a season hurts everyone, but it hurts the owners the most.
How are you telling the owners to “hold the line and don’t give in” when they’re the ones with all the leverage
because he’s a troll…
hold the line players! and don’t give in anymore…STOP GIVING IN!!!!
the only thing they should’ve been negotiating, with everything else a full MEET IN THE MIDDLE compromise, is the crazy, ever escalating, individual salaries… of course I’m being facetious here (especially since that particular subject opens the whole “how can you NOT allow someone to get paid as much as possible/would you want a cap on how much money YOU could make at your job??” crap)….
But seeing Scherzer STILL hold out & sign for $40+ mil per, on the cusp of probably eventually seeing Juan Soto sign for $50ish mil per????
The Mets fan in me is as excited as ever…. the normal human being/lifelong BASEBALL purist fan in me? Accccckkkkkk! chokin on my own bile here…
See you in 2023.
The rich teams would be fine with raising the CBT, the not rich teams say no thank you. The players just see increases in payroll. With the same small handful of team dominating, the fans say no thanks. Just go full revenue share and move on. Enough of this nonsense.
Yeah because a team like Pittsburgh Pirates, got 90 million dollars in collective balance taxes and had a team payroll of around 40 million dollars. Ever team in MLB could have a 100 million team payroll and still make a profit. Yet more than half the teams don’t. The point I’m making, no matter how much balance fans think there should be, unless teams are made to put money back into the team, they won’t. Just like when is tax payers had to bail out, GM, Chrysler and the banks. The employees didn’t see crap. The executives gave themselves huge bonuses.
1000%
Then you vote the Pirates owner off the island. Sorry dude, you suck at being an owner. Next!
exactly
Final Pirates’ 2021 payroll was $50.5 million. You were only off by 25%.
Why should every team spend at least $100 million? Would it improve the product or just keep some older players around? If last years Pirates had spent an additional 50 million on payroll, what would they have got for their money? Ten, fifteen or twenty more wins? Wow, they would go from being really bad to being merely bad or — be still heart— .500. The great American drive for mediocrity instead of excellence. (Remember if all teams spend more on a limited pool of free agents, the price of the free agent goes up with zero improvement in the quality of free agents.).
A cap and floor system would force the Pirates to spend.
Just FTR.
In the NFL the teams are required to spend 95% of the cap over a four year span. The team with the lowest salary last year was Seattle at $172 million.
Those that compare the NFL and MLB might as well be comparing apples to oragutans.
@angelsfan
Those bailouts were repaid, in full and with interest, and millions of people who otherwise would have lost their jobs, kept their jobs. Even so, there should have been greater restrictions on how some of those funds were used, that’s true enough, I think.
The Pirates got $90M!?
You can do both, you know.
Here’s a “floor” idea. Not necessarily have a major league salary floor but rather a total spending floor. Teams could spend more at the minor league level when they have low payroll. We know payroll and success aren’t inexorably linked. Low payroll teams would spend on minor league players, facilities, coaches, etc. to make up the difference so they would reach the “floor”. Maybe a more fair way to have a floor.
Pitiful…..on the part of both sides. Starting to hope the league crashes and burns.
The MLBPA thinks they are negotiating with the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox. This time it is Tampa Bay, Oakland and Miami that is controlling the purse strings. Make the game competitive and profitable for all or shut it down. Time is up. Pitchers need to be stretching out their innings.
No, that doesn’t work. Just like you can’t ask a top TJ surgeon to take the same fee as a second year resident in pediatrics, you can’t insist that every player, no matter how talented, take a salary that an Orioles, Reds, Pirates, etc be willing to pay.
“shut it down”, ya, that’s gonna work.
How about, put a competitive team on the field, of get out?
Nonsense. If a team cannot be profitable, it should be forced to relocate to a better area. Simple as that.
That’s the point: ALL these teams are making profits. They are all incredibly profitable and want to keep it that way. The small markets don’t want to move because the system is set up to cater to their market, so they’re still making sizable profit margins. The large markets are obviously making profits too, which they share with small markets.
They realized they shouldn’t be fighting amongst each other to win when they can all (the owners) share immense wealth and cap labor costs, thus minimizing expenditures relative to the revenue streams.
Bottom line: it is working out very well for all these owners which is exactly why they don’t want to change it – instead they want to double-down on it. Otherwise, these options from MLB would make no sense and in such a context large and small markets would be fighting each other for the financial market leverage, which is how it used to be.
They’ve simply convinced the fans they are poor and victims of their market size – fans buy it, owners keep raking profits.
One week of negotiations to save a full regular season. Let’s hope these minor Baby steps lead to something bigger and a settlement between both parties, whatever it is! Let the games begin please…
The $5M offer from the Owners when the gap is so wide…mostly because of their proposals, is like a restaurant sending a petit four on the house after you’ve broken 4 figures on the bill. Per person
I feel a little more optimistic now. I’m thinking maybe a 130 game schedule this year and 14 teams in the playoffs. Maybe some 7 inning double headers to make up some of the lost games.
The players should be pushing more for a salary floor instead of a larger cap. The big contracts will be given either way but average salaries increase with the floor.
Right. They should be pushing for a salary floor and luxury tax/revenue sharing to be required to be spent on players. So if the league salary floor is 90 million and you receive 10 million in revenue sharing your floor is 100 million. It makes way more sense than cutting revenue sharing and making the league top heavy.
This steady back and forth moving ever so slightly is a juvenile bargaining method when there’s a hard deadline. One side needs to make the “best and final” and hang tough with it.
A mediator would ask both to make a best and final and they might find themselves close to an agreement.
The players are blinded by money with their luxury tax cap numbers. We don’t need a $50m a year player. The “stars” are making plenty of money. The people who are not are the minor leaguers and players who have not yet reached arbitration. THAT needs to get fixed. I think having a “pool fund” should be around $30m for those top 30 pre-arbitration players. The luxury tax cap should start at $220 in 2022 and be increased by $5m a year for the term of the CBT. Lastly, there should be a minimum floor of $75m, which also increases by $5m a year for the term of the contract. Both sides are being penny-wise and pound-foolish. They risk a HUGE alienation of fans if this goes on much longer.
I’m tired of the players and owners, haves and have more, forgetting the minor leaguers. Why not negotiate a little for the players who help the top 5 or 6 rounders become major leaguers. The supporting cast of players in the minors, about 20 per minor league team have a long shot at making the majors. Major leaguers need to support the players who got them there and of course the owners. Never will happen as they both are greedy.
Makes me sick.
Could minor leaguers start their own union?
The minor leaguers are powerless. Neither the owners nor the MLBPA wants them to organize and compete for a piece of the pie. The only solution is for them to be included in the MLBPA where the fight for fair salary and benefits would clash with the wants and needs of the major league players. The union pension benefits would need to be redistributed as well as the teams player payroll. MLBPA would give up a lot to tend to the needs of the minor leaguers. And of course, agents like Boras would lose since they are not his clients.
It wouldn’t work. The reason why unions are able to form is that by uniting as one entity it gives them leverage over their employer. If all the minor leagues united as the MiLBPA, they would not have any leverage. Minor league players are basically investments for MLB teams and 99% of them lose the team money (never actually become great MLB players). So if they unionized, the teams would have no issue letting them not play if they threatened to strike.
Then, I would assume the MLBPA wouldn’t want the minor leaguers to unionize as that would take money from the MLB players’ potential earnings. So the business decision would be for the MLBPA to essentially take in all the top prospects (the few minor leaguers who will actually make good big league money) and then the MLB could completely refuse to negotiate with the MiLBPA screwing the players more than they already are.
MLB sounds like any other greedy corporation. Personally I hope they don’t play at all this year and then both can find out what a Dinosaur sport they and the leadership has become. Two spoiled kids with no clue on what the real world is like.
Any games lost fans need to boycott games this year
Players are right to be upset. Owners making more money than ever before and all they want to do is find a way to make more and give the players even less. Just say no to expanded playoffs period if that is how they are going to treat you.
You know what screw both sides. What needs to happen is a couple of billionaires need to start there own league starting out with 20 teams and if others wanna join the league later as it gets going they can .
How can they look at the lotteries in the nba and nhl and actually think it encourages teams not to tank?
Forget the lottery,just reverse the order.Teams that just miss the playoffs get the best shot at getting the 1st pick,no reward for losing and teams always gotta try to win.
All this talk about how to split billions between players and owners and no talk about how to improve the game. MLB should look at the NFL and how they change with the times.
$5M? That’s less than $250K per team, and not even half the cost of one minimum-league salary player.
Still not serious on MLB’s part.
Yeah, that’s very true. For some to say that’s a serious compromise by MLB is to seriously set the bar low for expectations. To reiterate, I think both have to make real compromises; but if we are going to go back and forth at ~$5M increments for each meeting, gosh, what’s the point? Does anyone think that’s really going to get the discussion moving?
That said, I do see more movement the closer to losing games they come. They’re playing with fire & gasoline the closer they get to March though.
Agreed. There is movement. We know they’ll eventually close the gap and come to agreement. Just seems farther apart than I’d hope at this stage.
The biggest issues of the expired CBA. were, in no particular order: 1) service time and service time manipulation (which owners have not addressed); 2) tanking (which owners have addressed); 3) pre-arb salaries (which the owners have addressed); 4) signing free agents w/o penalties (which the owners have addressed); and 5) luxury tax (which the owners have addressed).
At this point, the Players Union needs to decide if the owners have moved the needle enough. Just my personal opinion, I think free agent players are compensated just fine/fair. So, if I were the Union, my biggest gripe at this point is service time and service time manipulation.
So the big addition is $166,000 per team bumping it up to $666,000 total if it stops at a 20 million dol!AR pool. If the super 2 issue goes nowhere that amounts to a complete kiss off to any notion of addressing getting additional money to the guys in the middle. This is going nowhere fast.
What is it with the owners and MLBPA ? Do none of them understand that this entire negotiating farce has proven to the fan’s what they already knew, that niether side cares about them.
The Commissioner has proven to be an inept puppet for the owners. His complete lack of understanding the moment is only exceeded by his lack of recognizing exactly where revenues come from, hint, the fans.
The owner’s aren’t negotiating in bad faith, instead they are showing their inherent greed by not showing any faith at all. Apparently throwing crumbs off their table to the player’s counts as negotiating in their eye’s. Owner’s… It’s too bad that we can’t fire any of you. If the fan’s could, imagine, most of you would be gone.
To the MLBPA, wake up ! You can’t possibly believe that in any world that the owner’s would allow the competitive balance tax to increase by $70,000,000 over the lifetime of a new CBA ! The small and mid market team’s will be left in the dust.
Instead, how would a SALARY CAP sound ? Good to the owner’s, a nonstarter to the player’s and fair to the fan’s. After all, if the MLBPA continues to press forward with huge increases to capped spending ( tongue in cheek ) then the inevitable will happen.
I’m not saying to settle for crumbs because there needs to be an increase. The owner’s can’t be trusted to figure this out for themselves themselves and the MLBPA is playing with monopoly money.
How about something new and refreshing, let the fan’s decide the increase for the competitive balance tax for the new CBA ?
They would be fair. Unfortunately, niether side wants fair.
Is their any players who aren’t in the Union?
Confederates.
Seriously under appreciated comment by @JoshBell. But, no, @baseballguy, it’s a closed union, therefore all players are members.
I’m on the players side on most of this but I don’ think 150 players should eligible for the4 pool they are proposing. It should be closer to 50 and thats why the number should also be closer to 40 ior 50 mil for the pool. I want to see a breakdown on how this gets distributed.
Please get it done !!
All the MLB needs is 23 owners to agree on the new CBA. Someone from majority caucus will need to convince one of the small market owners to side with the majority and an agreement will get done.
MLBPA: No full season, no expanded playoffs
Owners: Ok, now we can start I guess
WW3 happened before Baseball. You have failed every party involved and looked like a selfish idiot in the process manfred. Congrats on your legacy. We should show the poll on how much more favored Selig is now over Manfred’s inability to get or willingness to be done. The people are not done with Baseball. We are done with you manfred.
They can solve this in hours. Get on a plane to the Ukraine. Negotiate on the plane. If you don’t have a resolution by the time you land, stay there until you do.
The lockout will be over tomorrow.
This is brilliant
u.s. citizen are currently prohibited from going to ukraine.
Damn, and he was totally serious with his proposal too (eyeroll)
We could always just keep ‘em at the border and give ‘em a shove over if they don’t complete the agreement? Nothing says the plane has to land in the Ukraine.
On a more serious note, imagine the day when the superstars of baseball left the game in their prime to serve our country and did it willingly, without expectation or complaint in many instances. True men of honor. True heroes.
Ah yes. When Christy Mathewson inhaled mustard gas and couldn’t play after WWI that was . . . good?
Wow, that’s quite a spin you you put by taking an action’s outcome, which is unpredictable, and making it the purpose for not taking the action.
If that’s the case you might as well never leave the house because if something bad happens, it’s not a good decision. So, I guess an injured soldier makes him…not a hero, in your eyes?
This doesn’t have anything to do with what I said.
Well, I completely misread the response then, so, my bad on that. I obviously misinterpreted the interrogatory.
– My apologies PMR.
Give them 115 mill this go round, they’ll ask for a cool billion next time and Boras will say it’s still not enough like all of his players are at the soup kitchen every wknd
@oneofthesedayd. Bingo! You can be sure Boras is right up there in the negotiating with the MLBPA brass.
No, he’s not. Agents aren’t members of the union and aren’t allowed.
So some of you would trust the owners books to see if they are raking a profit. Come on man, the owners are taking it in and the players deserve their share. Without the players all the owners own are stadiums and trademarks.
GriffeyJrFan
the owners are taking it in and the players deserve their share.
==============================
The players are already get a share. I presume that you mean a “bigger” share?
Owners giving back something they created ha ha. That’s a complete non compromise ha ha.
The bonus pool should be just that. Take a certain amount of money and place it at the bottom of a swimming pool. The eligible players will swim down to collect as much as they possibly can just like that mini game in Mario Party.
They’ll settle by next Monday. So many non-existent issues like minor league roster size. In reality, no one tells teams that have TWO teams in the development leagues (formerly GCL and Arizona League). so if everybody cuts back to one team (that’s all half the teams have anyway), voila!, instant roster reduction. And they don’t need the MLBPA’s permission to do it.
Lots of posturing, lots of noise, little real results on behalf of the players. The idea that after 15 years of “give backs” that they haven’t moved any significant needle to improve their situation borders on the bizarre. Lots of reasons for that of course; MLB remains the only sport that guarantees contracts. And 700K a year isn’t exactly slave wages, even if getting to that level involves much more than just talent.
We’ll get 162 games, even if they bring back the 7 inning double headers, which everybody (players and owners) REALLY want anyway.
Sigh at least we get to watch our favorite sport die at its own hands even though they were raking in record profits prior to this silly pandemic. I don’t own a single jersey with an owners name, not one baseballncard with an owner on it and I definitely don’t want to be paying for stadiums when these owners are not honest about the money brought in during a year. MLB needs to wake up and realize the issue isn’t good moving forward as this subscription might be the last thing I buy MLB related.
ROTFLMAO!!!
1-Baseball is not dying.
2-Baseball is making more money that ever,
3-Baseball hasn’t had a labor stoppage for 28 years. If they miss a month to settle their differences, so be it. If you want to quit because of one stoppage every 28 years, then you were never a fan to begin with.
Bottom line, there’s plenty of money for everyone if they just get serious about getting a deal done. They’re stepping over $100 bills to gather up quarters.
After reading that, I’m not optimistic about there being anything more than a “pandemic-esque” type season, (60 or so games). They’ve just endured that recently so they know what it’ll be like now. They probably survived it easily and don’t mind a shortened season if it means not giving in. Who knows? This sucks! I want the free agent flurry to start!!!
Lot of cavin’ to be done before the Players start losing $$.
10% down the drain if no settlement within the next 3 or so weeks: ~2% every 3 games lost.
Seems as the League moves closer, the Players move away. That will make for a short season! 60 games again? Maybe an even 100 this time — almost 40% lost salary for Players.
Rich get richer a little more slowly.
The players do nothing of value today and even upped their minimum for 2nd/3rd year. OH well they don’t want to negotiate then I guess they can take their little Red Ryder wagons and go home and play in their sand lots!
Jeff Passan
@JeffPassan
“Another day of small moves on the labor front. MLBPA dropped its ask from 80% of 2+ players receiving salary arbitration to 75%. Additionally, the union bumped the major league minimums slightly while sticking with $775K in the first year and went from 8 picks in lottery to 7.”
AND the big news:
“Perhaps most important: The union did not move on CBT. That has been the lodestar of past negotiations and is shaping up to be the same this time around. The sides will meet for the third consecutive day tomorrow in Jupiter with the clock ticking on MLB’s Feb. 28 deadline.”