Major League Baseball is doing away with uniform employee contracts, according to a report from Evan Drellich of The Athletic. Previously, the league required all employment agreements with managers, coaches, salaried scouts and trainers to utilize the same standardized language across all 30 teams. Clubs are now free to draft their own individual employment contracts for employees, opening the door to differences in contract language between teams, and employees will be subject to team-specific contract terms upon the expiration of their current deals. The impetus for the change, according to Drellich, appears to be shielding the league from liability regarding employment matters. Drellich also suggests that the change could help the league retain its antitrust exemption, which has come under fire on occasion in recent years, should MLB face employment issues in the future.
Perhaps the most well-known aspect of the uniform employee contracts to this point is a tampering clause that stops club employees from speaking to other teams while they’re under contract without permission from their club. A notable example of the tampering clause played out this past month, ahead of the expiration of Brewers manager’s Craig Counsell contract today. Though Counsell wasn’t under contract for the 2024 campaign, his contract with the Brewers ran through October 31, meaning that clubs interested in Counsell’s services such as the Mets and Guardians could not interview Counsell until the Brewers granted them permission to do so.
That being said, the move away from uniform employee contracts doesn’t necessarily portend the end of the tampering clause, or any other particular clause in the contract itself. It’s entirely possible that clubs could continue to offer employees roughly similar contracts going forward; in fact, Drellich suggests that the league’s antitrust exemption could allow teams to keep “some elements of the contracts effectively identical.” That reality has left the change to be met with mixed responses. Drellich cited one current scout who has concerns that clubs will take the opportunity to alter contract language in a way that works against employees, though he noted that others hope the departure from uniform contracts will spur competition between the major league clubs and create more favorable terms for employees in the future.
More notes from around the league…
- Longtime big league lefty Cole Hamels retired from professional play back in August after 15 seasons in the majors and an additional three seasons of attempting to rehab from shoulder issues and make a comeback. Hamels, 40 in December, recently spoke to Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer about his hope to return to the game, in another capacity, sometime in the near future. The first order of business appears to be a return to Philadelphia, where the Phillies plan to honor Hamels sometime next season. Beyond that, Breen notes that Hamels hopes he can find an off-the-field role somewhere in the game akin to that of the one Chase Utley once held with the Dodgers, acting as a liaison between the front office and players in the clubhouse.
- The league has seen plenty of managerial churn both this offseason (with six teams either looking for a new manager or already employing a new manager, with a seventh on the table if Counsell departs Milwaukee) and in the past, but John Romano of the Tampa Bay Times relays that no team has contacted former Rays, Cubs, and Angels manager Joe Maddon regarding a potential managerial vacancy. Romano adds that lack of interest extends to last offseason, despite reports at the time of possible interest in Maddon from the White Sox regarding their managerial vacancy, which was ultimately filled by Pedro Grifol. Since departing the Angels, Maddon has been particularly critical of the implementation of analytics by many front offices in recent years, and Romano suggests that this lack of interest in the three-time Manager of the Year who reached the World Series with the Rays in 2008 before winning it with the Cubs in 2016 could stem from that criticism.
Within the game, Maddon is not a respected Manager. The only reason he got the Angel job was Moreno got involved with his hiring.
Based on what?
I’m aware of a major league GM who called him a fraud. And of course based on no interviews.
And the fact that Minasian wanted Showalter is pretty well known.
Halo11: Hiring a manager by the owner can’t be bad. Just look at reinsdorf’s hiring of LaRussa.
How do you figure he’s not respected within the game??? He’s been highly successful taking 2 franchises to the WS imo he didn’t get enough time to work with the angels.
You shouldn’t believe some random guy on the internet about anything.
But the person I know is not some random guy, so I believe him when he tells me something.
But there is no reason for you to believe me, other than no interviews.
Maddon was the first guy to implement analytics with the Angels when he was the bench coach. He knew how to integrate that with common baseball sense. The FO FU when they let him go.
They let him go because he did several incredibly stupid things.
Did the same on the Cubs, spent multiple in-game interviews advertising for his personal companies and royally pd off upper management.
stan Lee: Maddon can’t be all bad. According to the article he hates analytics.
Those who are respected within the game are mostly known by those directly in the game. It’s not like the media tells us any real truth.
Correct. Reporters are pretty far down the list of trustworthy sources.
The thing with Maddon is he never played at the MLB or won a ring as a player. So I do think it makes a difference with today’s player. But in Maddon’s defense his brief Angel teams outperformed Nevin with weaker lineups He was honest in saying a guy should spend more time in the minors instead of rushing up players. At that time it was Jo Adell.
There’s so much tampering in MLB it makes NCAA football seem legit.
Should be interesting to see how the contracts change up. I wonder how changes would be impacted by MLBPA? I’d guess the contracts will stay very similar to how they are now just because of the hassle of avoiding MLBPA fighting anything new.
The MLBPA has nothing to do with coaches.
Contracts, not coaches. Not sure if you meant coaches when you said that or if you meant contracts.
If you did mean “contracts” I’d wager a union not having a say in worker contracts would be totally unbelievable.
No, I meant coaches. The MLBPA is for the players only. MLBPA stands for the Major League Baseball Players Association.
Its not the uniform PLAYER contract that’s being changed. It can’t without collective bargaining.
Its the coaching contracts that are being changed. “employment agreements with managers, coaches, salaried scouts and trainers”
Ahhhh, I just skimmed the article too quickly.
Joe Maddon was also the worst about favoring relievers who adjust their hat, pick their nose, fold a load of laundry, watch 3 episodes of Netflix, shine their cleats, count every lace on the baseball, come set, shake off the catcher 5 times even though he only throws 2 pitches, just for the batter to call time and the entire process to start over. He isn’t missed
> Joe Maddon was also the worst
> about favoring relievers who
> (bunch of things omitted)
Pace of play penalties!
BALL FOUR, TAKE YOUR BASE!
BALL EIGHT, TAKE HIS BASE!
BALL TWELVE, TAKE OVER THE ENEMY BASE!
Major League Baseball is doing away with uniforms
Ugh, barf.
Please wear something.
Joe Maddon wore out his welcome in MLB. Not really surprised.
Showalter isn’t getting any calls either. He can write a book about Eppler and then us that for an excuse. Angels managers (and GMs) are either in their first job and then take a long time before getting another job (if ever) or near the end of the line and never get a job managing again. But in all cases no one was a hot commodity or was being coueted by another team. Nevin and Ausmus may be getting interviews from San Diego but still too early to say their finalists.
What about Jerry Dipoto and Billy Eppler? And Scott Servais going from the Angels front office to Mariners manager?
If anything is certain is that Minasian’s analytics methodologies are faulty at best. Shifts lineups rotations signings. You can’t blame pitching on injuries. They were pretty healthy overall. And pitchers had no say in pitch selection or sequence except for Ohtani and Anderson.
Everything I’ve heard about Ohtani he did what he wanted when he wanted to do it. I don’t think that will fly with the Dodgers.
Joe, I completely agree. As I have said before, Ohtani is high maintenance.
Would I have minded a high maintenance super model girlfriend? No. Just because someone is high maintenance doesn’t mean you don’t want to have a relationship.
But I do think it will fly with the Dodgers, just so long as Ohtani is worth it.
True Halo. I’d be all smiles if the Yankees landed Ohtani. High maintenance and all.
> Everything I’ve heard about Ohtani
> he did what he wanted when he wanted
Man must timely relieve waste.
Man not to relieve waste when he want?
Man risk dancing in disaster pants if follow these rules.
❌
Few teams can match up with Woke Joe’s level of social enlightenment.
Currently, employees can’t appeal suspensions. I wonder if that is a MLB rule, or if it’s in the contracts?
This is a win for all minor league personnel. Under the past system, All 30 teams submitted their contracts to ML office for approval and recording. This system and how it was being used was probably bordering some type of anti trust laws and MLB’s lawyers decided that a change was necessary to keep congress out of their business.
The fact Utley works in baseball and not for the Phillies, bothers me to no end.
In fairness, he did win a couple pennants with Dodgers AND is from California.
I know. It makes total sense. He’s just on my personal mt Rushmore of Philly athletes and he is beloved in the city. I always hoped he’d come back and be involved with the team or get in the dugout if he was interested. Maybe in the future I guess.
The spreadsheets giveth and the spreadsheets taketh away Joe
I don’t have any issues seeing Cole Hamels working with in the Phillies organization.
I think the disconnect between managers and front offices on analytics comes from managers seeing a player is dialed in either on the mound or at the plate most managers want to ride that out regardless of matchups or overall long term averages. In their mind a guy whos in a groove with his command or a hitter seeing and hitting the ball well currently needs to play. You gotta know some guys are streaky that way you gotta ride that wave when they’re hot throw overall averages and previous matchups out the window if he gets a pitch to hit he won’t miss. I get the frustration. Not to say I’m against analytics but they shouldn’t make every decision a manager makes