You have probably heard that baseball’s owners and players are supposed to meet every day this week as they finally get at least somewhat serious about saving Opening Day.
I agree with Joe on why fans eventually turn against the players. We saw it in 2020 when the owners decided to blow up an in place agreement and fans were mad at the players because no baseball.
I honestly don't think the owners ever intended to start the season on time. I also think that when games are 100% sure to be missed, they will end the lockout and invite the players to come back without a deal, or one they do unilaterally. This will force the players to strike, and put all the fan ire on them.
I believe that the tendency among fans to side with the owners has a lot to do with the relatively normal size of baseball players. Except for the terminally delusional, few people could think they’d be able to play in the NFL or NBA. But I’m sure plenty of baseball fans (equally delusional) think to themselves, “I was a pretty good hitter in high school. I could probably do that! I’d play for free!”
That theory doesn't work, since fans blame the players in NBA and NFL labor disputes too. So it's not to do with baseball players being more relatable as athletes.
I see your point, but my perception is that fans in other sports are more likely to use the “plague on both houses” line during labor disputes, whereas opinions during baseball lockouts tend to lean much more towards blaming players only.
where is Murray Chass? Guy is a walking encyclopedia of MLB b Owners beefs. Joe, go get your BFF in HoF voting to write ypur readers a proper piece on MLB labor strife. Aside from Marvin Miller, it’ll be hard to find someone better to comment on this.
What are the chances of a fan strike? If one day of the season is lost, why not get the greatest number of fans possible to vow they will not attend a game this year? Obviously, there is no “fan union”, but with the power of social media we could maybe take a chunk out of the owners wallets. What say you?
I don't get the expansion of the playoffs. I don't see how it can be done without shortening the seaosn. The current playoff system is already burning out pitchers.
Joe, I think you're missing the big angle here. Prior negotiations were about money. This one is not, for the owners. It's about pride. Bruce Meyer and Tony Clark have insulted the owners repeatedly. And while I don't expect anyone to feel sorry for the owners, they seem to me to be arguing more with the style and tone of MLBPA leadership than the players demands. Right or wrong, the owners believe that the MLPBA welched on an agreement in 2020 and then publicly hung the owners out to dry in the media and in the court of public opinion. None of us were in the room where it happened but all of the cries about the owners negotiating in "bad faith" completely ignore the owners assertion that the MLBPA agreed to certain terms via email and then backtracked based on a potential ambiguity in the language. That's a material fact or assertion that isn't getting covered but seems to explain quite a bit.
I am sorry, but I think you are not just missing the big angle, but all of the smaller ones as well.
Owners have kicked the players ass in the last few CBAs. They pay players less 80% of any other sport in terms of percentage of revenues. They own players rights for twice as long as any other sport. They go to great lengths to hide their true revenue while other sports (who have friendlier agreements due to openness) do not base their player pay on a percentage of that revenue. They continue to make bad decisions for the health of the sport, resulting in a league where one team might spend one fourth the money of another and the baseball unicorn of small market teams and teams buy their way into the playoffs.
Players have already given up on one less year of arbitration and one less year to free agency. The owners have given up nothing. They are completely the bad guy in the room, and they make baseball less relevant with every decision.
I think both you guys are speculating about how the purported mental states of owners and players are impacting negotiations. First, there is no one mental state among 32 owners and 750 players. Second, and more important, there are collective bargaining negotiations where each side has profession representatives charged with securing the best available deal that would allow games to start on opening day, so that their side then can decide if the deal is acceptable.
The players gave up on one less year of free agency because salary arbitration in years 4 through 6 works very well for them. One less year for free agency was not important to them.
The moves by each side to date are not important. It is the final moves during the ending period of negotiations prior to opening day that are important and determinative. Since each side wants a deal and wants to avoid losing games, I expect there will be a deal in the relatively near future. The owners will be hard pressed to pass on the best available deal that would allow games to start on time.
I'm not missing any of those angles. They've all been well-covered. They may all be true. Respectfully, though, they have nothing at all to do with my comment. You're stating reasons for the players to take a hardline stance in negotiating. They're very valid. But they're also not contradictory to the fact that the owners are supremely pissed at Bruce Meyer and Tony Clark because the owners feel the MLBPA welched in 2020.
I would be shocked if the bargaining position of the 32 owners is driven by some concept of subjective pride among some of the owners. The bargaining thus far has reflected what an employer would do with sound legal advice in an effort to create a deadline/urgency in order to secure the best available deal without losing a significant number of games.
Pride of whom? And, how does that control the business decision of a group of 32 owners? And, based on what facts? When the known facts - lockout, hard nosed bargaining, now frequent meetings - all point to normal collective bargaining.
Also I have to say "The owners assertion that the MLBPA agreed to certain terms via Email" is the silliest part. Later, you call that a fact. Emails are forever, dude. You can easily screenshot it as proof of your "assertion". The fact that they didn't proves the lie.
It is about as true as the kid in high school that has the hot girlfriend in Canada.
Joe: You are absolutely correct that the lockdown should end even if negotiations continue. The reason relates to my worst fear: That pitchers will be more susceptible to injury during spring training and beyond, because they've already lost their early report date and spring training will be crammed into less time for everyone. Position players will suffer, too. To make matters worse, minor leaguers have had short seasons because of the pandemic. They need and deserve all of the training they can get. I agree that the minimum salary can easily be the subject of compromise. The same goes for the range of the tax threshold, but for that issue, it looks to me like the owners can give a little. For anti-tanking, reform is absolutely necessary. I would consider a five-team lottery with the worst team guaranteed that it will draft no worse than No. 4 in the first round. Having too many teams in the lottery will simply encourage more teams to tank. By the same token, just finishing last in the division should not guarantee anyone a lottery pick, because that will destroy incentives to play honest baseball down the stretch. The bonus pool seems like a good idea, but I doubt that the parties have thought through all of the ramifications. E.g., how would such a pool affect the incentive of teams to sign a young star long term to take out some of the arbitration years?
So a few years ago I was really happy to see the Nationals win the series. I like to see new teams win. And when they interviewed their long time owner, I was happy for him.
Then when the pandemic hit and shut the minor leagues down for good, he - the gracious billionaire that he is- decided to cut the stipend of minor leaguers from, if I remember correctly, $400 to $300 a month. Only when some of his own players- I think led by Doolittle- said that some players would get together to make up the difference did he reverse himself.
As Edward R Murrow once said to Senator McCarthy- “ Have you no shame sir?”
The love of money is the root of all evil. And it’s a cancer that is ruining the game.
I don’t live in a major league city, so going to games is a very low frequency option. I don’t have subscription to mlb network. I can barely stand to watch a game anymore. I would watch some of the World Series- not all of it, and a very little bit of the other playoff games in the last 4-5 years. This last year I reached a new low. I actually looked at the box score of some of the World Series games, and fast forwarded to watch some innings where some action happened, even when I knew what the outcome would be. Pathetic, I know.
I actually find I enjoy reading about baseball more than watching it. Mostly all I’ll watch these days are short clips of plays on ESPN.com on an occasional day. Or clips of famous - or sensational- plays from the past.
I loved baseball when I was a kid- following it like crazy, living for playing little league or neighborhood sandlot ball. And even whiffle ball.
Enough ranting. If there is no baseball this year, no big deal for me. The players will suffer- at least the non- Scherzers, Trouts, etc. The owners will suffer more- hopefully. And I’ll put my attention on something else.
All the owners in all sports care about is getting as much money as they can from whoever they can get it from. Tv, local communities and governments, fans, players, advertisers and anyone else.
Players should blow it all up. Decertify the union. Let Congress address baseball violations of antitrust laws. Eliminate the draft, draft money pools, limits on paying foreign players, luxury tax, all of it. Pay minor leaguers over minimum wage (which they don’t).
The union needs a more aggressive president who is a professional rather than a former player. And professional PR people to make sure everyone knows the owners locked out the players so the owners could take money from them. Keep it that simple because it is. But I don’t care - I enjoy discussing baseball especially the history but I don’t give a shit about watching baseball. It is just no fun for me to watch now. Unlike Joe I don’t wring my hands over it. I spend my time on other things.
SCOTUS held MLB is exempt from federal anti-trust laws. It is an absurd decision, but is the current state of the law. Thus, there are no "violations of antitrust laws." And, collective bargaining agreements are a defense to alleged anti-trust violations. The only thing Congress could do is pass legislation that baseball is not exempt from antitrust law. It would not "address violations." Then, the subject would be any future potential violations. Beyond all that, the last thing the players want is to blow up the current system that provides them with generational wealth and rich and famous lives, in exchange for the unknowns of what might follow abandonment of the collective bargaining relationship and decertification of the union.
You know after you mentioned that I remembered something about that. Took a look, and back in the 20s the Supreme Court ruled that baseball was not interstate commerce. Then in the 1950s and again in the 1970s they basically said all right well we screwed up back then but we’re gonna stick with it. Ridiculous! But it looks like in the 90s Congress passed a law making baseball employment subject to the national labor review board.
So I still think the players should blow the whole thing up. I get that some players make huge money, but it would be interesting to see the statistics of how many make that kind of money versus the players who are making 1 million or so per year. Good money, but nothing like generational wealth.
I think the biggest issue is there is no Marvin Miller figure today. Maybe Scott Boras could become that guy… I don’t always like his tactics, but he would be an excellent counterweight to the owners
On the one hand, sure, the players get blamed for not playing, as if our play isn't their work. But I think the plutocrat owners have failed to read the room: America is sick of greedy bosses telling their employees they're lucky to have a job and need to sacrifice more for the team, that is, their already bloated wallets. So I think the players will get more sympathy this time around. Call it the Great Spring Resignation.
I agree about why fans tend to blame the players but I also think it's because they know the players. Their names and faces are known to us. Owners? We may know a few of the bastards but that's about it. They're amorphous. They're like the Wizard of Oz: the men behind the curtain.
And maybe it's time we paid attention to those men behind the curtain. Who are they? What are they worth? How long have they owned the club? Do they give a damn?
Hmmm, only money. It sounds like that is inconsequential.
There is a pretty substantial gulf between them.
Imagine if I'm negotiating my next contract and the owner tells me that they will increase my salary by nearly 10% immediately ($570k to $630k), but I counter with wanting a 33% raise. And its not just for me, its for hundreds of my peers. Now we are talking bottom of the roster. But it does set a pretty steep precedent.
And owners want a creeping luxury tax threshhold from $210m this year and rising $2m/year over next five years, but players want an immediate 16% jump to $245m, with it rising $6m/year after that. Its really supposed to be a governor to keep salaries down, so I get the consistency with which the players are pushing it. But its an absurd gulf. In reality, it only applies to a handful of teams - other teams won't increase spending if their budget doesn't allow for it. But lets say it just applies to 3 teams. That's an extra $105m in luxury tax free spending a year.
And then the owners are willing to fund a new bonus pool for young players of $20m. Nope, not good enough, it needs to be $115m. Of course, the player pool is bigger - going from 30 to 150 players. But still almost $100m of new outlays.
I think the larger point is that at this date it looks like both sides might push the button.
Mike- this might be the best explanation I have read about the negotiations. I don’t have a dog in the MLB fight, but as a business owner I can tell you that we’re constantly fighting what I call uncontrollable costs, health insurance for example. It sounds to me like MLB owners are trying to also get some control of future costs.
It will eventually work out. Both sides have too much at stake.
I don't know your industry, but were your employees free to take jobs with any of your competitors instead working for you? Now that they work for you, are they bound to you for another 6 years, or are they free to leave and work for a competitor? If you are no longer happy with one of them, can you, with no notice whatsoever, trade one of your employees to a competitor?
Good points. One of my first thoughts on the lockout was that now is the time that MLB needs a competitor league. In my lifetime, the NHL had the WHA, the NBA had the ABA and the NFL had the USFL. The competing leagues were good for the fans and players. Salaries went up as leagues competed for players and the new leagues brought much needed innovation. Baseball has never really had a competing league that I’m aware of, unless you go back to the Federal league or the beginnings of the American League. A competing baseball league may or may not survive but if some billionaires didn’t mind losing some money, they could change the baseball landscape.
But that $2M increase in the luxury tax threshold is less than 1% growth. Do you seriously think the owners revenue or equity is only growing by 1%? And the bonus pool of $15M is about 2 WAR on the open market. Juan Soto had a 5 WAR in 2019 and made $578,000. That $20M was a pittance compared to the worth of just one player, and there were dozens of other deserving players who deserved more than the major league minimum.
The owners are making out like bandits in this business. The only reason people aren't commenting on their likely increase in revenue and definite increase in team equity is they will never share that information. The gulf is large because the owners' offer is far from equitable.
You are correct that either side might push the button, but I think the players have a far better reason than the other. Unfortunately, the game and its fans will suffer regardless.
Agree Ed. The Owners bonus pool offer is laughable in the face of how much value over salary the top tier guys years 2-4 produce.
And a 1% raise in salary cap??? Again. Insulting.
The scary thing is the owners have managed to pull the rope squarely to almost 60-40, the only thing the players can point to with hope for the next generation is that a FEW owners are willing to commit to guaranteed mega-contracts to boost the AAV for all but the median does not reflect this. The best the players are going to do is not get yanked some more.
And the players disregard for their Minor League brethren gives away their endgame is they all think they can be Max Scherzer when they grow up - die on that hill and sorry about the unlucky bastards we crawled over to get here.
THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! for putting the blame squarely on the owners' shoulders. Once he became Iron Man, how much $ did Robert Downey Jr make per Marvel pic? No one ever complains about that or says he's being paid too much. I don't care how much the players make. Watching baseball brings me countless hours of joy (though as a Mets fan, equal amounts of agita and heartbreak). Owners, in whatever industry they are from, made their money off of all of us well before they bought a baseball team. The ultra-wealthy ALWAYS make their $ off of the poor, working, and middle class. In very few instances is labor EVER to blame in these situations.
Well, they are the reason spring training won't start on time. Seems fair to blame the side that instituted the work stoppage (and could end it literally today).
Bill James wrote something in one of the Abstracts (in other words, a while ago) that the baseball union is stronger than football/basketball/hockey because of the larger minor leagues. In the NFL, the difference between "good enough to play" and "enjoy your day job" is in many cases sheer luck. Replacement players are often just as good as the 'real' ones if they get a chance. But in baseball, there are three or four levels of the minors separating MLB from "out of the game". As long as the minor leaguers can't be used as replacement players (and the union sticks together), MLB players have relatively more power. But... the minors are continually becoming more under control of the MLB owners, so that clock may be ticking.
I like Joe's line about the owners "and whether or not they even like baseball is mostly unimportant to us" . The owners probably have a secretary (that's what they call them) that has to remind them baseball is in lockout stage and they might have to answer an email concerning the subject.
It’s a damn shame!!!
I agree with Joe on why fans eventually turn against the players. We saw it in 2020 when the owners decided to blow up an in place agreement and fans were mad at the players because no baseball.
I honestly don't think the owners ever intended to start the season on time. I also think that when games are 100% sure to be missed, they will end the lockout and invite the players to come back without a deal, or one they do unilaterally. This will force the players to strike, and put all the fan ire on them.
I believe that the tendency among fans to side with the owners has a lot to do with the relatively normal size of baseball players. Except for the terminally delusional, few people could think they’d be able to play in the NFL or NBA. But I’m sure plenty of baseball fans (equally delusional) think to themselves, “I was a pretty good hitter in high school. I could probably do that! I’d play for free!”
That theory doesn't work, since fans blame the players in NBA and NFL labor disputes too. So it's not to do with baseball players being more relatable as athletes.
I see your point, but my perception is that fans in other sports are more likely to use the “plague on both houses” line during labor disputes, whereas opinions during baseball lockouts tend to lean much more towards blaming players only.
where is Murray Chass? Guy is a walking encyclopedia of MLB b Owners beefs. Joe, go get your BFF in HoF voting to write ypur readers a proper piece on MLB labor strife. Aside from Marvin Miller, it’ll be hard to find someone better to comment on this.
What are the chances of a fan strike? If one day of the season is lost, why not get the greatest number of fans possible to vow they will not attend a game this year? Obviously, there is no “fan union”, but with the power of social media we could maybe take a chunk out of the owners wallets. What say you?
Nope.
I don't get the expansion of the playoffs. I don't see how it can be done without shortening the seaosn. The current playoff system is already burning out pitchers.
Joe, I think you're missing the big angle here. Prior negotiations were about money. This one is not, for the owners. It's about pride. Bruce Meyer and Tony Clark have insulted the owners repeatedly. And while I don't expect anyone to feel sorry for the owners, they seem to me to be arguing more with the style and tone of MLBPA leadership than the players demands. Right or wrong, the owners believe that the MLPBA welched on an agreement in 2020 and then publicly hung the owners out to dry in the media and in the court of public opinion. None of us were in the room where it happened but all of the cries about the owners negotiating in "bad faith" completely ignore the owners assertion that the MLBPA agreed to certain terms via email and then backtracked based on a potential ambiguity in the language. That's a material fact or assertion that isn't getting covered but seems to explain quite a bit.
I am sorry, but I think you are not just missing the big angle, but all of the smaller ones as well.
Owners have kicked the players ass in the last few CBAs. They pay players less 80% of any other sport in terms of percentage of revenues. They own players rights for twice as long as any other sport. They go to great lengths to hide their true revenue while other sports (who have friendlier agreements due to openness) do not base their player pay on a percentage of that revenue. They continue to make bad decisions for the health of the sport, resulting in a league where one team might spend one fourth the money of another and the baseball unicorn of small market teams and teams buy their way into the playoffs.
Players have already given up on one less year of arbitration and one less year to free agency. The owners have given up nothing. They are completely the bad guy in the room, and they make baseball less relevant with every decision.
I think both you guys are speculating about how the purported mental states of owners and players are impacting negotiations. First, there is no one mental state among 32 owners and 750 players. Second, and more important, there are collective bargaining negotiations where each side has profession representatives charged with securing the best available deal that would allow games to start on opening day, so that their side then can decide if the deal is acceptable.
The players gave up on one less year of free agency because salary arbitration in years 4 through 6 works very well for them. One less year for free agency was not important to them.
The moves by each side to date are not important. It is the final moves during the ending period of negotiations prior to opening day that are important and determinative. Since each side wants a deal and wants to avoid losing games, I expect there will be a deal in the relatively near future. The owners will be hard pressed to pass on the best available deal that would allow games to start on time.
I'm not missing any of those angles. They've all been well-covered. They may all be true. Respectfully, though, they have nothing at all to do with my comment. You're stating reasons for the players to take a hardline stance in negotiating. They're very valid. But they're also not contradictory to the fact that the owners are supremely pissed at Bruce Meyer and Tony Clark because the owners feel the MLBPA welched in 2020.
I would be shocked if the bargaining position of the 32 owners is driven by some concept of subjective pride among some of the owners. The bargaining thus far has reflected what an employer would do with sound legal advice in an effort to create a deadline/urgency in order to secure the best available deal without losing a significant number of games.
Sure, pride never comes into play during a negotiation.
In other words, I agree to disagree. The timing of the negotiation, which you are speaking to? Sure. But the process and current? Disagree completely.
Pride of whom? And, how does that control the business decision of a group of 32 owners? And, based on what facts? When the known facts - lockout, hard nosed bargaining, now frequent meetings - all point to normal collective bargaining.
Also I have to say "The owners assertion that the MLBPA agreed to certain terms via Email" is the silliest part. Later, you call that a fact. Emails are forever, dude. You can easily screenshot it as proof of your "assertion". The fact that they didn't proves the lie.
It is about as true as the kid in high school that has the hot girlfriend in Canada.
Joe: You are absolutely correct that the lockdown should end even if negotiations continue. The reason relates to my worst fear: That pitchers will be more susceptible to injury during spring training and beyond, because they've already lost their early report date and spring training will be crammed into less time for everyone. Position players will suffer, too. To make matters worse, minor leaguers have had short seasons because of the pandemic. They need and deserve all of the training they can get. I agree that the minimum salary can easily be the subject of compromise. The same goes for the range of the tax threshold, but for that issue, it looks to me like the owners can give a little. For anti-tanking, reform is absolutely necessary. I would consider a five-team lottery with the worst team guaranteed that it will draft no worse than No. 4 in the first round. Having too many teams in the lottery will simply encourage more teams to tank. By the same token, just finishing last in the division should not guarantee anyone a lottery pick, because that will destroy incentives to play honest baseball down the stretch. The bonus pool seems like a good idea, but I doubt that the parties have thought through all of the ramifications. E.g., how would such a pool affect the incentive of teams to sign a young star long term to take out some of the arbitration years?
So a few years ago I was really happy to see the Nationals win the series. I like to see new teams win. And when they interviewed their long time owner, I was happy for him.
Then when the pandemic hit and shut the minor leagues down for good, he - the gracious billionaire that he is- decided to cut the stipend of minor leaguers from, if I remember correctly, $400 to $300 a month. Only when some of his own players- I think led by Doolittle- said that some players would get together to make up the difference did he reverse himself.
As Edward R Murrow once said to Senator McCarthy- “ Have you no shame sir?”
The love of money is the root of all evil. And it’s a cancer that is ruining the game.
I don’t live in a major league city, so going to games is a very low frequency option. I don’t have subscription to mlb network. I can barely stand to watch a game anymore. I would watch some of the World Series- not all of it, and a very little bit of the other playoff games in the last 4-5 years. This last year I reached a new low. I actually looked at the box score of some of the World Series games, and fast forwarded to watch some innings where some action happened, even when I knew what the outcome would be. Pathetic, I know.
I actually find I enjoy reading about baseball more than watching it. Mostly all I’ll watch these days are short clips of plays on ESPN.com on an occasional day. Or clips of famous - or sensational- plays from the past.
I loved baseball when I was a kid- following it like crazy, living for playing little league or neighborhood sandlot ball. And even whiffle ball.
Enough ranting. If there is no baseball this year, no big deal for me. The players will suffer- at least the non- Scherzers, Trouts, etc. The owners will suffer more- hopefully. And I’ll put my attention on something else.
All the owners in all sports care about is getting as much money as they can from whoever they can get it from. Tv, local communities and governments, fans, players, advertisers and anyone else.
Players should blow it all up. Decertify the union. Let Congress address baseball violations of antitrust laws. Eliminate the draft, draft money pools, limits on paying foreign players, luxury tax, all of it. Pay minor leaguers over minimum wage (which they don’t).
The union needs a more aggressive president who is a professional rather than a former player. And professional PR people to make sure everyone knows the owners locked out the players so the owners could take money from them. Keep it that simple because it is. But I don’t care - I enjoy discussing baseball especially the history but I don’t give a shit about watching baseball. It is just no fun for me to watch now. Unlike Joe I don’t wring my hands over it. I spend my time on other things.
SCOTUS held MLB is exempt from federal anti-trust laws. It is an absurd decision, but is the current state of the law. Thus, there are no "violations of antitrust laws." And, collective bargaining agreements are a defense to alleged anti-trust violations. The only thing Congress could do is pass legislation that baseball is not exempt from antitrust law. It would not "address violations." Then, the subject would be any future potential violations. Beyond all that, the last thing the players want is to blow up the current system that provides them with generational wealth and rich and famous lives, in exchange for the unknowns of what might follow abandonment of the collective bargaining relationship and decertification of the union.
You know after you mentioned that I remembered something about that. Took a look, and back in the 20s the Supreme Court ruled that baseball was not interstate commerce. Then in the 1950s and again in the 1970s they basically said all right well we screwed up back then but we’re gonna stick with it. Ridiculous! But it looks like in the 90s Congress passed a law making baseball employment subject to the national labor review board.
So I still think the players should blow the whole thing up. I get that some players make huge money, but it would be interesting to see the statistics of how many make that kind of money versus the players who are making 1 million or so per year. Good money, but nothing like generational wealth.
I think the biggest issue is there is no Marvin Miller figure today. Maybe Scott Boras could become that guy… I don’t always like his tactics, but he would be an excellent counterweight to the owners
On the one hand, sure, the players get blamed for not playing, as if our play isn't their work. But I think the plutocrat owners have failed to read the room: America is sick of greedy bosses telling their employees they're lucky to have a job and need to sacrifice more for the team, that is, their already bloated wallets. So I think the players will get more sympathy this time around. Call it the Great Spring Resignation.
I agree about why fans tend to blame the players but I also think it's because they know the players. Their names and faces are known to us. Owners? We may know a few of the bastards but that's about it. They're amorphous. They're like the Wizard of Oz: the men behind the curtain.
And maybe it's time we paid attention to those men behind the curtain. Who are they? What are they worth? How long have they owned the club? Do they give a damn?
Hmmm, only money. It sounds like that is inconsequential.
There is a pretty substantial gulf between them.
Imagine if I'm negotiating my next contract and the owner tells me that they will increase my salary by nearly 10% immediately ($570k to $630k), but I counter with wanting a 33% raise. And its not just for me, its for hundreds of my peers. Now we are talking bottom of the roster. But it does set a pretty steep precedent.
And owners want a creeping luxury tax threshhold from $210m this year and rising $2m/year over next five years, but players want an immediate 16% jump to $245m, with it rising $6m/year after that. Its really supposed to be a governor to keep salaries down, so I get the consistency with which the players are pushing it. But its an absurd gulf. In reality, it only applies to a handful of teams - other teams won't increase spending if their budget doesn't allow for it. But lets say it just applies to 3 teams. That's an extra $105m in luxury tax free spending a year.
And then the owners are willing to fund a new bonus pool for young players of $20m. Nope, not good enough, it needs to be $115m. Of course, the player pool is bigger - going from 30 to 150 players. But still almost $100m of new outlays.
I think the larger point is that at this date it looks like both sides might push the button.
Mike- this might be the best explanation I have read about the negotiations. I don’t have a dog in the MLB fight, but as a business owner I can tell you that we’re constantly fighting what I call uncontrollable costs, health insurance for example. It sounds to me like MLB owners are trying to also get some control of future costs.
It will eventually work out. Both sides have too much at stake.
I don't know your industry, but were your employees free to take jobs with any of your competitors instead working for you? Now that they work for you, are they bound to you for another 6 years, or are they free to leave and work for a competitor? If you are no longer happy with one of them, can you, with no notice whatsoever, trade one of your employees to a competitor?
Good points. One of my first thoughts on the lockout was that now is the time that MLB needs a competitor league. In my lifetime, the NHL had the WHA, the NBA had the ABA and the NFL had the USFL. The competing leagues were good for the fans and players. Salaries went up as leagues competed for players and the new leagues brought much needed innovation. Baseball has never really had a competing league that I’m aware of, unless you go back to the Federal league or the beginnings of the American League. A competing baseball league may or may not survive but if some billionaires didn’t mind losing some money, they could change the baseball landscape.
But that $2M increase in the luxury tax threshold is less than 1% growth. Do you seriously think the owners revenue or equity is only growing by 1%? And the bonus pool of $15M is about 2 WAR on the open market. Juan Soto had a 5 WAR in 2019 and made $578,000. That $20M was a pittance compared to the worth of just one player, and there were dozens of other deserving players who deserved more than the major league minimum.
The owners are making out like bandits in this business. The only reason people aren't commenting on their likely increase in revenue and definite increase in team equity is they will never share that information. The gulf is large because the owners' offer is far from equitable.
You are correct that either side might push the button, but I think the players have a far better reason than the other. Unfortunately, the game and its fans will suffer regardless.
Agree Ed. The Owners bonus pool offer is laughable in the face of how much value over salary the top tier guys years 2-4 produce.
And a 1% raise in salary cap??? Again. Insulting.
The scary thing is the owners have managed to pull the rope squarely to almost 60-40, the only thing the players can point to with hope for the next generation is that a FEW owners are willing to commit to guaranteed mega-contracts to boost the AAV for all but the median does not reflect this. The best the players are going to do is not get yanked some more.
And the players disregard for their Minor League brethren gives away their endgame is they all think they can be Max Scherzer when they grow up - die on that hill and sorry about the unlucky bastards we crawled over to get here.
THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! for putting the blame squarely on the owners' shoulders. Once he became Iron Man, how much $ did Robert Downey Jr make per Marvel pic? No one ever complains about that or says he's being paid too much. I don't care how much the players make. Watching baseball brings me countless hours of joy (though as a Mets fan, equal amounts of agita and heartbreak). Owners, in whatever industry they are from, made their money off of all of us well before they bought a baseball team. The ultra-wealthy ALWAYS make their $ off of the poor, working, and middle class. In very few instances is labor EVER to blame in these situations.
Does it make you feel better to place blame on the owners for some reason?
Well, they are the reason spring training won't start on time. Seems fair to blame the side that instituted the work stoppage (and could end it literally today).
An odd question to ask. But in 4 days, I should be watching the first ST game of the year and the fact I'm not is the owners' fault.
Can't speak for Tom, but it makes me feel better because that's where the blame belongs. Pretty obvious really.
Bill James wrote something in one of the Abstracts (in other words, a while ago) that the baseball union is stronger than football/basketball/hockey because of the larger minor leagues. In the NFL, the difference between "good enough to play" and "enjoy your day job" is in many cases sheer luck. Replacement players are often just as good as the 'real' ones if they get a chance. But in baseball, there are three or four levels of the minors separating MLB from "out of the game". As long as the minor leaguers can't be used as replacement players (and the union sticks together), MLB players have relatively more power. But... the minors are continually becoming more under control of the MLB owners, so that clock may be ticking.
I like Joe's line about the owners "and whether or not they even like baseball is mostly unimportant to us" . The owners probably have a secretary (that's what they call them) that has to remind them baseball is in lockout stage and they might have to answer an email concerning the subject.