Players are Unhappy with MLBPA

[stringer bell]

There seems to be a mutiny going on with the MLBPA. While Tony Clark’s job has been directly threatened, his assistant seems to be under pressure. The complaints center on Scott Boras’ relationship with the top execs of the union—that they are too cozy with Boras and that he influences them too much. Several Boras clients remained unsigned late and into spring training and some have agreed to contracts far below projections, taking much luster off Boras' reputation. Perhaps not directly related to Boras, a player (JD Davis) won an arbitration hearing and then was ultimately released, costing the player several million dollars. I'm sure players don't want this to happen to them.

I’m a fan of the Players’ Union. They have managed to win free agency for players and allow the average salary to grow, while leaving a framework that allows the small markets to have a chance to compete. They don’t have the parity of the NFL, but working conditions and salary for baseball players is far better than the other sports. 

I see anything weakening the MLBPA as helping the owners, who don’t need any help. 

[Jocko87]

I'm not sure what exact policies are driving the tough market for post arb players other than some prospect promotion incentives but they are both the part of the market struggling right now and also the most likely group to be active in the bargaining process. It stands to reason they are not excited about what's happening now. It will be interesting to see how much changes when the TV deals settle vs CBA language. It may still just be a play for expansion.

I also wonder about guys like Tony Clark. Absolutely essential to have former players in the process but how equipped is he for billion dollar negotiations? It's not a knock on him, it's just a skill that every owner comes fully loaded with and he would have to learn fast. Professional golf is dealing with much the same thing right now, the rank and file of the PGA tour are a large part of the negotiations and have been ran circles around when a serious group of very tough negotiators came along. Had they had the Aurther Blank et al group in their corner from the beginning they would be in a much different position. Pro golf and baseball are both going to be tough worlds for the run of the mill guy.

[sweetmusicviola16]

MLB has problems. Lets see how they deal with Ohtani and 4.5 million of gambling debt that is being pinned on his interpretter. Any chance Ohtani is treated like Rose was? LOL

[Shaitan]

Leadership turns over and I've also wondered about Tony Clark. I don't view this as a weakening of the union so much as a needed shake-up.

Add the weird economy and a perfect storm of other issues, like the JD Davis and Jordan Montgomery (qualifying offer rules complicate his interest in a short-term deal now) situations all at once.

I may be 100% offbase here, but I don't view this offseason as Boras running the show or mass payroll cuts, so much as its a reflection of the wider economy. Many large organizations are cutting spending, even though general economic data says things are okay. In short, it's a hiring freeze just like my (non union) company has. 

[Parfigliano]

56 minutes ago, sweetmusicviola16 said:

MLB has problems. Lets see how they deal with Ohtani and 4.5 million of gambling debt that is being pinned on his interpretter. Any chance Ohtani is treated like Rose was? LOL

The Ohtani thing is getting interesting.

[Linus]

I think the looming tv problem is going to be chaos for MLB. There are lots of players and agents that seem to think it is business as usual and I think the free agency market is going to to diminish substantially until this stuff gets figured out. 

[Parfigliano]

On 3/20/2024 at 7:39 PM, Jocko87 said:

I'm not sure what exact policies are driving the tough market for post arb players other than some prospect promotion incentives but they are both the part of the market struggling right now and also the most likely group to be active in the bargaining process. It stands to reason they are not excited about what's happening now. It will be interesting to see how much changes when the TV deals settle vs CBA language. It may still just be a play for expansion.

I also wonder about guys like Tony Clark. Absolutely essential to have former players in the process but how equipped is he for billion dollar negotiations? It's not a knock on him, it's just a skill that every owner comes fully loaded with and he would have to learn fast. Professional golf is dealing with much the same thing right now, the rank and file of the PGA tour are a large part of the negotiations and have been ran circles around when a serious group of very tough negotiators came along. Had they had the Aurther Blank et al group in their corner from the beginning they would be in a much different position. Pro golf and baseball are both going to be tough worlds for the run of the mill guy.

Run of the mill guys dont play pro golf or baseball.  

[Jocko87]

38 minutes ago, Parfigliano said:

Run of the mill guys dont play pro golf or baseball.  

Every pro sport has a run of the mill level pro.  In golf they are called mules.  As far as I know there is not yet an equivalent name in baseball.

Quote

Being the 198th-best baseball player might mean you’re batting fifth in your team's starting lineup. In golf, it means you’re a mule. How that should translate to each player's bottom line is up for debate.

https://nolayingup.com/blog/what-it-means-to-be-a-mule

[DJL44]

Does anyone have the full story about Kevin Slowey "bullying" players?

[DJL44]

There are a number of interesting things happening. Admitting minor leaguers to the union changed the goals of the organization. The gap in TV money between rich and poor teams is growing which is bad for everyone. The union needs to spend more effort fighting for an increase in the MLB minimum salary to force the cheapskate teams to spend more. They also need to fight hard for a change to revenue sharing in the next CBA that shares all broadcast revenue equally and ends sharing of local ticket revenue. This will incentivize teams to increase attendance if they want to increase their profit.

[jmlease1]

I think the MLBPA has been the single most effective union in sports for well over 50 years. They make the others in the "Big 4" look small and mediocre at best, pathetic at worst. And I'm always going to side with Labor over Management, especially when the owners are billionaires who have tried every shady trick in the book, even if "labor" in this case is a place where millionaires abound.

But I do think they have some challenges that they haven't really tackled. the old veteran middle class isn't where it used to be, and there's an increasing divide between the stars under big contracts and everybody else. bringing in the minor leaguers was absolutely the right thing to do, but there's a lot of work that still needs to be done there to keep some of those guys from barely surviving and it's going to cost money. They've assumed that having a huge gap between the haves and the have nots wouldn't have any real impacts on contracts, and arguably that's no longer the case. Having no salary cap and no real revenue sharing is great when the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs and Mets would spend like there's no tomorrow and make crazy contracts, but that list has narrowed a lot (notice what the Cubs and Red Sox payrolls are?) and the implosion of RSNs is a real revenue risk to baseball. Contracts have gotten shorter.

Clark has been wobbly as a union president; his job in this role isn't really to negotiate the CBA, it's to build and manage a core negotiations committee that represents all player interests, hire smart labor lawyers/negotiators, keep all the team reps informed, and be the public face of the union. He's had some misses on the first, and slipped on the last with some unwise public comments. And when you miss on those, the middle two start coming into question.

[LA Vikes Fan]

I think this battle is about the richer players vs. the poorer players played out against a background of uncertain and perhaps declining TV revenues which totally upsets the business model for each of the teams. For many years now, the MLBPA and Boras have believed that paying ever increasing salaries to the high end players rebounds to the benefit of the average and lower and players whose salaries get pulled up by the ever hiding higher salaries on top. What's happened now is that virtuous cycle no longer appears to be working. The top is still getting paid very well on longer-term contracts, but only the real top, not the possibly or sometimes top like Snell and Montgomery. Snell is doing well but is not getting the long term guarantees because he has not been a consistently top performer; I think Montgomery has the same problem.

The middle class in MLB is getting squeezed economically. There's really no reason for a team like the Twins or the 8 to 10 with lower revenues to pay a solid major league veteran $10-$15 million a year are a middle-of-the-road pitcher $15-$20 million a year unless you think you are in World Series contention. The CBA incentivizes those teams to spend that money on their farm systems and play younger, cheaper players in the hope you catch lightning in a bottle and have stars while they are still on cheaper contracts. The day of the eight year average veteran being in high demand and getting paid well (by baseball standards, by real person standards they're all paid well) is at least temporarily over. There simply no incentive for an average team to pay Michael Lorenzen $10-15 million a year for two years unless they think he is part of a group that will get them over the top. The middle-class ballplayer is not getting much of the rewards. The rewards are primarily going to the top and that's going to create tension in the union made up primarily of middle-class, lower class, and minor-league ballplayers.

Clark and Boras are identified as favoring the high end players rather than the middle class or minor-league players. I think that's the tension here and it is not going to go away anytime soon.  

[jkcarew]

Free agency is about the most recent good thing to come from this union. Shortly after, the Union was hijacked by the superstars and their agents.

There’s a reason that there’s no bottom on payrolls. The reason is that union leadership has never been willing to entertain a meaningful cap on payroll, feeling that would hurt the 5% at the top. The ‘rank and file’, and the young players entering the league, have been a complete afterthought…their interests frequently sacrificed to ensure that veteran star salaries would be free to grow exponentially and without limit. Meanwhile, the Union totally ignored the minor leaguers…being dominated, as it is, by those that had signed big bonuses (and, again, their agents)…never having experienced the financial struggle. Even when the minor leaguers finally unionized, it was due to a grass roots effort among current and ex minor league players. The owners recognized their union without batting an eye. It could have happened decades earlier if the MLBPA had cared at all.

The problems run way deeper than Tony Clark. (Although I do think they need a much, much stronger leader to turn things around.)

[Hrbowski]

2 hours ago, jkcarew said:

Free agency is about the most recent good thing to come from this union. Shortly after, the Union was hijacked by the superstars and their agents.

There’s a reason that there’s no bottom on payrolls. The reason is that union leadership has never been willing to entertain a meaningful cap on payroll, feeling that would hurt the 5% at the top. The ‘rank and file’, and the young players entering the league, have been a complete afterthought…their interests frequently sacrificed to ensure that veteran star salaries would be free to grow exponentially and without limit. Meanwhile, the Union totally ignored the minor leaguers…being dominated, as it is, by those that had signed big bonuses (and, again, their agents)…never having experienced the financial struggle. Even when the minor leaguers finally unionized, it was due to a grass roots effort among current and ex minor league players. The owners recognized their union without batting an eye. It could have happened decades earlier if the MLBPA had cared at all.

The problems run way deeper than Tony Clark. (Although I do think they need a much, much stronger leader to turn things around.)

I strongly disagree. The minor leaguers were able to get recognition as a union with minimal pain because of the MLBPA, not in spite of it. The MLBPA has done a great job as a union helping players who haven't reached free agency - arbitration, helping to put more pain on teams who manipulate service time, adding bonus pools for pre-arb players, etc. Any effort to add a salary cap will hurt players of all career stages, as it will mean players are paid less in free agency and arbitration - more so than adding a salary floor would help, and the owners won't agree to the latter without the former.

What bothers me the most about this saga is that Harry Marino, a lawyer who does not work for the union (and was let go because he didn't work well with other people in the union) is now trying to take over the organization by intrigue, and is believed to support initiatives that the owners want? Something isn't adding up, and it would be terrible if the union went this direction.