MLBPA proposal thoughts?

[Craig Arko]

This thread deserves a monument.

[TheLeviathan]

10 minutes ago, Craig Arko said:

This thread deserves a monument.

Forgot to check the underside of your boat der Craig, dontcha know?

[NYCTK]

26 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

The person who refuses to read and respond to arguments in good faith is going to whine now?  Good lord.  Page 3 had two rational explanations made for why a revenue sharing agreement will likely need those parameters to move forward.  They have since been elaborated on repeatedly.

On ignore you go.  Good day.

Let's try to find these two rational explanations...was it these? 

Quote

to prevent some guy from having an advantage he could have had by keeping all his own revenues but he no longer has because he shared.

I don't see why that would be required for teams to accept greater revenue sharing. 

Quote

Cap/floor arrangements are the guardrails and sanity checks that allow an agreement on shared revenue to proceed.  It's like everyone agreeing to split the bill at a restaurant but not before the ensure that no one is just getting water or buying their way through the most expensive items on the list.

This isn't a sound reason. If you're saying the Twins would balk at receiving another $200 million dollars because the Mets might spend an additional $100 million dollars, I call bullsh*t. It's not inherently necessary for good meaningful sharing of revenue, which you claim is your primary concern. Whereas, the floor obviously IS inherently necessary for the larger teams to share those resources. Why share, if they aren't going to spend it. 

We actually KNOW a hard cap isn't necessary for meaningful revenue sharing because it currently is sitting at near 50% revenue sharing, and no hard cap exists. Why does increasing that 50% to 90% (or whatever figure) suddenly necessitate a hard cap? 

As for your restaurant analogy, it doesn't really work for me. Revenue sharing concerns how money is distributed. A salary cap limits what teams may spend afterward. Whereas, the restaurant is all about expenditures. 

A floor is intuitive. A cap is not. And you just repeatedly insisting it is does not make it so. 

The guy calling me bad faith and unserious said simultaneously that the owner's proposal was "stupid and bad for the game" while also that they "are the ones closest to what is best for the game". Sure. Whatever you say. 

 

[lecroy24fan]

We've had some discussions here about roster limitations, and the MLBPA has proposed a bunch of ideas and I think they all make sense. This is from their official release:

MLBPA Makes Transaction Proposals to Benefit All Players and Build Upon Industry Momentum

 

NEW YORK, July 1 -- The Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) today made a series of proposals under the umbrella of transactions, rosters and access to data as part of the ongoing collective bargaining negotiations with Major League Baseball. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires in December.

Today’s proposals are designed to improve the game, protect players’ health and safety, strengthen the free market and provide meaningful support to our full fraternity. Among the key components proposed by the MLBPA:

 

·       Expanding MLB active rosters from 26 to 28 (14 pitcher maximum) for the first 15 days of the championship season-designed to protect players health and safety in the lead up to and just after Opening Day, and provide additional Major League job opportunities for players coming out of Spring Training

 

·       Allow for placement of players on the 60-day IL as early as the November Tender Deadline- designed to open additional 40-man roster spots for Clubs to utilize in their offseason particularly to replace players with known and lengthier injury recovery timelines 

 

·       Reduce the number of permissible in-season optional assignment per player from five to three-designed to combat roster churn and promote full-time jobs at the MLB level throughout the year

 

·       Accelerate eligibility for the Rule 5 Draft and ensure a Rule 5 Draft will be held in 2026 and each year of the next CBA

 

·       Provide MLB service time and salary protections for all players in September, and for pitchers who are optioned to the Minors over the All-Star break and/or immediately after a game where they met certain performance thresholds-designed to reduce roster manipulation and protect players (often middle relievers and spot sstarters) who are optioned but expected to 'stay hot'

 

·       Enable all players to access Club-collected non-proprietary performance data and video-designed to increase transparency and allow players to track their work with the same information management is using

###

Contact: Silvia Alvarez, MLBPA, 646-285-1819

[ashbury]

If the players' proposal to accelerate Rule-5 eligibility is enacted, teams are going to be faced with making career decisions about players who are 21.  As a prospect hound of a fan, my interest will be diminished.

[TheLeviathan]

2 hours ago, ashbury said:

If the players' proposal to accelerate Rule-5 eligibility is enacted, teams are going to be faced with making career decisions about players who are 21.  As a prospect hound of a fan, my interest will be diminished.

I also dislike that.  I'd rather accelerate free agency once majpr league service time starts.

I also wonder if the drop from 5 to 3 options will cause releases which is counter productive to their goal.  

[chpettit19]

11 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

I also dislike that.  I'd rather accelerate free agency once majpr league service time starts.

I also wonder if the drop from 5 to 3 options will cause releases which is counter productive to their goal.  

It absolutely would.

Teams are always going to find a way to be as efficient with their rosters as possible. The up and down guys aren't suddenly going to be kept in the majors because they've used their 3 options that year. They'll just get DFA'd. 

I think the players should push for the minimum salary to be applied to anyone on a 40-man roster and require teams to have a full 40-man roster at all times. Then the ups and downs don't matter to salaries, which, let's be honest, is what the players care about there. And you'd have at least 1200 guys making the minimum at all time. Team wants to DFA a guy because he's been optioned 5 times? Well, they have to replace him with somebody anyways. The Twins have been notorious for at least the last couple years for sending a guy down the day before an off day and thus saving a few thousand bucks by not having a full 26-man roster. Strategy doesn't work if you're paying your whole 40-man anyways.

[TheLeviathan]

2 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

It absolutely would.

Teams are always going to find a way to be as efficient with their rosters as possible. The up and down guys aren't suddenly going to be kept in the majors because they've used their 3 options that year. They'll just get DFA'd. 

I think the players should push for the minimum salary to be applied to anyone on a 40-man roster and require teams to have a full 40-man roster at all times. Then the ups and downs don't matter to salaries, which, let's be honest, is what the players care about there. And you'd have at least 1200 guys making the minimum at all time. Team wants to DFA a guy because he's been optioned 5 times? Well, they have to replace him with somebody anyways. The Twins have been notorious for at least the last couple years for sending a guy down the day before an off day and thus saving a few thousand bucks by not having a full 26-man roster. Strategy doesn't work if you're paying your whole 40-man anyways.

I like that last idea a lot, I think it's a much cleaner way to eliminate the shenanigans these measures are fighting against.

The more I consider these the more I see them as a significant negative to the Quad A, short-term big leaguers with very little upside gained from it. 

[chpettit19]

1 minute ago, TheLeviathan said:

I like that last idea a lot, I think it's a much cleaner way to eliminate the shenanigans these measures are fighting against.

The more I consider these the more I see them as a significant negative to the Quad A, short-term big leaguers with very little upside gained from it. 

The more you limit team's ability to move guys up and down, the more you're forcing those players to succeed quickly before they're just tossed aside and discarded. The vast majority will/would never succeed even without more opportunity, but some would. And you're significantly hurting their chances by making them succeed in their first 3 brief stints.

[TheLeviathan]

1 minute ago, chpettit19 said:

The more you limit team's ability to move guys up and down, the more you're forcing those players to succeed quickly before they're just tossed aside and discarded. The vast majority will/would never succeed even without more opportunity, but some would. And you're significantly hurting their chances by making them succeed in their first 3 brief stints.

Right, coupled with the Rule 5 change you're going to have a lot of potential careers knee-capped long before they get a real chance.

At least right now, without these changes, players are afforded more time and opportunity to snatch that chance to be a big leaguer.  

[The Great Hambino]

I've been of the mind that the players should be finding ways to fight against service time manipulation since it effectively allows teams to exploit loopholes to extend free agency out as long as possible.  But I think I've come to the conclusion that teams will always use whatever levers they can pull to manipulate it no matter how it gets calculated.

So, instead of fighting against service time manipulation, players should be fighting to get service time removed from the equation altogether.  Peg free agency to some fixed time that can't be manipulated, such as age or years since signing their first professional contract.  There's a lot of different forms this could take, with Rule 5 eligibility as a current example - different timelines depending on your age when you were acquired, but there's nothing teams can do to change their eligibility date once they've signed that first contract.  Now there's no longer any incentive for teams to manipulate service time.  

Anything that incentivizes teams from putting anything other than the best 26 healthy players in the organization on the active roster should be removed.  You're not holding your top prospect down at the beginning of the season unless he really needs the seasoning if there's nothing to be gained from doing it.

[TheLeviathan]

1 minute ago, The Great Hambino said:

I've been of the mind that the players should be finding ways to fight against service time manipulation since it effectively allows teams to exploit loopholes to extend free agency out as long as possible.  But I think I've come to the conclusion that teams will always use whatever levers they can pull to manipulate it no matter how it gets calculated.

So, instead of fighting against service time manipulation, players should be fighting to get service time removed from the equation altogether.  Peg free agency to some fixed time that can't be manipulated, such as age or years since signing their first professional contract.  There's a lot of different forms this could take, with Rule 5 eligibility as a current example - different timelines depending on your age when you were acquired, but there's nothing teams can do to change their eligibility date once they've signed that first contract.  Now there's no longer any incentive for teams to manipulate service time.  

Anything that incentivizes teams from putting anything other than the best 26 healthy players in the organization on the active roster should be removed.  You're not holding your top prospect down at the beginning of the season unless he really needs the seasoning if there's nothing to be gained from doing it.

This is basically how the NHL system operates.  Baseball would probably have to have longer term lengths than the NHL does since their players tend to elevate faster, but every drafted player could just be given a 4-7 year contract and at that point the team needs to renegotiate. 

Hockey does three, I think personally 5 sounds about right for baseball.

[Mike Sixel]

I'd say anyone over 29 without a deal should be a free agent..... Anyone with five years in the majors, not sure how to count that exactly, is also a FA. 

Everyone on the forty man in the minors should get half the new, much, larger, minimum. 

 

[tony&rodney]

Long for a time when negotiations were mostly secret with a few expected leaks. Now we have ads trying to sell the public on a position. Clever appeals to "What you want" in the commercials is slick and I'm wondering how that helps create a dialogue with the MLBPA. Are people all so easily swayed by commercials?

[TheLeviathan]

19 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

Long for a time when negotiations were mostly secret with a few expected leaks. Now we have ads trying to sell the public on a position. Clever appeals to "What you want" in the commercials is slick and I'm wondering how that helps create a dialogue with the MLBPA. Are people all so easily swayed by commercials?

Probably.  It's definitely a dirty tactic by the owners.  Public sentiment will eventually play a role in pressuring the sides and the owners are playing the long game on that.

[tony&rodney]

1 hour ago, TheLeviathan said:

Probably.  It's definitely a dirty tactic by the owners.  Public sentiment will eventually play a role in pressuring the sides and the owners are playing the long game on that.

Doesn't it seem preposterously short-sighted though? The players are going to be locked out, they are not going on strike. An exemption from anti-trust laws could disappear but that is a moot point in the 21st century.

In my viewpoint, the owners are playing with fire. It was their own very specific actions which created the financial disparities between clubs. It has nothing to do with the players. Demanding that the PA bail them out because the owners and commissioners are largely incompetent is a big ask. One should note that there are zero discussions of full transparency on revenue income. The owner view this as their right as private businesses. That's fine and I can agree with that point but then there isn't a path to turn around and cry bloody hell.

Until I see something different I expect two weeks of games to be lost and the new CBA will be quite similar to the existing one. Both sides will keep their rhetoric low key and claim their only interest was the fans. The bottom line is that the public can only boycott games and that only happens if a half or full season is lost. That will cause financial problems for owners. Many of the players have come from common status and are not likely to back down.

[TheLeviathan]

1 minute ago, tony&rodney said:

Doesn't it seem preposterously short-sighted though? The players are going to be locked out, they are not going on strike. An exemption from anti-trust laws could disappear but that is a moot point in the 21st century.

In my viewpoint, the owners are playing with fire. It was their own very specific actions which created the financial disparities between clubs. It has nothing to do with the players. Demanding that the PA bail them out because the owners and commissioners are largely incompetent is a big ask. One should note that there are zero discussions of full transparency on revenue income. The owner view this as their right as private businesses. That's fine and I can agree with that point but then there isn't a path to turn around and cry bloody hell.

Until I see something different I expect two weeks of games to be lost and the new CBA will be quite similar to the existing one. Both sides will keep their rhetoric low key and claim their only interest was the fans. The bottom line is that the public can only boycott games and that only happens if a half or full season is lost. That will cause financial problems for owners. Many of the players have come from common status and are not likely to back down.

It is their actions but as long as money is shared between owners and players (which it always will be) then any time that money changes how it is being shared or used....it becomes part of the CBA and the negotiations therein.  Players would be silly not to want to be involved in those talks or how the money ultimately gets to them.  

I do think finances should be transparent as part of any anti-trust protections they get.  If the public is going to protect their monopoly, then the public should know what they are protecting.

[Parfigliano]

5 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

It is their actions but as long as money is shared between owners and players (which it always will be) then any time that money changes how it is being shared or used....it becomes part of the CBA and the negotiations therein.  Players would be silly not to want to be involved in those talks or how the money ultimately gets to them.  

I do think finances should be transparent as part of any anti-trust protections they get.  If the public is going to protect their monopoly, then the public should know what they are protecting.

Publicly open financials should be the demand by any government entity being asked to provide public financing for stadiums and improvements prior to any vote on granting public funding.

[tony&rodney]

7 hours ago, Parfigliano said:

Publicly open financials should be the demand by any government entity being asked to provide public financing for stadiums and improvements prior to any vote on granting public funding.

While I completely agree, this hasn't been the practice with sports or any other businesses. 

[Mike Sixel]

12 hours ago, Parfigliano said:

Publicly open financials should be the demand by any government entity being asked to provide public financing for stadiums and improvements prior to any vote on granting public funding.

1000000000000% true. 

[NYCTK]

19 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

Probably.  It's definitely a dirty tactic by the owners.  Public sentiment will eventually play a role in pressuring the sides and the owners are playing the long game on that.

Which is why it's important fans remind other fans that it's exclusively the owners using the unseemly PR tactics and entirely the owners fault by locking out the players.