The Lockout Diaries: Week 8

Preach it. If MLB loses regular season games due to the lockout, it will be disasterous to the future popularity of the game. It's such a bad look right now. The delay of spring training seems inevitable.

It is really hard to defend Barry Bonds due to his petulant and surly behavior throughout his career. MLB and the courts went after him hard, spending millions of dollars and losing in every event with a litany of lies, false accusations and such when it was all said and done. Most people would agree that Bonds mastered the use of steroids as well as concealment. That is not definitive guilt. The era was rife with players involved and mass conversations skillfully excuse some for their minimal usage. Fact is, it didn't help most players at all because throwing and hitting a ball is pretty much skill based. Time and time again, people write about Bonds getting bigger, his big head, etc. There are more than a few players who entered baseball at 155-175 pounds and got much bigger. Think of your past Twins. Heck, Miguel Sano was a big man when he signed at 180 pounds and gained 100+ pounds over time. I will never say Bonds was innocent. Barry Bonds is just a scapegoat, nothing more or less. He was better at hitting a baseball than any player to ever play the game and nobody could accept this, especially because he was unable to be controlled by the owners. Spend twenty minutes looking through his numbers. He was ridiculous. Steroids was a clear product of the Bud Selig Era,

MLB has some real problems to sort out. There will not be replacement players. The PA has been losing ground in the past CBAs, but they are not the air traffic controllers union. It is really difficult to see what the owners stand to gain by pushing the envelope so far as to lose their anti-trust exemption. Hopefully, a resolution will occur by mid February. The loss for the Twins will be the instruction and repetition time missed by their young players on the 40 person roster. The veterans need far less time to ramp up. Does anyone else wonder if there are some media contracts that might be endangered by a long play stoppage? The NFL, NBA, and NHL are increasing viewership. How is MLB doing? How might existing favorable contracts be impacted by a long lockout? I'm hoping both sides can give a little and get it new CBA done.

I agree with your assessment on the current state of MLB.  We have players and owners too greedy, arrogant, and selfish to even think about what's best for the game.  I've been watching the demise of what was once a great game.  It's become unwatchable.  Now players and owners are squabbling over billions in revenues. Any elimination of games will only further alienate a shrinking fan base.

Could be a lot more sympathetic to the Players if their demands were more related to increasing the compensation of the vast majority of their members.  I just don't understand how the battle between owners and players always appear to be for the benefit of those few who make mega millions.

Also can't understand why the players are making a stand that the poorer teams receive less revenue sharing.  Isn't more revenue sharing needed so that all teams have some chance of winning?  

One of the things I think gets forgotten in these negotiations is that the owners are likely still remembering back to the end of 2020 where, according to Forbes, they lost $1 Billion due to empty stadiums but full paychecks to players.  They look at the NBA where their players worked with ownership and agreed to a %25 paycut to reflect empty stadiums and to the NHL where the players agreed to a %20 paycut and a %10 deferral.  The owners must remember when they put an 82 season on the table with some paycuts to try and put a dent in those losses and the players rejecting it.  In the proposal the owners put forward a minimum salaried guy like Luis Arraez would have made $256K in 82 games but guys like Donaldson would have taken a good sized cut.  The players preferred a system where Arraez made $208K in 60 games so Donaldson could get his full pay.  

I don't see any good will the players have built with the owners that would incentivize them to negotiate a favorable deal to the players.  They probably think they gave enough in 2020.

Owners did propose a $100 salary floor with a lower tax limit to increase revenue sharing, but it was rejected by the players.