Second Deadline Passes, Still No Deal

The next step is to fire Manfred  and hire Ken Rosenthal 

34 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Why would the average pay at DH be significantly higher than the average pay at any other position? They can play rookies at DH just like they do everywhere else.

They would replace bench roles that are generally very low paid players.  Those bench roles would be replaced by a starter in the form of a DH and they would be paid the average of an American League DH.  It would basically prolong careers of players who get paid quite well for their bat.  Candidly, I am basically repeating what the various radio personalities on MLB network have suggested would happen.

Guys like Nelson Cruz would be out of the league considerably sooner without the DH.  This will provide those opportunities for several players.  There are many players who remain very good offensively who become a defensive liability late in their career. This would obviously extend careers of high paid players.  This is pretty obvious.  I think people are going out of their way to discredit the value to players or the league for that matter when we all know this would be good players.

1 minute ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I also don't give either side credit for agreeing to such a no-brainer decision because both sides benefit.

Both sides benefit from shorter games with more balls in play but they haven't seemed to figure that one out.

The MLB owners are the only professional sports ownership group that seem deadset on killing their relationship with their labor pool. Hell, the NFL owners don't guarantee their labor pool their salaries and have a better relationship with their players than MLB and the MLBPA.

From the outside the owners wanting to rule over the players and combined with so many owners wanting to spend as little as possible that is the most greedy thing about these negotianegotiations.

The players have played the last 3ish years under a CBA designed for the past. Maximized for older players, and those coming off strong pre-arb years. But the game changed and GM got smarter and stopped wanting to pay older players for what they did. The CBT argument from the players seems to be aimed at trying to get the middle of the road players more money since they are the ones getting effed by the current CBA. But of course paint the players as greedy.

44 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

 Let's be clear, we don't have baseball because players refuse to play under these terms.  How was the free agent market going before the lockout.  Did the signings suggest veteran players were not able to negotiate great contracts? The average payroll has been around $140M the last few years.  Therefore, the average player capable of making an opening day roster earned $5.38M.  We have players making over $40M season.  Scherzer would earn roughly 1.34M per game if he remained perfectly healthy and he would make $43M next year if he didn’t play at all.  Sota turned down $350M.  Does this sound like conditions under which employees should refuse to work?

here's the thing, though: you can't use that frame for this because this is not a traditional labor-management situation. You're presuming that because the players can easily become millionaires and have free agency at some point that they shouldn't ever really object to the terms of employment. (Ownership would love you) We're talking about what is the way to divide up billions of dollars in revenue, and presuming that the billionaire owners who don't actually create the on-field product should be able to dictate terms because the players get to be rich (but not as rich) isn't ok either. This is also why there are no heroes in this fight: it's millionaires vs billionaires. You have millionaire players who say and do stupid things in public that get paid massive amounts of money for what is at heart, a game. But you also have billionaire owners who have gone from being spectacularly wealthy to unfathomably wealthy by having a name & being part of an exclusive club, and act like they deserve all of it.

It may be hard to side with the players at times because of how wealthy they get to be doing something we think is awesome, but it's almost impossible to side with the owners who would use you as a carpet to wipe your feet with if they could get away with it, and don't really give a crap about the game we love unless it makes them insanely rich.

As a labor lawyer, it always seemed that this was the likely result at any initial deadline for negotiations (be it a lockout at season start or strike on the brink of the playoffs).  Failure to reach an agreement was likely a baked-in consequence of the starting negotiating positions combined with a relationship that is less than "okay" (to be charitable).  

Although I understand the frustrations, welcome to labor negotiations--they aren't pretty.  We'll get there at some point in the next several weeks to months, but this is how it is designed to work.  In baseball, given the resources on both sides, it's about imposing some level of pain on the other in order to get to agreement (again, a product of a fraught relationship).  As a baseball fan, I for one am happy that we have a lockout and are seeing this playout before a season starts.  Without the lockout, we'd almost certainly just push this down the road to the brink of the playoffs--at which point we'd see the players walk off the job.  I leave it up to you as to which of these scenarios, long term, is better for baseball.  We'd all prefer option C, an agreement and opening day.  But that was basically never in the cards.  So we move on to the next best option.      

9 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

here's the thing, though: you can't use that frame for this because this is not a traditional labor-management situation. You're presuming that because the players can easily become millionaires and have free agency at some point that they shouldn't ever really object to the terms of employment. (Ownership would love you) We're talking about what is the way to divide up billions of dollars in revenue, and presuming that the billionaire owners who don't actually create the on-field product should be able to dictate terms because the players get to be rich (but not as rich) isn't ok either. This is also why there are no heroes in this fight: it's millionaires vs billionaires. You have millionaire players who say and do stupid things in public that get paid massive amounts of money for what is at heart, a game. But you also have billionaire owners who have gone from being spectacularly wealthy to unfathomably wealthy by having a name & being part of an exclusive club, and act like they deserve all of it.

It may be hard to side with the players at times because of how wealthy they get to be doing something we think is awesome, but it's almost impossible to side with the owners who would use you as a carpet to wipe your feet with if they could get away with it, and don't really give a crap about the game we love unless it makes them insanely rich.

I understand where you are coming from.  Where we disagree is that I believe the owners interest is much more in alignment with fans.  As I have said, this is not for altruistic reasons.  It's because preserving the sport is in their financial best interest.  This is not a hunch.  I have worked with hundreds of companies and the vast majority are very focused on satisfying their customers.

Players are demanding things that clearly illustrate they don't have parity or the best interest of the game in mind.  It pisses me off they have the audacity to push for a much higher CBT threshold, less revenue sharing, and shorter control while trying to tell us they are worried about competitive integrity.  These things very clearly widen the disparity between top revenue and bottom revenue teams.  The owners tried to improve parity with increased penalties.  Is this good for them financially?  Of course, is it also good for the game?  Of course.  Which position better serves a Minnesota twins fan or the game in general?

I most certainly am not naive.  I spent a decade advising very large companies on similar / parallel issues.  I fully realize their interest is the bottom line.  My experience also leads me to the conclusion that players are focused only on getting a bigger piece of the pie and the owner's interest better align with fans.  

39 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

I understand where you are coming from.  Where we disagree is that I believe the owners interest is much more in alignment with fans.  As I have said, this is not for altruistic reasons.  It's because preserving the sport is in their financial best interest.  This is not a hunch.  I have worked with hundreds of companies and the vast majority are very focused on satisfying their customers.

Players are demanding things that clearly illustrate they don't have parity or the best interest of the game in mind.  It pisses me off they have the audacity to push for a much higher CBT threshold, less revenue sharing, and shorter control while trying to tell us they are worried about competitive integrity.  These things very clearly widen the disparity between top revenue and bottom revenue teams.  The owners tried to improve parity with increased penalties.  Is this good for them financially?  Of course, is it also good for the game?  Of course.  Which position better serves a Minnesota twins fan or the game in general?

I most certainly am not naive.  I spent a decade advising very large companies on similar / parallel issues.  I fully realize their interest is the bottom line.  My experience also leads me to the conclusion that players are focused only on getting a bigger piece of the pie and the owner's interest better align with fans.  

Sure, but owners are equally culpable in ignoring issues of competitive balance and trying to manipulate revenue sharing. They're only more "in line" with fans by the basic fact that most fans don't care how much players get paid or what their working conditions are and neither do the owners. The owner's goals with the increased penalties was less about improving parity than it was in trying to retard salaries. Anything that it did for parity was secondary.

Collectively, ownership cares nothing for fan experience if it costs them any money, but they're very good at pointing the finger at other people to be responsible for paying for it, from the players ("we have to raise ticket and concession prices because of payroll") or taxpayers ("we simply can't compete without a new stadium and if the community doesn't support it, then we'll go somewhere they will"). And they consistently hide their greed and ambition behind the team logo, because it's a shield for them with the fans. We still mostly root for the logo, and the owners control that.

The player's association has had difficulty building a simple straight-forward agenda that both benefits their members and has positive gains for the game, at least in the sense that they are the clear carriers for baseball in the contract morass. The building of a platform, however, is very complex. There should be some attention towards the salaries of milb despite their players not being actually in the union. I would think a floor of some type would be advisable as well, which brings on a salary cap. I'll leave the particulars to the PA, but wanted to, at the very least, acknowledge that it takes two sides to create a dispute.

However. This is a heavy word here.

MLB has been fighting to put the toothpaste back ever since free agency and despite record gains in profit and valuations, neither of which I hold against the owners, there are constant egregious actions by the owners that are really impossible to defend. This did start with the granting of free agency and it was severely exasperated by several rounds of collusion where the owners paid hefty legal settlements, not to mention those times where absolute proof was less ably connected. The blatant push by baseball to encourage steroids and home runs cannot easily just be thrown off onto the players, although they certainly could and should have avoided the temptation. MLB has played games with veterans much more capable  than rookies for small gains in many instances. The nonsense with the baseball itself was ridiculous. Teams cheated to win and the penalties were a farce, the owners and managers still active. Finally, we entered an age with changes which some agree with, Manfredball. I can accept that I will be swept away by the changes that many want to the rules: ghost runners, high school length games, specific circles where fielders stand before each pitch, electronic strike zones and umpires, onsite gambling, etc.

Quibble with any and all of these ideas cascading from the halls of Manfred and MLB owners if you will, but the totality of actions emanating from their castles has left a PA that distrusts nary a word nor action from Manfred or his team and some of the owners' ideas may in fact be good for the game. Baseball is in a bad place and it has fallen to the players to find agreements for the last dozen plus years. They know they have a fair deal in life but they also know the economics of the games and are seeking to call a halt to the demise of their positions. 

How many times do you listen to someone overtly lie and cheat you before the trust you once may have had is weakened? This seems like an underlying doubt with the PA. Yes, the players make fab money. The owners win financially though, no matter what. The players cannot force the teams to sign players. Roster salary will be set according to revenue, etc., etc. and profits will always be protected. This negotiation is a power play, pure and simple. That's sad.

43 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

These men are flat out awful stewards of the game.

MLB teams are fantastic tax shelters and great ways to extort municipal governments for cheap land to develop. That's what the owners care about. The baseball team tied to all of those tax advantages is mostly a nuisance. A significant number of team owners no longer care if their team ever wins anything. They would love to break the union and bring in scabs from the independent leagues at $50,000 a piece. They are convinced none of the fans would be able to tell the difference. The fans they're targeting are the obnoxiously wealthy and compulsive gamblers. They'll make baseball as culturally irrelevant as boxing and horse racing.

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

I'll start by saying I'm a fan of cap/floor based off revenues, but that'll never happen because neither side wants it. And I want to shrink the disparity between high and low revenue teams.

But you're coming at things from the idea that owners are spending what they can and low revenue teams are so far behind because they have to be. I think the MLBPA disagrees with that stance. I think they think lower revenue teams could spend more and choose not to. And I can't totally disagree with that. Especially since we already pretty well know that low revenue teams don't even spend their revenue sharing money back into the payroll. 

The MLBPA seems to be looking to take the bumpers away from the low revenue teams and make them actually compete. Do you disagree that the Twins would make more money if they filled Target Field more? The MLBPA is basically arguing that they should lose revenue sharing and force them to actually do things to improve their product and get fans in the stands. Revenue sharing takes away the competition and allows certain owners to make money off the owners who are truly trying to compete. I don't want them to neuter Cohen, et al and their big spending. Forcing the top teams to quit trying so hard has clearly not lead to the bottom teams trying harder. 

You want to see teams actually try to win? Take away their safety blanket and make them actually have to perform to earn their money. Maybe the compromise is to keep the CBT level for this CBA while lowering revenue sharing. Give the Pirates, Rays, Guardians, and Twins of the world a 5 year runway to adjust how they do things without their safety blankets from the Dodgers, Mets, and Yankees. Then for the next CBA you fight for dramatic increases to the CBT and let the big boys eat.

I addressed this long ago.  Distribute revenue sharing based on spending.  In other words, basically have the reverse of the CBT penalty.  Tax a lack of spending and redistribute the revenue sharing to teams that are spending.  This is the most direct way to deal with this issue. It also decreases the gap which a floor does not.  A floor does not change spending capacity.  This approach does not have any of the pitfalls associated with a floor.

2 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

Sure, but owners are equally culpable in ignoring issues of competitive balance and trying to manipulate revenue sharing. They're only more "in line" with fans by the basic fact that most fans don't care how much players get paid or what their working conditions are and neither do the owners. The owner's goals with the increased penalties was less about improving parity than it was in trying to retard salaries. Anything that it did for parity was secondary.

Collectively, ownership cares nothing for fan experience if it costs them any money, but they're very good at pointing the finger at other people to be responsible for paying for it, from the players ("we have to raise ticket and concession prices because of payroll") or taxpayers ("we simply can't compete without a new stadium and if the community doesn't support it, then we'll go somewhere they will"). And they consistently hide their greed and ambition behind the team logo, because it's a shield for them with the fans. We still mostly root for the logo, and the owners control that.

If owners were purely driven by greed .... What would stop them from increasing net profit by 10% of revenue even if they gave the players everything they asked for in the CBA.  This does not sync with your conclusion.  If owners were all as obsessed with maximizing their share as the players, what would stop them from simply cutting their payroll and padding the bottom line?

24 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

If owners were purely driven by greed .... What would stop them from increasing net profit by 10% of revenue even if they gave the players everything they asked for in the CBA.  This does not sync with your conclusion.  If owners were all as obsessed with maximizing their share as the players, what would stop them from simply cutting their payroll and padding the bottom line?

Isn't that what they've been doing since the last CBA?

3 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

Sure, but owners are equally culpable in ignoring issues of competitive balance and trying to manipulate revenue sharing. They're only more "in line" with fans by the basic fact that most fans don't care how much players get paid or what their working conditions are and neither do the owners. The owner's goals with the increased penalties was less about improving parity than it was in trying to retard salaries. Anything that it did for parity was secondary.

Collectively, ownership cares nothing for fan experience if it costs them any money, but they're very good at pointing the finger at other people to be responsible for paying for it, from the players ("we have to raise ticket and concession prices because of payroll") or taxpayers ("we simply can't compete without a new stadium and if the community doesn't support it, then we'll go somewhere they will"). And they consistently hide their greed and ambition behind the team logo, because it's a shield for them with the fans. We still mostly root for the logo, and the owners control that.

Maybe you are right.  It's just not logical to me.  Only 5-6 teams are ever going to approach the threshold proposed by the MLBPA.  It makes no sense the remaining 24 teams are trying to save money.   They will never be in that position.  Even if you stretch that to an extreme and say there are 7 or 8 teams the logic stands.  Then, you have to ask yourself why those teams wouldn't want the CBT threshold.  It would be a competitive advantage, right?  Wouldn't it make more sense the 22-24 teams that can't spend at that level don't want the gap to widen?

11 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

How do you determine who is spending enough not to be taxed and who isn't? Same way as the CBT? So you put in an arbitrary number and the teams have to stay above it to not be taxed? So you're proposing a soft floor to go with the soft ceiling?

No.  An arbitrary number does not accurately reflect how aggressive a team is spending.  The ideal would be a percentage of revenue.  In other words, there are teams with 50K more revenue than other teams getting revenue sharing.  The same soft floor does not reflect willingness to spend.  Therefore, a percentage of revenue make sense.  

May not be 50/50, but I will blame both parties for not reaching a labor agreement.  Solutions presented don't even really address pay versus performance inequities and the games themselves becoming less interesting to watch.  I won't waste any more time discussing that subject - if they play I will watch if not I'll find something else to do.  

As long as the regular season is delayed/postponed/cancelled we can replace the cancelled games with game by game reviews of either the 1987 or 1991 seasons -  instead of actual game #1 this year we replace with review of Game #1 of 1991 for example.    At least that way we are guaranteed to win the World Series at the end of the season  ?    

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

My concern with that is that it leads to the same problems we have now of the teams saying they're broke and the players calling them liars. The owners are never going to open their books for anything less than a hard cap/floor situation and I don't know if they'd even do it then. Their ability to work in the grey areas of what constitutes baseball revenue and what doesn't is something I don't think they'd give up lightly.

That's a valid concern.  They only need to share it with the league.  Perhaps even that would be problematic, but I would bet they would prefer this to a floor.  IMO a floor is useless in terms of parity.  It literally does nothing to decrease the difference in spending capacity.  The benefit would be really bad teams would have to sign veterans.  So, I ask two questions.  Is that what we would want for our team when rebuilding.  It seems to me many people here were very upset Simmons was getting playing time.  Two, will it really matter if Pittsburgh or whatever team that is losing 100 games spends an extra 35M and loses 96 games.  Will that improve the sport?