Richie the Rally Goat

We’re supporting our community and part of our community is businesses and business owners, and I sympathize for them as well. It is unfortunate that the very justified anger has manifested into destruction. I hope our leaders can help mend the brokenness leading to the destruction and return peace

Many in the Twins Daily Community are feeling pain, grief, anger, and a sense of injustice as a natural response to the death of George Floyd earlier this week. While we are baseball-centric subject, this is an opportunity to support our community, especially the members of our community who are African American. Join me in supporting our community and empathizing with our grieving members, support respectful and inclusive opinions, and raise up our community of diverse people and thinkers.

The players did make concessions during a pandemic, that’s the point.... Management is keenly aware of their client’s perspective. Who their clients actually are, is presumptive. There is a host of entities involved in funding a ball club including: secondary ticket sales, TV broadcasters/networks, MLBAM, Disney, and Private Equity investors, and yes fans who ultimately foot the bill but don’t have a direct voice to management. The point is, this CBA fight isn’t in our best interest as fans. It’s in the best interest of players, and owners, who have a multitude of stakeholders. It’s not about virtue, or fans. It never was, not from either side. It’s about money, and one side trying to leverage more out of the other.

the owners take us for granted continuously, including now. Why the players are villainous and owners are virtuous in yours and Chief’s points is puzzling to me. There was an agreement to play, the owners chose themselves over the fans, that’s no more virtuous than the players saying no deal on the retry.

Your words chosen were “didn’t exist”, not “disbanded”

yes

Why yes I am!

wow that’s terrible!

in the span of 9 weeks, 100,000 Americans have died as a result of Covid, even while most of that time, the majority of Americans have quarantined. It’s serious

I think major leaguers are paid fairly. MLBPA represents (poorly) Minor League Players too. I don’t think the 7,000 minor leaguers not on a 40 man roster are fairly paid. We point at the 750 players that average 4.5 million and claim they make too much money. They all started out making peanuts too (some, but minority with large bonuses). Players should protect their price, and hold firm to the owners opening their books, with all of the revenue related to the team including side ventures that benefit from the team. It’s clear what skin in the game the players have because management publishes player contracts. It’s not clear what ownership revenue is, because they don’t publish their own books. A fair negotiation has open books.

far from flooded. It’s always great to read your content and listen to your play by play. Keep up the great work

I would suggest watching It’s a Wonderful Life, great film

I should, but don’t know how to do multiple quotes. I read your post: “The next highest paid league in the world is the KBO. There average salary is one-eight of MLB players. Is it your contention that salaries would be cut from an average of 4.4M to $550K or do you believe these players would get a regular job.“ I believed it to mean that KBO players make $500k and it sounded right to me directionally. I didn’t look it up. My point previously was in regards to Chief who was playing “It’s a Wonderful Life” by wishing there was no MLBPA. If the players never unionized a reasonable assumption would be that salaries wouldn’t have risen faster than average US wages. When MLBPA was at its infancy, Player Salaries were pegged at 2.4x average US household income. The assumption is it would have stayed that way at 2.4x the 89k US income. Holding this assumption constant, I wonder if another league would have filled the void. If not the MLB dominant, why not KBO or Nippon?

the players unionized in 1966. Were it not for unionization, free agency and the collective bargaining agreement as we know it, today, would not exist. No union, no collective bargaining. No collective bargaining, no free agency. In 1967 (earliest I could find) average MLB salary was 2.4x average US household Income. In 2019 89k x 2.4 = $213k average Mlb salary in 2019. Players would absolutely go to the KBO for double the salary.

without the MLBPA the best players in the world wouldn’t play in the MLB. We see every day with independent and minor league baseball that without the MLBPA the salaries wouldn’t cut it to attract the best players. Without the players associate, Joe Mauer would have played for the LG Twins.

this buyer/seller market, not an extended value stream. Agreed, the Blake Snell rant was not a good look, but the negotiation is between the MLB and MLBPA. Any bets on listed ticket prices for whenever the games are played with spectators? Price going down? Not likely Everyone protects their price, including me. I’m not accepting a wage cut either (not that they’ve asked).

Honest pay for honest work, be it owner, player, or beer vendor is fine by me. I have no problem with the negotiation. I just think that the players have a contract and a contract is a contract. I struggle with the macro economic theory being thrown around, when we’re really talking about a market. The scale is off, especially when mixing in market definition of loss... My points of opportunity cost is just my way of putting the players perspective out there, and it seems like none of us want to tread on the little guy, but I digress, we’ve had a bit of a misdirected analogy. If I think of my own manufacturing organization, it is currently trying to reduce overhead cost, improve cash flow and reduce cost of goods sold. Parts of the business cater to industrial firms that are reeling, parts of the business cater to pharma and business is booming. Much like the MLB, Pharma (the Yankees) doesn’t cover all of the gap of industrial (the marlins) so, shrink and grow, yay! Overhead in our scenario would be the same in my factory, management furloughs. Twins have said they are paying the FO through June, so overhead isn’t a concern here. With the “factory” a publicly funded stadium still not a big cost when the lights are turned off. As you are keenly aware in a factory, improving cash flow and reducing COGS at the same time is a difficult proposition as lot sizes and RM costs are the main drivers. Cancelling purchase orders can improve cash flow, but resulting inventory shortages makes it difficult to deliver on time to collect on invoices and makes for smaller lots, driving up COGs. Players are the inventory. Vendors (MLBPA) don’t like to deliver when you cancel POs and the PO does include price and quantity (contract value and years). Vendors frequently cut off their nose to spite their face, if only to maintain price over time.

seems to fit pretty well from my perspective:)

the players did take an opportunity cost “loss”. They earned less than minimum wage for 6 years as minor leaguers, many leave MiLB in debt because the wages don’t cover the cost of training and travel in the offseason, let alone cost of living. If they had gotten a job at Home Depot, it would have been banked income over those 6 years, and they would have been able to negotiate higher wages with other employers over that time as well. What percentage of minor leaguers make it to the bigs? Maybe 5-10%. It’s a real cost/benefit calculation.

agreed that the phrase is a sound bite. Make no mistake, the CBA negotiation has begun. However the concept of risk/reward is legitimate here. Ownership has previously earned a profit based on accepting risk as an investment, now finding the risk greater than ownership is willing to accept has tried to spread that risk among the players. The players already had made their own risk/reward decision by accepting a minor league salary at the reward for a major league one. Being this is new risk (business failure)for the players shouldn’t they ask for a cut of the profit? In a free market I forgo job security but get to negotiate with competitive employers to increase my earnings. In this case, players have only one league. Negotiation of free agent contracts is basically just back pay, and the teams are one league competing inside of itself.

this isn’t a free market http://twinsdaily.com/topic/36938-zulgad-is-mlb-really-making-return-about-dollars-and-cents/?p=965912

The owners and the players are leveraging this "one off year" against each other for their looming CBA negotiation next year. see also: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/37148-mlb-proposal-seeks-bigger-cuts-from-premier-players/?do=findComment&comment=966218 What does 2021 look like? Will it be business as usual, or will there be some softness in ballpark consumer demand? Personally, I'm not comfortable going to a ballpark now, and I'm skeptical that something is going to change drastic enough to change that for me next year, but judging by how busy the bars are here in Wisconsin, that is clearly not the same for everyone. On the other hand, I'm willing to spend on streaming, but MLB doesn't want my money as I live in Twins Territory, they want me to get cable which I refuse. Maybe the revenue streams are changing for the teams and the market needs to be recalculated? This may not be a one-off year entirely.

The concept of risk/reward has come up a few times, and the looming CBA means maybe revenue sharing with the players is on the table for 21. If the players assume more risk, they’re going to want commensurate reward to go with it. Otherwise contracts won’t be “guaranteed”.

looks like 40% at the lower tiers, 250k maybe

Good recon soldier!