Major League Ready

You are making an assumption that the decrease in spending means more to the bottom line. You no doubt are aware that teams have added up to 100 new employees for analytics, specialized coaches, and other SMEs. The Cardinals for example have added 100 employees. Take their salaries, benefits, travel, office expense, computer & software, and other administrative expense multiplied by 100 and you have roughly 4% of revenue. Do you think $12M will produce more by investing $12M into a free agent for 1.5 wins or will that investment be more impactful invested in these 100 people and specialized equipment. Do you want your team to be the one that does not make these investments? Another couple percentage points in other changes in how teams could also be present. Some of it could even be random. We had extremely high spending before the lockout. You know baseball but when baseball people think they are business analysts or understand economic analysis we get this type of exceptionally poor conclusions, especially when considerable bias is at hand.

And the relative merit of the offer should not matter to us in terms of our opinion of that happening. It's one thing if it was a terrible offer. It's entirely another if that offer should have had teams back on the field. If he was responsible, we should applaud him if the offer and condemn him if it was a good offer. None of you want to admit it was a good offer so you avoid the subject

And he could have 45 eligible this year and none the next. That is an absurd assumption. I really doubt he signs 45 clients one year and none the next. The reasonable assumption especially for an exercise like this is that he signs the same number of new clients each year. Therefore, 10 graduate to free agency and 10 new players come into to the league. Again, we are talking about major league compensation. How much major league compensation is paid to Milb players. I never had to pay employees I had not yet hired.

How does this change the fact that teams able to spend above the current CBT threshold would benefit from the threshold increasing? They could increase their competitive advantage without penalty. It also does not address that teams financially unable to surpass that level could not possibly be influenced by trying to save money? The teams that are able to go higher don't have to because the threshold was raised. You are spouting a theory that fits the narrative you like but theory defies logic.

Still not a single person willing to offer an opinion on the proposal that was rejected. Everyone up in arms but nobody willing to discuss the relative merit of the contract that was offered. I don't give a crap if Boras killed the negotiations, or the players did it 100% on their own. What specifically was wrong with the latest offer that should be holding up playing baseball?

We are discussing splitting compensation among MLB players. How much of that bonus pool is going to be paid to Milb players? Zero! I can't believe I have to explain that players that are not yet MLB players don't get paid from a bonus pool for MLB players. Obviously, they will eventually become MLB players. Let's say 300 are prearb just to make the math easy. If Boras has 10% that's 30 prearb players. Next year 10 more Boras players will participate in this pool but guess what, 10 will become free agents and no longer participate in prearb compensation. See how that works. 10 in 10 out, same number of players participating in prearb compensation.

We are talking about how a pool that is distributed among MLB players. Milb are completely irrelevant.

Milb players are irrelevant. They would not partake in the pool The only portion of the population that matters is prearb players and how many prearb players he represents. I assumed the 10% might be generous. I was being conservative, If he represents a smaller portion of the total players it would widen the ratio when compared against the top players who would be most probable to benefit from the bonus.

These are the same people who during the Covid year said they saw no evidence any concessions are their part were warranted. Looking at owners books is certainly not required given we know 40% of revenue is generated by attendance. In all of the years I have negotiated contracts, they may have been the most ignorant position / statement I have ever witnessed. Having said this, I think the sole focus on Boras is probably not accurate, but these players are not rationale. Just like everyone jumped all over the six week delay when the problem was that the players were not budging a bit. It took that long for them to come down a notch from utterly absurd to something sinificantly short of reasonable.

Are you really going to debate that Boras represents a high percentage of the top players and therefore his clients would be far more likely to be the players earning these bonuses? The fact that 64% of the demand was targeted at top performers speaks volumes.

I have seen many examples of one or two people on a committee having major influence on decisions. It is quite common and there seems to be a lot of talk about how aggressive Scherzer has been. I have rarely if ever seen a case where all the committee members had relatively the same influence.

I did not say it would get passed. The FACT is that this was the demand, and that demand did not represent 99% of the players. The fact that the money is split is absolutely meaningless in terms of financial; impact to the owners. If I pay you a $100K salary and a 50K bonus or just pay you $150K it's exactly the same thing.

The CBT argument is wholly illogical. The top teams who actually would spend beyond the threshold would love for it to go up. That would save them money in penalties and increase their competitive advantage. The vast majority of teams would never surpass the threshold so how can it possibly be about money for them?

We need to be careful with assumptions. What we can do is look at how the specific terms were devised. The one that stands out is the demands for prearb players. The original ask was $200K increase in the minimum and $100M bonus pool which went up to $115M. The 115M pool represents a potential additional payout equivalent to $338K per prearb player calculated in terms of full-time equivalents. In other words, 4 players playing 40 games each = 1 FTE. The $338K represents 64% of the total raise. Yet, this would be distributed to 1% of the players. Do you think the players would have voted for these funds to be split 64/36 in favor of 1% or would they have voted to give the increase equally to all players? What would be the difference to Boras? If he represents 10% of the players currently in the league (not Milb) and he makes a 10% commission, that equates to 1% to Boras Corporation. IDK what % he gets so I will solve for a ratio so that it does not matter. Now, if 36% of the money goes to 10% he gets .36%. Then, if 64% goes to the elite players of whom he represents half. He gets 3.2% plus the .36 or almost 4 times what he would have made if all players received the total proposed increase to prearb players. Do you think this is coincidental? Boras is smart but he is also likely part of the problem not the solution.

With all the angst over the failed negotiation nobody seems to have an opinion about the actual proposal. How can anyone be upset without full consideration of the offer? That does not seem rational. What specifically about this offer warranted its rejection?

What exactly was inadequate about the offer they received? It is rather mindless to make this statement without something to support your position. It would be far more valuable to outline the league's proposal. You know, present the facts. What did you find most problematic? The 40% raise to prearb players or the elimination of draft pick compensation. Was it the expanded playoffs that pays players $25K game or the universal DH that creates more high paying jobs or was it the league trying to avoid increasing the gap in parity by keeping the increase in the CBT tax modest? Do you have any interest in a rational discussion about the actual facts?

I have said on multiple occasions this wreaks of Boras. Why ask for $115M for 1% of prearb players. Why not ask for that money for all prearb players? Without the raise to the minimum, the pool as demanded equates to over $300K per player. Instead, two-thirds of the total raise (increased minimum + bonus pool) would go to 1% of the players. Who do you think dreamed this up? How does this represent all of the players? However, instead of focusing on who is believable, let's take the host of this session suggestion. Look at the agreement. Was the offer reasonable. That would be a good indicator if it was true they were on the brink of a deal. We should also ask ... Does it service the best interests of the game? Prearb players would get a raise in the minimum averaging $720K or 26% plus a bonus pool of $30M which raises the average to a touch over $800K which is a total increase of 41%. Draft pick compensation for free agents would be eliminated. Universal DH would add up to 15 high paying jobs that would replace much lower paying bench roles. Most likely this would be more like 10 jobs. International Draft Lottery – Why wouldn’t this be better for the parity and therefor the game? A draft lottery system - How is this not an improvement? Expanded playoffs. Players make approximately $25K. Fans are more engaged. Owners get more playoff revenue. Let’s keep in mind a significant portion of that added revenue will be spent on players. Rule changes to promote more running game and faster pace of play. The CBT threshold goes to $220M in 2022 going up to $230M. MLBPA wants $238M growing to $263M. I understand why they want this increase. However, that’s not the question. Should we support their desire to make the gap in parity wider given the other conditions listed above? Should this have been adequate to play ball?

The royals didn't draft and develop well enough to win. It's that simple. They could have spent another $40M a season and added 5 wins. They still would not have been close to contending the majority of seasons. That 40M incremental spending would have added next to nothing to their revenue. Expecting a company to do things that will result in a significant hit to the bottom line is just not logical. If their customers would have spent an extra $45M as a result of them spending an extra $40M, it would be reasonable to expect they invest but that's not the case. That would take 800,000 additional fans at $50/each and it probably would not draw an extra 100,000 unless the return was well above the expected 5 wins.

I agree the estimate of 100K per employee is probably low given they also probably provide office space for some of them, computers, some travel, etc. Even at 100K or $34M, that's 10% of revenue. This is a common thing in many businesses. Their investment in personnel changes as they find better ways to compete. Of course, when you spend an additional 10% of revenue on new resources, that money has to come from somewhere. Some of it has come from player salaries and that's a major contributor to the problem we are facing now. The players are upset that teams have found an alternative investment that produces more wins/dollar spent. Actually, I am not sure they even recognize this is a major contributor to the decrease in percentage spent on payroll. Maybe the understand but don't accept it's a very normal thing in every business. It has just never happened in this business.

If a team does not spend, you deem them "not trying to win". The fact is that a win generated through free agency costs over $8M. It is monumentally incompetent for the FO of these teams to do anything but focus on developing from within. Now, should they push spending when they are actually in a competitive window. Sure! Isn't that what the Royals did after sucking for 20 years? They had a 2 year window where they were legit contenders. That window started and was propelled by trading away Greinke.

In what sense of the word are professional sports teams not competitors? Having said this, I understand your point, but the top revenue teams don't need the low revenue teams to be good, just present. The theory behind this subject is that revenue sharing would make for a healthier league. That's debatable at least in terms of total revenue generated. Having strong teams in the large markets consistently may very well net the highest total revenue. It no doubt would improve parity but the impact on the health and wealth of the league is debatable.

A lower CBT does not benefit the teams that would be providing the shared revenue. Also, keep in mind the MLBPA is demanding less revenue sharing. They want an increased CBT threshold. You are no doubt right it would improve the sport but neither side is ever going to go for it.

That would be great but what you are asking competitors to give their revenue to other competitors. We could solve the income disparity among players by having all of the players making over $10M/year share with other players. If you are a high revenue team you would forfeit your competitive advantage and significantly diminished the value of the team. I could see this easily costing the Dodgers / Yankees 25-30% of team value. Asking business to help their competitors to their own detriment is quite unrealistic. While I agree that the disparity can't be resolved by players, it can and will be intensified if the owners accept the increase in the CBT threshold demanded by the players. While they can't fix it, they can make it worse, and one could argue they could help fix it if they accepted the increased penalties proposed by the league.

I was agreeing with you.

Last year $2.12B was payed to players making $10M or more. Obviously, a handful of them were arbitration awards but let's say somewhere around $2B was post arbitration contracts, These terms have little to do with how much teams spend. Most businesses reallocate spending on an annual basis. If all 30 teams wanted to spend 3/4 od what they spend now, what would stop them? Their best chance for increased spending is increasing the CBT. Those teams have $250-$300M incremental revenue over the league average. They will spend if the penalties are not severe. That's why the big push when it impacts only a few teams. Of course, two-thirds of the league does not want to be even more disadvantaged. Therefore, we have a stalemate.