Major League Ready

Obviously, the players are not literally saying these things. Their actions/position on the other hand are quite clear. They don't care if there is a pandemic, they are not willing to accept less than normal rate. Again, the expectation is players get paid as if things are normal. Millions of American's could not work and did not get paid. Players did not work and therefore did not get paid for the 1st half of the season just like the rest of Americans who were not able to work because of Covid-19. Obviously, the teams did not take in their normal earnings either. Both parties came out the same where this is concerned. The owner also shelled out $60M on average according to various reports. In other words, the paid out 1 ½ years of earnings out of their savings. (not literally but you get the point. Who would you rather be? The guy who paid out a year and half worth of earnings or the guy who made nothing.

Nick, you disproved one of Chief’s data points. However, you did not even consider the possibility he is still right. At least your post does not illustrate any consideration. Many sources have reported that in-stadium revenue are 40%. Let’s actually consider Chief’s point instead of taking one side or the other without any actual assessment of what a 40% drop in revenue means. If we look at various sources, player salaries (with taxes and benefits) are around 52%. Forbes and Statistica report that net income is around 13%. If these are correct, operating expense is 35% of revenue. If anyone does not want to believe operating expense is 35, that OK, we can still pursue Chief’s position that we don’t need a deep dive to understand full player salaries in the face of a 40% decrease in revenue is not viable. The one data point that is relatively easy to derive is player salaries. We know exactly how much they are paid and it’s not that tough to estimate payroll taxes paid by employers. It’s public record and it is generally reported to be 11.5%. If we assume full pay for players, based on a 40% decrease in revenue Player Salaries = 86.66% of revenue. This does not include MiLB players, coaches, or meals. In other words, Chief already understood the numbers well enough to know this model was not feasible without needing a financial audit. We really don’t need any additional information to understand full compensation is not viable. If you accept reported Operating Expense estimates, calculated at 60% of normal revenue, Operating Expense = 58% of Revenue. Therefore, even if you believe Statistica is getting paid to produce numbers that are of by a factor of 1/3 (which obviously is not the case because they are still in business) Operating Expense would still be 40% of revenue when revenue is 60% of normal. Of course, this little exercise is quite telling in terms of the viability of providing normal compensation with a 40% decline in revenue. If you are still not convinced, look at the proposals. Owners wanted less games. Why would this be the case if they were not losing money? The bottom line estimate based on projected revenue and stated percentages is as follows. Revenue 3,000,000,000 Operating expense $1,820,000 Players 2,240,000 Net loss = 1,060,000 It would appear the league made an offer where teams came close to breaking even in the 2nd half. In other words, the owners have made an offer where they will not recoup any of the losses from the 1st half. They are not asking for a third of what they normally make and asking the players to take a cut that supports them in getting back the massive first half losses. They are saying they will play for no financial gain, even take a loss. The players are saying sorry, we don’t care if there is a pandemic, we want 100% of normal compensation. I am with Chief. They have made an offer to play that is very reasonable. The players on the other hand are saying we don’t care how extreme the circumstance, we want every dime we would have got under normal conditions. The owners have taken care of their employees and MiLB players. Which side is demonstrating they don’t care about the game, the fans or the people who will be unemployed if the season is not resumed? Which side is showing no love for the fans.

Can anyone post a link that confirms the incident was racially motivated. If all this is based on unconfirmed assumption, any suggestion of a superior understanding or superior intellect is rather ironic. Taking such a hard position without full confirmation of fact and validation of assumptions is simply not consistent with advanced critical thinking skills or even an good understanding of problem solving practices. Sorry, it's just another example of people without any credentials thinking the problem is what other people don't understand.

Maybe Max’s parents encouraged him to pursue various forms of critical thinking, scientific method or business decision making. Perhaps he wanted to validate the assumption this was racially motivated before opening his mouth. Was there any evidence in the first couple days that this was racially motivated other than Chauvin was white? Intelligent or even reasonable people validate their assumptions and conclusions before taking a strong position. Reasonable people don't burn down innocent peoples homes no matter what. One could argue Max demonstrated better judgment than Sharpton, Jackson, and others who fanned the flames which resulted in massive violence. I am not hearing any criticism of their inability to rally peaceful demonstration. Perhaps Max was so wise as to understand the situation was already dangerous and he did not want to add fuel to the fire. I sure would not blame him if he decided to wait for reliable information and also wait to see if appropriate charges were levied against Chauvin and the other officers that were present. Running off in this type of emotionally fueled rampage and indictment of everyone that is not willing to universally condemn all police officers is much more harmful than Max Kepler refusing to take a political position. The masses don’t understand the problem nearly as well as they think they do. There are people that possess a long list of credentials on this and related issues. That’s who I want to hear from. I really don’t give a **** what Max Kepler has to say. Maybe that’s another problem we should address. That is people listening to people because they have name recognition instead of listening to people with expertise.

If I were to make a list of people who reacted poorly to this tragedy, Max Kepler’s actions are too far down that list to be given a second thought. My first disappointment is that the MPD did not review the video and make an arrest within a few hours. That just might have defused this, at least a little. I recognize that it takes time for the proper review. However, I just can’t imagine it too long to verify this was a criminal act. The explosiveness of this situation should have been recognized. Every hour that went by without an announcement to arrest / prosecute fueled the rage. In the grand scheme of things, Max Kepler’s unwillingness to take a stand is not even on the radar for me. I find it far more disconcerting that anyone could assess the actions of various people in this tragedy and conclude Max’s failure to take a stand worthy of concern. The actions of thousands of people were nothing short of criminal and barbaric. People were literally burning down the city and some of you want to defend singling out Max Kepler for not taking a stronger position. God help us! I have not spoken to a single person who did not find the actions of office Chauvin reprehensible. Of course, there are still plenty of people who hate based on some form of ethnocentrism. That’s a problem. The thinking that leads to singling out Max Kepler while ignoring thousands of people performing criminal acts is also a problem. I suggest we call out those who advocated violence and those who reacted with violence. Where is the outrage for not dealing with this tragedy in a civil manner? We should be much more concerned with a society that reacts this way than Max Kepler’s unwillingness to take a stance. We should also be concerned that there are those who find moral superiority in attacking Max Kepler while somehow ignoring the thousands of people whose actions were not consistent with a civil society.

You are really making think, Chief, Not that this would ever happen, If the union allowed players to make an individual choice in this case, 95% of the players would be back immediately. Blake Snell would probably be among them. He would say he did not want to let his teammates down but he would be there for the money. I don't think the game would be any different next year much less there be a 10 year adjustment provided free agency were to remain in tact. All of the current contracted players would be back. The union does not impact their situation at all. Players reaching arbitration are unaffected unless that went away after the current CBA expires. It seems to me owners are just fine with that process and it could easily remain in place without a union with some procedural adjustments required by the absence of a union. Are the pre-arbitration players going to quit because there is no union? Not a chance.

In my experience, business owners and those who lead large organizations are always much more concerned about their customers and the long-term health of an organization that the average employee. Billionaire's don't achieve that level of success without an acute awareness of their clients. Their success is a product of servicing said clients needs. The average baseball fan is not fanatical. Many of them understand the rest of the world is making concessions. Most of them understand the teams are going to lose an enormous amount of money. Most of them understand players would happily play for a quarter of what they get paid if that's what revenue dictated. Yet, they are unwilling to make any concessions during a global pandemic. The "I need to get mine" is not going to play well with most people.

I had the exact same sentiment as your 1st sentence when Chief 1st brought up the potential demise of the union. However, my thinking is swinging toward chief's position. The union is standing between us and baseball. I also believe the owners would either change the current bonus structure and redirect that money or pay the MLB players and average of $4M instead of $4.4M and redirect that money to MiLB players. I do agree with you that the fans are not a consideration with players. As best I can tell with the available information, owners are going to lose even more by playing under the terms proposed. So, while they are willing to take an even bigger loss, the players are saying "F" the fans, I want every dime. I doubt that sentiment would be present without the union. The union went so far as to misrepresent the negotiations when the omitted they had agreed to renegotiate if fans were not present.

You have a talent for avoiding anything that disproves your position. Would they or would they not play for 1/2 of what they earn now? I can't wait to see how you avoid the question now.

That's a pretty wild assumption. For starters, Japanese and Korean teams simply can't generate the revenue that MLB can so the MLB has a huge advantage. You would have to assume that without the MLBPA, MLB teams would have paid so poorly that players would have gone to Japan or Korea. This assumption makes absolutely no sense. Team owners are running businesses that are a lot more complicated than baseball. You would have to assume MLB teams would have refused to pay enough to retain players. That requires you assume teams were run with absolute incompetence. Teams would have been massively profitable even at double the rates paid to NPBO or 5X KBO players. Also, baseball did not grow solely based on good players attracting fans. MLB has done a great job in terms of promotion, stadium atmosphere, and developing multiple revenue sources. It also does not matter what might have happened. We are where we are. MLB players are paid 5X on average what NPBO players make. We would not lose any players if MLB compensation was cut in half.

The Amazon examples has no relevance here. MLB is not shutting down for good. They are making a decision as to if they should continue this year. The criteria is should they shut down if it cost them more to play. You speak of understanding finance and then offer no hard numbers. Anyone that has done this type of work in an actual business environment knows this kind of conjecture without fact will get you thrown out of the room and potentially a job. Show us supporting documentation. Also, please explain how this is a paper loss. When operating expenses are greater than revenue, that's not a paper loss. Those expenses have to be covered from a different source. In this case, the owners have to take it from their personal finances, another business, borrow it or sell equity. The who t's on you if you can't pay employees is absurd. This is not the result of bad planning or management. It the result of a pandemic for god sake.

I am not sure where you are coming from here. The average salary for Japanese Players was roughly (900K) KBO players averaged 44.5M WON which converts to $116,716. See link below. If MLB compensation were cut in half, they would still make 2.44X as much as the next highest paid league. So, I ask again, how would we lose players if the MLBPA ceased to exist? Where free agency is concerned. I am not sure if we would have it or not without the MLBPA but what has that got to do with the future. Do you think free agency would go away without the union? That's not going to happen. https://www.statista.com/statistics/675557/average-npb-salary-by-team/

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 don't see how the players that make huge money that drives the average up would get any less. Those are all a product of free agency. So, unless you are suggesting free agency would go away all together, I don't see compensation changing much. Surely not enough to lose talent. We would not lose any players if the average salary was half what it is today. I would love to hear what they would do instead if compensation was half of what is is today. BTW, it was 1/4 of current compensation 25 years ago. It was an eight 30 years ago. How did we ever get players back then. Actually, without the MLBPA, perhaps MiLB players would get a better deal. I can't see why owners would object to dropping the huge signing bonuses. They could redistribute 80% of that money (roughly $220M/year) to MiLB wages and increase MiLB pay by $30k/player. Are you really going to suggest MLB players would not pay for 1/2 of what they get today?

If you look at my statement, I said costs could be estimated within +/-5%. Frankly, I would expect a skilled analyst to come within 3%. The Twins had 269M in revenue for 2019. Based on reported profit that means they had $250M in total cost. MLB payroll was $128.7M + 11.5% taxes and benefits for a total of $143.5M or a total of 57.4 of total cost. They also paid just shy of 12M + Payroll taxes in bonuses for the Amateur and International drafts. Therefore, we know the price cost for $166.8M or 66.67% of a $250M budget. Therefore, we only have to be within 15% on the remaining two-thirds of the budget to be +/- 5% of the total. Of course, we also know the costs of MiLB players. We can easily estimate the costs of all other employees and contracts within +/- 10% which means we would be within 4% overall. There is also the possibility of getting tax records. I am not positive, if the freedom of information act would allow us to request tax records. If this is possible, we could be quite accurate with an estimate for all other employees. This is obviously not like having the exact numbers but +/- 4% is perfectly adequate for most of the conversation here.

This is my last comment on this subject. You keep throwing out a bunch of losely related concepts which have little relevance IMO as to if we have a season or not.. Once again, the choice is play or don't play. You seem to have a basic understanding of business drivers. Based on paying players full scale which increases loses over not playing at all it's likely the owners just cancel the season. What would your employer do? There is no question, they chose the scenario with a better financial outcome that is obviously better. This is not exactly complicated business theory. It's quite a different scenario for players. They have no exposure to loss. There choice is to make less or make nothing. Some of you just can't get off the premise the owners should just accept whatever loss is necessary to pay the players in full. This is a incredibly bias as well as a naive position. The average fan will not side with the players if they are unwilling to play 3 months of baseball for the equivalent to 33 years of wages for the average American, especially given the massive losses the owners are willing to accept under the scenario that pays the average player $1.66M for 3 months work. I actually doubt the majority of players have a Blake Snell attitude. At least I would hope their union would provide them with a report or video detailing the estimated financial income for both sides under the proposed scenario. I just find it difficult to believe most players are going to expect the owners to play this season under a scenario where playing means they lose substantially more than not playing. At that point I would hope they say a million seven on average is better than nothing. I would really by pleased if they thought about the fans that are responsible for their massive income potential.

Hopefully, it was obvious I meant MLB team. Player makes absolutely no sense. The context was loses associated with a team so it should be obvious I meant to say team. I should proof read and often I don't.

I agree completely that MilB players should be paid more or at least paid more consistently instead of unproven players getting multi-million dollar signing bonuses. However, I don't agree that poor pay during their development has any merit here. I went to college and grad school for 7 years and paid for that education. MiLB players are not paid enough but its a lot better than paying for developing the skills necessary at the next level. Once again you are still completely missing the decision scenario present here. The owners decision is to cancel the remainder of the season or play. At full scale they no doubt increase already enormous losses. They can just cancel the season or they can ask the players if they are interested in playing at less than full-scale. The net result is still likely a loss but apparently they are willing to accept the more palatable losses under this scenario. The players option is to accept less than full scale or opt to not play and get nothing. In other words, the net result of the season is the average team losing in excess of $100M regardless of if they play or not. Under the proposed split, assuming $3B in revenue, the average player receives $1.5M. (1.66 / 900 players). Those poor bastards having to work for an entire half season for a wage equivalent of 33 years income for the average American worker. How could they be accept this inequity?

I disagree. Getting paid less and taking a loss are two very different things. When the players have to pay out of their pocket to play that would be sharing in the losses. There is no doubt owners are going to pay well over $100M on average for the privilige of owning a MLB player. Players are not going to pay a dime which is very different from not profiting. Players also have guaranteed contracts. If they were willing to accept the risk associated with giving the owners the right to terminate that contract, I am quite sure teams would be willing to pay considerably more if the risk of non-performance was nullified.

Keep banging that drum but you cant see the forest for the trees. None of this is all that relevant to if we have baseball this year. It's real simple, if the owners losses are magnified by playing, we probably don't have baseball. I say probably because they might decide the best long-term solution is to cave right now and then hold out for terms that recapture those losses over the next several years when they renegotiate the CBA. In other words, we will likely miss another season. We might even have replacement players. So go ahead cheer for the players to cling to they want every dime in their contract but don't be surprised if we don't have baseball this year. To Chief's point ... take a look at an inflation calculator. Then, tell me how MLB players have done in terms of compensation increase. I can't think of another group in this country that has fared anywhere near as well as MLB players over the past 30 years. Compensation has increased by roughly 750%. To say they have not participated in profits requires an exceptionally blind view of the facts. What actually happened is player received steady huge increases in pay as revenue increased. Now that the revenue is not there you and some of the players are saying just pay us anyway, the players deserve to get paid as if revenue is as it has been.

That's fine but you are still missing the point. Socializing the losses is a designed to be a sound bite. The whole privatize the gain and socialize the losses makes no sense and it's misguided propaganda.

That's a Boris quote and he knew that he could get this past fans that would blindly follow a cute quote. A loss suggests a net result of less than zero. Making $5M instead of $10M is not a loss, it's less profit. Socializing losses is not an actual thing in a free market economy, it's a soundbite so Boris attempted to define something that does not actually exist. Players participating in actual losses would suggest the owners pay the players nothing and ask that they take money out of their pockets and contribute to mitigating their losses. Of course, his compensation is directly tied to player compensation so he just might be looking out for his own bottom line.

Let’s break this down based on the fact we know the 1st half of the season is cancelled. Players loss = 0 unless you don’t know the difference between a loss and break-even. Teams are going to lose $63M+ on average. Players break-even (don't get paid) Under the proposal for the 2nd half. Teams would lose another $63M best case scenario. Players would make less than their contract. Teams lose $126M on average. Players have a net gain smaller than normal. Please explain to me how the owners don’t absorb all the risk? BTW … I doubt I ever said owners make big money because they take on risk. My position has been that players have contracts that assure them 100% of their compensation regardless of their performance. That does not happen in the rest of the working world. Perhaps that precedent is why they feel they should receive full comp even if it's not economically feasible.

Right Ted. They have been the most successful business people in the country in spite of your assumed complete ineptitude. If only they had your exceptional financial acumen and business aptitude. So, as someone with business skills superior to that of ignorant MLB owners, tell us how you would resolve the present dillema. That dillema being cancelling the season costs on average $127M per team according to reports. Therefore, cancelling the second half costs roughly $63M. Playing at full wage for players costs $80+ billion. I would love to hear why they are the idiots you portray in your comment.

Exactly? No, we don’t know exactly but someone skilled in Financials Assessment could estimate EBITA within =/- 5%. Virtually all MLB revenue is derived from taxable sources. Therefore, precise revenue can be derived by simply dividing tax payment by the tax rate. Player salaries are known precisely. Employee salaries can be estimated with relative precision based on taxes paid by the team. TV revenues are known with precision and league revenue sharing is also known. There are actually subscription based services that provide revenue and profit data for a variety of industries including MLB. They can’t get paid for poor information. I would also assume the players union has hired analysts to assess the profitability of all MLB teams. It’s just not that hard and I would assume they would use this information. It takes very little financial acumen to ascertain the viability of playing without fans in the stands for any given team. Anyone who has taken anytime at all to educate themselves on our team’s financial sources understands that over half our revenue is derived from fans in the stands. It takes rather extreme disregard for logic to believe the team would not have a substantial loss without fans present. You are using antitrust laws in the context of wages. This makes very little sense. Antitrust laws are designed for the protection of consumers not employees. Are wages typical of a free market? Initial 3 years? Absolutely not. Is arbitration typical of a free market? Not exactly but it seems to work pretty well. You concede the need for controlling where players go initial salaries and free agency is very typical of a free market so what exactly are you complaining about? Player salaries have absolutely sky rocketed. MLB players might be the most fortunate group in the entire world. The increase in pay they have sustained over the past 30 years is incredible. Other industry simply don't continue to increase employee compensation this way. They retire at 35 with enough wealth to live very comfortably for the rest of their lives while never having a real job, at least not in terms of what most of would call work. Yet, some of you blindly take their side at every turn, even when some of them speak out about the need to "get theirs" in the face of a global pandemic.

Exactly? No, we don’t know exactly but someone skilled in Financials Assessment could estimate EBITA within =/- 5%. Virtually all MLB revenue is derived from taxable sources. Therefore, precise revenue can be derived by simply dividing tax payment by the tax rate. Player salaries are known precisely. Employee salaries can be estimated with relative precision based on taxes paid by the team. TV revenues are known with precision and league revenue sharing is also known. There are actually subscription based services that provide revenue and profit data for a variety of industries including MLB. They can’t get paid for poor information. I would also assume the players union has hired analysts to assess the profitability of all MLB teams. It’s just not that hard and I would assume they would use this information. It takes very little financial acumen to ascertain the viability of playing without fans in the stands for any given team. Anyone who has taken anytime at all to educate themselves on our team’s financial sources understands that over half our revenue is derived from fans in the stands. It takes rather extreme disregard for logic to believe the team would not have a substantial loss without fans present.