Trov

Just read MLB sent over offer of 60 games full prorated with expanded playoffs. This to me is a big step by owners. The 10 games extra from what was being talked about is a significant jump. The main thing that players may balk at, but then will make them look bad in my opinion, is that the agreement requires waiver of any grievance by players. The players said set the schedule at full prorate after last deal. However, rumors came up that unless the owners gave the numbers close to their offer of 87 games the players would file grievance, in part to force discovery of the revenue that was been of great debate. This offer will not allow that. However, if players say no, then they make it clear they wanted to file a grievance and were not serious of tell us when and where. This may get it done. If players reject it, they cannot claim it is because of not full prorate, they can only claim because they want more games, aka more money for them. Owners claim no matter the games they will lose money it is just how much. I wish there was more games, but if players refuse this they will look terrible in the eyes of the fans. They get full pay for play, just not as many games as they want to be paid for. It 37% of what they would make in a full season, but that was not going to happen. The players will still grumble that this was a tactic to push the start back to where the owners could say time of season will only allow for 60 games now, but the players getting the full prorate pay. Lets hope we see baseball in a month.

98's was one of the first seasons I really started to pay attention to the Twins, or most sports generally. I was young passive fan before it, remembering little things here and there. It was not the HR race that brought me in, just my age. I remember Otis Nixon playing and thinking he looks like he is 80. He was 39, but his face looked like he was 80.

I was too young to really remember the 94 strike. I barely followed baseball and just remember hearing there was a strike. I know it nearly killed baseball at the time. This time could be even worse, for many different reasons. Unlike in 94 when there was no social media and instant player reactions this time around we hear the bickering going on. I have posted many comments that both sides are to blame, and that is because neither side is willing to budge. However, both sides are trying to win the fan support. Owners by leaking offers of all different packages and calling poor us billionaires we are not as rich as you think we are, which for some is actually true, but not going to get into worth and liquid assets on this. The players claim we want more baseball for the fans, the owners want less. Trying to get fan support for the owners to cave. However, what both sides want is the largest piece of the pie. The pie that is built by the fans. You see, the revenue no matter how it is broken up comes from fans, or consumers of products that are advertised on TV, radio, or at games. All that money goes into teams and gets spent on staff and players. The players want their fair share, which is right for them, but the owners say the pie is smaller this year. Players don't care they want more. Owners want more. So what we get is less games so players game same share of pie owners willing to share. Eventually, this will lead to work stop age. The players will cry greedy owners. But the owners will never operate at a loss, and nor should they no business should. So who pays for the increase cost of players salaries? WE DO! As the players and owner fight of the pie, that keeps growing because of our money, we pay more to players can feel like they won the fight with the owners. Both sides will fight over how our money gets divided up. I am not calling for a boycott when baseball does return. I will not be going to games, but will watch on TV. I love baseball, but when the two side fight like this it makes me sick. If they had revenue sharing they could work together to grow the sport to raise revenue, our money, but to raise fan experience. In stead they are working to tear it down. Baseball is not the only game in town and NBA is rising to beat them. It will be interesting if this bickering and more direct competition for whole season will hurt the MLB more than ever.

As the back and forth has gone on between owners and players recently, it made me think of a topic I had thought about a lot the years leading up to the Machodo and Harper free agent years. I thought about how there was going to be a work stoppage because the free agent classes were weak and teams were not willing to pay top dollar for not top talent just because it was best available. Think about it, if you were knew next week the best steak was going to be on the market, would you pay similar price for ground beef this week, simply because the steak was not available yet? No, you would pay the market price for the ground beef, not above market, and wait for the steak. How can the players make more money under a salary cap? Seems not possible. Since free agency started players never wanted a salary cap. They always wanted to be paid top dollar and not have some number block what they could make. They wanted a full open market. However, what players forget with all caps, comes floors. The caps are based on revenue. The players during this recent argument keep talking about the revenue the owners get that are not sharing with the players. The players claim the value of the teams go up, but the value of players contracts are not, as a whole, of course the top players are still setting new records, but the middle players and vets are making less and less. So under current market, the owners can choose to spend as much as they want, just have to be willing to pay the tax. Nothing will stop them from spending all they want. The players agreed to a tax, which is basically a cap, but without the floor. So right now, tanking teams can load up on minor league talent, much of which are not part of their future, or on vets at league minimum because no one will pay more. Then they lose, get better drafts and load up minor league talent for a big push. Similar to Astros years ago. Those teams have not incentive of paying money for vet talent beyond minimum because they can call up a rookie to go out there and lose for less. The owners have no incentive to bring in a competitive team if they cannot win the whole thing, and nothing requires them to sign a vet. This is because they can have a very low payroll and nothing can stop them. So when the teams actually trying to win are looking to sign a free agent, they end up bidding against themselves. I remember when J.D. Martinez was a free agent. The only team looking to sign him was the Red Sox. Of course, if the red sox offered him too low another team may have stepped in. However, when you are only team making an offer, even if the player wants more, who hold the power? The team does of course. Yes, the player can hold out asking for what he thinks he is worth, but the team can say no, and move on. The team needs to decide if the player is worth the cost compared to someone else. When a player has no one to bid against the team they talking to it is hard to get what you asking for. So where does the cap come in? Well with the floor, teams cannot get by with bottom dollar rookies to lose with. They have to spend money on someone. Now, if they still want to manipulate the service clock, they will most likely spend that money on mid level vets that can still play, but many not be top talent on a competing club. The way it used to be. Now the bottom pay teams would have to pay more to field a team. This means more money for players. So what about the top paid players will they lose out on some money? Maybe, depending on how the deal works out. I would think of something similar to the NBA soft cap. You allow teams to go above cap and luxary level like now, mainly if they retain their own players, or players from the last season. This would allow big pay days still and would raise the amount of vets that sign I would think. In the NBA, there was one season where cap jumped a ton. This lead to middle of the road vets to getting huge deals. Why? The teams floor went up and they had to spend money. Now those contracts look terrible as top free agents were getting just barely more, but they have a cap on max contracts. MLB could work out different deal. The main situation is that with the floor it would take away from just running out league minimum rookies for years of tanking. The vets that are retiring, like Span, would get better offers most likely because money has to be spent. Think of this analogy. You want to do a house reno. You think of all the things you would like to have. Get a price for it. Then you think do I need those things or can I live with less to save money. Now, someone comes along and says I will give you 100K to spend on the house reno. You think okay should I spend it all on the upgrades or go with what I can live with and pocket the rest. Some would pocket go bottom dollar and pocket rest to spend on other things not house related. But, what if the stipulation is you must spend on the house reno, then you will spend on the house reno get the things you really like, because the money will be gone either way. That is what the salary floor would be like. Teams would be told spend X amount on players or it goes to the player pool anyways and you do not get to pocket the money to spend on other things. Of course this is a very simple break down of salary cap and floor situation. However, the open market has not seemed to be working for players. They have called for collusion of the teams not offering record deals on good but not great talent. Is that collusion, or just smart buying? To go back to steak vs beef analogy. If you were given 10 bucks to spend on meat this week and had to spend it, you would buy the beef and then spend money next week on steak. If you did not need to spend it but could save it, you would save it. That is what the tanking teams are doing, is saving for later, but still never spending what they saved before. That is why players are mad is they are not seeing the fruits of the savings.

First, I could go extremely deep about how everyone judges people the second you see them, and you will use all information you have to make that judgement, it is built into our brains. Similarly we do same thing when we deal with animals. For example, some who was bit by a dog most likely will be afraid of dogs, or if they saw a dog bite someone. They can get over it but when they see a dog they will remember the fear of the bite. Similar when we see a human we will take all information we have at the time and make a judgment call. We will look at hair, skin color, clothes, if they smile, if they frown, how do they walk, sound of voice. All those things will go into our initial judgment of the situation. The less information we have the hesitant we will be. Where racial bias becomes an issue is when the color of the skin, or religion they follow, fills in holes of information and the person will not look past those things at actual information about that person. For example. In our country there is the misconception that black people are more violent then white people, or that white people are more intelligent, and generally black people are more athletic. So if you get a report says Player is extremely raw and athletic, with concerns he has attitude problems and outbursts. Many not be very coach able. Many people will think black, and person writing it may be talking about a black person. Now for this particular player it may be true all those things, but if that is just being written because of the assumption sole based on skin color there is a huge problem. Now, if the scouting report is backed up by video showing the "raw tools" and the player has been ejected from several games because of outbursts and his coaches had to kick him off teams because the player never listened, then the report is accurate. The question that is important, is how does the team reading the report look at it. Does it have the follow up info or is it solely based on the scouts bias of skin color and just assumes he is that way. Really, you need to talk to the players and get to know them. Very little can be learned by watching some video and talking just others. There is biasness in all areas of the country, I could go on for a very long time on this. So of course it is in scouting in baseball. It was still not that long ago that black players were assumed to be uneducated and not smart enough for certain positions or coaching positions, and I am sure some front offices still think that way.

I have not looked into the expected quality of the players that have signed. More of a deep dive than I am willing to invest in. However, it is interesting to see which teams have signed the number they have. First, it is small investment to bring someone in so very little risk, even for the, liquid cash strapped teams, a little bit of jest there. I would agree with assessments that teams with not as deep of farm systems would be best, or systems known for developing certain type of players. For some, it may be where would they by playing in minors next year, closer to family ect. Many things would go into a decision when each team has same cash offer.

I fully agree, but based on what players response to most recent offer, was just tell us how many games, they clearly would rather do full pro rate at 50 games than anything less than prorate at more games. At this point it came down to showing of strength by the union that they won't back down to the owners requests. They felt like owners have taken advantage for too long recently.

Recent reports owners may finally be budging some on their price. Not sure the exact math of it, but recent reports are they will propose a 70 to 75 game season at around 80 to 85 percent prorate. This moves them off their previous stance of about a third of player pay, just different ways to offer it. Not sure how much more, of course it depends if it is 75 games at 85% or 70 games at 80%. For basic math if a player gets paid 100K per game, at full prorate, then difference between 70 and 75 games is 500K for that player. So if the proposal is 80% on 70 games that would mean that player would make 5.6 mil instead of 7 mil. At 85% it would be 5.95 mil. At 75 games full prorate would be 7.5 mil. 80% would be 6 mil, and at 85% it would be 6.375 mil. So the gap of reported proposal for a player in a full 162 season who is getting paid about 16 mil a year, would be between 5.6 mil and 6.375. A big chunk of money, and even bigger for larger deals. The difference for same player on full prorated on top end of deal is 7.5 mil to 6.375. Just over a million dollars, again a large chunk of money. If the proposal is true and is the 75 games at 85% it is a significant step away from where they were, but still far away from what the players are seeking. I bet the true proposal will be closer to the 70 games at 80%, in hopes the players will counter and take a step off their line, and settle near the 75 at 85%. They could expect the players to fully say no and not budge, but again try to look like they are trying to the fans and the players are the unreasonable ones. While both sides are trying to gain support of the fans, what both sides seem to not realize, no one cares who seems to be trying to get a season started, we just want a season and really do not care who is in the right. This is not one where we will boycott the games because the owners are bad people, if we did it would hurt the players. We will not petition the owners to pay the players more because the players are in the right. This not where we have other options to get our baseball elsewhere. Both sides need to get their heads out of a particular area and get it done.

Sounds very similar to the sliding scale the players had a fit about. The higher paid players take the biggest cuts. So many of us seem to have a willingness to meet in the middle that sounds reasonable. However, neither side has been willing to budge.

Maybe a give away is a tear apart doll. I remember there being tear apart ref dolls in football.

One thought that just popped in head. Is there anything to stop a team from signing an undrafted kid to the 20K Then turn around right away and sign them to a long term MLB contract? Of course I assume they need to be on 40 man so that would be an issue, but just thinking outside the box to get around the 20K issue. I could see some teams for juniors that they are high on do something like this. However, it would have been more likely they would have just drafted them too. Just wondering if there is a loop hole that can be exploited.

Many football players were drafted in baseball over the years. Some even very high picks, like Kyler Murray, or John Elway. Some much later as a flyer chance, or as some favor to the family. However, it is fun to look back at some of these draft picks.

Maybe you should counsel the players. I think if the players came out and countered with exactly that, and the owners balked at it, then the owners would look terrible. Right now, I think the players look terrible. They want full pay for play, which make sense, but they are not willing to accept fact that this is not a normal situation. Neither side has moved an inch for weeks, the owners have just dressed up the pay in different packages but the overall pay has been the same. However, players have not budged either, making claims they want to give the fans more games, but really they just want more money. If they were willing to do the over 100 games at a less than prorate, then their claim of giving fans more games hold water.

Players will not accept that. They have drawn a line at full prorate. So 87.5% will not get it done. The players have made no counter to a reduce in pay. The owners have countered with several different ways to pay about 33% of full season pay. Except for full revenue split, which was also a non-starter for players.

This years signings will be interesting. With so much up in the air for next year, and an expected high number of players going to college, that being all undrafted high school players. Teams really will not be able to do as much moving money around. Half the rounds really makes that an issue. When you have 10 rounds you can take little from several players to add up to larger for one. When you have 4 players like Twins, cannot move as much money.

Some pretty good players on that list. Kubel if he would not have tore is knee up early in career may have been crazy good. I know he played for years and did very well, one of my favorite for the time. No one I would have preferred with bases loaded. It sure is interesting to think about how so many people got drafted ahead of these guys. It goes to show how crazy hard it is to predict future development of players. So often you draft on potential upside by looking at physical size, and attributes. You see the wholes, and you just hope they will get fixed. Some times you see a guy like Radke, never had great velocity, but he knew how to pitch. I am sure many drafted ahead of him, never made much of an impact. They most likely had higher velocity or taller. He just knew how to pitch. Just looked up his draft too, we had number 3 Dave Mccarty, passed on Man ram, Shawn Green, Demitri Young, to name a few. Got Hawk in same draft though. I bet if you look deeper, many of the guys were from smaller areas or cold weather places that would not get much scouts to. I think these days with show cases, and the ability to have digital tape in high def with use of programs to look at the spin rates, launch angles ect. there will be much less of the late round bloomers. They will still happen, because you can never interview them all to know their heart and desire to be the best. So little separate so many, and the small things like desire will make a big difference.

I believe Twins felt he was best available, he may not have been a position of need with several bat first guys that are likely to be first base or DH in future. However, if the power is legit as it seems, that just adds to the stock of players we can deal from too. Right now in the league first base is not the offensive position it normally is, so a lot of teams may be willing to deal to fill those holes in the near future. Not saying they drafted him just to trade later. Cruz will be gone in a year or two, most likely, unless he the next Julio Franco. So then Sano most likely will be DH and you have Rooker, and now Sabato to fill in first. Kiriloff has got some time there too. If you can hit, they will find a spot for you.

The Doc Gooden one stings because maybe if he was living in mid-west he could have stayed clean, not saying he would have but being in different environment could have helped. Big Mac does not hurt, for two reasons. We many not have got bert back to win the 87 series, and Big Mac most likely would have been traded as well because he would have been blocked by Hrbek. Trout hurts a ton. Of course may pass on him, but when you miss on best of all time it will sting. At least Gibson did make the majors unlike the first and last on your list. Think about Trout and Yelich on the same team? Well in reality no way would Twins have signed both to the contract they have gotten, but for a few years man that could have been a nice lineup. Of course, we never know if the Twins would have made them develop the same way.

I think drafting best available always the way to go. I hate hearing people say we need this position right now so should draft that position. Normally, no one drafted will contribute for at least 2 years or more normally. There are the rare college guys that need less time, depending on organization. Also, for hitters, if they can play CF or SS they can play other positions. I think high end high school guys are always a good way to go with all things being equal. Pitchers are so volatile, and from high school even more so. It is so hard to predict how some guys will adjust to better competition. Personally, I would want to interview and talk to the players. Of course physical skills are important, but feel baseball, unlike some other sports, work ethic and ability to adjust and learn is huge and makes all the difference. Yeah if kid throws 100 you cannot teach that, but if he does not know a second pitch and cannot learn a second pitch, the velocity will only go so far. If a hitter crushes only fastballs but cannot hit or pick up a breaking pitch, teams will learn to never throw a fastball to him. At least if the player is athletic he can hopefully give value with that. Take Buxton, he has huge swing issues and offensive issues, but his athletic ability raises his value on defense so much we can take less offense from him.

I wrote awhile ago in comments that I do not expect many to sign, much like the article here pointed out. Too much up in the air. The main question will be what is expectations of college and would it be too late to find a college to go to for the high school kids that were expecting to be drafted but were not. Are they willing to commit 3 years? If I had a kid that was not drafted and college was an option I would advise him to go to college. This goes against what I normally would advise if the bonus is big enough, like over 100K go pro, if you really believe in yourself. Many times guys turn down high school offers and go college get drafted first round sign 7 figure bonus and flop. I just feel the questions about what minors will look like have too many questions for a 20K bonus.

You clearly side with the players by highlighting the "agreement" of prorated pay. However, there is much debate as to the specifics of the agreement. One side says it was with the assumption fans would be in seats. The other says it was not with that assumption. If the owners are even close with the numbers they claim that 40% of revenue comes from fans in seats, then clearly the owners would have assumed the deal for full prorated was based on fans being in the seats. I have not read the actual agreement, but have heard the two arguments and both seem to have some weight. The important thing, is that the owners have the ability to pick the amount of games at the full prorated pay. You also mention the opt out of worried players, but fail to include the full pay for "high risk" players who opt out, and the players get to decided who is considered "high risk" with the league getting NO say. Therefore, the players could say if any member of their family, even if they do not live with them but may come in contact with them is high risk the player can opt out for full pay. So if they have a member of their family over 60 they could most likely opt out. How many players do not have that?

I expect the 50 game season will be what happens, if anything at this point. Players will not accept anything less than full prorated pay, and owners are not willing to pay more than 50 games at that amount. With the extended playoffs it would be interesting to see how teams will set up to hopefully make good run to playoffs. I also wonder if fans will give same boost for the next year coming off a WS win. That is one of the main things that teams get to talk about WS champs and sell more tickets, but at this point who would buy tickets for next year?

I wish the players you mentioned drafted after you had put where they were drafted. You make it seem they were very near them, but my guess that is not the case. Josh Hamilton was a bust for the Rays in that draft as well. I have stated many times, everyone misses in drafts and have the wish we would have taken this guy. How many teams are kicking themselves for missing on Trout? Yes this was three years in a row of high picks but very rare will a player be a lock. Even early on the Mauer draft people said the Twins screwed up, but now years down the road he was the better pick.

Ted, you clearly are anti owners, based on this and previous articles. I am not pro either side, but understand it takes two sides to make a deal. You point out that all proposals given to the players are for a similar amount of total pay. Clearly, the owners have determined that is what they are willing to pay and dug in. Well players are also dug in at full prorate for as many games as possible. Their first proposal to owners would take season into winter months requiring games to be at neutral sites, something the players first balked at saying they want to be home with families when the all AZ or AZ FL split was mulled about. So what changed, of they now will get paid more money. They also want players, under their own process to allow players to opt out at full pay. The league would have no say on who qualifies for "high risk." What would stop every player saying they are high risk, I won't play and pay me? Nothing under their proposal because they make the call on who is high risk. I bet many of the high paid players that are set for free agency would take the high risk route, no short season to drop numbers but still get full pay, sounds good to me if I am a player. The players are just as dug in as the owners. You point out the owners will not open books, well they offered to do that for this year for a full 50 50 split of the revenue, that would require an accounting of revenue, and opening of the books. The players had a resounding hell no to that. The players want no cap but full transparency of the owners books. What non publicly traded business gives their employees full look at the books? You seem to forget this is a business and the owners are willing to take losses this year, but have a bottom line of that. They can force it on the players the 50 games. The players will cry that they want to give the fans more baseball, which the owners offered, but it would be at same pay. So what the players really want is more money, not more baseball. Who can blame them. Both sides are so dug in and neither are willing to give. I wish they both would give a little, but neither willing to with how the last few off seasons have gone. You point out that it is Manfred that has led to the division, but I disagree. I believe it is that GM's have changed the way they value players and contracts. It used to be lets sign a guy into their late 30's for early 40's paying them top dollar, because we want them for the first few years and will accept the bad years. Teams quickly learned, with the new luxary tax, a basic salary cap that the players agreed to, changed the way teams were willing to have dead money on players. This led to lower and shorter contracts for most FA, only the age 27 to 28 free agents superstars were going to get the 8 plus year deals. The deals the 30 to 31 year olds were signing and when they turned 35 or even younger became terrible contracts. This division between the two sides has been brewing for years, and this just brought it to a head. It is not just the owners fault for this, as you seem to point out. This is both sides not willing to give anything. I have stated for years, a salary cap would be best for them, because there would be a floor and full accounting for the revenue. They can bicker over what is revenue, as players claim they should get their share of the land owned around the stadium that owners develop. Personally, I find that argument crazy. Should the players get a share of the land not owned by the owners too? I mean how many bars around Target field are filled before the games, in normal seasons, if the owners have no investment should the players still get a share because without them no games and the owners of those bars should pony up? Players point out to local own sports channels that carry the games. Not sure how media contract work, but players want the share of non-baseball content. For example, Yankees own the YES network. They have not only yankees games, but also Knicks and Rangers and other sports, much like FSN. So yes the owners of the yankees have invested into a sports channel, but why should players get value of the non-baseball revenue? The owners could have still started the channel and not carried the Yankees, should the players still get a share of if they dropped showing the Yankees? What about the teams that do not have local channels? For Twins who do not own one, despite trying to, they do not get any money from Wolves or Wild games, should players still get value there? What about non-baseball investments by the owners or no connection to the stadium, should players get anything there? The point is, where do you draw the line? The players are not victims of the owners. They could choose to try and play different sports or have different professions. The owners are not forcing them to play baseball for millions. The owners should not be expected to operate business at an extended loss simply because we want them too. How many local business close because they are losing money? How much should we expect the owners to lose before they close up? Just because the owners have values in the billions, does not mean they are liquid for that much and can just accept losing millions upon millions.

Yes, when I started the post it was before the back and forth of the players and owners of recent. I think FA will be very interesting next year. I bet only a couple of super stars get long term contracts. Both for the players and owners point of view. Too much up in the air for next season. I almost wonder, if teams will look for back loaded contracts, something that never happens normally in baseball, but having like a 5 year deal with first 2 years short pay, to protect teams and cash flow, and then later years make up for it.