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Post by Oregon Norm on Oct 2, 2020 16:30:01 GMT -5
I figured it's not too early to get going on this. We'll start on a sour note: Manfred drawing a bright red line in the sand for the MLBPA to think about. |
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Post by johnsilver52 on Oct 2, 2020 17:32:56 GMT -5
Didn't think would see the Reserve Clause mentioned again in baseball. it's pretty much just a threat, but wow, what a whopper of one.
One of the major sports has to take the lead and clean up their act. While realize it's just the financial aspect more than likely being talked about here by manfred, it should go much further towards the negativity and divisiveness which has become it seems topic #1 for some athletes and cost the league(s) money and viewers on media.
How prepared are today's players for a major confrontation vs players of 20..30y ago with professional businessmen in a labor dispute? Please remember team representatives now are mostly a popularity contest, not who would be best qualified and why waste "bullets" over having salad chefs if the locker room the last CBA rather than ANYTHING else meaningful negotiated instead?
I would offer a suggestion it's like too many pampered kids around us now, but have used it too often already towards modern athletes.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 2, 2020 20:09:17 GMT -5
It obviously not our of the possible range of outcomes that 2020 had more baseball than 2022 will have.
With the MiLB agreements now a thing of the past and direct dealings with the minor league owners about to face off, it will be interesting to see how the major league owners view the minor leagues in the event of a lockout when they negotiate with the minor league owners.
EDIT: Corrected the first sentence to reflect the possibility of a lockout in 2022.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Oct 4, 2020 10:38:30 GMT -5
I feel bad for the players. The Union has sucked for years and now the owners will have legit reasons to stick it to the players again. The timing couldn't be worse.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 5, 2020 3:20:45 GMT -5
I figured it's not too early to get going on this. We'll start on a sour note: Manfred drawing a bright red line in the sand for the MLBPA to think about. So, is Manfred a dick, or does he just play one on TV?
IOW (for those not old enough to get the Robert Young reference), to what extent was he posturing, versus sincere?
I'll say this: in a negotiation with labor when your profits are going up and salaries are going down, proclaiming that there will be no "pocketbook" concessions does not sound reasonable.
I do think current system can be improved. The luxury tax penalties should be spread out over 4 years instead of three.
Free agent compensation should be junked and replaced.
Put a number on all the contracts signed by a team and all those lost. It's basically total AAV of each contract, adjusted for length, because of inflation.
Teams that lost more than they gained get a draft pick or picks corresponding to the lost value (see below for how that translation needs to work).
Every team has an (amount they spend - amount they lost) FA pool that they can spend without penalty. This should be based not just on W/L record, but on on expected revenue based on market size, etc. You don't want to reward teams in a great market who don't draw well or punish teams in a smaller market that do.
Teams that go over their FA pool lose draft pick value.
This system first needs a state-of-the-art analytical analysis of draft pick value. Then comes the tricky part: the conversion of the money spent on FA's into draft pick value. There would be a ratio that made FA signings a cleary better strategy, which the players would love, and one that was the opposite ... the goal is to find the translation that makes the FA route seem like a neutral strategy. Note that the throetical value might not be the one you want; you have to factor in the actual psychology of GM's, which includes short-term vs. long-term considerations and risk vs. reward weighting which can be biased.
Teams can decide which picks to forfeit. Probably, they need to forfeit just 90% or 95% the value, because it may not be possible to get closer to 100% without going over.
Something can be done with this system to discourage tanking. Tanking teams often do what we did this year with the pitching staff to avoid going over the tax limit -- they pass up solid second-division players who are FA to fill holes, and opt for experiments with longshot guys who have a small chance of being good but are likely replacement level -- essentially NRI guys.
The simplest thing to do is to create a minimum payroll for every team based on expected revenue (again, basing it on actual revenue would punish teams with loyal fans). Fall short while being noncompetiive, and you lose draft pick value, just as if you outspent your FA pool.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 5, 2020 13:09:22 GMT -5
From the Casas thread: Hypothetically, they will both be here in 2022 but you have to wonder how the collective bargaining will affect that. Honestly, I'd be surprised if there were a 2022 season. I'm not optimistic about their avoiding a work stoppage, but both sides hate losing games. In 1972 the players' strike over the pension fund wiped out the first 13 days of the season. They settled that issue, extending the CBA a year, and agreed to start negotiations for a long-term agreement the next September.
The next year the owners locked out the players from early ST (2/14 on) and, after first denying it, admitted the lockout would continue into full ST if there were no agreement by 3/1. They settled on 2/25, the major concessions being salary arbitration for players unsatisfied with a contract offer, and the 10 and 5 rule for trades.
(The Baseball Guides go into pages of detail about all of this; my favorite bit is Cubs owner Philip Wrigley predicting that baseball would have to become publicly supported a la PBS if salaries kept rising, because they were already losing money. The new MLB minimum was $76K in today's dollars, and Yaz was tied for the 3rd highest-paid player at $965,000. People were blown away by Dick Allen getting the biggest deal in MLB history at $1.46M.
Remember -- that's today's dollars (the actual Allen figure was $250K). Salaries have gone up about 25x.
Wrigley also claimed to have forgotten about the 10 and 5 rule when the Cubs traded Ron Santo to the Angels that December. Santo vetoed it, incredible acrimony ensued, and eventually Santo's request to be dealt crosstown was satisfied. Wrigley predicted that no team in the future would let a player get 10 and 5 rights because before that "you could trade them without their consent" (and, presumably, have them pick cotton). Santo had -1.6 bWAR for the White Sox and retired, while the Cubs got Steve Stone (14.4 WAR to come).
More labor dispute history to come: there's nothing at Wikipedia about the '76 lockout and '80 strike.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Oct 5, 2020 15:19:58 GMT -5
Thanks for the interesting list of possible negotiating points, and for the history lesson. For me the takeaway from the NBC article is this:
That lays it all out. It's the old story of where the value comes from. Both labor and management obviously have a part to play. But shutting out the former to please the latter has always been where conflict arises. As others have said, the players are going to have to hang together or many of them will get stiffed. As I've mentioned previously, it took ownership a while - and lots of data - to finally get the memo about where the value is. They hold a lot of cards since that value comes at bargain prices. Arbitration is gradually pushing the years just before free agency into more equitable territory. But the first few years so distort the value/salary curve that ownership will fight like hell to keep that intact.
For me, Manfred reveals his inner-owner, his fealty to that group, when he disrespects Marvin Miller in the article. After having thumbed their noses at Miller for years, they waited until he died and - against his wishes - voted him into the HoF. Now a few years later they're ready to crap all over his legacy. Par for the course, the one Bowie Kuhn played on.
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Post by foreverred9 on Oct 5, 2020 18:34:47 GMT -5
As teams expand beyond normal revenue streams and monopolize their local micro-economy, it's harder to ignore the argument that the players contribute to the success of that micro-economy.
Essentially, the players are using the same argument the owners use against the city and/or state when they want new stadiums.
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Post by johnsilver52 on Oct 6, 2020 0:17:55 GMT -5
Could be even worse with the class action suit brought forward by those 29 being decided in favor of the former players. From what I've read.. Every former kid, the past decade is now eligible to join and that's some 10k. Think owners will attempt to suppress MLB salaries some to pay for what will probably be millions eventually paid out there?
What's more frightening is what now happens with the MiLB system in general? Will more teams be cut? Will players be forced into some kind of independent contractor status to avoid it? Indy teams I see as non viable, they won't be able to pay min. wage.
Think it's a good idea and kids deserve the money, but redirected from tens of millions other players get and media revenue, welfare streams poor mouthing teams are handed for nothing. It could work if done correctly.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 6, 2020 9:49:57 GMT -5
Major League Baseball, when times are normal, is a 10+ billion dollar industry. This lawsuit will not bankrupt them.
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Post by johnsilver52 on Oct 6, 2020 11:19:59 GMT -5
Major League Baseball, when times are normal, is a 10+ billion dollar industry. This lawsuit will not bankrupt them. I understand that Chris and am not always lockstep pro business, like in this case. These kids deserve to get paid fairly and I wonder if owners having to make millions in restitution could be used as an excuse to slow down on other salaries. We've seen it happen before. yes, they were caught eventually, but when a group of people get together and large amounts of money is at stake I believe anything is possible. |
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Oct 7, 2020 14:46:38 GMT -5
It's going to be a landmark case if they rule in favor of the players. The money won't be huge by Baseball standards. Difference of what they got versus minimum wage. For me it will be what they count as work versus what the players claim as work. Things like travel time, which my company refuses to pay if I travel to Boston for seminars. The battle will really be determining what is work in Baseball. Things like travel, working out, team meetings, games, being in the building or complex compared to doing things.
They might win, yet the end results won't be what they truly want. Your so-so players, the ones filling this lawsuit are going to be the ones shutout in the future. The minor leagues will just shrink in size and they'll just eliminate most of the so-so players rather than actually pay them.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 7, 2020 15:27:37 GMT -5
From the Casas thread: Honestly, I'd be surprised if there were a 2022 season. I'm not optimistic about their avoiding a work stoppage, but both sides hate losing games. In 1972 the players' strike over the pension fund wiped out the first 13 days of the season. They settled that issue, extending the CBA a year, and agreed to start negotiations for a long-term agreement the next September. The next year the owners locked out the players from early ST (2/14 on) and, after first denying it, admitted the lockout would continue into full ST if there were no agreement by 3/1. They settled on 2/25, the major concessions being salary arbitration for players unsatisfied with a contract offer, and the 10 and 5 rule for trades.
(The Baseball Guides go into pages of detail about all of this; my favorite bit is Cubs owner Philip Wrigley predicting that baseball would have to become publicly supported a la PBS if salaries kept rising, because they were already losing money. The new MLB minimum was $76K in today's dollars, and Yaz was tied for the 3rd highest-paid player at $965,000. People were blown away by Dick Allen getting the biggest deal in MLB history at $1.46M. Remember -- that's today's dollars (the actual Allen figure was $250K). Salaries have gone up about 25x.
Wrigley also claimed to have forgotten about the 10 and 5 rule when the Cubs traded Ron Santo to the Angels that December. Santo vetoed it, incredible acrimony ensued, and eventually Santo's request to be dealt crosstown was satisfied. Wrigley predicted that no team in the future would let a player get 10 and 5 rights because before that "you could trade them without their consent" (and, presumably, have them pick cotton). Santo had -1.6 bWAR for the White Sox and retired, while the Cubs got Steve Stone (14.4 WAR to come). More labor dispute history to come: there's nothing at Wikipedia about the '76 lockout and '80 strike.
I suspect what happens will be more along the lines of 1994-95 than 1972 or 1981 or the extremely brief strike of 1985. 1994 was like the "nuclear war" of labor negotiations. They nuked the season and we were not only deprived of the World Series (where Montreal might have made it) but also of Tony Gwynn's run at .400. And the thing that was tough is that it happened under Selig's nose. I might be very naive here, but whether I liked or disliked what he did, I always had the sense that he loved baseball (for example, I think he steered the Red Sox sale toward John Henry because he wanted to make sure a flagship franchise like Boston had strong ownership and not the decaying banana republic that preceded the sale). Because I think he did have a love for baseball, I truly believe he was pained by the whole thing - enough so that there was peace and a growing partnership over the next 20 years he was there. But with Rob Manfred, I don't get any sense that he even really likes the game or cares if it goes on. He's strictly there as the owner's tool and if he destroys the game (some of his on-the field suggestions) he doesn't care - hell the guy looks at the WS trophy as a piece of tin while us Red Sox fans looked at it as the Holy Grail. I have a sense that his mission (like Bowie Kuhn) is to break the union and with the impact of Covid to the revenues, there will be one heckuva war between the union and Manfred. The lines are drawn in the sand and I don't see any willingness to negotiate. Hell they couldn't even agree on this season and he had to impose it. So while perhaps both sides don't like to lose the games, I don't see it being something that will pain Manfred enough to try to prevent it and with the resentment growing within the union, I just don't see how they're going to settle things quickly when this CBA expires. I anticipate the 2022 season won't happen and I wouldn't be surprised if it spills heavily into 2023 - with more time missed than 1995. Hard to know if we have a full season in 2021, so there's the possibility that 2019 will be the last full season until the 2024 season occurs! And by then I wouldn't be surprised if a full season constituted 140 something games instead of 162 and a ton of post-season tournament games (way too many!!). While I'm good with the DH in both leagues, I expect extra innings will be decided by either the runner on 2b rule or HR derby or both. I guess we'll also see expansion to 32 teams and 16 teams in the post-season like we see now (can't wait for the first sub-.500 world champion - I say sarcastically). |
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Post by foreverred9 on Oct 7, 2020 17:59:30 GMT -5
It's going to be a landmark case if they rule in favor of the players. The money won't be huge by Baseball standards. Difference of what they got versus minimum wage. For me it will be what they count as work versus what the players claim as work. Things like travel time, which my company refuses to pay if I travel to Boston for seminars. The battle will really be determining what is work in Baseball. Things like travel, working out, team meetings, games, being in the building or complex compared to doing things. They might win, yet the end results won't be what they truly want. Your so-so players, the ones filling this lawsuit are going to be the ones shutout in the future. The minor leagues will just shrink in size and they'll just eliminate most of the so-so players rather than actually pay them. If I am reading the case right, they aren't going after the minimum wage. That's because MLB successfully lobbied that minor league players are exempt from minimum wage in the "Save America's Pastime Act" introduced in 2016 and passed in 2018. www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5580/textThey seem to be going after spring training, extended spring training, and the fall instructional where they aren't getting paid at all. There's one class for Florida claimants and one class for Arizona claimants. There's also a third for those who played in California during the season. |
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Post by johnsilver52 on Oct 8, 2020 0:33:19 GMT -5
This is something gets over looked and tho not a lawyer, have to wonder how many states can be cherry picked out which could be lenient to the complainants cause.. Leading to nearly endless litigation.
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soxin8
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Post by soxin8 on Oct 8, 2020 15:48:44 GMT -5
From the Casas thread: I'm not optimistic about their avoiding a work stoppage, but both sides hate losing games. In 1972 the players' strike over the pension fund wiped out the first 13 days of the season. They settled that issue, extending the CBA a year, and agreed to start negotiations for a long-term agreement the next September. The next year the owners locked out the players from early ST (2/14 on) and, after first denying it, admitted the lockout would continue into full ST if there were no agreement by 3/1. They settled on 2/25, the major concessions being salary arbitration for players unsatisfied with a contract offer, and the 10 and 5 rule for trades.
(The Baseball Guides go into pages of detail about all of this; my favorite bit is Cubs owner Philip Wrigley predicting that baseball would have to become publicly supported a la PBS if salaries kept rising, because they were already losing money. The new MLB minimum was $76K in today's dollars, and Yaz was tied for the 3rd highest-paid player at $965,000. People were blown away by Dick Allen getting the biggest deal in MLB history at $1.46M. Remember -- that's today's dollars (the actual Allen figure was $250K). Salaries have gone up about 25x.
Wrigley also claimed to have forgotten about the 10 and 5 rule when the Cubs traded Ron Santo to the Angels that December. Santo vetoed it, incredible acrimony ensued, and eventually Santo's request to be dealt crosstown was satisfied. Wrigley predicted that no team in the future would let a player get 10 and 5 rights because before that "you could trade them without their consent" (and, presumably, have them pick cotton). Santo had -1.6 bWAR for the White Sox and retired, while the Cubs got Steve Stone (14.4 WAR to come). More labor dispute history to come: there's nothing at Wikipedia about the '76 lockout and '80 strike.
I suspect what happens will be more along the lines of 1994-95 than 1972 or 1981 or the extremely brief strike of 1985. 1994 was like the "nuclear war" of labor negotiations. They nuked the season and we were not only deprived of the World Series (where Montreal might have made it) but also of Tony Gwynn's run at .400. And the thing that was tough is that it happened under Selig's nose. I might be very naive here, but whether I liked or disliked what he did, I always had the sense that he loved baseball (for example, I think he steered the Red Sox sale toward John Henry because he wanted to make sure a flagship franchise like Boston had strong ownership and not the decaying banana republic that preceded the sale). Because I think he did have a love for baseball, I truly believe he was pained by the whole thing - enough so that there was peace and a growing partnership over the next 20 years he was there. But with Rob Manfred, I don't get any sense that he even really likes the game or cares if it goes on. He's strictly there as the owner's tool and if he destroys the game (some of his on-the field suggestions) he doesn't care - hell the guy looks at the WS trophy as a piece of tin while us Red Sox fans looked at it as the Holy Grail. I have a sense that his mission (like Bowie Kuhn) is to break the union and with the impact of Covid to the revenues, there will be one heckuva war between the union and Manfred. The lines are drawn in the sand and I don't see any willingness to negotiate. Hell they couldn't even agree on this season and he had to impose it. So while perhaps both sides don't like to lose the games, I don't see it being something that will pain Manfred enough to try to prevent it and with the resentment growing within the union, I just don't see how they're going to settle things quickly when this CBA expires. I anticipate the 2022 season won't happen and I wouldn't be surprised if it spills heavily into 2023 - with more time missed than 1995. Hard to know if we have a full season in 2021, so there's the possibility that 2019 will be the last full season until the 2024 season occurs! And by then I wouldn't be surprised if a full season constituted 140 something games instead of 162 and a ton of post-season tournament games (way too many!!). While I'm good with the DH in both leagues, I expect extra innings will be decided by either the runner on 2b rule or HR derby or both. I guess we'll also see expansion to 32 teams and 16 teams in the post-season like we see now (can't wait for the first sub-.500 world champion - I say sarcastically). We could see the first sub- .500 this year with Houston finishing 29-31. The Mets were close to winning with an 82-79 back in 1973. |
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Oct 8, 2020 16:43:20 GMT -5
It's going to be a landmark case if they rule in favor of the players. The money won't be huge by Baseball standards. Difference of what they got versus minimum wage. For me it will be what they count as work versus what the players claim as work. Things like travel time, which my company refuses to pay if I travel to Boston for seminars. The battle will really be determining what is work in Baseball. Things like travel, working out, team meetings, games, being in the building or complex compared to doing things. They might win, yet the end results won't be what they truly want. Your so-so players, the ones filling this lawsuit are going to be the ones shutout in the future. The minor leagues will just shrink in size and they'll just eliminate most of the so-so players rather than actually pay them. If I am reading the case right, they aren't going after the minimum wage. That's because MLB successfully lobbied that minor league players are exempt from minimum wage in the "Save America's Pastime Act" introduced in 2016 and passed in 2018. www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5580/textThey seem to be going after spring training, extended spring training, and the fall instructional where they aren't getting paid at all. There's one class for Florida claimants and one class for Arizona claimants. There's also a third for those who played in California during the season. I was just going by this recent article, that includes stuff from the lawyer. He's talking about minimum and overtime wages. I took it more as a battle of state versus federal law, which one applies. Like federal minimum wage versus state minimum wage where state law trumps federal. Yet I really don't know. |
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Post by foreverred9 on Oct 8, 2020 19:42:24 GMT -5
You are probably right, I wasn't thinking about the state laws. I bet that's at least one argument they'll try, claiming that the exemption only applies to the federal law and not the state law. Maybe that's the case, MLB will say federal law applies, plaintiffs will argue for state law.
I'm on the side of the players here, it would be great to see the 1.3M per year MLB spent lobbying for that law not succeed.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 9, 2020 15:03:16 GMT -5
From the Casas thread: I'm not optimistic about their avoiding a work stoppage, but both sides hate losing games. In 1972 the players' strike over the pension fund wiped out the first 13 days of the season. They settled that issue, extending the CBA a year, and agreed to start negotiations for a long-term agreement the next September. The next year the owners locked out the players from early ST (2/14 on) and, after first denying it, admitted the lockout would continue into full ST if there were no agreement by 3/1. They settled on 2/25, the major concessions being salary arbitration for players unsatisfied with a contract offer, and the 10 and 5 rule for trades.
(The Baseball Guides go into pages of detail about all of this; my favorite bit is Cubs owner Philip Wrigley predicting that baseball would have to become publicly supported a la PBS if salaries kept rising, because they were already losing money. The new MLB minimum was $76K in today's dollars, and Yaz was tied for the 3rd highest-paid player at $965,000. People were blown away by Dick Allen getting the biggest deal in MLB history at $1.46M. Remember -- that's today's dollars (the actual Allen figure was $250K). Salaries have gone up about 25x.
Wrigley also claimed to have forgotten about the 10 and 5 rule when the Cubs traded Ron Santo to the Angels that December. Santo vetoed it, incredible acrimony ensued, and eventually Santo's request to be dealt crosstown was satisfied. Wrigley predicted that no team in the future would let a player get 10 and 5 rights because before that "you could trade them without their consent" (and, presumably, have them pick cotton). Santo had -1.6 bWAR for the White Sox and retired, while the Cubs got Steve Stone (14.4 WAR to come). More labor dispute history to come: there's nothing at Wikipedia about the '76 lockout and '80 strike.
I suspect what happens will be more along the lines of 1994-95 than 1972 or 1981 or the extremely brief strike of 1985. 1994 was like the "nuclear war" of labor negotiations. They nuked the season and we were not only deprived of the World Series (where Montreal might have made it) but also of Tony Gwynn's run at .400. And the thing that was tough is that it happened under Selig's nose. I might be very naive here, but whether I liked or disliked what he did, I always had the sense that he loved baseball (for example, I think he steered the Red Sox sale toward John Henry because he wanted to make sure a flagship franchise like Boston had strong ownership and not the decaying banana republic that preceded the sale). Because I think he did have a love for baseball, I truly believe he was pained by the whole thing - enough so that there was peace and a growing partnership over the next 20 years he was there. But with Rob Manfred, I don't get any sense that he even really likes the game or cares if it goes on. He's strictly there as the owner's tool and if he destroys the game (some of his on-the field suggestions) he doesn't care - hell the guy looks at the WS trophy as a piece of tin while us Red Sox fans looked at it as the Holy Grail. I have a sense that his mission (like Bowie Kuhn) is to break the union and with the impact of Covid to the revenues, there will be one heckuva war between the union and Manfred. The lines are drawn in the sand and I don't see any willingness to negotiate. Hell they couldn't even agree on this season and he had to impose it. So while perhaps both sides don't like to lose the games, I don't see it being something that will pain Manfred enough to try to prevent it and with the resentment growing within the union, I just don't see how they're going to settle things quickly when this CBA expires. I anticipate the 2022 season won't happen and I wouldn't be surprised if it spills heavily into 2023 - with more time missed than 1995. Hard to know if we have a full season in 2021, so there's the possibility that 2019 will be the last full season until the 2024 season occurs! And by then I wouldn't be surprised if a full season constituted 140 something games instead of 162 and a ton of post-season tournament games (way too many!!). While I'm good with the DH in both leagues, I expect extra innings will be decided by either the runner on 2b rule or HR derby or both. I guess we'll also see expansion to 32 teams and 16 teams in the post-season like we see now (can't wait for the first sub-.500 world champion - I say sarcastically). MLB attendance per game in 1993 and 1994 was 31,085. It was 25,021 after the strike. They didn't get back to the 1993-4 level until 2006.
Even assuming flat attendance in the intervening years, it cost them 65 million tickets. Depending on how you do the math, that's $4 - $10 billion+ in revenue in today's dollars.
Edit: To clarify, that's not including the games lost by the strike itself. The long-term effects of there having been a strike amount to losing another season, or a solid chunk of one.
The TV ad loss of the strike was $595M (shared with ABC and NBC) and it caused the collapse of the new TV deal.
Manfred last year said that ownership s aware of the disastrous consequences of such a strike and hoped that the players understood as well.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Oct 9, 2020 15:20:48 GMT -5
Here's the thing if they win, all it's going to do is make the minor leagues smaller. The guys filing the lawsuit, your fringe guys won't get more going forward. They won't even get a chance like they currently do. You're already seeing this with the MLB plans to shrink the size of the minors. The next step is likely shortening the draft. You'll have a smaller pool getting more, not what those guys actually want. Which is keep everything the same and everyone gets more. Most of the guys who will get more already got large bonus money. Out of no where guys like Mata will get more and that's a good thing. Yet guys like him are also going to find it harder to get signed because of less teams and roster room.
It's like fast food workers getting $15 an hour. They brought in technology to reduce the amount of people needed. You don't have everyone just getting $15 an hour now. You have fewer people getting paid better, yet working harder now. It's just business 101 and it's no fair. Capitalism isn't about being fair, it's driven by profits, everyone acting in by their own self interests and paying works as little as possible.
Next up will be states honoring federal law and MLB teams moving minor leagues to those states to save money. I'm only half joking, yet it's what corporations do to save money. Move to States who still use federal minimum wage and not a higher state one. States that have lower tax rates and give businesses tax breaks. Heck before you know it the minor leagues will be in Mexico or teams won't bring over international guys for years to save money.
What could look like a big win for minor league players likely won't be long-term. The owners will just adjust to keep costs the same and in the end thousands of players might never get a chance to be drafted or play in the minor leagues.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 9, 2020 16:16:32 GMT -5
I suspect what happens will be more along the lines of 1994-95 than 1972 or 1981 or the extremely brief strike of 1985. 1994 was like the "nuclear war" of labor negotiations. They nuked the season and we were not only deprived of the World Series (where Montreal might have made it) but also of Tony Gwynn's run at .400. And the thing that was tough is that it happened under Selig's nose. I might be very naive here, but whether I liked or disliked what he did, I always had the sense that he loved baseball (for example, I think he steered the Red Sox sale toward John Henry because he wanted to make sure a flagship franchise like Boston had strong ownership and not the decaying banana republic that preceded the sale). Because I think he did have a love for baseball, I truly believe he was pained by the whole thing - enough so that there was peace and a growing partnership over the next 20 years he was there. But with Rob Manfred, I don't get any sense that he even really likes the game or cares if it goes on. He's strictly there as the owner's tool and if he destroys the game (some of his on-the field suggestions) he doesn't care - hell the guy looks at the WS trophy as a piece of tin while us Red Sox fans looked at it as the Holy Grail. I have a sense that his mission (like Bowie Kuhn) is to break the union and with the impact of Covid to the revenues, there will be one heckuva war between the union and Manfred. The lines are drawn in the sand and I don't see any willingness to negotiate. Hell they couldn't even agree on this season and he had to impose it. So while perhaps both sides don't like to lose the games, I don't see it being something that will pain Manfred enough to try to prevent it and with the resentment growing within the union, I just don't see how they're going to settle things quickly when this CBA expires. I anticipate the 2022 season won't happen and I wouldn't be surprised if it spills heavily into 2023 - with more time missed than 1995. Hard to know if we have a full season in 2021, so there's the possibility that 2019 will be the last full season until the 2024 season occurs! And by then I wouldn't be surprised if a full season constituted 140 something games instead of 162 and a ton of post-season tournament games (way too many!!). While I'm good with the DH in both leagues, I expect extra innings will be decided by either the runner on 2b rule or HR derby or both. I guess we'll also see expansion to 32 teams and 16 teams in the post-season like we see now (can't wait for the first sub-.500 world champion - I say sarcastically). MLB attendance per game in 1993 and 1994 was 31,085. It was 25,021 after the strike. They didn't get back to the 1993-4 level until 2006. Even assuming flat attendance in the intervening years, it cost them 65 million tickets. Depending on how you do the math, that's $4 - $10 billion+ in revenue in today's dollars.
Edit: To clarify, that's not including the games lost by the strike itself. The long-term effects of there having been a strike amount to losing another season, or a solid chunk of one.
The TV ad loss of the strike was $595M (shared with ABC and NBC) and it caused the collapse of the new TV deal. Manfred last year said that ownership s aware of the disastrous consequences of such a strike and hoped that the players understood as well.
I doubt that e
That would assume that common sense prevails. I'm not as optimistic about that as you are. Those two sides are dug in and dug in deep. |
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 10, 2020 20:46:47 GMT -5
MLB attendance per game in 1993 and 1994 was 31,085. It was 25,021 after the strike. They didn't get back to the 1993-4 level until 2006. Even assuming flat attendance in the intervening years, it cost them 65 million tickets. Depending on how you do the math, that's $4 - $10 billion+ in revenue in today's dollars.
Edit: To clarify, that's not including the games lost by the strike itself. The long-term effects of there having been a strike amount to losing another season, or a solid chunk of one.
The TV ad loss of the strike was $595M (shared with ABC and NBC) and it caused the collapse of the new TV deal. Manfred last year said that ownership s aware of the disastrous consequences of such a strike and hoped that the players understood as well.
I doubt that e
That would assume that common sense prevails. I'm not as optimistic about that as you are. Those two sides are dug in and dug in deep. I agree with all of that up to a point ... and that point is just before it all goes south and they realize what they're about to do.
There is precedent for the sides agreeing on one or two things and extending everything else a year, to avert a strike. There's really no good argument for not trying that at least once. I honestly think it'll take more than a full year to work out a new deal that both sides can tolerate.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 10, 2020 22:07:35 GMT -5
That would assume that common sense prevails. I'm not as optimistic about that as you are. Those two sides are dug in and dug in deep. I agree with all of that up to a point ... and that point is just before it all goes south and they realize what they're about to do. There is precedent for the sides agreeing on one or two things and extending everything else a year, to avert a strike. There's really no good argument for not trying that at least once. I honestly think it'll take more than a full year to work out a new deal that both sides can tolerate.
I hope so, but then again I never anticipated we'd have a season where we'd lose the World Series. It's like they skied to the edge of the cliff, look down, and said, ah the hell with it, we're going - and poof their went the 1994 Series. I thought that was a line they wouldn't want to cross, but under Selig, a guy who I honestly think does love baseball (I know you can dispute that), they let it happen. I really don't get the sense that Manfred truly loves the game, so I think he'd be willing to cross lines you wouldn't even imagine. Hopefully you're right and when they get to the line, they don't jump over it, but I don't know. I can see the MLB owners implementing the DH and pushing for expanded playoffs, reduced regular season schedule, and adding two more franchises through expansion (Las Vegas and Nashville?), with Tampa moving to Montreal? So they have some wiggle room for negotiations there, but I just don't think that Manfred sees it as a partnership with the players, which is something Selig was trying to do toward the last decade of his tenure when there was labor peace. And the players are certainly tired of ceding ground to the owners. I can see that stopping, even if they have to push Tony Clark aside and get a real shark to negotiate. |
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Post by johnsilver52 on Oct 11, 2020 4:16:03 GMT -5
I don't see whether or not getting a so called "shark" to help the mlbpa will matter at all. Union membership has been going down all over the country. Power of unions has been waning in all not governmental union employee and let's always, regardless of which side of the political spectrum one sits, not forget that companies are the ones responsible for the bottom line and are ALWAYS going to leave a safe space in salary negotiations to protect itself.
I don't intend to demean people and am taken wrong often, tho it shocks me at the amount of people who fail to look at economics from the view of companies and how business is handled. I wonder how many who knock them, always are 100% pro employee, union have ever either owned a small business, managed, or accounted for same. Even a larger company instead of sitting in some far off office, or been strictly blue collar and caused trouble.
Once again. not intending to shame, nor give grief to those. My experiences in the real world tho.
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Post by dyoungteach on Oct 11, 2020 8:06:52 GMT -5
Let’s hope both sides wake up and don’t strike or lock out. People want to always “win” negotiations now a days. It’s happening in other areas other than baseball. Agreements and with it prosperity won’t happen unless both sides hear the other sides concerns and try to get an agreement that isn’t perfect but gives the other side a winning point or two ( or more). Salaries will go down. So make it a short deal. Teams need to recover from the virus and players still want their cut but they have to understand their cut will be lower for a bit. And without baseball going on all the other places around the stadiums won’t be raking in profits they would be which hurts the owners also. Changes to the game shouldn’t matter as fans will adjust be it extra inning play, expanded playoffs, or gosh forbid robot home base umpires. What matters is if they play the games. That matters to the ticket revenue and tv contracts and side stadium deals ( hotels etc) that owners have vested interest in . It will be interesting to see how this all plays out and for how long. Sadly I suspect for at least a season and maybe more.
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