BASEBALL IS BACk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!k!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[saskjayfan]

MLB has already stated that they unilaterally implement a shortened season if there is no agreement.

 

Players will get their full prorated salaries for each and every game. That's already a part of their contract, it's the baseline.

 

What incentive do the players have to play 76 games at 50% salary (owners last proposal), instead of 50 games at 100% salary. That's less money for more work.

 

The last proposal was 76 games 75% salary. They could have negotiated close to 100 games at 80% if they had just started real negotiations a month ago. Players could be in spring training right now.

 

Players aren't so hard done by. It takes 43 service days to qualify for a pension. Alford and Jonathan Davis may never make a roster going forward and they already qualify for 34,000 dollars a year pension.

 

The 76 game 75% is pretty much the same as 50 games fully pro rated, but it came with no draft pick compensation for free agents and a guaranteed playoff pool. The players playoff pool comes from paid attendance. If we head to a 50 game season and there's still no fans come playoff time, contractually the owners aren't obligated to give them anything and draft pick compensation would be status quo next year. Now I think the owners can and would make a better offer than their last offer, but players are unwilling to budge.

[Slade]

 

 

[Grant77]

I think you severely underestimate the value of thirty two additional playoff series to the owners. That's a big concession and an enormous money maker for the owners. I've read that a team that makes it to the World Series makes more in those ~20 games than they do in the 162 game regular season.

[saskjayfan]

I think you severely underestimate the value of thirty two additional playoff series to the owners. That's a big concession and an enormous money maker for the owners. I've read that a team that makes it to the World Series makes more in those ~20 games than they do in the 162 game regular season.

 

they didn't break down the expanded playoffs and how many games it would be. I'm well away of the playoff revenue. The owners had it in their proposal as well and players also benefit with expanded playoffs.

[BlueRocky]

 

2020 in Dunedin? Buffalo another option.

[Beans]

2020 in Dunedin? Buffalo another option.

 

Man, I would love to see Buffalo host our home games this year.

[Spanky__99]

Man, I would love to see Buffalo host our home games this year.

 

Never, friendo...

[Slade]

Man, I would love to see Buffalo host our home games this year.

 

That would be cool but most likely Dunedin is where they end up playing.

[Brownie19]

MLBPA is proposing 89 games with full pro-rated salaries and expanded playoffs.

 

For f*** sakes - meet in the middle and get on with it.

 

82 games, 90% pro-rated salaries and no expended playoffs - giddy up.

 

MLB proposes 70+ games at 80-85% prorated salaries...I wasn't far off. Let's get this done.

[Carlos Danger]

MLB proposes 70+ games at 80-85% prorated salaries...I wasn't far off. Let's get this done.

 

Why can't they just go to 81 and make it 50%.. Fnnn simple..!

[glory]

[BTS]

 

This is stupid. There’s zero incentive for the players to accept this if the alternative is that the owners force a 50-game season at 100-% pro-rated salaries. They get the same money and play 20 fewer games.

[glory]

This is stupid. There’s zero incentive for the players to accept this if the alternative is that the owners force a 50-game season at 100-% pro-rated salaries. They get the same money and play 20 fewer games.

 

Yeah, I think Manfred knows the season will be 48-50 games long. All of this is just window dressing. Neither side is going to budge. Just a matter of when Manfred wants to implement the shortened season.

[P2F]

Either way, a shortened season could make things very interesting for a possible Blue Jay postseason run if the season does indeed get off the ground.

[BTS]

Either way, a shortened season could make things very interesting for a possible Blue Jay postseason run if the season does indeed get off the ground.

 

That's the upside, but the downside of a ~50 game season sucks: it pretty much ruins the fantasy baseball season.

[glory]

Either way, a shortened season could make things very interesting for a possible Blue Jay postseason run if the season does indeed get off the ground.

 

Yeah as much as I think that short of a season is BS, if it means Pearson is in the rotation all “season” and all it takes is a hot start to make it, then I’ll take it. Having Austin Martin gifted to us followed by a playoff berth would be damn sweet, even if it’s with no fans in Dunedin.

[P2F]

That's the upside, but the downside of a ~50 game season sucks: it pretty much ruins the fantasy baseball season.

 

Yeah, you're right. Man, I miss fantasy baseball and I'd hate for us to have to do something totally regrettable like switching to roto (*shudders*) or altogether foregoing the season, even if it makes more sense to do so.

[BlueRocky]

[Deadpool]

 

That's all well and good, but the Jays will have to find a home stadium first...

[Brownie19]

This is stupid. There’s zero incentive for the players to accept this if the alternative is that the owners force a 50-game season at 100-% pro-rated salaries. They get the same money and play 20 fewer games.

 

That's contrary to people reporting the Owners keep offering the same thing - about 33% of the players total salaries. I don't think the players see 'working less' for more $/hour the way the rest of the world does.

[FrozenRopes]

These negotiations are going to do more damage to the sport than any strike has ever... because we don't have the ability to go do other things. We've been locked up.

 

I have never talked to this many angry fans, ever.

[saskjayfan]

This is stupid. There’s zero incentive for the players to accept this if the alternative is that the owners force a 50-game season at 100-% pro-rated salaries. They get the same money and play 20 fewer games.

 

They get 35.5% of their pay at 80% vs 29.6% at full prorated 48 games. They also offered 50 mil post season pool and no draft pick compensation which would be huge for a handful of guys and the rest wouldn't give a s***.

 

The owners aren't stupid. When the union files a grievance their stance will be we offered you more money and you declined. It sort of blows this whole," I don't play this game for money" statement out of the water. They are being offered less money per game, but more money total. If they really loved the game, you'd think they would take the offer with the most money.

 

The union could end this right now. Ask for 80 games at 85%.

[Spanky__99]

Way to f*** it all up... *sighs*

 

 

[BlueRocky]

[DigitalRock]

 

Wow that's kind of scary, I love baseball have since I was young. MLB is not a well ran league imo, Manfred has been awful so far.

[Spanky__99]

@ BlueRocky

 

Could you copy pasta the article in concern of the upcoming season...

 

[Scion]

Ye ask and ye shall receive,

 

The players are going to get what they wanted most, 100 percent of their prorated salaries. Barring a last-minute surprise, they also will get a 2020 season that is too short for anyone who loves the sport, and less money than they could have earned if they had agreed to pay cuts in a greater number of games.

 

I do not blame the players for objecting to cuts or taking a stand in response to years of perceived slights by Major League Baseball and its clubs. If commissioner Rob Manfred imposes a season of 50-odd games, that decision will reflect poorly on him and his owners. But still it’s fair to wonder: Where exactly is the Players Association going with this?

 

If the union intends to sacrifice short-term financial gain for long-term benefit, what will that benefit look like, particularly if its expected grievance proves futile? And if the union intends to build strength for the 2021 collective-bargaining negotiations, how will its hard-line strategy help secure a favorable outcome?

 

The PA says this is about principle, about wanting – in the words of top negotiator Bruce Meyer in a letter on Saturday to deputy commissioner Dan Halem – “a day’s pay for a day’s work, particularly in a situation in which players and their families are being asked to take on additional burdens and risks” because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

The union also is reluctant to set a precedent that would allow the league to pursue repeated cuts if revenues do not recover, or show weakness entering collective-bargaining negotiations in 2021. The message here: We won’t be pushed around anymore.

 

Well, the players need not have been so worried about precedent in an unprecedented situation – they could have dismissed any compromises they made as a one-time occurrence resulting from the pandemic. I’m also not convinced their collective resolve in these negotiations will help them secure an improved CBA, not when the entire sport might face major damage.

 

I agree with agent Scott Boras’ assertion that the owners shouldn’t privatize gains and socialize losses, particularly when, by one measure, the players already are playing from behind: Their average salary declined in each of the past two years while revenues continued rising to record levels.

 

I also agree in theory that the players should not take a cut when they and others involved in the actual games – and not the owners – are the ones who will risk becoming ill with the virus. If anything, the players might have an argument for higher pay.

 

For once, public opinion might be on the players’ side, or at least more than it normally is, considering that players’ salaries are accessible through the media and owners’ profits mostly are not. Yet, even if you believe the players are right, the fruits of their approach might be difficult to identify in the future, if those fruits come to bear at all.

 

The March agreement between the parties empowers Manfred to determine the number of regular-season games in 2020 as long as the league pays the players their full pro-rated salaries and attempts to play as many games as possible. Union head Tony Clark, in a statement on Saturday night, all but invited Manfred to take that step, saying, “It’s time to get back to work. Tell us when and where.” And now both parties must face the reality of all they will lose by failing to reach a negotiated settlement.

 

On Wednesday, in suggesting Manfred propose a 72-game season with full pro-rated pay, I detailed how the inability to strike an agreement would harm the owners. But the players, too, will suffer, and not just because they will earn fewer dollars overall in the season of 48 to 54 games Manfred is likely to impose than they might in a negotiated solution.

 

Say goodbye to the expanded postseason, which the players almost certainly will reject if Manfred sets the regular-season schedule. The extra round of playoffs would have enabled the league to collect tens of millions in broadcast revenue, and the players might have indirectly benefited from that, or perhaps even a direct share in a new agreement. But as it stands now, the players would be paid for the postseason as they normally would – by a percentage of the gate, which might be nonexistent or minimal.

 

Say goodbye as well to any financial protections the players might have negotiated for the 2020-21 offseason, not that they had made much progress along those lines. The clubs might have continued attempting to bludgeon the players in arbitration and free agency regardless. Now the owners clamping down is even more of a certainty, and the fewer games will not help the players: The smaller sample sizes will provide a less accurate portrayal of their true performances.

 

For the players, the future beyond the offseason might be even bleaker. The collective-bargaining agreement expires on Dec. 1, 2021, and the continuing acrimony between the parties makes a lockout seem all but inevitable. That result, too, almost certainly would be detrimental to the players, and the long-term health of the game.

 

Perhaps the players will recoup a portion of their financial losses in ’20 through a grievance: If no deal is reached, they are poised to file such a complaint against the league for failing to make the best effort required to schedule the most games possible. The league, in turn, might file a grievance saying the union did not engage in a good-faith negotiation over the economics of the sport in a season that will at least start without fans. The process would take a long time to resolve. But this is the route the union has chosen, and not in a faint-hearted manner.

 

The players not only appear unified, but also galvanized in a way they have not been since the 1994-95 strike. The owners and MLB effectively bonded the players, from their aggressive salary maneuvers at all levels of experience in recent years to their dubious economic positions and vaguely similar proposals in these negotiations.

 

The league and even some player agents contend the union dishonestly solidified the bond by misrepresenting the March agreement to players as final with regard to pay. In reality, the deal called for a subsequent good-faith discussion if games were to be played without fans, a notion the players initially challenged but later acknowledged. The dispute fueled the league’s distrust of the union, as Halem noted Friday in a scathing letter to Meyer.

 

Of course, the union also distrusts the league, and reports on Saturday of a new MLB deal with Turner Sports for seven years and $3.29 billion only added to the players’ belief that, even with the game shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, the owners are not as bad off economically as they portray. Further, the March agreement does not require the players to accept a pay cut from the pro-rated salaries the deal outlines. In that sense, the union is entirely justified in its position.

 

The league’s proposal on Friday – 72 games at 70 percent prorated salaries if the playoffs are canceled, 80 percent if they are completed – guaranteed players approximately the same amount of money they would receive in the 50-odd game season. But the players stood to earn approximately $300 million more in total dollars if the postseason was played, money that will not be available to them if no agreement is reached. And they probably could have negotiated the figures upward.

 

Likewise, if the players were willing to take a per-game cut and had signaled that willingness earlier, their overall earnings could have been even higher. A 100-game season at 80 percent prorata – an outcome that might have been attainable at the start of the process, though Meyer accused the league of “one delay tactic after another” – would have dwarfed what they will end up getting. The 50-50 revenue split the league floated also might have ended up being more lucrative, but the union rejected the idea on May 11 before it was even proposed, equating it to a salary cap.

 

Even if the union had been open to the suggestion, a split would have been almost impossible to negotiate, given the difficulty of defining revenue in a short time frame. But one agent said that just this once, in the exceptional circumstance created by the pandemic, such a concession might have made sense. The agent said he would have gathered the biggest stars of the game for a news conference and instructed them to say, “We wanted to get back on the field as quickly as possible to boost national morale. And if the owners ever suggest anything like this again, we will go on strike.”

 

Clearly from the union’s perspective, the split would have been too much of a concession, leaving the players too vulnerable, changing the dynamic of their relationship with the owners too dramatically. But in a time when the nation is grappling with COVID-19, massive unemployment and the fallout from the murder of George Floyd, the question lingers: Was this the moment for either side to draw a line in the sand? The union achieved renewed solidarity, yes, but whether that solidarity ultimately results in the players earning more money remains to be seen. The short-term hit would not be inconsequential: If Manfred imposes a 50-game season, the players would receive approximately 31 percent of their original 2020 salaries, a lower number than anything the league proposed.

 

As one union official put it, “This is not just a math problem to us.” No, it’s about principle, the sanctity of guaranteed contracts, the building of resolve. The players have every right to risk their future, but I fear it will not produce the desired outcome.

 

If the earth indeed ends up scorched then everyone will get burned.

[Spanky__99]

Ye ask and ye shall receive,

 

Thanks, I knew it'd be a depressing article, but I wanted to read it.

[glory]

 

Just announce the 50-52 game season so the Jays can prepare for their impending World Series title.

[Bobthe4th]

 

Just announce the 50-52 game season so the Jays can prepare for their impending World Series title.

 

I'm quite looking forward to a shortened season where nearly every game matters, instead of the usual slog where an individual game is irrelevant! Got to try to look at the positives right?