2021 Collective Bargaining Agreement Discussion Thread

[Spanky99]

and you're coddling the balls of Max Scherzer....got it.

 

Max Scherzer is an alien.

[Abomination]

Max Scherzer is an alien.

 

Kick him in the knee! (worked for Captain Kirk)

[JaysAllMighty]

So you're boot-licking the owners, gotcha!

 

Without team owners the league wouldn't exist, but lets not bring that up.

[Deadpool]

Dude is obviously biased, as a union lawyer, but meh, content is content!

 

[Spanky99]

Without team owners the league wouldn't exist, but lets not bring that up.

 

Okay?

[connorp]

Dude is obviously biased, as a union lawyer, but meh, content is content!

 

 

I know there’s a lot of people that think the owners are just trying to fool people asking for an arbitrator as a media stunt. This just doesn’t hold up to facts though. What if the players agreed? You only get an arbitrator involved if you’re willing to make meaningful concessions, otherwise you’re going to get exposed as the bigger part of the problem

[glory]

Seems like the owners thought the players would fold with the lockout, or at least concede on some important issues because Tony Clark always concedes, but the PA is taking a hard stance this time and I think the owners genuinely have no clue how to proceed from here. They are so used to throwing the PA a crumb and having the PA act like it was a steak dinner.

 

The biggest issue was the lockout beginning on December 1-2 and the owners not coming up with a proposal until 6 weeks later. It was clear from that point that they were just waiting for the players to bend rather than actually wanting to negotiate. At this point I don't care which side "wins", just give me baseball on the regular schedule, but if there is a delay then it's 100% on the owners. They should have been having these types of meetings in Dec-Jan, not just on the final week of a self imposed deadline a few weeks before the regular season.

[Jimcanuck]

I know there’s a lot of people that think the owners are just trying to fool people asking for an arbitrator as a media stunt. This just doesn’t hold up to facts though. What if the players agreed? You only get an arbitrator involved if you’re willing to make meaningful concessions, otherwise you’re going to get exposed as the bigger part of the problem

 

Mediation and arbitration are two very very different things.

[John_Havok]

Okay?

 

That means its okay for all employees to just be employed. Employement is a such a privilege they need to be greatful to the owners and take whatever they deem worthy to give.

[connorp]

Mediation and arbitration are two very very different things.

 

Yes. I used the wrong words.

[John_Havok]

Seems like the owners thought the players would fold with the lockout, or at least concede on some important issues because Tony Clark always concedes, but the PA is taking a hard stance this time and I think the owners genuinely have no clue how to proceed from here. They are so used to throwing the PA a crumb and having the PA act like it was a steak dinner.

 

The biggest issue was the lockout beginning on December 1-2 and the owners not coming up with a proposal until 6 weeks later. It was clear from that point that they were just waiting for the players to bend rather than actually wanting to negotiate. At this point I don't care which side "wins", just give me baseball on the regular schedule, but if there is a delay then it's 100% on the owners. They should have been having these types of meetings in Dec-Jan, not just on the final week of a self imposed deadline a few weeks before the regular season.

 

Exactly. Im glad the union is sticking to it's guns this time. Baseball has clearly changed in the age group of players that make up the majority of the player base. The rise of analytics has stopped owners from ridiculously overpaying aging veterans for past performances, and relying heavily on younger players in their 1st 3 years of service time. As a result, payrolls have gone DOWN on average, while revenues and profits have gone way up.

 

That's the Coles notes version of this negotiation.Young players with no negotiating power are relied upon to provide huge amounts of value to the product the owners are selling and the union has decided this is the right time to fight that fight. When the under 3 year players take 60+% of Plate appearances yet account for ... 4% of payroll (yes there's a lot of nuance and details in there that are not adequately conveyed by those general numbers) that's a clear indicator that something needs to change.

 

No it shouldn't be a free for all, and no it probably should never come close to 60% of payroll. Even the PA's current proposals would only move the needle into the 7%ish range so it's not like the owners would suddenly be racked with hundreds of millions of more dollars in salary obligations.

 

They're getting more revenue streams, they're relying on young players to be their product, so they need to pay them more.

[Abomination]

Exactly. Im glad the union is sticking to it's guns this time. Baseball has clearly changed in the age group of players that make up the majority of the player base. The rise of analytics has stopped owners from ridiculously overpaying aging veterans for past performances, and relying heavily on younger players in their 1st 3 years of service time. As a result, payrolls have gone DOWN on average, while revenues and profits have gone way up.

 

That's the Coles notes version of this negotiation.Young players with no negotiating power are relied upon to provide huge amounts of value to the product the owners are selling and the union has decided this is the right time to fight that fight. When the under 3 year players take 60+% of Plate appearances yet account for ... 4% of payroll (yes there's a lot of nuance and details in there that are not adequately conveyed by those general numbers) that's a clear indicator that something needs to change.

 

No it shouldn't be a free for all, and no it probably should never come close to 60% of payroll. Even the PA's current proposals would only move the needle into the 7%ish range so it's not like the owners would suddenly be racked with hundreds of millions of more dollars in salary obligations.

 

They're getting more revenue streams, they're relying on young players to be their product, so they need to pay them more.

 

That's true, but expenses for MLB teams have also been skyrocketing. I suspect if you took all the revenue streams, subtracted all the costs teams incur except player payroll, then split the remainder 50/50, player payroll would go down considerably. It's also likely that the move to online streaming will significantly drop the value of some of the TV contracts that have been propping the league up.

 

If MLB really wants to throw the union a cookie though, they should let individual players use and keep 100% of the profit for the advertising patch on their uniforms. Maybe let them do the same with socks and shoes or something too.

[Dick_Pole]

Whatever the NBA is doing, that's the fairest structure in terms of balancing younger versus older player salaries, team control etc. MLB would blow their heads off before they accept anything near that kind of deal though. As an aside, since when did the NBA have more competitive balance than the MLB? The field is wide open this year on the NBA Championship.

[Dick_Pole]

Without team owners the league wouldn't exist, but lets not bring that up.

 

I'm the biggest capitalist pig here and even I cringe at this level of bad take. Baseball would exist if players had the ability to play and there were people who wanted to watch them play. There would have to be someone doing administrative duties and marketing, just like in any sort of organization. But that doesn't mean without billionaire owners the league wouldn't exist.

[John_Havok]

That's true, but expenses for MLB teams have also been skyrocketing. I suspect if you took all the revenue streams, subtracted all the costs teams incur except player payroll, then split the remainder 50/50, player payroll would go down considerably. It's also likely that the move to online streaming will significantly drop the value of some of the TV contracts that have been propping the league up.

 

If MLB really wants to throw the union a cookie though, they should let individual players use and keep 100% of the profit for the advertising patch on their uniforms. Maybe let them do the same with socks and shoes or something too.

 

You also need to take into account all the peripheral income owners receive from baseball related, but not direct baseball operations that they never report as basbeall income. Baseball owners are not hurting by any stretch of the imagination. And as far as streaming goes, whatever current baseball TV deals are signed or coming into play as of this year, streaming doesnt impact that at all. The contracts are already signed, the dollars are already committed. It will only impact potential future deals, but don't think for a second that the teams won't be getting a pretty big slice of that pie.

 

As for the advertising... if the owners aren't even willing to increase base pay by 50k per year, why would they willingly give up millions of ad revenue from player patches? Those patches won't be cheap and you won't see any from Al's Gas n Sip. They'll be multibillion dollar corporations paying through the nose for exposure.

Edited February 23, 2022 by John_Havok

[saskjayfan]

That's true, but expenses for MLB teams have also been skyrocketing. I suspect if you took all the revenue streams, subtracted all the costs teams incur except player payroll, then split the remainder 50/50, player payroll would go down considerably. It's also likely that the move to online streaming will significantly drop the value of some of the TV contracts that have been propping the league up.

 

If MLB really wants to throw the union a cookie though, they should let individual players use and keep 100% of the profit for the advertising patch on their uniforms. Maybe let them do the same with socks and shoes or something too.

 

If the owners were smart they'd use the revenue from patches to given to 100% of players in a pool where players making under 5 million dollars a year split the revenue equally. That's like 75% of players and optically would seem appealing to the vast majority in the union adding about 100K in salary to the those players.

[John_Havok]

The ownership group gave a deadline yesterday that if no deal is in place by the 28th, regular season games will be missed and NOT made up.

 

Which, if the Union is serious means expanded playoffs will be off the table as of Monday if no deal is in place. Owners do not want that. Expanded playoffs is another massive revenue haul they do not want to miss out on.

[The Cats Ass]

Play the season using minor league players.

[connorp]

Play the season using minor league players.

 

I never even thought of that. The Replacements lol. I could totally dig it

[John_Havok]

I never even thought of that. The Replacements lol. I could totally dig it

 

They did it in 1994/95 when the strike was on. Pete Rose Jr was among the scabs

[Ehjays]

[connorp]

High school years getting drunk and stoned and didn’t remember how it all went down. Makes sense to do though. I don’t think this looks good.

[Dick_Pole]

There is zero chance any MiLB players with a hope of getting into the majors will go for it. The scrubs who are looking for a pay check even if only for a few weeks might. That's some pretty A level quality baseball. I can imagine the gamblers going nuts for it because the sharps would steal Vegas money for weeks before the lines adjusted. Pretty much anyone else would hate it.

[glory]

Yeah there's no chance any minor leaguer with even a small chance of making the Majors would ever be a scab. They'd be blackballed by the PA.

 

If it wasn't for the stupid antitrust exemption, I'd be rooting for a bored billionaire to create the baseball version of the XFL so that baseball fans could watch nationally televised baseball that hasn't been touched by Manfred or Clark, but unfortunately we are stuck waiting for the two sides to agree, whether that happens in 4 days or 4 months. I'm not a big fan of college baseball, and minor league baseball without 40 man roster players is going to be messy.

[Deadpool]

Yeah there's no chance any minor leaguer with even a small chance of making the Majors would ever be a scab. They'd be blackballed by the PA.

 

If it wasn't for the stupid antitrust exemption, I'd be rooting for a bored billionaire to create the baseball version of the XFL so that baseball fans could watch nationally televised baseball that hasn't been touched by Manfred or Clark, but unfortunately we are stuck waiting for the two sides to agree, whether that happens in 4 days or 4 months. I'm not a big fan of college baseball, and minor league baseball without 40 man roster players is going to be messy.

 

Hey man, Kevin Millar got away with it...

[Spanky99]

Hey man, Kevin Millar got away with it...

 

Oh damn, lol.

[Terminator]

Hey man, Kevin Millar got away with it...

 

Oh s*** I forgot about that lol

[bendera3]

Yeah there's no chance any minor leaguer with even a small chance of making the Majors would ever be a scab. They'd be blackballed by the PA.

 

If it wasn't for the stupid antitrust exemption, I'd be rooting for a bored billionaire to create the baseball version of the XFL so that baseball fans could watch nationally televised baseball that hasn't been touched by Manfred or Clark, but unfortunately we are stuck waiting for the two sides to agree, whether that happens in 4 days or 4 months. I'm not a big fan of college baseball, and minor league baseball without 40 man roster players is going to be messy.

 

Not really. For the most part the players on the 40 that aren't in MLB are in either AA or AAA. I bought Milb.tv and very much enjoyed it, even though as of right now you can only really watch it on a computer. I don't believe they have a streaming app that you can get on a smart tv.

[Spanky99]

Oh s*** I forgot about that lol

 

Same, former Jay Corey Lidle too, lol.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_replacement_players

 

Oil Can Boyd... remember him? lol...

 

In 2012, Boyd's autobiography, co-written by Boyd and Mike Shalin, They Call Me Oil Can: Baseball, Drugs, and Life on the Edge was published by Triumph Books.[17] In the book, Boyd admitted that he used crack every day of the 1986 season and that he was high on marijuana in every baseball game he played from "Little League all the way through college."[13]

 

Boyd's intense charisma during Red Sox games specifically was evidenced by fist pumps, shouting from the dugout, and high-fives for teammates. He was also a go-to player for quotes in the Boston press. Among his most well-known quotes is one made in reference to a game postponed at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium due to fog from Lake Erie. When asked about the situation, Boyd responded, “That’s what you get for building a ballpark on the ocean.”[4]

Edited February 24, 2022 by Spanky99

[Spanky99]

Not really. For the most part the players on the 40 that aren't in MLB are in either AA or AAA. I bought Milb.tv and very much enjoyed it, even though as of right now you can only really watch it on a computer. I don't believe they have a streaming app that you can get on a smart tv.

 

HDMI cord solves that.