In perhaps the greatest show of player unrest of the entire offseason, Brodie Van Wagenen — the co-head of CAA Baseball and one of the game’s most prominent agents — issued a statement today stating that ownership behavior in the 2017-18 offseason “feels coordinated” and referencing a level of player unity against ownership that hasn’t been seen since the most recent MLB labor stoppage back in 1994:
In 2017, the Players were content with a status quo Collective Bargaining Agreement. They enjoyed a 23% increase in their average salary from 2012 ($3.2M) to 2017 ($4.1M).
The average salary grew from $2.8M in 2007 to $3.2M in 2012 (just 13.8% growth). That is a 9.2% increase from the last CBA, during Tony Clark’s first four years as the Executive Director of the Players Association. $100M guaranteed contracts were regular occurrences. $200M contracts: yes. $300M: yes. Not bad by any measure. Free enterprise at its best.
The getting was good for both Players and Owners during an economic boom in the sports industry, based in large part to the value of live content in the entertainment landscape. Yes, Baseball is entertainment and too often teams forget about the audience they serve.
However, the behavior of Owners in this year’s free agent market has changed dramatically. It feels coordinated, rightly or wrongly. Many club Presidents and General Managers with whom we negotiate with are frustrated with the lack of funds to sign the plethora of good players still available, raising further suspicion of institutional influence over the spending. Even the algorithms that have helped determine player salaries in recent years are suggesting dramatically higher values than owners appear willing to spend.
Bottom line, the players are upset. No, they are outraged. Players in the midst of long-term contracts are as frustrated as those still seeking employment. Their voices are getting louder and they are uniting in a way not seen since 1994.
I would suggest that testing the will of 1,200 alpha males at the pinnacle of their profession is not a good strategy for 30 men who are bound by a much smaller fraternity. These 1,200 players have learned first-hand that battles are won through teamwork, and they understand that Championships can’t be achieved by individuals. They are won by a group united by a singular focus. Victory at all costs. They are willing to sweat for it; they are willing to sacrifice for it; they are willing to cry for it; and most importantly, they are willing to bleed for it.
There is a rising tide among players for radical change. A fight is brewing. And it may begin with one, maybe two, and perhaps 1,200 willing to follow. A boycott of Spring Training may be a starting point, if behavior doesn’t change.
Players don’t receive their paychecks until the second week of April. Fine them? OK, for how much? Sue them? OK, they’ll see you in court two years from now. At what expense?
Baseball offers 4,881 dates of live content annually across 27 media markets. Franchise values are at all-time highs. Fans want to see the best players competing at the highest level.
Sign them;
Play them;
Celebrate them;
and then sit back and let them entertain us the way they have more than 100 years.
Van Wagenen’s statements come at a time when there are more than half the league is positioned to head into the 2018 season with lower payrolls than they carried in 2017. As Yahoo’s Jeff Passan detailed this morning, the rebuilding Tigers lead the pack with a payroll that has been slashed by $77.2MM, while the Phillies ($48.2MM), Rangers ($43.3MM), Orioles ($43.1MM) and Dodgers ($40.1MM) have all cut payroll by more than $40MM on a year-over-year basis. Beyond that group, the Yankees, Royals, White Sox and Marlins have all cut their annual payroll by a sum in excess of $30MM.
To be fair, some of those clubs have spent — just not to levels commensurate with past payrollss. The Phillies and Carlos Santana, for instance, agreed to a three-year, $60MM deal. The Phils also agreed to two-year pacts with Pat Neshek and Tommy Hunter. The Rangers, meanwhile, have made their own share of free-agent signings (Mike Minor, Doug Fister, Tony Barnette, Chris Martin).
Several teams, Passan notes — the Marlins, Orioles, Braves, Pirates and Rays — haven’t signed a single Major League free agent this offseason. While the Orioles, who are said to be looking for three starters and a right fielder, certainly figure to do so eventually, it’s a troublesome development for players that one sixth of the league has sat out the open market entirely.
Certainly, a few of the clubs with projected payroll decreases have tried to spend, as well; the Royals, for instance, have reportedly made a seven-year offer to bring Eric Hosmer back to Kansas City. That unsuccessful overture cannot be ignored, nor can the reported five-year offers for J.D. Martinez and Yu Darvish.
But, while (some of) the top names on the market have received lucrative offers, it’s been quieter yet for mid-range free agents that may have, in the past, expected more modest multi-year and even one-year commitments. I’ve had multiple representatives of “middle class” free agents privately express concerns to me this offseason that resemble those voiced by Van Wagenen today, though none has gone so far as to imply the possibility of a labor stoppage.
Obviously, a measure so extreme can only come from the players. But, the fact that such a prominent voice among player representatives has felt enough frustration on behalf of not only his own clients, but all 1200 players on 40-man rosters throughout the league, further underscores a level of tension between players and owners that is approaching historic levels. (For reference, CAA’s free agents this winter include Todd Frazier, Andrew Cashner, Jason Vargas, Matt Belisle, Jon Jay, Andre Ethier and outfielder Chris Young, as can be seen in MLBTR’s Agency Database).
To be clear, there’s yet to be any formal accusation of collusion, nor, more importantly, has there been any proof of the matter. Rather, we’ve seen arguments that run counter to that very notion — some from players themselves — suggesting that the small-scale increase to the luxury tax, the hard cap on draft/international spending and the link between draft compensation and free agency have all disincentivized teams from spending. Those were bargained into the CBA during negotiations between the league and the union, of course, and those factors play no small part in what has been a glacial offseason that has left a significant portion of the industry baffled and divided at a historic high-point for MLB revenues.
If this happens again next offseason then there’s reason to think that something is up. Two times is a trend.
Wont happen. Bryce Harper and Machado vs Hosmer and JD is a different world
Don’t be so sure. Harper and Machado will get paid, but the players’ anger is not about superstars and their crazy money. It’s about the tiers below them. And it could easily happen next year to them, again. In fact it’s likely.
The “superstars” of this class have yet to sign and that is one of the major factors I think is holding up this years class. Once those (2) sign next year I think it will be like it was in years past.
Why is everyone afraid to talk about the Greed that has been creeping up and is now undoubtedly in the way of players signing contracts.
Hosmer isn’t worth $150 Million.
JD isn’t worth $200 Million
Moustakas isn’t worth $125 Million
Jay Bruce wanted 5/90M and signed for 3/39M. $39 million is enough money, that his grandkids will never have to work if they don’t want to.
The only “collusion” that’s taking place is many of the teams that are typically Big Spenders are waiting for next year’s free-agent crop….. so they’re not spending the big bucks this year. Between that and the new luxury tax penalties it’s not that difficult to figure out.
If the players strike I think they’ll be sorry. Most fans already think they’re overpaid spoiled brats…… and going on strike because a couple of their buddies can’t sign big contracts would be a huge mistake.
Fans will not put up with that.
As a fan I never saw a problem with players trying to get their max worth, it’s not greed. These owners are billionaires are refuse to feel sorry for them because they don’t want to fork over extra cash to sign a player.
whereas the owners are paragons of virtue? Fans are not stupid… we see that owners take in obscene amounts of money ( look at Loria’s golden handshake for example).
Pay the players, there is enough money for both owners and players.
Another factor the players seem to be overlooking is all the dead money out there from bad free agent contracts in the recent past. Atlanta is paying Adrian Gonzalez $22M this year and getting nothing in return. Detroit and Texas are still paying Prince Fielder for the next 3 years with Texas fortunate enough to be getting 1/2 of the $18M per year covered by insurance. Boston is paying Sandoval $19M each of the next 2 years for nothing. Not to mention the numerous players reaching the later years of big free agent contracts who aren’t delivering anything close to value for what they are getting paid like Albert Pujols. All that adds up, and has put a crunch on what teams are willing to spend for players.
Well said kbarr888…exactly my thoughts.
People shouldn’t discount how many big contracts there are that completely backfired on the team. This undoubtedly has had an effect on the market, in my opinion, as teams are probably shy to spend a high contract on what ends up being the next Alex Rodriguez, Prince Fielder, Matt Kemp, Victor Martinez, Jordan Zimmermann, Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard or Pablo Sandoval — just a handful of examples of why teams may not want to put all their financial eggs in one basket.
I’m a Tigers fan, and I loved what JD Martinez did in Detroit. If I was a GM, would I offer him 7 years / 200 million? Would you?
Id rather the players get the money than the owner just keep it
Re: Hosmer, Moustakas, JD, et al – in the not-so-distant past, players who put up similar numbers got deals commensurate with their reported asking prices. I think agents have been gassing their clients up, telling them they’ll get paid like it’s 2011.
Some owners are just as greedy, if not more greedy, than the players. I mean you have/had owners who are purposely keeping an internal salary cap so they don’t have to spend money. While market size plays a factor, there are some teams that always seem to be trying to keep their salary numbers as low as possible despite their success and revenue sharing numbers. There is a long history of owners colluding to suppress wages. Yes, the amount of money players make is enough to provide for their grandkids, but that’s the market and that’s their worth value. Its the same idea as why normal workers will go on strike; they feel they are not being paid what they actually deserve. If owners want to make money by getting fans in the seats, they need to spend money to put a respectable team on the field. As a non-athlete its easy to criticize athletes for holding out to get as much money as possible, but you have to look at it from their point of view. Most of these guys have a skillset that only a handful of other people in their sport, and the world, also have. If you have a unique skillset that makes you an asset in your career, you’re going to do everything possible to be compensated for it.
It would be nice if some of these agents told their clients, “Hey, I misread the market. There has been a fundamental shift in the way teams are approaching free agency. I’m sorry I got you so amped up for a huge payday.” That won’t happen, though, because the agent will come off as incompetent and I imagine they’d lose clients.
I think this a great point. Teams are realizing that it doesn’t make sense to give players long term deals well into their 30’s for what they’ve done in the past. Players have the most value in their 20’s. If the players still want 5,6,7 year contracts they need to bargain to have free agency start sooner, like after 3 or 4 years.
Plus, the top FA’s (Darvish, Hosmer, and J.D.) have offers, they’re just holding out for more. Once they sign, the next tier of players will probably get offers quickly.
KBarr888 what your comment fails to grasp is that the value of a player is not tied to how much money the average person makes and how comfortably their kids can live. The value of a player is directly correlated to the amount of revenue that the team brings in. The league is raking in billions of dollars in revenue and the players should be compensated for being the reason why the league is so successful. Owners don’t bring fans in, they don’t go out and risk their future health playing a grueling schedule with few off-days, dozens of flights, living away from family for most of the year, and trying to live out of a suitcase. Players can and should be making a larger slice of the pie and would be if not for greedy owners who have decided that millions of dollars in profit is simply not enough and that more is always better as long as it is coming to them.
This is an argument that is constantly lost when people discuss salaries of players in any sport. The truth is that if a player or players settle for less money then it drives down the rest of the players ability to collectively bargain for their fair piece of the profit pie. This thinking works in any industry if you really think about it. Is it right for school superintendents and administrators to be making twice or triple the salary of the teachers? Should a company CEO be making 1000x the amount of his employees? Don’t let the fact that these are athletes change your opinion of the job because it is very much a job and don’t let the amount of money fool you either. Athletes are highly paid because they are the less than 1% of the peak at their profession and it is a profession that people demand and are willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money to witness either in person by purchasing a ticket or on television by paying premium sports packages. The market has defined how much a person will pay for the product so why should the players not be fairly compensated for the amount of dollars that they bring in?
Then again, maybe teams are willing to add more payroll than they’ve indicated thus far. Could be they are waiting out the market until the players get desperate and sign for less than they otherwise would.
They had to pay Prince even though he retired? Because it was injury related I presume? Wow that sucks but you’re totally right. When a team is forking over 10-20 million or more in dead money it’s going to worry about future deals to 30+ players. They so rarely work.
kingken, exactly.
I’ve made the same point before.
If you want to know why the Yankees haven’t signed a SP all you have to do is look at the dead money in Ellsbury’ s deal.
And Van Waggonen seems to think players are entitled to wage increases every year?
Where in the free market system he espouses is that guaranteed?
The fanbase that ultimately pays those salaries had stagnant wage growth for almost 20 years.
He’s just upset because agents have probably promised more than they can deliver to a subpar FA class and they have egg on their faces.
So teams should just give any player, whether it makes sense from an age/talent/need/financial perspective or not, whatever they’re asking for? Talk about a horrible business strategy. This crop is free agents is NOT worth the massive contracts they’re asking for, and as others have pointed out, most already have offers and are holding out for even more. Another factor that will blow all this outcry out of the water will be the extremely strong free agent class next year, where several +300 million dollar contracts will undoubtedly be handed out.
Yes they have a skillset. And it’s a declining skillset in their 30s.
All you have to do is go look at the ages of the players in mlbtr’s lust of FAs to understand why ti understand why teams are reluctant to pay them big money.
The MLBPA screwed up in the CBA.
You reap what you sow.
I pretty much agree with your point on players not being worth their ask. It’s about time that the owners come to realize that most contracts in excess of 3-4 years turn out to be burdensome before they expire. It’s also important to note that it’s typically not prudent to overpay just because a guy is this year’s best available at his position.
Like most, I don’t begrudge a player getting all that he can, but the days of the open-ended lotto ticket have to come to an end. I’m not a supporter of the belief that owners should pay through the nose “just because they’re billionaires”. For anyone who holds that point of view, try going in and demanding a ridiculous raise from the owner of your company based on the fact that he’s a billionaire or even a millionaire. Not to lose track of the fact that the owners have put up their money to acquire their teams. The players have made no similar investment.
As for the claim of a possible collusion…..what is it when agents share info on player negotiations and salaries and then utilize that shared info to demand more and more for their clients?
maybe if they didnt spend it all on the players, ticket prices could drop, attendance would go up and the next generation of fans would evolve. What the fans pay to go to a game is prohibitive. If there were no fans, and that audience is shrinking, there will be no game.
As fan I can see both sides as wrong. I remember a family trips to the ball game once week and sometimes 3 times a week with whole family. Drinks and food for all. Damn I can’t get a field box for the Family, for less than $350 ‘all in’ for one game.
This is at a low cost small market team!!!
Yes fans who grew up going to game are getting frustrated with both players and owners.
Something has to give …
That’s not what this issue is, money isn’t even being discussed. Owners aren’t communicating with agents right now, except for minor league deals. Owners/Gms are acting as if they have no interest in players or are in no rush to get a deal done.
Greed is a subjective term and has no place in a analytical debate. Basic economy is at work here.
The stars sign first, then the next level.
This Agents are the sun and moon, vs a very good contract.
It is the Agents fault.
There is some validity to this point but the owners can’t have it both ways either: not pay an older FA with declining skills and not pay a league minimum salary salary who hasn’t “proved” it yet over consecutive seasons.
There is no way the owners would agree to let players who have only two or three years of MLB service time become free agents, or allow for salary arbitration after their rookie year because then players would be making more.
That will be the next fight unless owners play the game right now. Maybe it will happen anyway.
No one has an issue with them holding out for whatever they can get.
We have an issue with the strike talk and the self pity from agents and players who can’t bring themselves to work for 15-20 mil per year and have the gall to go public and threaten legal action.
Paying players for 7+ years and 150 million+ is far more likely to happen quickly next year when the top players are in their mid 20s and not early 30s
That isn’t true at all.
Sorry.
The value of a player is what he can get in a free market.
Employees are not paid based on what the business earns divided by the number of employees?
While your argument is true about prices going up for fans, the way to stop that is to stop going to games. The owners and players need each other but they both need us fans too for them to survive. We dictate how much these players get payed by how much we are willing to spend to watch them play
The difference, at least as I see it, is that the owners have a ton of risk and no one guarantees the value of franchises will go up. Just like the fans in Pittsburgh, the players seem to have this idea in their head that they are owed something- they are not.
I have no problem with owners hauling huge profits- that is why the team values are so high. I have no problem with players trying to get as much as they can. I do have a problem with them being cry-babies when their union has failed them. Donald Feir is rolling over in his grave.
why are you and others so quick to blame the players, we all know how much these organizations get paid, and they are being cheap by waiting so that the free agents sign for less
I’d rather fan ticket prices came down and player salaries were reasonable.
And who represents the biggest names unsigned to date? scot.boras.
He is public about dragging things out but this time I think he is screwing not just his 1 or 2 main clients (because he has 4 or 5), but he is screwing up everyone.
jdm is not worth a top 4 or 5 EVER contract. He is bat only.
holland has no where to sign becuase everyone has a closer. Suck it up buttercup and sign as a 8th inning guy, you’ll still get $8 or $9 million a season.
The list goes on and on.
Players come across as extremely entitled, especially with an open letter like the goofball who wrote it. Someone needs to slap him in the head and say “the public is not swayed when you complain that players are not receiving $200,000,000 contracts”.
Im not saying for owners and players not to make money but the amount of money that the fans are affording these players and owners alike is out of control. 100mm dollar contracts like if it was chump change and 1 billion dollar franchises!!!
Cmon I just want to get my kids to the game I grew up with, for an affordable rate and not sit in the nose bleeds
Maybe i just need to re adjust my thinking and instead buy season tickets to a minor league team where $$$ is not the primary objective but entertainment and the game still matters.
Billionaires and millionaires fighting and we regular fans don’t have a voice!
So basically you both are saying overpay for a player because there is “enough to go around”? I’m sorry but it’s just like everything in the real world. These guys think they can magically set their own market and it’s not happening. Who in their right mind would pay 160M for Darvish over 6 years into his age 38 season for example? It’s not the players money to cry over anyways. If they don’t want to take what the market has set for their value then don’t. Go ahead and retire and get nothing. They really think striking and having owners lose out on billions will make them pay more?
Oh and it’s not even that they can’t sign big deals. They want teams to cripple themselves over 6-7 years for 150M rather than take the 5 100M they have on the table
Lindyswap, As I mentioned above, most if these FAs are over 30 and declining.
Why should an owner pay millions to a mid-tier FA if he has a pre-arb guy in his mid-twenties who can produce the same?
The players negotiated this CBA. If they don’t like it they should look in a mirror.
It’s the owners team? He bought the team so it’s his money? When players want to go out and drop 300-500M or whatever it is to buy a franchise then they can talk about how to spend money.
Fairly compensated? Baseball brings in less than basketball and football but the big name players make just as much if not more. Unless you’re a QB for example you’ll struggle to make 20M+ in football and it’s a shorter lifespan sport wise. Not to mention they blow MLB’s revenue out of the water.
@lindyswap how do you know who’s communicating with who? Before the Cain deal there was no talk of the brewers giving him 5 years. Also why would they be in a rush to get a deal done? They have been free agents for months and teams almost certainly have laid out their max offer by now.
All excellent points. Still doesn’t address the fact that owners now refuse to pay for players declining years. It’s just not going to happen and players will have to adjust or re-negotiate the CBA to pay younger players more and get them to free agency sooner, when the time comes.
“Donald Feir is rolling over in his grave.”
Sorry to hear that. On the positive side, former executive director of the MLBPA, Don Fehr is very much alive.
tuna411, I agree with you. but Brodie Van Wagenen’s audience is his clients, not you and me.
The players DGAS whether you and I can afford to go to a game. Neither do the owners, That’s why I don’t care how the money is divided. It’s a wage dispute between rich people.
Brodie Van Wagenen tries to frame it as a David vs. Goliath.
That’s BS.
I’m David. The owners and players are both Goliath.
I agree the fans need to tear apart MLB and start over. These guys are fighting over the money we the fans have given them and are throwing it in our faces. I used to be able to go to 10 to 20 games a year as a kid and now as an adult I can barely afford to go to a couple of games. We need to stand up and make our voices heard right now and let them all know if there is another stoppage we will boycott and tear this league apart.
There are no superstars in this class! Just some very good players.
And there you have the REAL reason!
no doubt they will get paid, the other tier guys is who i am talking about
The free agent class of 2018 is precisely why most teams are reluctant to go over the cap this off-season. It’s not collusion as much as it is a bunch of teams with hopes of using their budgets to acquire elite talent like Harper, Machado, or Kershaw as opposed to JD Martinez or Yu Darvish.
Nope. There are maybe — MAYBE — a half dozen teams who even in their best moments think they have a chance at either of those guys. Probably more like 3 or 4 to be honest. It isn’t affecting anyone else’s thinking. And besides, Harper and Machado will make, what $35m a year? That’s only $10m a year more than Darvish and Martinez have been offered this year. Teams can cut $10m from the payroll no problem if that’s what they’re thinking.
A trend is two times? Wow.
I don’t know if you can say wow to that after the reactions you’re seeing from one year of this. I love how this loser speaks for “1,200 alpha males”. What a dweeb.
Big time dweeb. Also he’s playing with fire. There will be huge backlash against the players if they boycott spring training or stop work in any way because they are sad about their 100MM offer that is too low or their 4.1MM average salary that is too low. I have tickets to 14 spring training games. I will never risk supporting these greedy players again if they pull this crap
Exactly. 30 owners. 1,200 alpha males. But millions of fans. Screw over the fan base by cancelling spring training games and see how the masses can quickly trump these alpha males.
No… two times is s coincidence. 3 Times is a trend.
Something up? Only thing that’s up , is owners realizing these greedy agents and players think they are worth way more than they are. Hosmer, Yu, and JD Martinez all have mega deals on the table that are way more than fair, but somehow and someway these idiots want more money. Then as soon as they sign, they start to lose that edge and eventually the deals look terrible. From what I have read, no one is in the greedy players corners this time. And thank God for that! These ML players are tool bags!
It won’t happen, because next year there will actually be free agents who deserve the type of salaries this year’s crop is asking for.
FA spending was down 1 billion last year and now 600 million this year. Payroll inflation has went from 3.4% to 0.4 % and maybe negative this year. Thats a trend starting with Manfred becoming commisioner
Three things.
The new tax laws make sports teams less valuable as a write-off.
Teams are spending more on player development and coaching especially since pitchers are going less innings.
More teams are doing serious rebuilds.
I blame Scott Boras
I know right? this year’s free agents simply aren’t worth what they’re asking. if I were an owner I’d be hanging onto my money for next year’s free agents too.
Where is the evidence players are asking for more than they are worth compared to previous years?
OK, so players asked for more than they were worth in the past and uneducated front offices and owners agreed to pay them. Got it.
Now, owners have hired GMs and front offices that are basing their free agent signing decisions more on data of projected future performance instead of past performance – they’ve gotten smarter – and are not willing to give out those kinds of contracts anymore.
You are right – the players are not asking for more than they have in previous years. It’s just that owners and FOs have gotten smarter and are not willing to overpay them for past performance.
Are you arguing that owners and FOs should continue to be stupid?
Look at the dead money or players not earning their pay and you have it!
Remember when Boras almost blew up Eric Hosmer’s contract because he wanted to redo Pedro Alvarez ‘s deal with the Pirates after the deadline b/c Buster Posey’s bonus was slightly larger?
Most do
It’s because the level of players doesn’t match up with the money they’re asking for and next years free agent class will be one of the best in the history of the game… I’m sure this has been explained a few times before. Crazy what some of these free agents want, just because you ask for it doesn’t mean you are going to get it.
Exactly!
You are correct, they are selling Ford’s and Chevys..at Porsche and Lamborghini prices, owners are getting smart..if you want to blame anything, blame analytics, numbers don’t lie
Explain why this calculation suddenly arrived THIS off-season. Teams have been paying players ridiculous amounts for years and years.
And they’ve been getting screwed on those investments for years and years. Why wouldn’t it happen this offseason? It had to happen some offseason.
Screwed? Last I checked the Steinbrenner family has been doing just fine.
Several reason.
1. Analytics
2. Next years class.
3. The New CBA (approved by the players), and the escalating pentalty.
4. Players not worth what they are asking.
Because this is the first year average players insisted on being paid like Arod.
Yeah the Rays haven’t signed anyone yet because they want in on Harper and Machado.
Welcome to life as a baseball fan!
Since it’s your first day I’ll be nice and point out the Rays never sign free agents.
Kershaw will resign with Dodgers. Harper and Machado have both had injury issues and inconsistency and only a few teams will be in on them. Blackmon and Donaldson will be called too old.
Maybe this year owner’s are waiting to spend on a better crop of free agents next year or maybe they want to develop their own players. Players’ Assn. does not complains when a guy like Wieters is given a ton of money and plays like crap.
The owners are being smart and wanting to avoid bad contracts. Do the players give back the money when they signa. terrible deal? No. Poor Hosmer. No one wants to commit 8 years to a guy who is not an elite 1B
He is the 9th best 1b in baseball, does that warrant 8 years or 100+ million?
First off he is not the 9th best 1B in baseball. Second was does reported to have 140 million dollar offers. Thats more than enough. And no Hosmer is not worth 8 years
oh he’s definitely top 10 first baseman, actually take the time to look at his stats, and don’t assume a players bad because it’s the cool thing to do
He is not even close to the same level as the best 1B im the leauge. If you have him late top 10 thats fine but he is not hard to find. Logan Morrison can give you similar production for far less
Again, Look at the stats, Hosmer is significantly better than Lomo
No hes not. Their WAR was almost identical and one wants 140 + and the other might get a 1 year deal. Its not even close who the better value is. Anyone who gives Hosmer 8 years is nuts
NO!
Do you have to give back your paycheck if your boss doesn’t feel like you were worth it?
No, but when your appraisal time (or Free Agency) comes around, don’t count on a raise (Huge Contract).
Yeah cause a 31 year old with health problems and a 3.42 career era isn’t getting a 6 year deal. Tf outta here with this
Crybaby. How about the fans who can’t afford tickets because a MLB player wants $150 million instead of $130 million?
How about fans who can’t afford a ticket because owners want to clear $200m a year instead of $180m?
You’re just taking the side of billionaires you don’t care about over millionaires you really want to see play. That makes no sense.
I never understood fans who sided with the billionaires who create these same ticket prices people can’t afford
As if the players and their agents aren’t constantly trying to push payrolls higher which will have an obvious impact on ticket prices long-term? You think Eric Hosmer cares about what effect his contract will have on the ticket prices of wherever he plays? No, he just wants to get paid max dollars. Figure it out, they’re all greedy and no one has the fans’ interests at heart.
Granted that ticket prices must adhere to “what the traffic will bear”, but for anyone who’s ever run a business, you know that the price of goods and services must cover the operating costs of the business….and payroll is a huge operating cost. Additionally, some folks seem to think that the owners shouldn’t make a profit in running their business. Try running that concept by your present employer. In short, if operating costs were less, ticket prices could also be less….especially in fan starved markets like Miami, Tampa and Oakland.
I have run a business and I didn’t hire employees and then price my product. The market set my prices and then I hired employees based on my revenues and profits. Don’t think for a second that any team is going to lower ticket prices or take less TV money because they saved millions on FA salaries. Just like no team lowered ticket prices or gave rebates back to season ticket holders when they lowered and locked in talent acquisition costs with hard spending caps on the draft and international FAs in recent years.
Actually, if you the players were dumb enough to strike, owners would definitely be offering discounts at the ball park to try to satiate irate fans.
Name that team. Go ahead. From a 2017 article:
“The most interesting part is that the Phillies’ operating income — a fancy term for profit — is the majors’ biggest..
The Phillies delivered an $87.7 million profit last year, according to Forbes. That’s nearly $4 million more than the second-place Chicago Cubs, who only won the World Series and sold more merchandise from it than most humans could possibly imagine.”
BOOM. The Phillies had the highest “profit” and didn’t break $100 million. All of you folks that think these teams make billions in profit are just crazy. I refuse to turn off my ad blocker, so I can’t go to the related site, but statista shows it as well. The article referencing this page also list all of the NL East:
Philly 87 . 7 (1st)
Atlanta 15 . 2 (22nd)
Mets 31 . 7 (15th)
Marlins (-2 . 2) – that is negative – (28th)
Nats 37 . 6 (12th)
NOTE – I added spacing aren’t the decimal to get it to show better on the font used here.
The problem is NOT MLB teams. The problem is spending spiralled out of control at the start of the wild-card era, with so many teams seeing themselves as being a free agent or two away. They overpaid for players.
It also has not helped things that the average age of decline is trending back to it’s pre-roid ages. No longer are players continuing to put up bigger numbers into their late 30’s with a decline age of around 33. The decline age is now back to around 30, so those 8-10 year deals that were already killing teams are now no-brain rejections.
The players and their greedy agents need to understand the change and stop screaming about the owners. The owners are FINALLY being fiscally responsible. It used to be that one or two would try to outbid everyone, driving up all prices, but now, even those teams are getting wiser.
I wonder why there were multiple groups of extremely wealthy and presumably intelligent business people lining up to spend well over $1,000,000,000 to acquire a franchise that loses money.
The general notion that player salaries are in any way tied to ticket prices is just false narrative. If that were the case, then we’d be headed toward ticket prices decreasing 7 to 10 percent this season. That’s not going to happen.
It’s not like ticket prices in leagues with sports with salary cap are a fraction of the cost of tickets to an MLB game.
Ticket prices increase because the market shows a willingness to meet those prices,and owners are always going to try to extract as much revenue as possible. That’d be happening whether payrolls were averaging $150MM or $100MM and whether the average player made $4MM or $1.5MM.
It’s the same reason that the prices of concert tickets, movie tickets and even Netflix subscriptions continue to rise.
Key phrase is Market Willingness. It goes both ways, right? If owners can win championships with a payroll below the Lux Tax why would they sign 31 year old FA that may or may not get them close.
It is both and.
IF the market will bear it, the price will go up, and so will Salaries.
If it does not, then the owners will not dish out the extra contracts.
If a team sheds all sorts of payroll like the Marlins did and the ticket prices stay the same and fans pay it, of course ticket prices won’t go down. A more likely scenario is all the stars from Miami are gone, no fans will want to go at all now, and ownership will have to do things to lure fans to the games to create some sort of revenue…. like making games dirt cheap to come to and hoping to draft good talent so they can get a good team on the field for cheap as well
Correlation doesn’t have to occur immediately for it to exist. Teams aren’t going to jerk their ticket prices around every season based solely on payroll because that would create a needless disconnect with fans, and ticket sales are only a fraction of a team’s revenue. But gradual longer-term trends in ticket prices are absolutely going to be influenced by a team’s revenue and income, which will be partly based on their payroll considerations. To say that owners will always charge the absolute most they can for tickets either way, therefore player salaries are completely irrelevant is an entirely unfair and unfactual comment.
In terms of other sports, there are numerous other factors that explain why their ticket prices aren’t cheaper despite salary caps, including less seating (NHL, NBA) and far less home games each season.
When did we begin blaming employees and stop holding the Ownership and Companies responsible for letting a smaller and smaller % of record revenues trickle down to the workforce.
Revenue has gone up. Profit has gone up. Players share, not to mention draftees, international talent and Minor Leageurs’ portion of that $ has decreased.
So then companies should be required to hire people who will become liabilities in the future and in turn make them less successful? If anything teams should have to bonus out the current players for financial success not hire potentially destructive employees.
“The Associated Press showed the big leaguers’ share of net revenue was between 48.5 percent and 51.7 percent each year since 2006.”
chroniclet.com/national-news/2016/03/21/AP-study-p…
This is from 2016 but it still applies, MLB players get around half of the generated revenue without having to take any financial risk. You know another industry where employees get half of the net revenue?
Is that share rising or dropping?
Not sure, didn’t find an article on that, so we have to take what we got. But feel free to research it yourself.
I think it is dropping, last I had heard (not sure where), players salaries are about 39% of revenue.
Nice to know which is correct
“between 48.5 percent and 51.7 percent each year since 2006.”
maybe try reading instead of thinking if the results are that bad.?
Players salaries have skyrocketed.
Why don’t you read the article before commenting?
This is hands down the worst comment I’ve read on this site, you are very wrong
Lol. Players only get 40% of the ticket price. One player getting 20% more accounts for 1% of the ticket price
I just spent $1,000 on a trip to spring training. If they boycott I’ll never watch another game. Ever. Anywhere. On TV, MLB.TV, spring training, minor leagues.
ANYWHERE.
To your point, many fans in Los Angeles still cannot watch the Dodgers because of the greed of the LA organization and cable operators. They don’t give a damn about the fans.
Yes you will
You don’t know that. I know people who still haven’t watched baseball since the last strike.
Yes they do
@renochris
Prior 1994, I went to 30-40 games every season.
Post 1994, I went to 4 games in ten years.
I still attend just one or two games a season because the strike made me sick.
I also have bought spring training tickets, if they do go on strike do we get a refund?
Greed is to blame in both the players, the owners and the agents
Blame on many sides.
Yup ! It’s millionaires VS. billionaires ! How much is enough? I can see the players point that they want to make as much as they can! But to say they are gonna strike because they don’t get everything they want all the time, is stupid
and greedy! I can see the owners point because it’s a business
and they have to make a profit. But they let these salaries get out of hand
a long time ago
You want to go back to the good ol days where the players were basically under indentured servitude?
Pretty sure theres middle ground between not paying a 31 year old OF that cant play defence 200 mill over 7 years and indentured servitude. Owners having lots of money doesnt mean they shpuld throw it away and hinder future success for their team
They didn’t get rich by being stupid.
He’s just mad he won’t get a fat bonus next year. It’s really simple. Teams are tired of destroying their future potential to win with these huge anchor long term contracts.
Thank you!!!! I don’t give any agent creedence when they lecture on the street corner like this. Their primary concern is their commission. None of them are volunteering their time as an agent for the betterment of humanity, so we need to keep that in mind when they’re crying a river.
Both owners and players need to remember that value of an item rests on what is willing to be spent for it. A strike can, in this particular unique market moment, hurt the players badly, as well as damage a franchise.
Wiser heads should prevail.
there has been labor peace for over 20 years… i guess this was bound to happen?
A strike should void a player’s contract. If I skip work to strike I’ll get terminated and my spot will be filled by someone else. Should be the same way with mlb players. You get paid a freaking ridiculous amount to PLAY A GAME. Be thankful for it and play… I’d love the chance to sit on a bench and watch every game even for the league minimum…
They get paid a ridiculous amount because nobody in the world can do what they do. Maybe you can be easily replaced but a MLB player cannot.
That’s what you can’t seem to understand, MLB players can be replaced…by NFL players and NBA players. MLB is already on the low end in popularity, these greedy people who get paid millions but want more could sink the MLB forever. The only thing that saved them after the last strike was steroids, and those aren’t exactly allowed anymore. Might take the reincarnation of Babe Ruth to bring back the game after another strike.
They already get half the revenue, I don’t know another industry’s employees that get paid that well…do you?
This is even more absurd and unrelated to reality than the comment above by Nic. Labor is the largest expense in virtually every business.
Attendance is up. Cable ratings may be down but they’re down for everything, including the NFL. Online viewership is skyrocketing. The MLB app is a huge success.
And almost every industry that has quality collective bargaining gets about half the revenue.
Hook line and sinker…So MLB players are getting the same amount of revenue as most industries get?
So why should they get more when their salaries are already inline with most industries?
Not to mention, that they also get public exposure that they are able to capitalize on through endorsements.
Who said anything about more than half?
Nevermind then, thought you were arguing that the players deserved more, but I must have been thinking of another person.
Did ratings for either go up during the last strike? There are more baseball fans today than ever before. Revenue is higher than ever before. Between fans in the stands, fans on TV and fans watching on streaming, there has never been more eyes on a baseball game.
I’d almost guarantee 100% cannot replace me and masters degrees, a shame I don’t get 15mm a year to save people’s lives when they play a game…
Do you complain when you go to a movie that the star got paid $15 million or more? Of course not. Neither should you complain about the entertainers on the baseball field getting paid what they are worth. To do so is the height of hypocrisy.
Craig Breslow went to Yale and majored in biochemistry and molecular biophysics… your math is off
Yeah they can.
You can promote the AAA guys without any problem. No one is going to die if the quality of play dips a little for a couple of years.
That would kill baseball. No one goes to a major league park to see minor leaguers play. Get real kid.
lots of people in the world can do what they do. can you hit a 90 mph fastball? your in the leaguue. but not likely, the union will lock you out. its not like brain surgery where you need a decade of training.
they just make more because people pay to see them throw and hit.
You got that right. There are about 1200 guys that play in the majors a year. There are 6 million that play baseball from little league to college in any given year. What is that, .0002?. 2 in 10000 make the majors? Of those 1200, there are about 40-50 that are stars like Hosmer or Scherzer that are looking at the big money. Lets put that in perspective. More than 40% of law students finish school and pass the bar. 30% of med students finish school and become Doctors. Those are two of the toughest professions to get into.
Nic, that’s not how collective bargaining works at all and it’s against federal labor law to fire someone for striking. But if it makes you feel better, everything else in your post is absurd too, so at least you’ve got consistency going for you!
But they’re offering higher aav just look @ wade Davis. They’re being offered the $ it’s teams are preferring terms like those for good not great players. This crop doesn’t have one player whose worth beyond 5 years.
Hosmer has 7/140 JD had a 5/125 and all the algor-whatevers say thats a pretty damn good salary consummate with their skill set and past pay days of equivalent players yet they are still asking for more. That’s their right, but its plenty of evidence that owners are not trying to collude but operate in an agreed upon rule set.
Exactly! 5/125 million is more than fair considering David Ortiz, arguably the greatest DH ever, never made more than 16 million a year and only retired a year ago.
Actually, both of those offers are far below what the algorithms say that they are worth. Look at what MLBTR projected they would make.
Do you even know what an algorithm is?
What does Al Gore have to do with anything?
Welcome to the real world, Gentlemen.
We want it to be much more, but it is a business … and when well-run, a very profitable one at that!
Shouldn’t this post mention how many players CAA represents?
I’ll add it in there, sure. They represent an enormous amount of players, but very few in the way of notable free agents this winter. Todd Frazier is their top guy.
I don’t blame owners for collectively getting tired of signing guys on the wrong side of 30 to 6-7 year contracts that always end with 2-3 awful seasons from guys making $20M+ a year.
Those contracts also start with 2-3 years of surplus value. The owners are not losing money on these deals at all. The surplus value at the front end pays for the negative value at the end.
You have to take the value of the contract as a whole, not just the last 2-3 years.
Do you even know what an algorithm is?
you seem to just make stuff up as you go along.
Do you have anything to prove positive value in the early years other than the negative value in the outlying years?
You’re breaking my heart Brodie. The most overpaid athletes in all of sports are unhappy.
Tough ****.
Ummm NBA.
Nah. NBA stars are woefully underpaid actually. Average NBA player is overpaid though, I’ll agree there. Not as much as baseball though. You have guys who play 4% of available time making $5,000,000 +. And a lot of them. It’s baseball by far in my opinion.
The most overpaid owners in all of sports are colluding to pay less money to the players while revenue is going up and that is going to mean tough **** for fans of baseball. You won’t get to watch baseball because owners got greedy.
you should probably look into how sports work before you comment
Let’s be clear — none of us here knows whether collusion is involved. It’s happened before. But it’s also true that being able to afford something does not guarantee you see value in it. If the price of beef keeps doubling, even people who can afford it will start buying chicken. In baseball, that goes for owners but also for fans, who are the ones who ultimately pay the cost of beef. I take my family to a few games a year, and the cost is making me think about trying chicken. Maybe the owners know their market.
The owners are attempting to depress the percentage of revenue that the players are receiving. As it stands today it’s at 27%. There are still more than 100 free agents on the market and if all sign at the projections on MLBTR and other sites, then it will still be 10% lower than it has been prior to this CBA.
Remember, those projections for JD Martinez, Hosmer, Darvish, Arrieta, and other top level free agents are far above the offers they have received.
% of revenue means nothing but the fact that you include it does prove that you are in fact lying instead of just being uninformed.
What does any of that have to do with whether or not there is collusion?
There are only 30 teams in baseball, and even fewer that can afford top free agents. That’s before you even factor in whether or not there is a matching need on behalf of those who can afford them and the players who are available in a given offseason, and completely discounts the idea that there is a ridiculously good (and expensive) free agent class coming up next year.
Nobody really knows what kind of offers these players have, beyond that they haven’t signed and a few rumors of numbers that may or may not be accurate.
And though I am just a lowly fan with a lowly opinion, I wouldn’t pay Martinez, Hosmer or Arrieta anything within ~$20-30MM of what they want, nor support my team doing so. And while Darvish probably deserves it based on his regular-season performance, his postseason was bad enough to be scary.
My point is there are explanations for people not getting the money they want beyond “ZOMG OWNERS COLLUDING TO OPPRESS THE LITTLE GUY!” We’re not likely to know what the truth is, but for my money it is ridiculously premature to to be dropping thinly-veiled threats of a strike–which did horrible damage to baseball, by the way–based on one slow offseason.
It’s simply that teams have finally figured out that longer deals for players in their 30s doesn’t work out more often than it does in the later years of the deal. And that they can go with a rookie and get just about the same production as a fringe veteran for far less.
Who cares
I’m all for players getting a larger piece of the pie, but it’s going to be an awfully tough sell convincing the average fan that they are being wronged for receiving $8M instead of $15M.
The Tough Guys in the comment sections who always cry about how much the players make would be shocked how much the owners of the teams – that do absolutely nothing to generate the income – make vs. the players, who do.
I think this is an equally false narrative.
Owners work behind the scenes, or sometimes, out front in the open, to draw fans to the games. Much of what you see at the ballpark, or the players that are signed, are because the owner expressed their desire for it to happen.
None of this is to stand in the owners’ corner. I think more of the pie should go to the players, but blaming the owners solely and claiming they do ‘absolutely nothing’ is absurd.
Do you go to see the owners? No. You go to see the players. They deserve 50% or more of the revenue. No matter what happens in the FA market, they will receive less than 40% this year. A strike is coming and it’s not going to be fun for fans that don’t get to watch the players on the field.
Do you have a link to where you’re getting 40% from?
A strike would be the most unbelievably stupid decision the players could make.
You’re right and you’re wrong. Yes, we go to see players, but we go to see them PLAY WELL. We don’t go to see guys like Carl Crawford, Prince Fielder, Jacoby Ellsbury and others get paid to stay home or sit on the bench – and handicap our team’s ability to compete because of their dead money contracts.
Yes, the players are upset – but so are the fans when these contracts hurt our teams.
And if the players strike we’ll go watch minor league teams. Many of us do already, because the cost of going to a MLB game is ridiculous.
I don’t really care how the revenue is divvied up – I don’t care who gets what percent of the revenue – and I think the players deserve as much as they can get in negotiations, not some arbitrary percentage. That’s what a free market and collective bargaining are all about.
The problem the players have is that front offices have caught up with the fact that the long term contracts they’ve handed to players have gone bad too often to continue handing them out.
Sure, players are upset about this. But that’s what happens when markets correct. Deal with it in the next CBA.
Striking would be monumentally stupid.
Investing money is doing nothing but playing baseball is worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year?
That might be the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
Slightly unfair to the White Sox, as they are paying over $50mil to Robert between last year and this one that does not count against Major League payroll.
Just as you couldn’t call the Padres “cheap” in 2016 with their low payroll and huge international spending.
The amount of data that is available is helping to suppress the market as well. With the amount of advanced statistics available teams have actually been able to learn from the mistakes of the past and how to build a championship caliber team. Now the issue more likely is that players have to wait so long before they become eligible for a big payday and if that is the case then that part of the system needs to change but not forcing teams into bad contracts for the sake of players and agents getting paid.
Owners have slowly been pushing to spending less on players, specially with international players, that why they implemented a cap for international signing. Before the best international player would get a 4 or 5 million dollars signing bonus, and they were able to drop that to 1 to 2 million.
That was also done in an effort to make smaller market teams more viable in signing international players. They need to just make them part of the regular draft and be done with it.
The owners wanted a draft. It was the union’s bizarre and ill advised idea to counter with a hard cap.
True. Union leadership is not at its best lately.
The MLBPA didn’t counter with a hard cap. That was the owners asking for that. The MLBPA just said to look at what being part of the draft did to baseball in Puerto Rico.
Life and baseball in the Caribbean is different than it is here. A draft nearly killed baseball entirely in Puerto Rico and they are much better off than they are in the DR or Venezuela.
This is an absolutely disgusting piece, The failure to acknowledge that the trend of shedding payroll and not bogging down a system with over-extended contracts that continuously prove to not pan out has served as the formidable blueprint to MLB success. Look at teams like the Yankees that have seen wins go up while payroll falls, teams like the Astros and Cubs that orchestrated complete rebuilds by allowing their teams flexibility. Rarely, will I side with ownership in these types of arguments but the truth is that salaries over-exceeded their worth and clubs recognized this, hence the trend is curbing back financial commitment in the effort to remain truly competitive for a World Series title. Baseball is still a game of competition and fans want to see a winning team,, the entertainment factor is not the allure of big names, but the long-term viability of a franchise. This is why fans are concerned with financial commitments alongside the big name free agents, they now understand the hindrance they can cause.in the future.
Regardless… I can’t afford to go to a MLB game any more. Millionaires fighting with billionaires over how to screw over the taxpayers into providing stadium venues is not a positive use for my time. If anything I would gladly work to end taxpayers subsidies for professional sports. I don’t object to players or owners making a profit but not at the expense of the taxpayer. Pay your own way.
I think you make a good point yes maybe its time to let players get a smaller piece of the pie. I have no problem with that just as long as the owners use that money to build their own stadiums. I’m sure if they were forced to put a percent of their profit in a kitty every year the MLB could start paying for their own stadiums. I also think it is disappointing and disgusting how Boras always plays these games with his contracts in having money deferred he is always looking for loop holes to basically cheat the system while some teams play by the rules. He could take his fair of the blame. I don’t need to always watch the gifted I love watching the players that show and give me heart
Do you really think that ticket and beer prices will go down because the owners robbed the players of their fair share of the revenue?
Eliminate the luxury tax, and I guarantee you none of us are having this conversation. I’m not saying that’s the right thing to do, but most of these free agents would be signed were it not for that factor.
So, no lux tax eliminates the absolute nature of math? Really?
How do they get around eternal salary increases in the face of stagnant revenue? That’s a valuable trick.
Stagnant revenue? WTF are you talking about? Baseball is making record revenue and its projected to go up 9-12% in 2018.
If owners want to quash rumors of collusion, they can drop ticket prices as a show of faith to fans that, although they may not be putting money into the product in the field, they want the average fan to be able to afford to come to games. By not doing so, it screams “greed” in their part.
As far as the players, I don’t see it as greed. They just want their piece of the pie. The players fought for their FA rights and deserve a good chunk of the profits because they ARE the entertainment. I’m fine with owners driving the market down – as long as they (and not fans or players) are the ones are taking a financial hit.
“In 2017, the Players were content with a status quo Collective Bargaining Agreement.”
His very first statement was a lie.
The new CBA has created much of the current situation. It was predicted by many people the day the CBA was signed. The luxury tax, the hard cap on international signings and the loss of that money for signing players with a QO.
Beyond that…
1) Name a team that is not acting rationally given their individual circumstances?
If you can’t name teams that are acting irrationally in the market then you have no basis to allege collusion or coordination. They are simply engaged in reasonable behavior given the circumstances and incentives.
2) If every single player who is still currently a free agent just vanished, would MLB suffer? Would the ratings be lower? Would they sell less tickets?
Doubtful. It’s not a star laden group that has a lot of leverage. Nor should they.
3) Hosmer has two suitors. Martinez has one and a half. Expecting teams to bid against themselves is delusional wishful thinking.
The players instead of waiting for FA should maybe look to take larger extensions with their teams to cover the earlier part of their careers, and take them into their early 30’s. Too many of them hit when they are closer to 30 and longer contracts at that point don’t make sense for teams to pay on the past, and the inevitable future.
One of the impediments to this years class has been the 50% penalty for the teams who have crossed the luxury tax line. If the escalators in the luxury tax continue it will near impossible for those teams with the top payrolls, the ones most likely to want to buy, to continue. Take my Giants for example. They need two players who can help. Two that are younger than the trades they have made and because of the Luxury tax which they would exceed for the 4th year in a row, they would accrue a stiffer penalty than what they have paid the last 3 years. If they can stay under the tax, then looking at next years class, they will willingly go back over and escape the 50% penalty.
This years class has featured a couple of players worth the penalty. Next year features several.
The giants should be going over as long as Posey is around. The tax is only assessed against the portion of the payroll above the tax so it really isn’t significant. Especially for a team like the giants who are either terrible or competing with the difference being 40 million dollars that even at 50% would only go up to 60 million.
That’s a lot but probably half or less of the extra money they make just being competitive.
Bucking the trend this year should also provide some bargains with everyone else waiting until next year.
The penalty is not 50%, its 20% in the first year.
4th straight year going over threshold. It’s 50%
Big Ron, you get it!
And let me add: if they stay under this year and it resets to 20% for next year? Next year the threshold is $206 million. The Pence and McCutcheon contracts will be off the books. That’s $32 million. They can go all out next year, exceed $206 million, and the penalty is much easier to stomach.
Personally, I think owners AND fans are tired of the free agent system that players in EVERY sport are taking advantage of. Wbat do I mean? A player actually WORKS HARD for a few years, signs for 20 to 100 million guarsnteed, the gets FAT and sits on their butts doing mothing. See Sin Choo, Rangers… See all the albatross contracts across baseball, basketball particularly. NFL players say owners are wrong to do what they do, they don’t give guaranteed contracts like other sports in the most violent sport, well look at why that is. PERSONALLY I DON’T BLAME OWNERS FOR DOING WHAT THEY ARE DOING. I WOULD DO IT TOO. And yet it is the owners fault. They created this monster. As always, the fans wll suffer.
No law saying team has to spend on payroll.
Any coordinating effort to skip spring training is defined as an uncoordinated strike and will have huge ramifications towards lock out.
Or if players don’t like it… let them choose a new way of making a living. No gun to there heads to be ball players. Also… is it posssible that the previous way of computing players value was wrong and it is now being corrected?? Or updated due to change??
I hate hearing this kind of crap coming from players or there representitives. Let them find a new job like the rest of us and if they miss the ballpark, they can spend the same $500 we spend to take out family to a ball game.
Both sides need to be sure they don’t alienate the very people who put paychecks in players hands and profit in the owners pockets. Last time it took a juice filled HR race to bring people back….what this time?
Boobs
Cool!!
Let me summarize Brodie Van Wagenen’s position:
“In the past we could get ownership and GM’s to make terrible financial decisions in FA. This year, that is proving to be much more difficult. We expected that if we held out for deals like we got in the past that teams would give in. They won’t. Now I look like an idiot in front of my clients. As a result, I’m launching this formal complaint.”
Teams are getting smarter. It’s that simple. They can look at the Pujols, Fielder, Cabrera, Ellsbury, Choo, Kemp, Hamilton, Zito, Cain, Wells, etc, etc, deals and realize that paying FORMER superstars $25M-$30M/AAV over 5-7 years is generally a very bad deal
Throw in pressure for some teams to reset the luxury tax clock and other teams finally getting that a teardown doesn’t mean trying for 500 anymore – it means tearing it down to the ground and you get this year.
Oh yeah … it also doesn’t help that EVERY big FA has massive warts. Arrietta – trending in the wrong direction. Darvish had a mediocre year and awful WS. Hosmer had a great year but a track record that is spotty. JDM can’t play defense and wants to get paid into his age 36 season. Moose gets on base only 30% of the time. The list goes on and on.
Good stuff!
I’d like to see one of them try to prove Free Agents are worth it as a general rule using actual contracts. You basically have some guys that provided good value but few provided surplus and almost all either provide much less or fail to help the team reach the next level which was the entire reason for signing the free agent. That tells me they are usually a bad idea.
Teams are also getting smarter about arbitration which was a big driver of the mid level FA contracts.
Oh, boo hoo. So owners don’t want to overpay for guys who will be past their prime during the latter years of the contract.
Sounds like smart business sense to me.
Brodie Van Wagenen can go jump in a lake. Agents are overvaluing their players for a long time and now its coming back to bite them. Front offices are just not going overpay for a player in their 30’s.
Brewers fans just sitting back wondering what all the fuss is about and waiting for a Darvish/Cobb announcement lol.
Several points
-) The market will always correct itself. After years of ballooning salaries and payrolls, sooner or later it was bound to collapse in on itself.
-) This group of free agents isn’t as good as they think they are.
-) New analytics make it easier to discredit performance despite shiny outdated statistics. Thus teams are more hesitant to spend on players with flaws.
-) The lack of parity is a problem. If you don’t think you can win, why spend the money.
-) Teams are too comfortable with the idea of “tanking” or rebuilding. This is happening in other sports as well. People have become to focused on whether they can win versus whether they can compete. If you can’t beat them in the playoffs, why bother.
Apparently the agents think collusion means not liking the deals that have been offered to some of these free agents and/or the teams that have offered said contracts…
“Free enterprise at its best.”
And they think the free market only works one way.
Achieving scale and cost efficiency is also free enterprise at it’s best.
players are in for a rude awakening, They go on strike, they are gonna find that the working public has no sympathy for them this time around. The gravy train has dried up. Teams aren’t gonna dole out 25-50 mil per year to a sub .200 hitter or a pitcher who pitches BP and then says ‘OUCH!!! I hurt my arm!!!” Your telling the guy can’t make ends meet on 15 mil a year and i barely get by on 15k a year??? Owners should be able to run their team as they see fit. They don’t wanna pay a guy 3 years and 750 million dollars??? they don’t have to and they shouldn’t. Tickets to ballgames are becoming pricey like concert tickets. 300 bucks for nose bleeds. The fans are gonna say enough! Players have used the fans to get what they want in baseball, the fans are gonna say screw you scott boras and company.
Right on! Fight the power!
Okay, players are better in their 20’s? Pay them market-value salaries then. It’s unfair to players who have put in their dues in minors for 4-8 years depending on when they were signed, and the first six years in the MLB (in some cases seven if owners are gaming the service time) before they’re allowed to market themselves.
Not all draft picks pan out and not all higher first round picks are the elite stars. Mike Trout was the 26th player drafted in 2009..
It’s amazing how on one hand we can cheer on and celebrate these players when they do something for our teams, but then we celebrate them getting screwed by owners. What does anyone have against Eric Hosmer, JD Martinez, Jake Arrieta? Would you like it if we celebrated your bosses screwing you out of a higher salary? At least most of us can go out and search for a better job. Baseball players can’t until they reach six years service time or their contracts expire. And, they don’t have the luxury of working in their chosen profession until their 55-65. They’re done at 35-40 if they’re lucky.
Only a few free agents are asking for six, seven, or eight year contracts. The rest of the free agents know that they’re not going to get those amount of years. I’ll concede that perhaps one agent notoriously overestimates the value of his players, but why aren’t the good but elite players not getting signed (Alex Cobb, Lance Lynn, Neil Walker, Logan Morrison and Lucas Duda for example).?
I believe collusion is taking place. The industry is in better shape than ever, and we’ve had labor peace for over two decades until now. Why are the owners screwing this up? Any future work stoppage is on them. Most of the teams have new taxpayer-funded ballparks that the owners claimed was needed to be competitive. Pay the guys who are the reasons we come to watch those games. If I want to watch minor leaguers, I’ll go watch the nearby California League team in my area.
Oh poor players can only work until they are 35-40 before they can comfortably retire and do whatever they want? My heart breaks for them….
A lot to respond to:
— The mechanism for paying players in their first 6 years was collectively bargained by the Union and Owners. If players want to compensate talent in years 1-6 they should negotiate that. Of course, any increase in the early years will most certainly be off-set by earnings in the later years.
— I don’t have anything against Hosmer and others. I know that my ownership works with a budget (just like any business). I want ownership to be the most efficient they can be within their budget. It does no good to cry about the A’s not spending like the Yankees. It’s just a simple market fact that teams have limited money to spend. So … as an Angels fan I’m ticked that we have $30MM tied up in Pujols for the next 100 years because we are at budget and that $30MM is being spent poorly. Maximizing on field value per dollar should be the goal of every team.
— The players you listed – who knows why they aren’t signed. Maybe they are sitting on multi-year deals. Ownership can’t force a player to accept a FA deal. Plus you are holding up guys that come with plenty of red flags. Walker is 32 and coming off back to back seasons where he played less than 115 games. Logan Morrison has averaged less than 1 WAR per season. Monster year in 2017 but people should be skeptical. Duda? One year removed from playing 1/3rd of a season and last year only played 127 games. Oh and he’s a first base that produced 13% more offensive value than the average player (including C, 2B, SS, etc).
— People may not be sympathetic to owners but I also struggle to believe that they will side with someone who is a scrub player that wants to make more than $10M a year playing baseball.
Sorry, but Scott Boras overplayed his hand this offseason. The top players at their position usually dictate the market for the lower tier players. Once JD Martinez switched his agent to Boras before FA, I knew it would be difficult for the Sox (or anyone else) to agree upon a contract.
Scott Boras won’t recommend that his clients take a reasonable/fair offer (see Eric Hosmer refusing to sign for 7/105). He needs to set the market with each player – always.
Some guys have signed nice deals this offseason (Santana, Cain, Davis, Minor, Bruce) and all of the offers were fair value to the player and the teams.
If the top remaining free agents decide to lower their demands, all could sign deals before pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training. The slow market is not due to collusion, it is the fact that the FAs this offseason were not realistic with their demands.
Brandon Moss was right about the players creating this. The draft pick compensation along with international pool money is what makes these free agents less desirable because so many draft picks are becoming productive players so quickly… ie, Bregman, Bryant, Schwarber. Draft picks are a premium asset nowadays. Combine that with all the guys sitting on deals waiting for one extra year and the recent history of large contracts losing value quickly and we have the mess we have now. plus, the insane luxury tax makes the big spenders alot more cost conscious.
Instead of telling his clients that he can’t get them the deals they want, BVW goes public throwing owners under the bus. I like how he tries to drag the GMs onto his side too.
That’s just good agenting. There will always be an unhappy side when market corrections occur.
And let’s face the other truth of this off season. Aside from the SPs, very few of the available players have logical/obvious fits on any teams. Few current FAs are impact players, even Hosmer wouldnt be considered a major add to any team.
This year’s crop just isn’t as great as any other year. Collusion will be the farthest thing from anyone’s mind next year. It’ll be business as usual when there are some franchise changing names on the market.
He only has ONE client that is a major free agent this season. You really don’t read the articles do you?
For the record, that tidbit was added after the initial post. I’m not aware of every players representation.
This guy has got to be s***ting me. Is he for real? OK Brodie.
If I could send him a box of kleenex I would, only with my urine dried into the tissues.
Does he seriously think his idle threats of a strike are going to con teams into overpaying for the players in this free agent market?!
I am so relieved to see teams finally declining to overpay, especially for players on the wrong side of 30. Players have been spoiled in recent years by contracts far beyond the realm of reasonable. Teams have learned a lesson from horrid contracts such as those signed by Pujols, ARod, Ellsbury, etc etc etc.
And I dare say fans are tired of seeing their teams’ success hampered by such contracts and are choosing instead to build their teams from the farm up and use free agency as a supplementary mechanism to round out their rosters.
I hope teams continue to take this stance, but I daresay all it takes is one team offering to overpay a player for the rest of this gang to be similarly overpaid.
I knew Manfred was corrupt. I knew it. It’s going to be a dark time until Manfred goes.
1200 alpha males? That’s nuts. What is he talking about?
Return of the Planet of the Baseball Players, I think.
Brains vs brawn. Alpha males are the douche bag jocks in high school who fight for supremacy and see who can chug beer the quickest. Winner gets the hot cheerleader…. he is basically saying it’s the dumb jocks vs the math team
Collusion suggestion is stupid stupid stupid. Each owner is using his own individual specific strategy.
To suggest that they communicate with other owners to develope a GROUP strategy is really short sided and….stupid
Why is it stupid to think that? They were caught colluding before.
Because not every team is acting the same way. Who cares what they did before? It’s obvious they’re not colliding NOW. Some teams are spending more than others. Some teams are doing what the Cubs and Astros did recently.
THEY ARE NOT ALL ON ONE PAGE! It’s obvious. It ain’t collusion. Jeez
Colliding = colluding (if thats the correct form)
I care what they did before because it shows that they are capable of doing it again.’
It is not obvious. Total spending on player payroll is down 10%. 100 plus free agents are still on the market. Agents and GMs are saying they are not being given the availability of money to spend on FA. Revenue is up, so no excuse for not spending more money. A few teams like the Marlins have to cut payroll, but they are the exception. That was Loria overspending to attract a buyer for the team.
Each has its own strategy. Period and that IS obvious. People keep lumping the Pirates in with the Marlins for example. Cole and McCutcheon will be free agents. Cole has been barely above average last couple years and there are up and coming players, like Meadows, ready to play the outfield.
They won’t be as bad as “experts” predict and they are not the Marlins. But you guys lump them together.
Pirates strategy is way different than Marlins strategy.
Strategy, not collusion.
These greedy players and agents simply won’t stop until they’ve fleeced every last dollar from all my favorite billionaires. I don’t go to the games to watch you clowns play, I’m there to help boost my team’s bottom line. Go ahead and strike, I’ll find a way to send my money to the owner’s directly. Nobody ever thinks about the billionaire’s grandkids who might have to make do with just a nine figure inheritance.
Why would a ballplayer need an agent to negotiate a business contract with a billionaire anyway? Act like an adult for once guys.
self-serving hogwash.
I’m calling it the Hosmer-Moustakas effect. Highly talented but underperforming players who expect 100+ million.
MLBPA is one of the strongest unions in America and has negotiated guaranteed contracts for their players. This is a remarkable coup for players. Do you have a guaranteed contract with your employer that y0u will be paid the full term of your agreement regardless of your performance or your ability to work?
When you combine this huge advantage with wanting 5-8 year 9-figure deals, then of course ownership is going to be very cautious. Sinking that much money into a player only to see them fail to perform at the level expected can crush a team’s financial model, especially for a small market team.
The agents are pissed because when the players are not getting paid, then they aren’t getting paid.
The objective should be to arrive at a win-win outcome that benefits both the player and the team. Seems the players are demanding too much and ownership is being hesitant. I would be doing the same thing if I were an owner.
Most work contracts are guaranteed regardless of performance, yes.
Do you also work for below minimum wage for 3-5 years while in the minors and then be under paid for the first 6-7 years of your career while teams manipulate service time?
Comparing professional athletes to average professions is a pointless argument. They’re among the best in the entire world at what they do. There’s more of a demand for a star level player than there is for whatever you and I do.
I agree. They are tremendously talented and deserving of very high pay. But they still need to arrive at a win-win agreement with the organization paying them. The collective bargaining agreement is the reason those players get paid so little in initial years of contract.
AS for getting paid little as a minor leaguer….ever heard of working as an intern or an apprentice while learning a trade or developing your skills? Also remember that many minor leaguers received signing bonuses when they became pros…..so not exactly working for minimum wage. As for being “underpaid” for the first 6 years of major league life, drawing a half-million dollar a year paycheck ain’t exactly poverty. And if the player performs, once he hits arbitration, he instantly becomes a millionaire (if he isn’t one already).
Do they work under minimum wage as an apprentice? My interns are all paid above minimum wage.
Isn’t the question one of how the pie is divided?
x amount of money goes to salaries and it really doesn’t matter to owners how that is divided. The players are given a lot of control here because it doesn’t cost the owners anything to give some of one players pie to another player.
The players have chosen to not share with minor league players, not to share with pre arb players and to make sure the very best players drive the market higher using bidding wars for stars that are funded by young players making nothing.
I’d cap AAV’s at 20 mil and floor MLB salaries at 1 mil and floor Milb salaries at 25k,50k and 100k A/AA/AAA
Would you cap revenues so that the owners and players were sharing revenue equally? That is where negotiations start. The players are the game.
My definition of a ‘business’ is not an organization that accepts, no demands, subsidies from taxpayers.
Some people think millionaire players are greedy but billionaire owners who accept corporate welfare aren’t the greedy ones?
If you want to shift the way players are paid, ie at the front/productive part of their career, I’m fine with that but then the entire pre arbitration and arbitration system must be changed. In other words, paying guys $800k after being mvp has to be included in calculating whether free agents are overpaid.
It might not be ‘collusion’ (this years buzz word) between the owners but i do believe it is calculated by the individual teams and they come to the same basic conclusion. many free agents just are not worth it especially with more and more talent coming in from around the world teams can plug holes with younger cheaper in house talent. Okay the handful trouts and kershaws out there.. the generational players.. they’re exceptions.
Players and agents might just have to accept this and temper their expectations with this “new” reality especially mid-range 30+ year old players
I think teams are just realizing that signing 30yr old free agents to huge contracts is a bad idea. The past few championships have been won by teams with core players on rookie and arbitration level contracts mainly. There are exceptions of course, the Yankees and Red Sox for instance have won with whopping contracts on the books but we’re seeing the teams awareness rising on the risk in those deals.
Machado, Harper and co. Will get theirs. Players like moose and hosmer are delusional though. I have a hard time viewing either of them as much more than league average overall and definitely nothing that is worth 20-25MM per season over a lengthy term.
wscaddie56, I strongly agree with you on the corporate welfare angle. So many owners are getting huge taxpayer subsidies for their stadiums. The good news is we are starting to get push back from taxpayers. Here in San Diego taxpayers voted no on building a new stadium for the Chargers which interestingly was partly funded by tax increases on tourists’ hotel, rental car bills. Taxpayers were angry, especially after the City of San Diego had a ticket guarantee for the Chargers subsidized by taxpayers. Petco Park may be the last stadium in CA that gets public funding. My understanding is that the new Rams/Chargers stadium in Inglewood is entirely privately financed. Hope this is a new trend.
Don’t overlook the effect of advanced player analysis. Teams can break down player performance to a level unheard of only a few years ago. Launch angle, exit velocity, spin rate, BABIP, the list goes on. Many teams seem to be saying why pay a vet $X AAV for Y annual average production over three to seven years when we can “statically” expect similar results from younger players with much lower AAVs? Add to that the recent success of teams like the Cubs and Astros who ranked for three plus years and then won championships by adding a few key FAs to a great young core. Fully a third of MLB teams are making no effort to win more games than they lose. Another third have no hope of even making the postseason. Then the biggest market teams are trying to stay under the luxury tax for next year’s FA class. I’m not saying there’s no collusion, but it’s likely a confluence of many factors that FA spending is way down.
They have an agreement and if they boycott ST then see them in court because it will take months to solve anything. MLB destroyed a huge part if its fan base after 1994 that never returned and this would cripple them.
Bahaha, “willing to bleed for it”, bahahahaha. Let’s keep it in perspective of billionaires and millionaries not Seal team 6 going at Isis on the ground in Syria. This agent letter is a load of baloney. It is a letter about greed and short term view vs a long term economic view.
Plus the nature of baseball finances are about the change and the owners know it.
I think we need to look at what is happening at ESPN to know what is truly going on in behind the scenes. ESPN subscription numbers are tumbling fast and deep. All the staff cuts tell us that too. Many beleive that baseball sports income has reached its pinnacle and will probably begin its decline in the not to distant future.
There is another problem. Baseball gets a lot of its wealth from cable rights. By placing the games on cable for the biggest cash, many kids aren’t being introduced or exposed to the sport. That is having a huge boomarang effect on money. Except for some playoff games, in many markets the advertising revenues that support the games are in slight decline. The owners can see this, they are not stupid. There still are some owners that act emotionally and irrationally and sign players to big deals, so be it. But most of the owners aren’t that way. They are learning that the salary value “algorithums” that have been used in the past are in wrong for the longterm.
Under Paul Beeston, the Jays never gave out contracts longer than 5 years. why? The numbers are obvious, it doesn’t pay. Long term contracts cripple club’s ability to compete over the longterm.
The correction happening in baseball finances is inevtiable, even forseen by some folks. There have be many blogs written about the advertising revenue debacle that is about to happen that will translate into much lower fees.
Personally, I used to share in season tickets for the Jays in 2 different areas of the Rogers.stadium. The price when I got in was $6 per game, that same seat is now $45. The other section I was in was a $10 per seat then, now it is is $47. It is plain stupid to bring a family to the stadium unless you are wealthy.
One year I went to 40 home games, now I am lucky to get to one.
What we saw a little bit last year with EE getting only 3 yrs and 60 m is continuing this year and will continue next year. All business go through ebbs and flows and baseball is like that too. The economy in the USA is running on all cylinders at the moment., but the underlying numbers and huge accumulated national debt won’t carry the economy burning like it is for much longer. There will be a correction, perhaps mild, perhps severe and baseball will be affected by it.
Good on the owners to realize the big picture. The players need to adjust.
God bless those billionaire corporate welfare queens!
The players can always choose to assume the injury risk too instead of thinking the owners will carry that no matter what the AAV is and as though the AAV doesn’t effect that decision.
Risking a bad out year or two at 15 or 20 mil is one thing if it gets you a difference maker.
This class has no difference makers and they still think teams should pay for a couple of bad years at the end for 25 mil. I get that a lot of players didn’t really focus on math but the agents should know better and have an obligation to explain it honestly. JD wants a contract so long he’s only an option for AL teams. He eliminates 50% of his market when was already limited and then wants 40% of his contract guaranteed at an age when he’s unlikely to be elite. Who does that instead of waiting for next years market?
Some GMs/Owners taught the league last offseason that by waiting & waiting, they could turn good players into bargains & bargains into minor-league contracts. Now ALL the GMs/Owners are trying to get superstars for good player deals, good players on bargain deals, & sign bargains to minors deals. We’ll see how it works out.
Read the articles. It is not about the GMs trying to get deals, they have always done that. It is about the owners making less money available for the GMs to spend.
So let me get this straight. The Brewers have spent 80M on Cain, traded prospects for Yelich, brought in a half dozen pitchers via FA an this dude wants the Brewers players to not take the field because he is butt-hurt. Good Grief Charlie Brown.
This should totally help his clients get contracts.
So the owners aren’t dolling out long term high dollar contracts that almost always are bad at the back end. This holds up the top tier free agents which trickles down as teams wait for the top tier before moving on to plan B. So the owners learned their lesson and are back to offering shorter 3-5 year deals which used to be the norm. How many 6+ year contracts were given out prior to 2000? Not many. How many people in other professions have even 3 years of guaranteed employment? Not Many.
Doesn’t matter if they are bad at the back end. It only matters what value they give over the entire length of the contract as a whole. Owners get such huge surplus value early in the deal that those declining years were already paid in full.
BS and based on nothing
Its based on the reality of baseball and business. If I buy a building with the plans to keep it 6-7 years and rent out offices, I am not thinking about my revenue from just in the last last 3 years I own it. I take into account all the years it will be mine into the value of the deal.
Your example doesn’t change that what you said is bs. Many of these contracts, when looked at over the entire length, simply do not provide enough surplus in the beginning to outweigh the negative at the back end. Team are realizing this and adjusting accordingly.
This is more desperate whining by player’s reps. No collusion. The game has changed. Like any other major sport, MLB is a copycat league. Everyone is TRYING to copy the blueprint set by the Cubs and Astros, to a smaller degree, the Royals. Young, cost controlled studs. GMs are smarter, they don’t want to pay for past performance. As Theo always says, they want to pay for future performance.
Another factor is that the usual “big spenders” are desperately trying to get under the luxury tax. They made mistakes and they continue to literally pay for those mistakes. The Cubs are one of the few big market spenders that are not burdened with being a repeat tax offender. So they should be patient and wait out the market. The Yanks will never move Ellsbury, the Dodgers likely won’t be able to move Kemp. Theo is too smart, too proven to desperately overpay for a guy like Darvish or Arrieta.
Finally, the other factor is also simple. Teams are saving their resources for next years stellar FA crop, thus not wasting money this offseason. Again, not collusion, just smart business.
Faux outrage is faux
After reading this article and calling my former agent, 2 assistant GMs that are golfing buddies, and several current players that are from my area here in NC, a strike is coming and it’s not going to be pretty. Many players are already taking out insurance policies that cover part of their lost income from a work stoppage.
Both Assistant GM’s I have spoken with today have said that the owners said, this is what we will spend and both would put them 10% below last years payroll even though they both work for contending teams.
There was a CBT before this year and teams blew past the luxury tax threshold. That it didn’t go up much is not an explanation for the extreme depressions of money the owners are willing to spend on free agents and neither is sabermetrics. A great player may decline over his contract, but with the value to the teams of the player performance at an all-time high, the surplus value in the early years of the contract more than makes up for declining performance. That declining performance from superstar players is still better than most players.
As it stands today, the owners will be spending just 27% of projected total revenue., not including the $50 million that each team will receive from the $1.58 billion sale of an additional 42% of BAMTech stock to Disney. It also doesn’t include the $1 billion sale of BAMTech stock last year. I realize that many free agents are left to sign, but if all sign at the projected numbers we see on MLBTR, the owners will still be spending just 35.3% of the total revenue.
In a time where MLB teams are seeing record revenues, the players will not sit idly by and while the owners choose collectively not to share that revenue equally with them. The average player salary needs to go up, not down by nearly 10%.
The players are the game. They are the entertainment we pay to see.
If we don’t see a 180-degree turnaround in the actions of the owners, we may not see much baseball this season.
When looking at expenditures, should we take into account spending on minor league operations and signing bonuses?
What would that do to the percentage allocated to the players?
probably not. I don’t think a lot of them take into account any facilities, operations, charitable orgs. (even if it is probably tax deductible), insurance, legal fees, etc. or the rising costs for those things.
Typically you hear things like what outinleftflield said from people trying to stir up the fans. Things like BAMTech and Revenue sharing teams must spend more!… certainly stirs up the pittsburgh fans 😉
The total expenditures for the minor league system of a team is an average of $17 million according to Forbes. That includes player salaries, travel, coaches, scouts, player development personnel, academies in DR and Venezuela, and training staff.
Since they don’t break it down, we would have to make an educated guess on the player salary percentage of that. AAA players make $2150 a month for 5 months. Lower levels make less with the lowest at $1100 per month. If you take the mean of $1625 per month, in total they make less than $7 million.
Teams now get an average of $12.75 million for the draft and international free agents combined.
That $20 million would not move that percentage up much. Teams averaged $330 million in revenue in 2017. That is projected to jump 9-12% this year.
This is pretty stupid.
One year payroll numbers mean nothing and players are not going to strike this year.
Anyone who demands inflation in their income every year should be locked up.
Amen emac22.
After reading this article, I called my 3 former agents, 25 of my closest croquet buddies (GMs), and an entire MLB team of current players, as well as my best friend who is a grounds crew member for a high school baseball team, and 15 ticket counter sales people from a minor league team that I knit quilts with, not to mention the Philly Phanatic…all on a conference call
We all decided it was way too many people on a conference call, so then I called them individually.
They said that players are a bunch of pansies and they wouldn’t strike, even if they were the New York Yankees going against Lance McCullers pitching nothing but curevballs.
I played professionally and I still spend time with my former teammates, my agent, and people that work in the game. What do you do that qualifies you to mock my post?
What they said to me and what Brodie, the Dodgers MLBPA team rep Jansen, and several writers including Passan said is directly in line with what I learned today.
Now I know you didn’t actually read anything more than the headline of this article, but maybe educating yourself before you post would allow you to speak with at least a semblance of intelligence.
Is that you David? You still scouting for the Orioles?
Not since 2012 when Jr and his wife had my second granddaughter. Went back into real estate development. More time with the grandkids, not to mention my wife.
Are you still out there on the road?
23 years and counting. I have “retired” twice, but they keep offering me more money. What can you do. I still love this stuff. Promised the old lady that July is my last month.
I got to work close to home here in the Carolinas which was not terrible in terms of travel even if it meant lots of nights on the road. Are you still traveling the backroads of Texas everyday?
Not anymore. Moved up the chain. Now I take more flights than days driving. Don’t you miss being around the kids when they are still so excited about the game in high school and college?
A checker now? That’s great for you and your wife. She still travel with you sometimes? How do you get away with calling her your old lady? My wife would kill me if I said that. LMAO.
Just out of curiosity, did you get a ring? Orioles used to do that back in the day.
SHE calls herself my old lady and has since we were in our 20s and I was coaching Jr College ball in San Marcos.
I wish she still traveled with me like the old days. 202 days in a hotel room last year and not enough days with her with me. 42 years together. Could you have ever imagined that? She is a saint. Got to be to put up with me.
Yup. We all got one. The organization is class. It is worth almost as much as my salary. Two of those kids are my signings and I still get the proudest papa feeling every time I see them play.
He’s mocking you because you say all of this under an anonymous name and no reason to believe you. I don’t want you to scream who you are to the world, In fact rather you didn’t unless you are writing an official story for MLBTR or you know something real besides just a comment….
But if I come out and say one of my high school buddies is now a GM of an organization and he said water is wet you would have no reason to believe me.. if i didn’t know better i wouldn’t believe me either.
I still think some of these MLB players are over paid though regardless of how much teams make after all is said and done 🙂 Minors players should get more though.. yeah there are signing bonuses and all of that but i doubt most players get much if any at all.
LMAO. Tell her we said hi. Love to get together the next time you are out this way. 202 days away from my wife and the grandkids would kill me.
That is what the Orioles used to do back when they were winning too. Class. They weren’t worth that much though.
Will do. Going to get off of here. The idiots are out in force and its not worth arguing with people that have no idea what is really going on. Why do you do it so much?
Make sure you call me when you are out this way. Take you out to that place in Concord you loved for BBQ. Been too long.
It’s the same idiots over and over. There are some good guys on here and I have fun poking fun at the morons and educating the ones that care about that kind of stuff. Besides, in my business its all about hurry up and wait, so I have the time.
The Smoke Pit? You got it.
The crux of the issue is that in the current era of increased front office awareness and data driven decision making, the old model of team control, arbitration, and delayed free agency is outdated. Teams would be (and will be next season) happy to sign young superstars to long contracts. But their is plenty of data that shows paying a player well into their late thirties is a bad investment, from a productivity standpoint (and you teams’ ability to win). If half the league has figured this out, everyone else has to follow suit to remain competitive under the current constraints of the system.
“We may not see much baseball this season”
WTF are you talking about? The players can’t strike this year, it would be in violation of the CBA, and would be taken to court. Baseball will be played this year, like it has every year since the strike ended in 1995.
This is just a bunch of crying by some babies that foolishly put a guy in charge to negotiate the CBA that had no idea what he was doing. It’s on them. They made this bed and they will have to lie in it for the next several years.
I saw this starting last year when free agents didn’t get contracts of length or $’s. This year though with the exception of 2 or 3 players [who are all represented by Boras and apparently have 5 to 7 year offers at low-mid 100’s] the free agent class is not very good, and many teams don’t want to overspend on mediocrity.
That is BS. There are over 100 Free Agents still on the market. There has never been more than 30 available 2 weeks before Spring Training starts.
f
And there has never been an offseason with these conditions (CBA luxury tax restrictions, and the big spenders trying to get under the number for the upcoming class, the reliance of analytics in the front office, etc., etc.)
Markets go up and markets go down. We’re currently in a bear market. The FA’s need to deal with the reality.
Instead of focusing on creature comforts in the last CBA, maybe they could have bargained a little harder for the much more important economic matters?
OK, outinleftfield. Look at the ages of most of those free agents and guarantee they’ll be able to provide more on field value than a guy in his mid-20’s.
I think data driven FOs have figured out the at the majority of the can’t, and that’s why they’re still out there.
They’re in their 30’s, weren’t superstar talents to begin with, and now have to compete with other players 5 – 10 years younger for a roster spot.
Too bad.
Wah wah wah…
Show owners a player that’s worth their asking price and you’ll likely see some contract offers. Ever think of that Mr Smart Guy? No single player on this years market is worth the money they’re seeking. The game is shifting. There’s more importance put on middle/late inning relief pitching. All the metrics thrown around these days say the top FA’s in this years class( doesn’t mean they are the best of the best) point to high risk over the term for the dollars. If there is a way to win by being smart and frugal vs. spending for the sake of it what do you think owners will do? Yes fans pay to see players play but do you really think they give a darn about the guys their team didn’t sign if their team wins it all? Nope. Not a lick. They will fall in love with the players they have to watch. Winning brings out fans not high dollar free agents. Quit your crying and whining and advise your clients to take the best deal possible or try Japan or Korea. You bellyachers can bellyache all you want about owners colluding and planning. Get off your hinders and play some ball you babies.
“$100M guaranteed contracts were regular occurrences. $200M contracts: yes. $300M: yes. Not bad by any measure. Free enterprise at its best.”
And teams have started recognizing that signing too many players to too many of those sorts of deals can cripple a franchise for years. So the Market corrected and stopped being inefficient in that manner.
So he’s absolutely correct: This is free enterprise at its best.
Yup Bobbyjohn.
The idea that the one 300M contract was dumped as soon as it served it’s marketing purpose and remains “not bad by any measure” is a complete fail.
Cry me a river players…..
Sounds like an agent who is losing money. Player salaries have skyrocketed. Time for a rebalancing. No player is worth $30 million.
I’m a loyal Braves fan. Please don’t sign Harper or machado.
Except Mike Trout.
Seems like the fan is always an afterthought. The players cry poor. The owners cry poor. The fan is poor and we are the ones footing the bill for the rich owners and players. None of them have my sympathy.
any one who plays the stock Market or gambles understands the mean of ROI(return on investment) and simply put, many of these contracts desired by free agents have finally exceeded their ROI.
We have reached the top of the pyramid
The agent misses the entire point. It has become apparent that long term contracts are proving to be almost universally bad.
Wouldn’t we all like to get 23% pay increases every year so that we come to expect it as an entitlement?
With very few exceptions, the best players are on the 30 team rosters already, so why should teams spend millions on long terms contracts for inferior talent? There are 1,200 players with jobs right now, most of the 40 man rosters are full.. it’s just the 100 new players at lower salaries are filling the jobs of 100 overpriced, over their prime players. The players have no beef. They can toss the collusion charge around all they want, but it’s not true and they certainly have zero evidence to prove that it is true. I side with the club owners.
Free enterprise at it’s best also includes making a choice not to sign a player at x amount of dollars. It goes both ways. Normally, I side with the players, but signing a player into his mid to late thirties, almost always ends badly. Perhaps, the owners are finally understanding that. In addition, the luxury threshold is acting like a de facto salary cap(even though, technically it’s not).
If the players boycott, the fans should boycott.
And by that I mean boycott the players who are crying bc the owners refuse to overspend.
Agreed
The players should be mad at agents who were too stupid to see this coming.
I love how the agent pretends to grasp some basic economic theory and then craps his pants and ignores all the reasons why it’s happening as he leaps over to a platform that suddenly abstains from using any facts.
Players and owners made out as revenue skyrocketed.
When you look at how the trajectory of revenue has changed and then look at the one year changes related to resetting the lux tax and it’s pretty obvious what’s happening here. Pretending that isn’t real and advising clients about your deep feelings of paranoia is why we’re where we are.
Take an econ class and start preparing your clients for reality. Crying about economics and pretending you don’t know anything about the topic isn’t a good look.
I don’t think it is just money, but years as well. No owner is willing to risk 7 years on any player, and def. not on a pitcher. Then let’s add age of those stars on the current market.
JDM 30…wanting 7 years and a lot of money. Making 25-30 million at 37? I wouldn’t.
Arrieta 31…had a couple decent years and most recent was typical of his other years, on a good team.. 4 years for a 31 yo SP at 27.5 each year? No thanks.
Yu 31.. wants 5 or 6 years at 25 plus million for an SP.. same as the other two.
Then there is the wait and see what some others sign for and it will increase my value, cause my ego is bigger.
Get past those 3, and the rest will be signed. No one wants to give them the years they expect for that money. I bet if they asked for less years for same yearly (averaged), they’d be signed.
It isn’t like these guys haven’t had offers… Go ahead and strike, I am sure the fans will be pleased. How long did it take to recover last time? Keep demanding more money, and have the fans pay higher prices for everything BB related… Someone has to pay for the increase of wages.
I get where he is coming from, can you imagine if I only got a 24% raise…. um – last year I got a 1.8 this year I will probably get something similar……
Arrieta started off-season wanting 7 years 200M plus. For 2 years he’s been saying the “elite” get 7 years.
Release the memo.
The worm has turned..fan bases are now accepting of rebuilds. Less bidders mean lower avg values…Markets change.. its not always collusion!
This is a market correction, plain and simple. Long term deals for older players or those who recently “broke out” are historically a bad idea, usually by the second year of the deal. It’s isn’t difficult to see why a team wouldn’t value Jake Arrieta or Yu Darvish for more than 3 or 4 years…You might only get one good year out of them, and if you get two, you’re beating the odds.
Crybaby agent is the real story here. What a loser that guy is to write what he did. I can’t imagine a player wanting someone like that representing them. You’d be sharing in the shame.
Agents make me nauseous. I’ve pretty much quit watching pro football because I’m tired of how the players act. Know what I found out? There are plenty of other things to do on Sunday afternoons. If these rich idiots strike again I’m sure I’ll find lots of other things to occupy my time.
Forget about how much money the owners make for a minute. Most people would agree that contracts for players are getting out of control. We’re seeing average and slightly above average players getting absurd contracts, and that is a problem. Why? People around baseball are saying Trout might get a $500MM contract next year. He’s the best player right now, and he deserves the best contract, but half a billion dollars to play baseball is obscene and unjustifiable. Until contracts for lesser players get fixed, only a few teams will be able sign great players anymore. Even then, the current economic structure is not sustainable longterm because players almost never meet the performance expectations of these gargantuan contracts over the full term. Players need to reign in there expectations a little. It’s as simple as that. And if you think every owner should be forced to spend $250MM or more on annual salaries to be competitive, you are delusional. Baseball is a money making enterprise for owners, not a hobby.
they can all eat crow, owners, players, agents, coaches, staff…
Check out payroll for recent World Series Participants. Several low market teams are successful with spending more on development. Even Chicago’s ring was with few big contracts and more a result of spending wisely.
Most of these players will not live up to the worth of their contracts low or not. Why would a team want to pay for a players best years from their prior team and only get one or two good FA years out of a 7 year contract. Players are overshooting their worth. Owners are saying we need to either cut budget to get under the luxury tax or we need to rebuild so why spend the money to not be competitive.
as a fan I just want to take a family to the ballpark for 100 bucks, not 500… player greed is a part of that inflation.
The Braves need higher performance players badly; however, there is not a free agent out there worth what they are asking. Good for them if they can get it but the Baseball business model does not warrant higher payrolls. Stand your ground.
Can the players strike over this? Not that I think they will, but this isn’t really a CBA issue. It seems any player currently signed who goes on strike will do so without the support of the player’s union.
These agents and players are flat out the greediest scumbags ever! Get over yourselves! Your not that entertaining, and certainly not worth 100s of millions of dollars! Oh , and just because one team overpays for a player dosent mean every team should. So sick of seeing a player be like, “well this guy got this much and I had a better year than him”. So freaking what! In what profession do you get to dictate what you make based off what some other team pays a player? Ever here 2 wrongs don’t make a right? Not even the best baseball player should make 20 million a season, let alone more. This sport is the worst. Greedy ! Standpat owners! Don’t give in to these greedy pompus punks! Even if they do strike, oh well! Not missing much.
Stop demanding king’s ransoms… and your client’s might get signed.
No team out their is willing to spend big money on mediocre (JD Martinez, Yu Darvis, jake arrieta, Eris Hosmer, Mike Moustakas)
If no team out their is bidding on any of them at their contract price than it up the player to go to his agent & lower his demands because Teams are going the other way…
So the whole Collusion between Oweners not willing to spend their money is just Bull & guy who defend the players knows that their wrong..
Ask you this anyone recent who sign long term contract worth their contract? I can pretty tell you that Mariners got screw on Felix as they over pay on has been pitcher who best years were behind him.. You think Angels want you to feel sorry for them on Signing long term deal with Albert Pujols & giving him job in ownership once his playing career is over..
Sure their are contract that were overpay but with how teams are spending now, I am not gonna lose any sleep over medicore talent crying about how they don’t have long term contract.. T
Too much wooga wooga from Agents on salaries.
Baseball is a business and the owners can determine how much they spend.
If agents can’t sell, they don’t get paid. Like I said – that’s business. Agents should quit whining and do a better job selling within the market they work.
If players go on strike, there are enough international players to field teams and bring a good seat ticket price below the average American weekly wage.
“we’re going on strike, we’re going on strike,I still don’t know what strike means”
Boy this Van WAgen Guy is the biggest AH I’ve read about in my lifetime, wow !
I don’t see collusion. I see owners and team execs looking at a bunch of players in their early 30s and saying “no, we’re not going to sign you to massive contracts that we’re just going to regret in a few years.”
The Yankees and Dodgers are learning the hard way what happens when you’re stuck with a massive contract tied to a past-his-prime player.
Sounds more like a disgruntled agent who can’t get high contracts for his so so players anymore. Is he really expecting someone give ethier or garza huge multi year contracts? I could see cashner on a 3 year deal at $45 mil, but cashners been so up and down.
How many more times are we going to have to beat this to death? You have got to be really emotionally invested in this generic union rabble-rabble to look past the totality of the circumstances. Or be an agent that makes his riches off of someone else’s talent. A few people out there have been going on and on for YEARS that the financial system in baseball is so mind-bogglingly stupid and unsustainable. And here we are. FA want more money, MLB has more money, but an enormous portion of the league has soured so much on what spending that money actually obtains… that we’re at a standstill.
Agents whining about teams acquiescing to the absurd financial demands of many of this year’s FAs is such hypocrisy. After all, if agents aren’t negotiating contracts, they aren’t getting paid. And we know how much agents adore money.
Is it the fault of the owners NO ONE wants to give the grossly overvalued JD Martinez, as well as Hosmer and Darvish, what they are demanding in terms of years and dollars? Martinez is coming off a career year and has demanded a deal that would pay him MORE—per AAV—than real sluggers like Giancarlo Stanton. This after hitting 23, 38 and 22 homers in the years preceding his recent career year. That NO ONE wants to give him a 7 or 8 year contract at or near $30 million a year isn’t “collusion” or an attempt to hold down player salaries. It’s common sense. Martinez simply IS NOT WORTH what he wants.
Yu Darvish, post Tommy John surgery, ALSO is not worth the dollars and years he wants. That’s not my opinion; his post surgery numbers betray him.
Eric Hosmer reportedly has received TWO offers, each for seven years and at least $140 million. Apparently, those STILL aren’t good enough to suit him. This from a player who has posted as many average seasons as good ones.
Next time agents bemoan the lack of signings of their clients, let’s remember it is in their own selfish interest to drive salaries up, NOT that which is best for MLB or the fans, who ultimately foot the bill for player pay.
When Martinez, Hosmer and Darvish relent and accept realistic contracts more in line with their age and FUTURE performance—rather than what they’ve already done—life altering contracts are waiting for only a signature.
IMO, after decades of making often ludicrous contract demands which some sucker…errr, owner…willingly giving them what they want, the once overly benevolent ownership has learned to say NO! And like spoiled children, agents and some of the players they represent, are hearing NO! for the very first time. That’s not “collusion;” it’s called being the responsible adults in the room.
“A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”
I would feel more sympathy for players if they were truely willing to go where the market dictates, meaning the team offering the most money. Certain teams are throwing out big money offers, but players all want to play in LA, or NY, ect. If you reject lucrative offers because you don’t want to play for certain teams, you can’t cry about collusion.
Classic example of lauding the Free Market when it works in their favor, but implying collusion when the market turns against them. So, it must be that some sort of collusion that caused the stock market to drop 3% this week in favor of bonds? The oppressed FA players will somehow find a job, and it won’t be washing dishes or parking cars.
Like your thought process
For those of you that think the players should get paid . Do none of you think your teams are not hurt by paying players this loaded contracts way beyond their worth? Owners are only gonna spend what they are gonna spend no matter how much revenue they are getting it is a business.
The agents are they’re own worse enemy they are just pissed now cause they aren’t delivering what they sold to their clients bottom line. I d like to know how much validity these comments have further than just the free agent class of this year. Good luck agents haha.
Need to go to the same set up as NFL for contracts. Only so much is guaranteed. The smaller market teams could go after some of the bigger free agents without the risks of a Pujols contract. Totally guaranteed contracts can cripple a team for years. JD and Hosmer are not worth Trout money just because they are the biggest names this year. Owners have a right to pay what they think the value is for a player. Don’t like it, don’t play.
Love hearing these “righteous” agents. What’s it cost YOU to take your family to a game? Has YOUR salary risen 23% during the same period? Analytics favoring young, affordable players is about the only thing keeping Baseball affordable for fans.
Give the players their money but add a clause in the contract that requires them to play the full season. How many big money players “rest” at the end of the year because their team is out of the running? How does this help the sport? #losingtowin
F*#k the players. They make a ton of money on guaranteed contracts, too many of them are of marginal minor-league caliber and the Union signed the collective-bargaining agreement. So suck it up and play by the rules. The worst part about the MLB players and the Union is that minor-league players are not represented.
How does a Union that claims to represent “workers” exclude the group that needs their services the most?
Stop crying because your job got harder.