Long-time journalist Jerry Crasnick has an intriguing new gig, with the Major League Baseball Players Association announcing his hiring. He’ll serve as senior advisor for player, agent, and media relations, working alongside just-promoted director of communications Chris Dahl.
It came as a major surprise last year when Crasnick’s tenure with ESPN was brought to a close. He was a fixture in the baseball reporting community and had enjoyed a productive, a 15-year run at the sports media giant. Over the years, Crasnick provided a trove of insightful hot stove journalism; he also reported quite a few items that were cited on this website.
With the move, Crasnick will take up a role at the MLBPA at quite an interesting time for the union and its members. Effectively addressing the suboptimal developments in the sphere of player compensation will obviously require more than new collective bargaining ideas and willpower at the negotiating table. It’ll also mean laying the groundwork for leverage by performing nuanced public relations work.
MLBTR offers a tip of the cap to Jerry for all his outstanding reporting over the years and wishes him well in his new pursuit.
If the MLBPA is trying to drum up fan support for their work force’s financial plight, I have two words for you…good luck
Players deserve their share. The money either goes the players that we pay to see or their billionare owners. I pick the players!!
i concur!
Players get more than their fair share as it is. It’s hurting the fans when small market teams can barely afford to resign average players looking to win the lottery.
They don’t get their fair share. Player salaries have dropped while revenue has gone up. How is that a fair share?
It’s not “fair”, it’s the new business model…the owners have finally figured out these long term, big dollar contracts are not fiscally sound investments…
The Shredder had Bryce Harper as the #5 RF and he wants $300,000,000….bet Mitch Haniger (#4RF ) likes that!!!
Its not about single contracts, but the income split on the aggregate. It doesn’t matter if owners hand out 1 year or 15 year deals, that should not effect the players getting less than a 50% profit share
What isn’t “fair” is the wage they get away with paying minor leaguers. Those guys make NOTHING. Don’t shed too many tears for Manny Machado.
50% profit share?! Is that what the current agreement says? If so, please please let them strike.
Jordan4Giants – If you believe players do not get their fair share, push for no luxury tax or any salary cap rule. Then your precious players will get their fair share. You can’t have it both ways.
“What isn’t “fair” is the wage they get away with paying minor leaguers. Those guys make NOTHING.”
@ Bernie’s Dander;
Nothing is absolute.
1. Farm teams lose money. Why do you think parent clubs have budgets to pay for their minor league operations?
2. Players learn their trade at the expense of others. It’s like getting a scholarship to college or trade school; along with room, board, health care and a stipend. Many college graduates go to work as “interns” just to get time down on resume.
3. Bonuses. That never comes up. A minority get an amount of bonus money to sign that is larger then the average American makes in a lifetime. Going down the list, quite a few minor league players were paid bonus money that is more then most people their age make in 5 years…..enough time for a minor league player to decide if he has a future in the sport.
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No one forces these young people to sign to play baseball 6 months a year. They are free to find jobs elsewhere.
My wife and I worked our way through college. So did hundreds of people we know. Young people today come out of 5 years of college with substantial debt, yet can’t find a decent job. I don’t see anyone in pro ball being upset about that.
We all have choices in life. Live with the results. Always have. Always will.
Agreed. Minor league baseball just isn’t a very profitable business. Many already signed bonuses. Those drafted in later rounds likely won’t make the majors anyway. So what are they really providing?
Agreed! It’s called a free market, something of a foreign idea in 21st century America.
Players get paid what they’re are worth. Period. Anything else is a manufactured market which history has taught over and over again, it isn’t sustainable.
If MLB wants parity, the owners should share revenue like the NFL.
Seems you forget baseball is a business. The owners are free to run their business as they please. As a customer you are free to spend your money on their products or you can choose not to. It is a silly notion that players “deserve their share”, they are employees. Would you argue the designers and engineers at Apple that come up with the iPhone also “deserve their share”? Not likely. People seem to become too emotionally invested in these players. If they want to address the issue with early career compensation then the union needs to negotiate and earlier start to the arbitration years and move away from the long term monster contracts, limiting them to 3 years at the maximum value possible. That would drive the income for a larger number of players, while allowing owners to prevent more Pujols scenarios from happening.
Ah, the old “baseball is just a business” argument, except baseball has an anti-trust exemption Apple or any other business doesn’t enjoy, and baseball owners rely on taxpayers – many of whom will never see a baseball game in their lives nor care one whit about the sport – to fund their stadiums and the infrastructure that surrounds those stadiums. So a baseball team is nothing like Apple or any other corporation. Want an example? Here’s one:
When Apple created the iphone, how many other companies jumped into that market with their own version of an iphone? 100? More? It was – and is – a ton of companies, some more successful than others. That’s actual free-market capitalism, and those companies certainly did poach plenty of Apple techs and designers by offering them higher pay or better benefits, etc. Now, imagine a billionaire decided, “hey, the Yankees made something like 300 million dollars in profit last season. Maybe I should start a Major League baseball team in NYC to compete with them.” And I’ll offer players twice what they’re currently making to come play for my team?” Do we imagine this proposal would be met by MLB, with open arms? No; that person, if he managed to figure out how to build a stadium and try to field a team, would be sued into oblivion by MLB, because they have a legal monopoly on baseball. So it’s not anything like a standard business model – there’s no way for a competitor to enter the market, legally and otherwise.
Just because baseball enjoys special considerations it does not negate the fact the owners are free to run it as they will. The antitrust status is a separate argument. Your feelings towards the owners or players should have no bearing on how you think about the way the business gets ran. You are 100% correct, no one could at any given time decide to set up a competing team in any market but baseball is hardly the only business that receives special treatment.
True that, but make contracts non guaranteed and lower team control to 3-4 years making players better able to earn more earlier and have compensation that mirrors performance. That way of a 9 year 270 gets lazy and plays like crap, you can cut them and move the money to someone who deserves it. Look are how the contracts of Ryan Howard, Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, etc have impacted teams ability to give more to others. Definitely an imperfect system.
Howard, Pujols and Hamilton all got hurt.
Exactly… they all would have made their money earlier in their career and the teams would not have been choked with those terrible contracts. Hamilton is also a whole different case too.
Whatever way you want to spin it, it’s millionaires vs billionaires. The owners make loads and the players are the ones we watch. Hope this move helps the MLBPA get a better deal and, hope against hope, get some money down to the minor leagues. How many players give up because they can’t afford to play?
Hope he helps convince fans players deserve a 50/50 profit split, that tanking teams are bad for the game, and we need a draft lottery. Good luck!
A draft lottery will not stop teams from tanking! The NBA is a prime example of that! They still have several teams tank every year. It is the nature of the beast.
I can see your point, and it is valid. If it were up to me the team that missed the playoffs by 1 game and the team that had the worst record in baseball should have an equal shot at the #1 pick.
In basketball if you have the worst record you are still guarenteed one of the top 4 picks, so there is incentive to lose.
It will if you don’t adopt the NBA’s oversimplified version
Instead of awarding extra ‘balls’ for losing, put every team into the pool that fails to win (for example) 80 game, and give them one extra ‘ball’ for every win above 65
So to be clear: you all don’t believe the players deserve an equal cut of the money that woukd not be generated if it were not for them.
Bad teams are good for baseball. Cause nothing gets fans excited like seeing the Orioles are coming to town
A draft lottery would not generate offseason exctement and incentivse winning.
Got it.
The MLB amateur drafting process is different than every other major pro sport in North America. Your idea rejected…loan denied!!
And it is that process that cost MLB Kyler Murray. The system needs to be overhauled. Bring in an international draft and drop assigned slot payments.
Loan approved sucka 😉
How often does the Murray scenario actually happen? Answer: not very often. Not worth the changes you are proposing. Application rejected!!
True not often, but it does occur. If we adjusted rules based on them rarely happening we would not need the no pitch pitch rule.
But that is 1 incident within a larger issue. Teams should not be incentivised to lose. And teams that have the first pick should be able to draft the best talent, be they foreign or domestic.
By the way your boss overruled you and I got the loan. Gil Gunderson for the win!!
I agree, bring on a draft lottery. Teams shouldn’t be punished for playing well, or rewarded for sucking.
How do players deserve a 50/50 profit split. Where does that reasoning come from?
Why do owners deserve a 54/46 profit split, as they enjoy now? Where does that reasoning come from? Have you ever watched a baseball game to see what the owner is doing in his suite?
Fine Starbucks, give the 54/46 in favor of the players. Only some conditions….
– Players do not receive any allowances during spring training or road trips
– players have to pay for their own MRIs and XRays
– players have to pay for their own physiotherapists and massage therapists
– players pay the grounds crew
– players pay for equipment managers and anyone carrying their equipment
– players pay for any technological equipment and replace what’s broken
– players pay for their own travel throughout the entire season
Owners can pay the rest.
How’s about we use logic instead of hyperbole to try and justify putting more money into the pockets of already fantastically rich people?
The owners pay to put the show on, the players do the hard work to get people to actually show up
Niether makes a dime without the other, so what’s so inherently terrible about them splitting the profit?
Considering the current economic system in the MLB, adopting a lottery draft would do irreparable harm to small and medium market teams. A lottery draft only works in a salary capped league.
yeah, no, no, and no.
MLBPA: “We are strongly against leaks that affect negotiations for our free agents.”
Also MLBPA: “Let’s hire a baseball journalist who built his career on leaks that affect free agency.”
who may know the sources quite well.
He can’t give up his sources. If he does he will be sued to hell by his former employers. On the other hand this should certainly send a chill through front offices. It’s a bad idea to talk to journalists, who only look out for their own self interests and as Crasnick just proved, dont worry at all about conflicts of interest.
^This
Here comes the propaganda machine!!!
Would love to see MiLB salaries addressed before major league ones. There are minor leaguers who aren’t earning living wages while owners pockets just get bigger
lonestardodger……………..
MLBPA has nothing to do with MiLB salaries with the exception of a salary minimum for players who have previously signed MLB UPC’s
lonestardodger. The Minor League teams are not owned by the Major League teams. The Major League teams pay the salaries of their prospects. The Major League teams have nothing to do with the salaries of the other Minor League players.
they tried, until the Congress and president pass legislation specifically baring them from getting the Minimum wage.
You can thank team owners way back in the 1939s for that one. Minor League players don’t qualify for a minimum wage because they’re classified as full-time workers.
Chicago : “Save America’s Pastime Act” is included on page 1,967 of the $1.3 trillion spending bill and appears to pre-empt a lawsuit filed four years ago in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by three players alleging Major League Baseball and its teams violate the Fair Labor Standards Act and state minimum wage and overtime requirements for a work week they estimated at 50-to-60 hours.
Flashback to 1990. As with all negotiations there is give and take….sometimes one side wants to take a bit too much.
The owners offered a “partnership”…..48% of “all MLB gate and network and local broadcast revenues to players’ salaries and the players’ pension plan. In exchange, the owners’ proposal required the players to agree to a maximum and minimum salary cap and a “play for performance” system to replace salary arbitration. The players refuse.”
legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/le…
Imagine how different it would be, especially with today’s mega TV deals. Here’s hoping that negotiations go better with the next CBA
“play for performance” seems problematic, right? I mean, if a guy gets hurt does he not get paid, ala the NFL?
I’ve not found a apt description of what the owners proposed for ““play for performance” but honestly I didn’t try and dig that deep.
In this scenario it was the owners who wanted a bit too much, IMO.
if the union insists on increasing the players share of revenues, please do it in a manner that gets more money to the young guys.
move up arbitration/FA, quadruple the league minimum..add a 26th roster spot.
anything besides forcing teams to shell out big bucks for tEh Oldz
I think expanding 25-man rosters to 27 or 28 is a good idea, both for the good of the game and the good of the marginal players. The fear, of course, is that teams would just add like three more relievers, but I suppose the league could put a cap on the number of pitchers on a roster. I miss things like pinch-hitters and third catchers and pinch-running specialists. Increasing the minimum salary would be helpful, as would earlier free agency, but I doubt the owners are going to do the latter anytime soon.
The 3 extra slots would go the RPs, and games would be lengthened due to more pitching changes.
No thanks.
Why is it so surprising that Crasnik got forced out? ESPN revenue is down, forcing them to cut veterans who make too much money in favor of younger, cheaper talent. Uh, kind of like a tanking team. You know, because Disney is hurting so much…..
(sarcastic laugh).
Sarcastic thumbs down.
History is very clear: except for the collusion years: team and players have had a consensus agreement. Negotiations always contained an agreement: the up to 11 years as a wage slave producing more than you are paid, will be paid by contracts based on past performance. Now that understanding, in legal terms the “Good faith”, under which the contract was bargained no longer exists. The new status quo may well be a real shortening of minor league time with a very different “service time” rule. Up front pay for shorter control years and a guarantee that teams will compete rather than Tank. ( as required by the current MLB rule 21C) .
I wonder how other “writers” feel about Crasnick getting a real baseball job now. There has to be some animosity and envy between the rest of them. I’ll be curious to see what the “baseball blogs” have to say about him.
Great argument! You’re right, the pastime should be nationalized.
Oh wait… did you think people would not want to get a share of revenue? You’re right. People hate money. Better if only a few people have it.
Players deserve only what they can negotiate & agree to, in a CBA. Nothing more.
Fans & journalists getting on their soapboxes to claim players should get their “fair share” or 50% of revenues, are delusional. Fans making statements that they side with millionaires over billionaires, or vice versa, are hilarious.
laying the groundwork for leverage by performing nuanced public relations work
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You mean generating popular support for their interests? That’s not gonna work, because the PA stands for a fundamentally unfair system. And I’m not some socialist, who thinks players should earn the same money a guy bagging groceries does. They’re never going to reach those people. But there’s still a segment of the population who believes in capitalism…as long as it’s FAIR: people are compensated based on their contributions, instead of backroom political dealings.
A savvy PR move would involve revolutionizing their whole approach. Currently, the only interests they represent are those of veteran players, who are most likely to influence who gets elected to lead the PA. That’s it. Everyone else (all the young players, all the international signings, all the minor leaguers) are getting severely shortchanged, as veterans are raking in the millions.
So no, an argument to get even more money to these same veterans as they hit free agency (while young players and international signings who contribute more value on the field make a fraction of that) is not going to hold water. The whole team control system needs to be re-thought. Especially minor league control, which keeps young players who are BETTER than the 25th guy on the major league roster down in the minors for years….simply because the system is designed to incentivize that (because that 25th man is often a veteran, who has political clout within the PA, while the young guy doesn’t).
The PA needs to insist on throwing out team control, and setting a fixed age at which everyone hits free agency. There could be some variability (between high school and college signings, where high school signings get to be free agents a year or two earlier), but, other than that, at some point between age 26 to 28, team control should automatically end, no matter where that player’s been (college, minors, foreign league, whatever).
Also, arbitration should start in the second year of major league service, not the fourth. And arbitration money should be closer to free agent money. Yes, that would put an end to $200M+ contracts to 30+ year olds (because there wouldn’t be enough money left over, after the guys actually producing the on field results get their fair share). But that’s a good thing. Players would still get their 40% of the revenues (that seems reasonable, given how many additional costs there are, due to the unique farm system baseball has), it’s just that it would be distributed based more on merit, and less on whether someone was lucky enough to not get hurt half way through their career.
As for small market teams, whatever: let the owners sort it out amongst themselves. The solution is fairly obvious: more revenue sharing. Either that, or get out of places like Florida and Pittsburgh, and move those unproductive teams into better markets.
As a yankee fan I would not be a proponent but MLB can always do a hard cap same as NFL with X % going to players with a minimum threshold for spending.
A lot of folks want to fix baseball, but I have a question: Is it broken? Seems to me that the owners have wised up about paying average players an exorbitant salary.
The elite players score at the expense of the average players. If they want a more socialistic system or agreement, then the elite will have to lower their expectations.
It’s breaking, quite honestly. Owners have decided that winning is secondary to profits and that the players are disposable
If that becomes the long term strategy, it’s going to drive the best athletes away and hurt the quality of the product that’s getting more and more expensive to consume.
Tanking is also going to be a big problem, because in makes while fanbases ambivalent for long periods, which hurts the growth potential.
Baseball isn’t broken yet, but if it’s not proactive about these issues, it very well could be in the near future. Especially if there’s a work stoppage over it.
I don’t think so. Players are not going to walk away from their cash cow.
And rebuilding is not tanking.
Tanking to speed the rebuild is tanking, and it’s endemic in modern baseball
And you can already make more money as a rookie in the NFL and NBA… If there’s no long term benefit to MLB as the post-arb contracts dry up, why would new players choose baseball over another sport?
You may not that not think so, but have you really considered in that deeply?
The problem is that teams can amass huge profits without winning; in the old days, attendance drove profits, and winning drove attendance. Now attendance is a tiny part of the revenue stream, and winning is secondary. The Padres, for example, had the fourth lowest payroll/revenue ratio last season; that is, the percentage they spent on payroll was tiny compared to their profit (the Yankees were first, btw) and only three teams spent less as a percentage of revenue than san diego.
This is frankly a brilliant hire. Crasnick was always one of the best at making the complex parts of baseball more understandable to the average fan. And the MLBPA badly needs somebody who can make their side of the argument more relatable. They’ve been terrible at it lately
MLB is the only major sport without a salary cap/floor. MLB is also the only sport where the players makes get less than 40% of the league’s revenues. NFL, NBA and NHL players all get at least 47% of their league’s revenues.
MLB players would get almost a billion dollars more per year under similar cap/floor system.
Yet, somehow, the idea is still considered “anti-player” and “pro-owner”.