MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark has issued a statement pushing back against recent comments from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in which the latter rejected the idea that tanking teams have led to a depressed free-agent market. Said Manfred (link via the Associated Press):
…Our teams are trying. Every single one of them wants to win. It may look a little different to outsiders because the game has changed, the way that people think about the game, the way that people think about putting a winning team together has changed, but that doesn’t mean they’re not trying. …
I think it’s important to remember that the Major League Baseball Players Association has always wanted a market-based system. And, markets change. Particularly when the institution around those markets change. We’ve had a lot of change in the game. People think about players differently. They analyze players differently. They negotiate differently. Agents negotiate differently. … I reject the notion that payroll is a good measure for how much a team is trying or how successful that team is going to be.
Unsurprisingly, Clark took umbrage both with the notion that every team is making an effort to win and with Manfred’s apparent attempt to suggest that the players are partially to blame for the lack of free-agent activity. His comments today are as follows:
Commissioner Manfred’s latest comments and his attempts to shift blame and distract from the main issues are unconstructive and misleading at best.
Players’ eyes don’t deceive them, nor do fans’. As Players report to spring training and see respected veterans and valued teammates on the sidelines, they are rightfully frustrated by a two-year attack on free agency. Players commit to compete every pitch of every at-bat, and every inning of every game. Yet we’re operating in an environment in which an increasing number of clubs appear to be making little effort to improve their rosters, compete for a championship or justify the price of a ticket.
Players have made a sincere attempt to engage with clubs on their proposals to improve pace of play and enhance the game’s appeal to fans. At the same time, we have presented wide-ranging ideas that value substance over seconds and ensure the best Players are on the field every day. We believe these substantive changes are imperative now — not in 2022 or 2025, but in 2019. We look forward to continuing to engage with MLB on changes that address substantive issues — to the benefit of fans, Players, the 30 clubs and the game of baseball as a whole.
There’s obviously some underlying disagreement as to just what it means for a team to be “trying” in this day and age. There’s no denying Manfred’s point that the market is shifting, though of course it’s anything but an unregulated arena. Teams are responding to the incentives established in the collective bargaining process, and doing so with ever more attention to economic rationality. Setting up a potentially expansive contention window in an efficient manner, though, often means sacrificing near-term improvements for longer-term flexibility. And there’s surely a reasonable argument to be made that many teams aren’t “trying” — or, at least, aren’t doing so as much as might be preferable from the perspective of creating a competitive and entertaining product.
In any event, this is just the latest exchange of words in the still-evolving battle over team spending on player contracts. Clark indicated that the players are still amenable to engaging in talks regarding several proposed rule changes, though the league’s position seems to be that the union’s efforts shouldn’t be entertained until it’s time to discuss a new collective bargaining agreement. For the time being, then, both sides are jockeying for position in the realms of both public perception and their own direct constituencies.
Orioles and Royals are trying to win. And they will likely be more successful over the next decade than teams like Pittsburgh or SF
I’m intrigued. Why did you single out Pittsburgh and, surprisingly, the SF Giants? They’re late to the table yet are in on Harper and have signed/traded for expensive players before.
Strange comparisons. SF plays before packed house and tries each year. Cannot day same about those three teams.
O’s and Royals are building for the future. Texas and SF are just spinning their wheels.
Hahaha! Ok dude
The Giants got one of the best prospects in recent draft history in Joey Bart. I doubt even if they tank for the next 3 years that the Orioles can get the type of talent similar to Bart. He’s a blue chip talent.
Hit .298/.364/.588 first season in low A ball, 21 years old will be up in 2 years. Watch out.
Bart, Ramos, and more to come. As soon as relief is off the payroll, it’s on. If Trout reaches free agency, and we don’t land Harper, bet we’re all in on that dude to pair up with these young bucks coming in.
He’s nowhere near the best prospect in baseball and there farm sucks.
Are you serious? Every prospect drafted that high has hype lol. Players are raking in the bigs at 21 in todays game. Its going to take more than raking rookie/A ball to call him the best prospect in recent history. “The O’s could tank fpr 3 years and not get a similar talent”, have you seen who the #1 pick will be this year. Its a very hyped catching prospect (more hype than Bart)
Compare him to others, his stats are some of the best for anybody in their first year, especially for a catcher. Other notable picks like Bohm and Mize struggled in their first year. I’m not saying they’re busts, but it just goes to show how special Bart can be.
Ah, no. The Orioles = perpetual failure. KC, SF, I have no idea what’s going on but I’m OK saying I don’t know. And I know for a fact you have no clue what’s going on with the Rangers.
Rangers have have a core of young players to build around, they have talent in the minors finally, they’ve bolstered their analytics dept., hired an entirely new coaching staff that will work in tandem with the numbers guys, the players are excited about all the coaches, they are looking forward to this new direction, they’ve got a new stadium with a roof opening next year and won’t scare off free agents because of the heat. I’ve talked to the new manager myself, I’ve listened to the GM and several players in person talk about how things have changed in the last few months – they are realistic about what needs to be done, also enthusiastic, so it doesn’t sound fake to me. I’ve heard fake enthusiasm before and you won’t find it here. The foundation has been set for a new direction for this club. Either you have not been paying attention, or you’re incapable of it.
So two other guys drafted the same year. Going back 4 years Bregman, Senzel, Rolls Royce Lewis have been/are better prospects recently and i only picked guys drafted top 2.
21 year old college trained hitter hits well in A- ball. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
Bart’s stats in A- ball mean nothing lmao
Blue chip? Haven’t heard that phrase since Christian laetner or Len bias.
You realize when Bart comes up he’ll just be replacing one of the greatest players in your franchise history right? Other than Ramos and Bart your system lacks any high quality prospects and you owe gobs of money to underperforming veterans. To SF’s credit they always pack the house and are willing to spend but this is going to take at least 3 years to turn around. There’s too much bad money and not enough impact talent on the way. I’m not sure Trout is dying to leave the Angels to go to a team whose immediate future doesn’t look any brighter.
If Bart’s stats in A ball don’t matter, what does? Scout evaluations all have him as one of the best prospects in the game. He may only be a top 50 prospect now, but next year he will be top 20 at least, if not top 10.
For arguments sake let’s say Bart is all that. Great. What are you doing for every other infield position aside from 1B where I assume Posey will be. You have no internal solution and longo/Crawford aren’t going to get better with age. None of your starters project to be TOR guys and the OF doesn’t look any better. I think they’ll turn it around quicker than most teams in their current predicament due to their ability to spend and I like the guy in charge now. But cmon buddy he has a lot of work to do.
@jbigz I don’t know what team you’re a fan of, based on the comments I’ve seen from you on Giants and Padres threads, I’d assume you aren’t a fan of any team in the NL West given your lack of knowledge about the teams and their situations. Fans who haven’t seen the Giants operate or are just uneducated about their plans need to just stop assuming that they’re going to rebuild and “tear it up” for at least 3 years. The Giants will continue to draft smartly with their picks regardless of if it’s the first overall or the twentieth, and will continue to spend money and make trades to better the team regardless of what their situation may be. This is a large market team, this isn’t the Orioles or Royals, they have sellout crowds on a nightly basis and can afford to spend their money.
@jbigz I didn’t know every player in the Major Leagues was selected in the first round? Many players from the giants core were selected outside the top picks in the draft. Belt was drafted in the fifth round, D-Rod was a minor league signing, there are other ways to build a team than just tanking you know?
Unless you’re talking about a once in a generation talent like Arod, Griffey, Mauer, etc then I doubt teams are “tanking” just for one specific player. The high-draft pick is a byproduct of the actual rebuild. Rebuilding teams usually purge themselves of expensive contracts, shy away from signing expensive FA and generally let their younger plays play. The result is a losing record which comes with a high draft slot. The attrition rate for top 15 picks is too high to bank a teams hope on that 1 pick and guys like Mike Trout and Aaron Judge show that good teams have access to generational talent too (Assuming Judge has a great career too).
If ANY team is dependent on simply getting a top 5 pick as a means to rebuild their team then they are stupid. A team with a great scouting and player evaluation process will find great players in the late 1st round and after.
Can you find talent in other rounds? Sure, have the Giants found that talent? Don’t think so. It’s pretty clear you don’t evaluate your own guys with a clear eye. The team is old and has tons of money tied up to underperforming players. Nothing is going to change that fact. You can spend and improve the team but until you get salary relief off these horrible Contracts you’re fighting an uphill battle. Any team would who has committed 100s of millions of dollars to players who aren’t performing near that level. Pretty clear to me.
Farhan will be able to find talent in later rounds I’m pretty confident in that but you don’t go from being a draft choice to the major leagues In a year. It takes time. You can sit at home and hope all day but that doesn’t mean you’re looking at this objectively at all.
Ummm…I wish him and all prospects well but most are likely to fail.
Baby Jesus aka Jesus Montero lit up A+/AA during his age 18-20 seasons and even had a an amazing sept call up and we all know that turned out. Maybe, maybe he would’ve performed better if he wasn’t worried about trying to be a C but still. His bat was universally considered to be elite by all the prospect rankings.
Bart could be the next elite C or he can be the next dud. Chances are likely against him. But I wish him success.
Not only do teams that lose get high draft picks they also get the most money to spend on their picks a nd they get the largest budget for international signings too. That is much more than just the top pick.
Orioles hired Mike Elias away from the Astros. They should be competitive within a few years.
Royals strategy has been…unconventional. But you can’t argue with World Series appearances in 2014 and 2015.
Bart is a much better defensive catcher than monTero. He should at least be an average big league catcher with the potential to be one of the top 5 guys at the position for sure. And that’s all good. But that doesn’t change the fact that they already get great production from that position now. You replace posey with Bart and what is your net gain? 2 wins at best? Other than that they don’t have any other impact guys coming through the system aside from potentially Ramos who scuffled in the low minors last year. That’s just not going to do it. They need more talent in the system to build this back up.
The real current predicament is jbigz12 reputation as a big league scout. What does he know? To say that Joey Barts advancement wasn’t impressive is stupid. His numbers improved show remarkable advancement.
I think it is clear that jbigz12 is about 15. I think we kinda need to learn to ignore the children on this site. jbigz12 desire is to shut down comments on this site. He doesn’t know anything. But, he keeps saying I am a genius.
Glad to hear it. Wouldn’t claim to be a genius either. Farm system rankings are done by much more qualified people than you or I. Ive yet to hear a compelling argument on why the Giants would be good in less than 3 years. Nor did I ever discredit Bart’s low A numbers. You got the wrong guy there pal.
Anyway hope this isn’t a baseball1600 burner account because he’s upset about my posts here. It’s good to be a realist. Blind Hope isn’t my thing.
@baseball1600 I never said the giants needed to tank to be competitive in the future. Not once did I say that. I said they need more talent in the pipeline. That can come in a plethora of different ways. You can certainly win 75 games the next few years then make a jump to 90+ after that. Sure, it can be done. That doesn’t move the timeline up any further. I don’t see this team being a legitimate playoff contender until 2022. You’ve got to acquire talent and develop it or trade it because you don’t have enough of it to compete now. The Padres are on an upward trajectory and the Dodgers have a much stronger core and farm system. You’re playing catch up now whether you want to hear it or not. The giants had a great run but eventually you’ve gotta pay the piper. This was a 66 and 73 win team for good reason. It’s no longer a playoff contender.
@baseball1600 honestly I’m reading this back and I don’t know how the hell you came to the conclusion that I said any of this. Not once did I mention draft pick order being relevant. You’re picking arguments up out of thin air that I did not make at all. Your odds are certainly better at #1 than #28 but anything can happen there. Never said the Giants had to tank. Said “they aren’t going to be good again for at least 3 years” I don’t consider 75 wins to be good, do you?
No offense Vince but you’re only seeing your team through your own homer eyes. Jbigz12 is simply pointing out that the giants aren’t going to be a good team overnight. Maybe Bart will make a difference but not as much as Giants fans are thinking. He’s right about the aging players who are owed large portions of the payroll and the lack of overall quality prospects in the SF system. They might be able to spend their way to contending faster than most teams, but I don’t see the Giants contending for the next 3 years with the current circumstances surrounding the team, especially with the Padres and Dodgers being in their division.
He definitely has some talent. But having watched this from the RS for many many years, I would be very concerned about a 40/12 K/W in A- for someone who was 21 year’s old.
It really is a very small sample, so I wouldn’t be praising or bashing him yet, but you have to look at the entire picture.
Ever hear of Vladimir Guerrero Jr?
I think a few more seasons of losing ball and the stadium will start seating less and less. It’s a fickle fan base.
It’s actually quite remarkable how much they sell given how good the Warriors have been. Their season always lasts up till mid June and yet you still see sellouts in April and May. Not to mention the Sharks have been making the playoffs the past few years while the giants have been awful.
Your evidence for that remark? Since 1999 (19 years), they have varied between 2.86M and 3.38M. . Certainly attendance will decline, but it seems like a very loyal fanbase.
“Orioles and Royals are trying to win. And they will likely be more successful over the next decade than teams like Pittsburgh or SF”
Did I just wake up in 1980?
I’m sure a lot of teams are trying to win but I made $30 an hour working my butt off and these guys want $30 million a year to play baseball? I’m a real fan but I have to work 480 years to make that much. Yes I know the owners make a ton
too but a want to see baseball and if Harper and Machado sit this one out… no big deal.
We all bust our humps, get over yourself. Do you complain about actor X making 30 million a movie or singer Y making 10 million off of an album?
sure do.
I don’t work hard at all.
Either does our worthless prez tRump
Hardest working POTUS of your lifetime chump. Get your Trumpophobia off the baseball threads.
Wrong. He golfs and takes, by far, more vacation than any president in history. He also has ‘Executive Time’ and does not even start his day until 11 am. I’m not even a Trump hater, but come on.
Y’all need to get over your Trump obsession. I think both he and Hillary were miserable candidates, but I manage to hold discussions without breaking into political rants.
Take the royals out of that list. Never even got anything from Hos-Moose-Cain and don’t even want to trade Merrifield. Orioles took a while but they got some good prospects mid 2018.
Steeerike coming. Gird your loins.
I agree that a strike is imminent
Question is how long and will the fans come back?
If the players are stupid enough to strike, they deserve what’s coming. But it’s clear from Clark’s comments how out of touch he and the rest of the union is when it comes to the fans’ sympathy toward the players’ current “plight.”
He seems to think most fans side with the players on this issue. But the truth is fans only care about their teams’ winning, and the types of contracts he’s fighting for now have proven detrimental to that cause.
If the players strike, they’ll kill the sport. Baseball was lucky to survive the last one, and they won’t be so lucky a second time around. It will be “out of sight, out of mind” for most fans, and they’ll lose a generation they’ll never get back.
I think both sides have overestimated the value of the regional TV deals in the new world. 1/2 the folks in Austin can’t even watch the Astros even if they tried even though we are in “their market”. The reckoning awaits. And young folks today – they don’t even have cable! What a joke you guys are making of yourselves for messing with the golden goose. Yes, players and owners, it is the FANS that give your franchises value!
Totally concur. Big time Rangers fan. Choo has a ‘mega’ contract. I love going to the ballpark. However, I don’t go to watch Choo. I go to cheer on the team. In fact, outside of the Rangers horrific starting pitching, Choo’s contract is one of the things I hate about the team. Makes me sick that he is getting paid that much when he is just an average player.
Nope, I think it’ll 100% be the owners fault if a strike happens. They’re the ones with all the risk here, record revenues and all. Just because they don’t want to share a fair piece of the pie. First they rip off fans with the ridiculous prices, now they’re having salaries go down. And for what? An extra 5 million per year?
I’m a Rangers fan, too, and the Choo signing and Fielder trade completely destroyed the team’s competitive window. I hated both at the time, and they have proven in time to be every bit as bad as I predicted them to be.
The bottom line is the type of contracts the players union and agents are fighting for hurt teams, thereby hurting fans of those teams. If they think they’re going to have a captive/sympathetic audience in a strike, they are sorely mistaken.
Those “detrimental” contracts are only labeled as such because the owners tell us so.
There is incentive to not field a competitive team. Doing so eliminates bidders for a players services. Not just the high end AS players, but also league average contributors.
No, they’re detrimental because common sense tells us so.
In the case of almost every one of these seven- to 10-year contracts, the signing team might as well be flushing a good chunk of its payroll down the toilet for large portions of those agreements.
That’s not good for anyone but the player making tens of millions of dollars to suck — or in the case of a guy like Prince Fielder, retire.
Unions in themselves are generally out of touch, why they have loudmouth spokespeople, yet only represent less than 20% of the nation’s workforce and quickly dropping.
Unions operate on the assumptions that a) wealth is a zero-sum game, b) owners are against the workers, and c) that it’s constituents are too uninformed to know that a and b are nonsense.
When you get your head out of the clouds and realize that business owners getting richer by means of risk and entrepreneurship means the workers get richer and by extension society is better off through not only the money generated but the increased value their product/service adds then, and only then, can you have a meaningful conversation. But as long as the zero-sum myth persists and people see the wealth in the world as fixed, the implication that the rich guy stole it from the poor guy will remain.
LOL! The Fielder trade is only detrimental because the owner says so, and not because, you know, HE’S NOT EVEN PLAYING ANYMORE?
I’m a RS fan, and we’ve had our own share of bad signings. That’s the way it goes. I accept it because that is the deal. But it is silly to think bad signings are not detrimental.
And yes, there is a incentive to trading all your players when you are trending down. The incentive is to get better more quickly. Maybe you enjoy rooting for an aging .450 team. But if I were a fan of an aging .450 team, I encourage them to trade the entire team. Get some prospects, get some better draft picks, save some money, and in 3 years, become a contender.
Hate to say it but I agree
What’s the likelihood of getting rid of fully guaranteed contracts? I’d imagine owners would be willing to fork out a 10 year 300 mil contract that isn’t fully guaranteed.
Agreed. If they could opt out after the 6th year most would probably be comfortable with the risk. But what would be the point then right?
Oh yah for sure. I like most of the possible rule changes tho.
Owners have every right to not sign potentially roster crippling contracts. The players could easily have a big market by taking shorter deals with higher AAV’s.
I think this is pretty much on the players and those who represent them.
You say that now but teams could argue that they are trying to build contender or some other reason and refuse to give out high AAV, shorter deals. Then what? We demand players to take lower AAV, shorter deals? Truth is, despite their faults, Harper and Machado easily improve every team, contender or non-contender. Non-contenders will need talented players sooner if they want to contend. Contenders can continue to maximize value from every spot on roster. I get that there is luxury tax repercussions but not all teams are affected by this.
Harper and machado r overhyped and are not worth 250 million dollars. Look at the war for each. 1/2 the time they r superstar allstar type players and 1/2 the time the r replacement level or slightly above replacement level players. Machado is not arod, only similarity is their bad attitude. And harper plays bad defense at a non premium position and is streaky and hes not stanton. I dunno why ppl ever considered these earth shifting franchise cornerstone $300 million 10 year premium players. I highly disagree with that notion and obviously teams do too
Amen….Go back and look at A Rods numbers before he signed his first mega deal. Besides winning 1 MVP Harper has never finished in the top 10 any other year. Per Bref his WAR last year was 1.3. There is no question he is good, no question he helps most, if not all teams, but that does not make him a 300 million dollar player
it’s not for you to decide. $240-250 million seems the least amount offered to them. whatever the years offered may be!
Nope, ur right, its not for me to decide. But as i said in my comment, so far to this point, the owners agree with me, and it is for them to decide. Its not for machado or harper to decide theyre worth $300 million, thats for market to decide, and the market says they are not.
Your logic isn’t welcome here!
Really? And who the hell r u?
Woooossshhhh
Look above your head for the joke.
But the truth is owners have shown no problem with an ever escalating AAV. It’s the length of the contract and the risk that comes with it.
Also, how many wins would Harper or Manny give to the White Sox unless the younger players all matured at the same time? If the developing players are 3 years away then why waste $100 mil on Harper and Manny for 2019-2021? The teams that SHOULD sign one or both are teams poised to win but in need of a bat or leadership to take them over the hump. Indians, Braves, Mets, Rays, Phillies and Yanks are the only teams I would put in that category. The others would likely be 80-85 win teams if they were to get one or both. Some of those teams don’t even have the pitching to dream of being .500 or better, This isn’t the NBA where 1 mega star can turn a franchise around. Look at Mike Trout who HAS other stars on his team and they still have been disappointing.
The issue is more complicated. Of course they will improve every team.. But most teams already have guys at their positions. Harper would improve the Yankees, but they already have a RF. You could make him a DH, but then it would cost you $300M for the same DH production that the RS have on a cheaper and shorter contract.
After the teams that already have a 3B & RF, you then eliminate the teams that simply don’t have the market to support a single $30M player.
Then eliminate teams like BA & KC, that are several years away from competing.
Then eliminate teams that have competing needs, like pitching. If the RS had the money, we’d be signing a closer. Or the Nationals spending Harper’s $30M on a star SP and a pretty good 2B
So while these guys would make everyone better, that is only one factor.
that would require assuming high AAV, shorter term deals are out there. Near as the rumor mill has it, there’s painfully few of those being offered as well
the only ‘roster crippling’ risks on the market right now would being 7+ years to Harper or Machado… but there’s over a 100 big league tested players out there waiting for contract that wouldn’t require long term commitments… and nobody seems all that interested to give them much either.
the argument that teams just don’t want to be crippled doesn’t add up. You can get plenty of good players right now for less than 5 years, but both the big and small market teams seem completely disinterested, even the teams that clearly have the need and the money to do so.
It’s free market, supply and demand.. I don’t feel bad for either side, markets development and markets regress. Only a few teams are up against the cap, which is really minimal, there just isn’t much desire for the winners to overpay, and the losers are making equalization money while they lose and develop prospects.. I don’t feel for the free agents, that’s free market, I think the minimum pre-arb players should have pay increases based on revenue gains. And should prob be at 1m a year.
There might be 100 mlb vets out there but other than Manny, Harper, Keuchel, Gonzalez and Kimbrel who are those that any team should rush to get on their roster? Most are those last 5 spots on the 25 man roster types. I would say Clay Buchholz and Gio are the only two I’m surprised are still on the table considering there wasn’t a lot of depth for decent SP and plenty of teams are still in need.
Plenty of guys like buchholz have too many warts to be worth signing as well…
What good is signing a pitcher who can’t stay healthy? To a contender it means he’s worthless for the stretch run when needed the most.
To a rebuild er looking for a trade chip to flip at the deadlin it means a wasted roster spot and missed opportunity – can’t get value for an injured player, and, again see last point – what contender will pay good value for a guy who every historical indication is he will falter before the stretch run rendering the value spent a waste?
Fact is, if you have 2 players per year per team come up to help a major league roster, whether reliever, bench role, or starter, 52 big leaguers will get pushed out. And add the comeback candidates, add guys who wind up on minor league deals who become depth…
The number of former big leaguers who are unsigned is right about where it should be. Can’t guarantee jobs for life for the fringe players either
Yup, the press likes to use ‘100’ because it is a nice round number. But most of the 100 are bench fodder that catch on somewhere in Spring Training. Or working backwards, how many teams are actively looking for a player(s)? The NYY and RS have a set roster, with a few high-quality prospects hunting for the #7 slot in the BP..
Of the ‘100’, about 90 of them will be looking for jobs in Miami, BA, etc., teams looking for cheap wins to look respectable.
Agreed!
Okey dokey mister free market guy. Then let’s say that teams can no longer artificially deflate players’ earning ability in the years when they’re most valuable, by virtue of its exemption from antitrust laws. Fair’s fair. So no draft. No pre-arb players and no “control.” Yankees and Dodgers can go around plucking good players from small market teams’ farms just by paying them more. You’d have European soccer, only worse, because there would be only one monopolistic league instead of one in each country. Maybe that’s fine; I dunno, Euro-soccer is the most popular sport on Earth.
You and your fellow “it’s all on the players” mob need to think through all the advantages the owners have in this management-worker conflict, not just the one that the players used to have and no longer do. This will be fixed in the next negotiation or there will be no more baseball.
unfortunately, most don’t even know how football transfers work.
90% of the teams don’t spend to the cap, so the teams can spend what they want. There’s just more value in younger players and no incentive to
Win
Basically yes. Guys that are 33 cannot get around on a 98 mph FB, and we have 10x as many of those 98 mph FB as we use to.
And there is always an incentive to win, but owners have learned that it is impossible to win every year, outside the mega markets. The players want to make it seem like it is the owners fault that not every team is a .500+ team.
As a Raiders’ fan, I am thrilled that they finally tanked. Does anyone want to go to the park to watch a perpetual .450 team?
He’s talking about the current agreement. And also advocating for the players. Reading comprehension is important.
Yes, soccer is the most popular sport on earth. And McDonald’s sells the most popular burger on the planet.
It doesn’t mean either of them are any good.
Hey Seamaholic.. What u described is how it was.. being no draft that is and can just sign anybody u want.
i don’t know how much you know about the game pre 1960, but the Dodger farm system, along with that of the NYY was better than some MLB teams they were so stacked and backed up from scouting and signing so many of the nations top kids.
No draft and had dozens and dozens of scouts, many more than anyone else did at the time.
Now I’m on board with the no cap for a DRAFT, but the draft needs to remain.
So much this. Every single one of these unsigned guys could be signed right now if they’d lower their asking price to a reasonable number of years. Players are just slow to learn/accept that they’re not getting the team-killing contracts guys got three-plus years ago.
It’s funny, the guys that have done the best the past two years are the ones who went out and took the best three-to five-year deal they could get early in free agency. Those that have tried to wait out the market have been left with table scraps.
Your common sense and logic isn’t welcome on this website. Please see yourself out.
nothing is worse than the NBA, and the amount of teams losing on purpose to get draft picks
You could have just ended your sentence after ‘NBA’.
On the contrary, the NBA is the fastest growing professional league in the country. There actually aren’t that many true tankers in the NBA, and virtually all of them only do it for one season (the Sixers were an oddity, and they only did it year after year because they continuously blew it).
in the world.
MLS is the fastest growing league not the NBA, and the fastest growing sport is RUGBY. Major League Rugby is in it’s 2nd year of existence, and it’s awesome! (10 team league, CBS Sports, Jan thru July)
We had another name for rugby as kids many decades ago.. it was called “kill the man with the ball”…
I can’t even tell you how many lunchtime recess football games instantly transformed mid-play when someone shouted “kill the man with the ball”…
These days I bet if you tried playing it your kid would be suspended
There’s a legit misunderstanding of how roster building takes place among the 3 major North American sports.
How does one improve a team in the NBA? Through a 2 round draft which includes international players, FA and trades.
FA- It seems that if your a true franchise altering FA most want to go to a select few cities (Los Angels, NYC, Boston, Bay Area, Philly, Chicago and maybe Toronto. And even some of those teams that have under-performed in recent years have had trouble luring stars (Knicks and even the Lakers of late). But if your Cleveland, Milwaukee, Portland, etc then you’re really SOL, Even when LBJ was in Cleveland they struggled to get true top FA other than Kevin Love. Others may have considered it had LBJ signed a long-term deal but he decided to go year-to-year for the most part.
Trades- Most rebuilding teams are doing so because they suffer from a lack of impact players, so what is their trade bait?. Unless they’re willing to trade multiple draft picks then they are SOL and truthfully, a team devoid of stars would be stupid to trade their lottery picks, especially if the star they are trading for only has 1 or 2 years left on their contracts because everyone knows that player will likely leave for a bigger/better more attractive city or to join teams with other stars already closer to contending. There are very fewer lifers willing to stick with a team during the bad years. Dirk is the only one that comes to mind recently.
Draft-Includes 2 rounds only and aside from a few diamonds-in-the-rough, most of the truly franchise changing prospects,most are in the first 10 pics.
*If your a bad/mediocre team then you likely need at least 2 great talents to come to fruition in the draft, which means you need to be selecting in more than one lottery draft.
The NBA has a broken system. Because of “super teaming” most NBA stars are located on one of 10 teams. That’s not because owners are cheap. There’s a salary floor and it’s not because big market teams are out-spending them because there’s a salary cap with lux tax implications. Clearly teams trying to maintain a dynasty like the Warriors and what the Cavs were trying to do during the LBJ era are the exceptions.
The salary floor is perhaps the worst thing in the NBA because teams are “forced” to spend huge money on undeserving player (Mozgov/Lakers, Milsap/Denver, Conely/Memphis. What sense does it make to spend millions on 3rd tier stars if your the Cavs, etc? To be an very mediocre team that wins 42 games?
So let’s stop the comparison. NBA teams have a clear reason to not compete and not spend big money on mediocre FA and let their drafted players play and to collect more pics in the process. Teams that scout well should rise up again (Celtics, Golden St, Phillies) and ones that don’t….well…see Cleveland.
As for the mlb teams while there are some that put money before winning like previous Marlin’s ownership, I think most want to become 95 win teams. But rebuilding doesn’t mean you don’t want to win. What it means is “why sign expensive FA just to be mediocre”? Baseball is cyclical
Most of the worst teams in 2018 had a window of opportunity to win in the last 10 years. The Reds (2010-2013), Baltimore (2012-2016), Pirates (2012-2015), SF (2010-2016), Rangers (2010-2016), Royals (2014-2015), Detroit (2011-2014) and Rays (2008-2013). Aside from the Marlins, White Sox and Padres one can argue that they are some combination of frugal and inept. How much of one vs the other is subject to review.
But Tony Clark doesn’t have an argument that teams are being cheap. Corbin, a good but not elite pitcher received more than most expected (6/$140), 32 yo McCutchen signed for $3/$50 mil. Non-closers are getting paid well too (Ottavino, Britton, Kelly, etc). Yanks signed a 36 yo Happ to a guaranteed 2/$34 mil. The Rays signed 35 yo Morton to a guaranteed 2/$30 mil. Even oft-injured Pollock signed for 4/$50 mil which is a lot considering his health the last 3 years. What players AREN’T getting are the 8-10 year deals. But the aav is still healthy and I bet both Manny and Harper would be signed if they were willing to take a 5/$150-$185 deal.
Tony Clark and the MLPA are literally saying “How DARE you not want to pay us a high aav for our player’s declining years”. As if the contracts of Cabrera and Pujols didn’t exist. And for those making the point that Harper and Manny are only 26 well how are those contracts for Longoria and Braun (both signed at age 27) working out? Both signed their extensions at a relatively young age and neither has suffered any debilitating injuries which led to their production decline. Long term deals are risky and these guys are asking for guaranteed money.
If the players aren’t willing to bet on themselves (their ability to perform well enough 5 years from now and earn another lucrative 3-5 year deal) then why should the owners? I mean even at $150 mil these men will secure a high standard of living for the next 2 or 3 generations of their family. Seems like a market adjustment. That doesn’t mean it’s a byproduct of owner machinations.
TL;DR
ABSOLUTELY agree with this southbeach
Tony has to blame somebody other than himself and the MLB Players Union.
TL DR BRO
IDGAF short enough?
Lol.. I read it. Nice take on players not betting on themselves. I don’t watch much basketball 🙂
Wall of text
Headline: Tony Clarke mad about agreement Tony Clarke signed.
Meh. Owners completely changed behavior after the agreement was signed. Would have been hard to predict and harder to negotiate to beat it back. You always have to assume at least a little good will when you negotiate. It’s almost like this all was planned.
Even if owners changed their “behavior”, they are working within the terms of the agreement. The union failed to understand where the game was going, how players were starting to be valued. They simply followed the old formula under which veteran players only cared about getting paid with little interest in improving the terms/pay for player at the start of their career. Now they are complaining about the terms they agreed on.
You can’t alter one side of the equation without affecting the other.
It wasn’t hard to predict at all. Literally every economist paying attention predicted it. There was even articles written about it.
One university had researchers that directly contacted the PA. The latter paid no mind.
Changed behavior equals owners listening to smarter GMs.
It’s a simple fact. Historically, most players start to decline in their later years. New CBA or not, what can the MLBPA do to compel owners to make stupid decisions?
Put aside the notion of 1 WAR=$8 mil for a second. I feel is a silly way to look at things in the real world of long-term contracts and decline anyway, Mike Trout is not going to be worth a 10 year deal at record setting aav. I don’t care how good he is at age 27-28. He will more than likely be a shadow of himself at age 34+.
You know how many position players 33+ had a WAR above 3 in 2018? Three and they are Lowrie, Zobrist and Votto. Now Lowrie and Zobrist were on good contracts but Votto? Yikes, another 5/$132 left.
Only 5 pitchers over 33+ had a 3+ season in 2018 and two were FA that signed short-term deals (Happ and Morton), one is the last year of his contract (Verlander) and the other two are Scherzer and Greinke. Verlander and Scherzer performed at an elite level. The others were good but not elite. Greinke, who was excellent in 2018 has a contract that the Dbacks reportedly want to get rid of but most teams aren’t willing to take on his 3/$104 for his age 35-37 seasons. If there weren’t the big market/anxiety issues then maybe a team like the Yanks or Red Sox would take a gamble on him because of need and the ability to absorb a bad contracts but 85% of teams wouldn’t touch him unless the Dbacks ate a portion of his contract.
The only compromise I might think could appease the PA is if they cut the years of control down to 4 possibly. However, I think that would work against the PA as the result would be a ton more FA entering the market at a much younger age. Can you imagine if that agreement kicked in this year and instead of Manny and Harper being the jewels of 2018 FA they would’ve been joined by Trout, Betts, Arenado, etc? Would players like McCutchen get the 3 years he received? Would the likes of Granderson and Adam Jones even get a mlb contract?
There’s no easy solution to this problem and Clark better hope he doesn’t make matters worse. For every action there’s a counter-action and some of the vets aren’t going to like the results because the younger players are going to garner a lot of the payroll teams have if the years of control are limited from 6 to 4.
Many fans on the internet said the players were getting hosed when details leaked out. Clarke agreed to a horrible deal that even fans said was horrible. Made his bed, now sleeping therein.
Well said
Players should demand a payroll floor of at least 115m at next CBA.
Floor or ceiling ?
There should be both, but they mean floor.
Interesting if a spending cap would spread money to more people. As someone who makes nothing in comparison, it seems absurd these 9digit numbers… if there’s only so many bucks to spend, that they all go to select players is inevitable as the market is now
People really have a misunderstanding of what tanking really means, If a team is rebuilding by defacto they are going to lose games and when you have a losing record you get a high pick. However, the Cubs are an example of EXACTLY why teams do what they do, They purged their team of vets, let the young guys play, drafted well and after 5 years of suckage they rewarded their fans with 4 consecutive playoff appearances and the teams first world series rings in decades. How bad of an argument you want to make dude?
Not all teams can be rebuild like the Yankees did recently.
So the Marlins, Tigers, and Orioles are trying to win? Nope, not even close. The blame goes to everyone for slow free agency. Agents are leeches, owners want their money, players want outrageous contracts.
there’s a huge difference between being bad because you’re rebuilding and trying to lose and not caring. Orioles are rebuilding, pirates just don’t care. there’s a difference.
And yet 12-7 against that team in Wisconsin.
and still a 4th place team at best who hasn’t done ****-all this off-season to fix that…
that team in wisconsin is the shining example of how teams in small markets compete. take notes buddy.
Stop yourself. You look like a clown talking down to these other teams. The Brewers, in their entire pathetic existence, have a grand total of 4 playoff appearances and ZERO rings. You wish your team has had the success of the Pirates.
You cub fans sure are bitter about your embarrassing collapse last fall. Get use to that. Your cubs will be going back to there tanking ways soon enough.
Hahaha, themed your adorable. I think it’s great that your mom lets you use the computer. Eat your veggies tonight before you take off your helmet and go to bed. Dream of a time when people cared about the Cards. Console Molina and his nut, for getting so upset that Bryant called out your pathetic, BORING lil town. Oh, lil guy, at least the Cubs made the playoffs… again. When was the last time the Cards made the playoffs? Hmmmm, oh that’s right, when the Bryant and the Cubs eliminated them. Hahahaha, but yeah… Cub fans are the bitter ones. Now go get your jammies on, almost bed time.
You’re bragging about rings with one in the last century. Really?
Um let’s see now sonny. I’ve seen the Cardinals in count em 10 World Series. And 4 in just this century. And the cubs were in how many?
Yeah… but at what cost? It’s still STL. Hahahaha, oh, and I’ve seen 11 pro championships in my lifetime. So, I’m good… more than good. Your PO dunk BORING town can’t even keep an NFL team and have they even had a NBA team since the merger? But the fact is, Whitey Herzog, Ozzie Smith isn’t coming out of that tunnel anytime soon to make the Cards legit again. I’ll go ahead and live in the present. Now I know it’s way past your bedtime. Even pathetic lil trolls need their sleep.
I don’t care about the nfl or nba or nhl. How many cub championships? Let’s talk about playoff appearances if you think that’s such a big deal.
What have the Marlins don’t to try to win? What about the Tigers? The Orioles didn’t try to do anything to improve their team at all.
Now the argument for the Tigers is they want to trim their huge payroll, develop their farm club, produce a decent team to put on the field to be able to compete and sign big free agents. That’s not really “tanking” that’s literally rebuilding. The problem is their current roster is vomit with no shot to win their projected 69 wins. Argument can be made either way.
But the Orioles have one of the highest paid players in the game on their team with Chris Davis. A massive contract coupled with Manny Machado. Yet even with Manny, they were one of the worst teams in the history of baseball last year. So how could Manny make a difference for the White Sox, or the Padres? That’s the problem with baseball and crazy contracts. Trout is going to get almost the same number of ABs as the 9th hitter every game. They are going to get about the same number of fielding choices.
Huh? Pirates have been a solid, entertaining team for many years and are not tanking. You could argue their ownership has been cheap, but hard to say without seeing their books. That’s a REALLY small market compared to Baltimore-Washington.
I don’t know if it’s fare to say that about the Pirates. They had a window to win with McCutchen in his prime. They knew Cutch was going to leave them in FA and they knew they would eventually lose Cole. They saw their window closing. However, they had a nice 3 year window that ended once their best player started to decline.
You can argue that they are trying to win by setting up their future rather than hopelessly trying now. Their end goal is still the same, which is to try to put together a winning team, but the philosophy/method to achieve that is different.
The Pirates on the other hand are playing russian roulette by themselves every night.
pirates are doing just enough to put a barely competitive team out there on the field, year after year. teams like the orioles and marlins are actively tearing it down to build it back up. that’s more admirable than a team spinning their wheels just to stay afloat. wouldn’t be shocked if the pirates organization just gets dissolved in the next 10 years.
Nice trolling. You’re embarrassing yourself.
Sure the Bucs haven’t been around as long as the Brewers and the BrewCrew has waaay more WS titles than Pittsburgh. Also the Bucs have only beaten Milwaukee 32 times in the past 3 years so…yeh, they’ll probably just fold the team. Sorry to waste your time Brewers. Please forgive.
pirates draw about 14 fans a night, if lucky. add in free hot dog night and that might bump it up to about 30
You Bernie, are hilarious.
Hahaha, clown. The Brewers were literally floundering so bad that MLB booted them out of the AL. If not for Cubs fans literally taking over your park 10 times a year, you’d still be irrelevant. Perhaps booted to the PCL. I’m not even a Pirates fan, but I respect their history, their beautiful park and their devoted fanbase. Again, the Pirates have 5 World Series rings, meanwhile Brewers have made the playoffs a grand total of 4 times in their entire pathetic existence (the same amount as the Cubs the last 4 years BTW) I love visiting their park to watch games, a lot more than that eye sore in Milwaukee.
You cub fans are so bitter about that embarrassing collapse last fall. It shows in almost every comment here.
Yeah, we cry ourselves to sleep in our World Series Championship blankets. Something Brewers fans don’t have.
In 1998, the Brewers moved to the NL because of geography and expansion, genius. The year before, there were six AL teams worse than the Brewers in 1997.
Oh yeah – the Brewers were better than the Cubs in 1997, 1996, 1994, 1992, 1991, 1988, I could keep going back because that Chicago team was nothing but a doorstop for 100 years.
Win one World Series since freaking Model Ts were in style, and all of a sudden you have a history more impressive than the Yankees.
Great post. The cubs win 1 in 110 years and they think they are a dynasty.
Yankees?!? Hahaha, you don’t have to be the Yankees to have a better history than the Brewers. Technically, the Rockies have a more storied and successful history than the Brewers. Talking crap to Pittsburgh fans? Hahaha, I’ll take their team history and fanbase… ballpark you name it, over the Brewers ANY day. ZERO rings and 4 playoff appearances EVER! Hahaha, the Cubs topped your ENTIRE franchise history just in the last 4 years. Just facts, not opinion… not trolling, not pulling nonsense out of thin air… just facts.
Yes its like cub fans talking crap to Cardinal fans. The lopsidedness of all time playoff appearances National League Champinships and World Series Titles aren’t even close.
most owners’ end-goal is to make money. if winning brings more profits they try to win.
Confusing ‘trying to win’ and ‘trying to win today’. They’re trying to build a winning team again which means, yes, they’re likely trying to win.
This just in: shortly after his response to the commissioner, Clark conceded his position on the matter, a hard salary cap, reduced pay for players, non-guaranteed contracts for all, and vowed to eliminate all pay for minor leaguers.
Manfred is quickly becoming more like Goodell and Bettman only he has an attitude to go with it. Tony Clark shouldn’t even have a job with how bad the last CBA went. They are the ones that allowed the owners to get huge luxury tax penalties and give them a reason not to sign guys
They were so happy with teams handing out idiot contracts and didn’t want anything to change. Go look at the deals everyone was getting even just a few years ago, and how many turned into absolute trash contracts. Even though some players were benefiting, the time for the union to do something was *then* knowing there’s no way that was going to last.
I think the idea wasn’t to lessen players getting large contracts. The idea was to dissuade the Yanks and other big market teams from collecting multiple major stars and hope that the mid-small market teams would step up and be able to get a FA at more reasonable costs. That’s the complaint I’ve been hearing against the Yanks by smaller market teams. Yanks spend too much blah, blah, blah. And in a sense it’s worked on some levels as the Yanks haven’t been handing out record breaking contracts the last few years. They acquired Stanton but they didn’t set the precedent with his contract.
This tanking thing that started with the cubs a few years ago is ruining baseball. They should not award teams that tank with first picks. They finished last on purpose for 5 years and were rewarded for it. This ridiculous way to compete has to be stopped.
Give the top draft picks to the teams that just miss the playoffs: fixed.
If the young players weren’t so severely underpaid, it would solve the problem. If you have to pay your players what they’re worth in their 2nd or 3rd year, a long rebuild wouldn’t make sense because you’d have a 1 or 2 year window to win and then have to trade players because you can’t afford them. More teams would look to retool instead of doing a full 5 year rebuild. Now you rebuild for 5 years and if you do it properly you have a core of cheap young players for 6 years, totally worth it.
Are you talking minor league players or rookie mlb players being underpaid? Major league minimum (550k+) for three years before arbitration seems fair to me, I’d say US military junior enlisted members are severely underpaid. I don’t think teams would get rid of players if arbitration started earlier, I think the problem is that teams are just not wanting to pay 20m or more for players in
Their 30’s when their skills are starting to decline. (Accidentally pressed post comment)
You want to make it possible for bad teams to improve quickly. Otherwise the sport just dies in that market. Just make sure owners don’t pocket all the saved money when a team is on a bad cycle. Make them spend on veterans (salary floor) or just fine them and send the money to the other owners (which they will hate).
The Astros started earlier, and tanked harder, than the Cubs ever did
but making up ‘facts’ is more fun than dealing with reality, i suppose…
Plus the Cubs were already in the tank and trying to win when Theo took over. Once he got there it was time to clean house. Only Baez remained from the Hendry era when the Cubs beat the Cardinals in 2015.
Actually the cubs started the whole tanking process and named the GM a genius.
Here’s your problem themed, and the problem with the baseball world—the Cubs get WAY TOO much credit for how they won the World Series. Teams are trying to emulate their success and just don’t realize that TANKING had ABSOULUTELY NOTHING to do with them winning a World Series. There was exactly ONE player on that team that contributed at all that season that was acquired by a draft pick based on a poor recent season. ONE—-Kris Bryant. And let’s not forgot, someone had to pass on him to get to the Cubs.
Starting rotation that year: Lackey, Lester, Hammel all free agents. Hendricks and Arrieta via trade. Nothing to do with draft picks.
Outfield: Soler and Heyward—-free agents. Fowler—trade.
Infield: Bryant picked….Rizzo, Russell trade. Baez already there. Zobrist free agent.
Pen: Rondon, rule V, Chapman, Montgomery, Wood, Edwards, Strop—trade.
Catchers: Contreras already there. Montero free agent.
To clarify—-Almora had about 115 plate appearances and Schwarber had FOUR at bats the entire season.
If the baseball world would really give the Cubs credit for winning a World Series based on just purely a series of great trades and signings and NOT on a boatload of draft picks because they stunk for a long stretch of years things might be a little different.
So themed, Theo and Jed really were geniuses.
Damn it Mike, why did you have to go and make sense. Trolls like themed hate that. Then you completely lost him when you incorporated FACTS and simple logic. Now who are we gonna make fun of? Haha
Credit where it is due, the Cubs front office did a great job. But, I have to point out that you failed to consider that draft order is not the only benefit to “tanking”. It clearly is not. Trading established major league players from your MLB roster for prospects is also of great value.
I’m not going to look up every trade the Cubs made and analyze them…I don’t have to…it’s a strategy that is used by MLB clubs all the time. Selling off MLB roster assets for prospects is part of the appeal of “tanking”
Again, the Cubs struck gold more than once in their trades. Good job, Cubs FO. Completely disregarding the MLB product for a few years helped them do it.
Without a realistic salary cap, a model that grants significant chance of success to teams who can grab next to any FA they want (NY/Boston/LA), and an unrealistic chance to compete when you’re not elite because of those variables, WHY would any club pay crazy money for players that won’t net them success? The only way smaller market clubs can compete is to go completely young and cheap AND PRAY they get lucky with a crop of talented mid 20 yr olds. Change the model. Create a REAL salary cap that can’t be breached and bring REAL consistent competition back to the game. Then, and only then, will we see this weak FA go away.
A salary cap would just make this problem even worse. A salary cap is not going to make a small market team spend more or prevent tanking.
The cap,would come with a floor
Your theory is flawed and this winter is an excellent example of it. It seems that the Yanks (despite being the 2nd highest spender), Dodgers and the Red Sox have decided NOT to splurge on the biggest FA this season. The problem is, that at the same time those 3 teams were payroll conscious all GMs have caught on to the idea of not overpaying for declining years. Thus far, none of the other teams have stepped up to fill the voids left by the big 3 being some what conservative. But let’s keep in mind, NO TEAM IS OBLIGATED to issue a record setting contract. Harper has at least 1 $300 mil offer and he hasn’t signed yet. So no, owners aren’t being cheap. Show me one 10 year deal that wasn’t a disaster 6 or 7 years into the deal?
They’re not spending because they don’t have to. The rest of the league won’t because they known that neither Machado or Harper won’t lift them above NY, Boston, and LA.
I’m a huge Astros fan, and I loved our rebuild. It was audacious and new. However, the success has changed the game in a bad way.
Too many teams are tanking to rebuild. The draft system is broken. I wish baseball would flip the draft for teams that missed the playoffs. 11th place gets the first pick. 30th gets the 20th pick.
This would motivate clubs to actually win in the near term, and would incentive free agent spending.
You are right….it changed the game. “tryng” wink wink has never looked so ugly. Congrats to you though on your awesome youngish team!
So it’s okay for the Astros to tank but when other teams copy their rebuild process then we have a problem..
The Astros were mocked endlessly during the rebuild. Then, it worked and copycats have seriously hurt the league.
actually, the astros are also a clear example of how being the worst team doesnt guarentee you anything beyone simply drafting a guy higher. two of the three 1st overall picks the astros had didnt pan out. arguably, the years they didnt pick 1st during there tank netted better players.
Brady Aiken turned into Bregman. That worked out. Yeah, Appel was a surprising bust, but it happens.
WHY? Teams aren’t tanking for the draft picks!!!!! When you purge your roster of overpaid vets and instead play the kids well guess what? Young players struggle and it often leads to a bad record. The Cubs, Astros, Royals and Brewers have all won a WS or went deep into the playoffs.
How do people not understand the meaning of a rebuild? build (something) again after it has been damaged or destroyed.
Even a muscle has to be torn and repaired to get stronger. The old Marlins are the only clear example of a team not caring. We all want our teams to play the kids but cry when the team has to endure losing for a few years.
I always side with labor over management but I want the players to shut the hell up until they actually do something about minor leaguers. Teams have always gone thru cycles of competing, rebuilding etc. It’s only become a huge issue now because modern technology allows FanGraphs, BP, et al to give somewhat accurate projections old how good/bad a team really is before the season starts. There are several years to iron out these issues and considering the amount of noise this far before the CBA expires I’m not going to sweat a strike.
better projections or not, teams spending more usually win in playoffs.
The MLBPA is reaping what they sowed. Guess what… a system that has guys like Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, and Chris Davis making more than the entire Marlins roster… it’s not just the owners’ fault that it’s a broken system. The financial system in baseball is completely broken, and neither side seems to have the least bit of interest in doing anything but bicker. Tony Clark and Rob Manfred should hold hands and jump into a lake together.
Not to mention a agent is making more annually than Pujols, Davis, and Cabrera combined. That an agent is the highest earner in baseball is a joke.
I think everyone involved should. point the fingers on themselves. As the dollar value increase, so should the rate a person earns. However, attendance is down. Cost on other areas are going up, especially in player development, international scouting and analytics. (Rightfully so) We have minimum wage increasing as well, which means more labor charge in stadiums. Yet, players are increasing their value by the millions. The AAV of a player has to slow down to catch up with the rest of the world. Which means owners are becoming more strict with payroll and are cautious about highlighting the off-season rather solely basing their off-season plan on analytics, which is practical. Next CBA should address this and not pace of play.
DH adds 15+ jobs.
No it doesn’t. AL and NL rosters are all at 25.
DH would probably in this current market pay more than a NL super utility guy who can’t hit squat which is what now see, or that 12-13th pitcher/reliever who shouldn’t be in the MLB to begin with.
DH’s can extend a hitters career. No debate about it.
adding the DH just means teams will be replacing their worst reliever with their worst hitter, and gives declining players who cant/dont want to play D another two or three years in the league.
Name two teams that would have spent good money on a dh this off season.
DH ruins the game the way it was meant to be played.
Just tell everyone to get off your lawn, go sit in your recliner and fall asleep old man.
The reason so many teams are perceived as not trying to win is because they signed bad long term contracts years ago. Cubs with Heyward, Angels with Pujols, Yankees with Ellsbury. All three teams would likely be going after Harper or Machado if they didn’t sign those bad long term deals.
Tigers and Orioles are getting ready for a long rebuild because they both have horrible contracts on the books and they’re stuck with them so no point in trying to compete for the next 3-4 years.
If Harper and Machado come out and say they will sign for 1 or 2 years and the most money they can get, you’ll have a ton of teams fighting for them.
wrong on the angels. angels are leaving some room for trout extension. besides, arte never signs players with questionable characters
To the players: If you hire someone incompetent at their job then don’t get mad when you get crappy results.
“Players commit to compete every pitch of every at-bat, and every inning of every game.”
Except some of them sometimes (koff koff Machado koff koff)
Koff? I think you mean cough…
You get invited to a lot of parties, don’t you?
If you get invited to any parties I’m sure the host immediately regrets it.
There are probably a few common sense things that both the MLBPA and MLB could enact to fix things.
Like:
a hard cap on contract lengths at 6 or 7 years max, to get rid of Pujols-like franchise crippling deals.
A hard salary floor of something like $80 or $90M. If a team like Miami or Tampa or Pittsburgh can’t afford that, then those owners have no business owning a professional sports team. They can sell their franchises.
Arbitration or FA a year earlier in order to stop players from being grossly underpaid early on and then grossly overpaid later.
More incentive-based deals, using real performance-based stats, not plate appearances and other useless stats.
Much better sharing of TV and Radio revenues (with the requirement that welfare cases like Tampa, PIT, and Miami must spend it).
I like these and wish they could iron out some changes close to third point especially. Players play for dirt cheap for too long and it encourages teams to play roulette with prospects until they land a hit and come out way ahead for 4+ years. This also leads to those guys feeling like they need to over-earn in free agency to make up for all those minor league and pre-arb years, and then half the teams have no interest in them because they’re not good enough to legit compete and they’d rather keep playing the prospect shuffle. There’s just not enough middle ground between how underpaid they are to start and “overpaid” to finish.
I’m siding with the owners on this one. I’ve seen too many teams get screwed by long term contracts and it takes years to recover from it. I have little sympathy for Harper or Machado having to take a $200M contract verses a $300M contract.
The problem isn’t the elites not getting mega-deals, it’s good players having to settle for non-guaranteed milb contracts. They need to address tanking, draft-pick penalties for teams signing FA’s, minimum salaries (in both milb and MLB), and number of years before Arb and FA.
Why pay a veteran with a 1 WAR 3-4 millions for a year when a minor leaguer can do a similar job for minimum salary. Even if you’re trying to win, you can wait until the trade deadline to make moves. The Cleveland outfield is horrible but they’ll likely still win their division so they might as well give playing time to their young player early on and then make some moves at the deadline. It won’t cost much . Even If Granderson has a good year in Miami, he’ll only cost them a cheap prospect at the deadline to have him for the playoffs.
Actually it is. The teams that feel the pressure from their fans in small markets, svae up for years while tanking their team to get that Harper or Machado. Then two or three players get injured or don’t pan out and their stuck trying to get back to a respectable kind of organization by being cheap to players that are safe bets but not all stars. the way they do that is making sure the do more spring invitation and minium major leave salary till that huge blockbuster signing ends…or they could do a salary relief swap for a big market team and deplete their prospects. Imagine how impactful a signing of player like Stanton could be to the Marlins if he tore his ACL.
The price of mediocrity got out of control and the bubble popped. Why pay $15m for what you could get for a fraction of that out of the minors or a lucky lighting strike low end FA? You can get four or five players and have two of them come up with the same WAR, and still have three quarters of the money left over.
It’s not one side’s fault or the other, that’s how a market works. Both sides have to adjust, and the sooner the league starts caring about what will benefit ALL teams overall (even at slight cost to the top) and the union starts caring about what will benefit ALL players overall (even at slight cost to the top) the better.
It’s not just about the mega deals. The reality is you cant name 5 deals that severly impacted a teams ability to spend in the last 10 years. Some deals are mistakes some are insane bargains but both are the outliers. The real issue, as mlbtr has pointed out more than a few times, is the dissapearing of the middle class of FAs. The Zobrists of the world, deals for relievers or 3rd/4th OF types. These deals almost always provide ample ROI yet they’re dissapearing.
This also ignores the fact every FA deal benefits one side or the other. There is no “fair” in FA.
So you and people like you get outraged over outliers to the point of supporting actions that will hurt the game as a whole. Nobody benefits from the strike everyone feels is now inevitable. You’re opinion is a blunt object being used on perhaps the most nuanced market in sports. I reject it and I think anyone with a deeper understanding of baseball dollars and sense would too.
Yes, the big bad players are taking unfair advantage of the poor impoverished owners. It just has to stop.
scott borass 2011: the market shall dictate salaries (wrings hands excitedly as his commissions go up up UP)
scott borass 2019: the owners are refusing to sign $500 million dollar contracts, they are colluding, players need to strike
Boras made $105M last year. The NBA and NFL limit the amount agents can charge on contracts at 3%. Boras charges twice that much. That money should be going into the pockets of the players. Not a agent.
No player is forced to hire an agent. If they think paying him six percent is the way to earn the most on their next contract, that is their prerogative.
They can represent themselves if they want to.
I believe it boils down that Harper and Machado are still free agents. Teams do not want to give 10 year contracts because it never pans out for the team and I can’t blame them.
These guys may sign 10 year, record-breaking contracts yet. In fact, I’m venturing to guess that they will.
“Rule 21 MISCONDUCT(a) MISCONDUCT IN PLAYING BASEBALL. Any player or person connected with a Club who shall promise or agree to lose, or to attempt to lose, or to fail to give his best efforts towards the winning of any baseball game with which he is or may be in any way concerned, or who shall intentionally lose or attempt to lose, or intentionally fail to give his best efforts towards the winning of any such baseball game, or who shall solicit or attempt to induce any player or person connected with a Club to lose or attempt to lose, or to fail to give his best efforts towards the winning of any baseball game with which such other player or person is or may be in any way concerned, or who, being solicited by any person, shall fail to inform the Commissioner (in the case of a player or person associated with a Major League Club) or the President of the Minor League Association (in the case of a player or person associated with an independent Minor League Club) immediately of such solicitation, and of all facts and circumstances connected therewith, shall be declared permanently ineligible.”
To be perfectly clear Owners are responsible for this> they control the purse strings . They are required by MLB Rule to give the most possible: Not profit the most possible, but spend the most possible to win ball games.. failure to do so is a violation of their own rules..
And clearly they are not
and too top it off they have violated the good faith under which virtually every stadium was built. They were built to generate money to build teams.. not profits.. That is what they told the public when they wanted their money.. What they are doing is a deceiving upon the public who financed their stadiums
The owners are only working within the agreement that Clark and the players union signed off on. It is sad that the union can’t live with their own decisions.
I know that if I were an owner I’d be extremely hesitant to sign big long term contracts. Historically they just don’t work out.
In 1984 they tried to eliminate long term contracts.. Arbitration has held repeatedly against the owners on this issue: they are require to RISK as part of those rulings.. this push for no risks contracts is in violation of MLB Rule 21a.. it is in violation of the collective bargaining agreement.. During that agreement it was made clear that NOTHING had change in the background of the negotiations.. meaning that what went on before was what was going to be the future.. and in every contract there is GOOD FAITH.. the conditions under which the contract was negotiated.. those conditions included years of long term contracts with risk to teams and owners in hopes of reward.. its called free enterprise.. it is what the bargained for. it is what the arbitration cases have ruled.. Risk is a part of the business.. the players are now being told they have all the risk while clubs are minimizing theirs’ to essentially guarantees of production over cost..
Sorry but I totally disagree with much of your assessment.
The players contracts are guaranteed. The owners take all the risks each time they ink any deal.
If the owners negotiated in bad faith then who twisted the union’s arm to sign it?
I’m sorry but I still haven’t seen any spin that makes me feel sorry for the players. It has seemingly taken decades for the market to adjust.
Look I’m not saying that there aren’t issues that need to addressed in the NEXT cba, but please quit with the pitiful attempts to side with people who signed an agreement and now are dealing with the consequences.
Bargained the CBA in bad faith.. Nothing was supposed to be different.. they told the players and their representatives nothing had changed.. now they are refusing risks.. those short term contracts contain virtually no risk competitively to what they make every year.. They have issued long term contracts since the arbitration court said they must take risks.. to not do so now was to have bargained in BAD Faith.. proof.. all you have to do is see what derek falvey of the twins said this off season; the twins weren’t going to spend now because they are waiting to be the projected champions of the division and then they will step on the necks of the division.. ( spend) while up until the very cheap extensions of Kepler and Polanco the twins had not a dime in tong term contract obligations next year.. They are refusing to risk, saying they are waiting for a sure thing.. and to top it off they lied to the public when they got their publicly funded stadium promising to spend the money keeping stars and singing more to build winning teams.. that is a matter of historical record as testified to at the Minnesota state legislature. They have violated that promise.. bargained in bad faith.. if i was rich i would sue them for it..
Have you even checked to see how much the twins have spent on payroll the last few years? Maybe I looked at it wrong but they are spending significantly more than they were a decade ago and last year was higher than the year before. So sorry they don’t spend the way YOU think they should.
do you know the cost of baseball inflation. their spending hasn’t matched even that.. their free agents were not resigned, their stars traded . and their payroll likely to drop this year..
hope your son or grandson sleep on the kitchen floor with roaches everywhere because rich owners of whatever companies refuse to hire any workers. by the way, that is how a lot of minor league players spend nights.
The owners will each hire a full roster. Virtually ever free agent could have a job if they,were willing to take what is offered. Yes, there have been some older vets sign for less than expected but there are also examples of some free agents getting MORE than expected. Putting all the blame on the owners is a total joke and removes the huge part the players have played in making the current situation.
My comments so far have been specifically in reference to comments by someoldguy. Feel free to read the specific points of his I addressed.
I said above that there are many things that need to be addressed bit I didn’t name them. I’ll name the two solutions that would address some of most important needs in my mind:
1) raise the major league minimum substantially. This would directly benefit the players under team control, in other words the guys who lack substantial service time. I think if it was raised high enough it might have a slight benefit to some of the older veterans as well.
2) substantially raise the minor league minimum salaries at each level. They could easily be doubled without much impact on an organization’s total expenditures (percentage wise at least). I doubt seriously though that the players union would do that though since minor leaguers are not part of the collective bargaining unit from my understanding.
You must not be looking,at the same team payroll numbers I was,for the Twins over the last few years that I have.
stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm
The 2018 payroll is drastically higher than a decade ago. Your definition of inflation and mine must not use the same numbers.
I’d be interested to see your info. Maybe it is me who is looking at something wrong. Perhaps your facts are different than mine.
yes the Billionaire just got special protection from the Congress to keep the minor leagues from getting minimum wage.. It isn’t the players that are the problems..
I want to clarify again, that I do think several things need to be addressed (most importantly in my mind the salaries for guys without much service time and the minor league salaries.) But in my mind the players have absolutely ZERO reason to complain about an agreement they signed off on. The teams are operating within that legal agreement. When the agreement is over the players should be much more conscious of the ramifications of the agreement they sign next.
here is one calculator for baseball in inflation.. rumbunter.com/2018/12/26/pittsburgh-pirates-role-i…
for any contract under the law.. you are signing not only the contract, you are agreeing to the conditions under which the contract was agreed upon: its called Good Faith.. those conditions were to remain unchanged.. that is players play for less before free agency, they get paid for playing for less ( providing surplus value) in free agency.. now that condition has been changed.. the contract conditions are part of the contract, the owners are acting in bad faith..
and mlb is working hard to do the same with states.
So using the numbers from the site you linked the players salaries have basically increased in excess of 44% since 2010 but they should complain? Sorry that galvanized me even further against the union.
apparently you haven’t looked at team valuations or Incomes.. because they outstrip players contracts by plenty.. over 100% in the same time period.. EVERY team except Tampa is now worth over a Billion dollars.. statista.com/statistics/193637/franchise-value-of-…
“New York, NY (April 7, 2010) – Forbes has announced its annual valuations of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams, reporting that the average team is now worth $491 million, a 2% increase from 2009. Despite economic woes, including a 7% attendance drop at ballparks last year, baseball franchises have reported record-high operating income, an average of $17.4 million per team” web.yesnetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100407&#…
Good info
It’s not that owners aren’t willing to sign FAs. There have been several shorter term, high AAV offers made. Harper turned down 10/300, likely bc of Boras’s ego. It’s a free market and this is merely a market correction.
Listed to Agents and some around here and those corrections are only for the Real world and do not apply to baseball.
If you set down your ps4 controller, baseball is played in the real world now
Socialism has no place in baseball. Teams are not running charities. We can each make a list of hundreds of players who got huge payouts only to perform badly or become injured quickly or to only play a portion of the term. Teams are not obligated to spend tons of money on low probability transactions. Why should a team pay a 30 year old pitcher 12 million bucks to win 12 games of they think a rookie could do the same? The CBA must be adhered to but teams are not obligated to pay anyone a fortune if they think the contract is bad business. I don’t blame teams for realizing it’s ridiculous to give an 8 year contract to the likes of Manny Machado
Talent, whether it’s with money, arts, medicine, business, the law, or sports, gets rewarded. That’s capitalism. The rarer your skill, the more you get paid. There’s nothing socialistic about it.
Bologna. Your logic is flawed. It’s the players in their self entitlement that might believe the skill is rare but the analytics beg to differ. A rookie or talented prospect becomes just as valuable under more complex analytics. Players can’t face that the business model has changed. It’s totally reasonable not to take on contracts that will hurt your business regardless of the talent of the person.
If I could throw at 98 MPH and put the ball where I wanted to, I’d want as much as the market could bear. Scarcity at the highest levels of talent are what drive salaries, and a CBA that cuts off younger players at their peak really being paid for their performance distorts everything.
Ask yourself, are you really willing to pay top dollar for a team of cast-offs? Because if you were the model for the basic fan, then we could go watch Independent League games for $15 with a beer thrown in. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think most fans would rather see Trout, Betts, etc.
it is why the public funds baseball thru stadiums.. to get the best money can buy…
The fans pay the entertainers. The best brain surgeon makes nowhere near what an athlete makes. The concert master of the Philadelphia Orchestra makes nowhere near what Lady Gaga makes. The best Olympic athlete makes nowhere near what an MLB player makes as a free agent. The fans pay the entertainers. The entertainers want the money. The fans pay them.
its what the owners don’t understand fans want the greatest show on earth.. they don’t want a clown act..
That awkward moment when your irrational disdain for socialism bleeds into baseball commentary…nice…
It’s an economic discussion. They are entertainment businesses. They have to follow the CBA but at the same time they are not obligated to make decisions that will hurt their businesses over a long period of time. Long term expensive contracts can do so.
Where did the Socialism comment come from? All the teams are owned by individual owners.
The socialism comment comes from wanting to put restraints of capitalist pursuits upon owners but not wanting to put the capitalist restraints upon the players. In this regard it’s back dooring a concept of wealth redistribution. There are provisions teams must follow ofcourse but they are not obligated to make bad or ill advised contracts. If they do put a poor product on the field, the attendance figures clearly show fans respond in kind
What the hell are you talking about? Socialism involves the government. You are making up so much crap.
then tell the owners to give up their public funding for stadiums and they government guarantee of a MONOPOLY..
Oh god, yeah, because state legislators don’t fall over themselves to hand money out for stadium projects…?
only after threats of taking the team away!
It has to be something the owners and players can agree on. Any strategy is worthless if you can’t implement it. The players are not going on strike for things they don’t want and the owners are not going to cave in on everything.
Why not have a minimum salary of $100M a team has to spend? Right now there are 8 teams under $100M payroll. Also, increase the salary cap to $240-$250M.
Problem with both is you have those 4-6 constant poor mouthing teams of which 2-3 probably shouldn’t even exist and those are Miami, Tamoa, Oakland, Pittsburgh.. Those teams are not going to payout 100m a year and squabble like anything at any other that CAN pay out 200m+. Is it right? Nope, of course not, then neither was the spending cap, nor draft slotting to begin with.
When and why did Americans stop supporting workers, instead defending the companies and CEO’s?
When the players started earning $20M a year and complain about not getting 10 year deals.
Yeah, I prefer the owners to be making hundreds of millions annually and pay the players that bring fans to the stadium as little as possible
yes those billionaires with their publicly funded stadiums need more money.. because they earned it..
Teams supress their earnings in the minor leagues and for their first 6 years in the majors. When do they get paid their true worth?
Also, team revenues are skyrocketing. And fans are bashing the ones getting less and less of the pie. I don’t understand this general shif in our society.
So much jealousy and ignorance in this line of thought…
what do you expect from a society that no longer values education?
When did people convince themselves they were fighting income inequality by sticking up for Scott Boras clients?
Teachers have to buy their own school supplies and auto workers start at $14/hr but they have figured out that Mike Moustakas is the real victim.
the better question is why so many people think that bringing up the salaries of people who have nothing to do with baseball is of any relevance…
The question you should be asking yourself is what do you want your hard earned money to be spent on : a team trying to give you a good product, or a team who’s attitude is ‘we’ll get around to that eventually, honest’
The types of contracts Harper and Machado are asking for have been proven to hurt the product.
I’m not siding with the billionaire owners or the millionaire players. I just want my team to win, and devoting a third or more of your team’s payroll to to two players hurts that cause.
Defending Players and defending Teachers doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Defending employees who get a smaller and smaller piece of the pie can translate to all walks of life.
And just as there are greedy agents, there are bad teachers unions who have hurt the cause of the ones they represent.
PS-Minor Leaguers are making far less than that $14 per hour you so nobly cite.
“So nobly cite”… Huh? I cited it because it’s factual and autoworkers, not baseball players, are a bedrock middle class job.
And no, there is zero benefit to underpaid teachers or laborers when MLB players are getting $9 million per WAR as opposed to $7 million per WAR. No correlation.
Registering voters helps them. Comments on baseball pages, not so much.
there is also still zero connection between the two.
either the owners get the money, or the players do. it’s a binary choice.
there’s political forums if you want to discuss things completely unrelated to baseball in any way….
You- “Defending Players and defending Teachers doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. Defending employees who get a smaller and smaller piece of the pie can translate to all walks of life.”
You, one post later- “there is also still zero connection between the two.”
I’ll gloss over your continuing to ignore minor leaguers and ask; where does your support switch from the employee to the employer??
Are pharmacists treated well enough? Or are you on the side of CVS? How about Petrolium Engineers? Surgeons? At what point do you switch your alegience to the multibillion $ corporation?
you may want to read screen names before posting there, mate.
Seeing how you gloss over Boras, Harper and the MLBPA ignoring minor leaguers, it seems only fair.
If arguing for the 0.1% vs. the 0.001% makes you happy, so be it.
If you convince yourself it serves a greater good for actual underpaid workers, well….so be it, but that’s fantasy.
Didn’t gloss over. Boras is who I was referring to when I said that there are greedy agents. Making the comparison to a poorly run teachers union..
Even at your reduced $7mil/WAR, Harper has produced an extra $144mil in excess value so far in his career.
I believe employees should earn their value, regardless of payscale.
When everyone was raised to believe they were going to be rich and special if they ‘just put their mind to it’
Most Americans are “temporarily embarassed milliomairs” in their own minds. And it’s wrecking this country under the guise of making it great again.
I’d hardly call baseball players “workers”. Comparing them to real workers is actually pretty insulting.
I recommend you read “Where Nobody Knows Your Name”. by John Feinstein Maybe it will help with that manufactured insult you’re feeling.
Oh really, may I recommend then you go read the book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F&&K”, by Mark Manson. I think then you might get a clue about what I really feel about your stupid argument.
Also, check out “The Bicep Workout Bible: Get Huge Arms, A Complete Guide to Building Shredded Bicep Muscles” That might help you build those muscles for all the water carrying you seem to be doing for the MLBPA and their filthy rich players and agents.
I’ve read the first one and finished a 10 set biceps workout just before logging on.
So, I’m all set!
I love how you say someone supports “filthy rich players and agents” while defending billionaire owners. Just a quick note, do you know the difference between millions and billions in seconds?
A million seconds is just under 12 days.
A billion seconds is just over 31 years.
Just let that sink in when you are talking about filthy rich players vs owners.
Oh I won’t defend the owners either. I’m on the side of the fans who just want baseball to be played, so we can enjoy the sport that we are paying to see.
Here’s some rhetorical questions to go with your condescending response,
Did you know that most players make enough money by the time they are through arbitration that they are part of the 1%?
Ever wonder how billionaire owners earn their billions? Hint: Not from owning a baseball team or off the work and sweat of underpaid player “workers”.
They get paid a wage to make money for their employers… if that doesn’t count as a ‘worker’, all you’ve proven is your standard is laughably bad…
Jesus, enough with the populist platitudes already.
Go look at what minor leaguers make and tell me who doesn’t care about workers. If the MLBPA cared about the well being of baseball players they’d be happy to sit down and work with the league to overhaul the financial system and work MiLBers into the solution. But no, every dollar a guy in the minors or in pre-FA makes is a dollar some player can’t make at the back end of a ridiculous bloated legacy contract.
Some teams clearly are not trying–they are taking advantage of revenue sharing, taxpayer subsidies, and a captive base to deliberately put on an inferior product. Personally, I don’t care how much any particular player makes. But if I go to a baseball game, pay a serious amount of money for tickets, transportation, concessions, I expect to see teams making an effort. I understand teams can fall on hard times–bad luck, bad trades, bad drafts, and unforeseen injuries. But teams that deliberately field a roster of AAAA players because they are cheap, non-tender useful players, and sell off everything not nailed down in the summer cheapen the game. And, they also create inequities in the playoff system when the margin between teams may be just a handful of games, and one team has the advantage of playing a tanker 19 times. Tony Clark is a bad negotiator. But Manfred is being duplicitous and smug. He knows it, as well,. You can tell from his expression
Your first sentence made me think of Miami. All they do once they get good is trade everyone away. Stuff like that shouldn’t be legal. Everyone knows it’s done because the owners are cheap.
As a lifelong and continuing Pirate fan: Bob Nutting is a liar and the organization is a joke. The day will come when that changes.
The CBA isn’t worth the paper that it’s written on and the one and only culprit is the union for being so stupid and incompetent as to sign it.
Fix the CBA and you will fix the sport. Band-Aids and duct tape aren’t enough.
Nutting is a dope and a silver spoon, but the day it changes is the day he sells it and they move the team to another city with fans who have more money and aren’t so proud to be fair weather.
Just FYI.
As Clark plays to his bosses (the players), and Manfred to his (the owners), who represents the interests of the fans?
A couple of commenters here and there, maybe.
And now both sides begin acting like junior high kids, trying to out tough-talk one another. Friggin’ childish.
Go ahead, go on strike. Won’t bother me.
you are not a fan of the game.
If you don’t care if we have baseball or not, than why are you on a site dedicated to baseball? Please do us a favor and leave.
Clark blames uncompetitive clubs for the lack of signings, because several teams “make little effort to improve”. Frankly, the vast majority of players in free agency would not improve a competitive team’s roster. Most are minor league deals. Many free agents rely on uncompetitive and rebuilding clubs to sign them to fill out there roster or get a spring training invite.
If uncompetitive clubs are to blame for the lack of signings, why are the White Sox and the Padres 2 of the teams with substantial offers on the table for Harper & Machado? Why were the uncompetitive Padres the one handing out the contract for Hosmer or the rebuilding Phillies giving contracts to Arrieta and Santana last offseason. The narrative is an oversimplification. Sorry Tony, it’s more complex than that.
MLB needs a salary cap. Period. The players need to stop asking for astronomical amounts of money. How this game gets away with allowing players to make that much is beyond me. They should put a cap on how much a player can make. Maybe a tier system.
GMs are PU$$IES
Star players won’t take small market money which is also part of the problem. Machado refusing $30 million a year from the Padres seems like a personal choice.
when it’s all said and done, we’re talking about entertainment first and the sport second, as much as I like Harper and Machado, I think we can all agree despite their talents these two can be polarizing figures, nor can you count on them carrying a team, which is why I think these two players will be the last to sign. Now, if we were talking about Trout or Betts, we could possibly be seeing a full-scale bidding war…
This is such a self-serving argument by both parties.
Before the tax, everyone said Steinbrenner ruined the game by gladly paying the most for the best because the revenue more than compensated for the capital
Then this tax gets implemented and teams that outright refused to spend start getting money from teams that do spend.
f that
Blah blah blah. Manfred and Clark deserve each other. Neither of them want to actually solve the root of the problem, and they both share a significant amount of the blame.
The owners have been burned too many times on long-term deals. They are moving away from those types of deals. The players, for obvious reasons, still want long term deals and don’t like the fact that those aren’t available to them now. I understand that the players don’t like the change, but that isn’t going to change things. The players have to understand that they aren’t going to get those deals and try to find a way to get themselves signed. Take Kimbrel. There have been reports that teams are interested in him on a 3-year deal. He wants 4 after originally wanting a 6-year deal. Is it really worthy missing Spring Training over 1-year? Take the 3-year deal. The players have to adapt as well. Sometimes you have to swallow your pride and make a concession.
Yes, “burned”
The epidemic of bankruptcies, teams sold at a loss or placed in receivership throughout MLB is truly staggering.
Don’t know how the teams that remain are keeping their heads above water.
If you’re surprised teams don’t want to hand out long term deals you’re either Tony Clark or need to flush the smarmy populism out of your eyes and look around a little bit
It seems they are getting greedy.. Teams shouldn’t be forced to pay those two over $300 mil. If they don’t feel it’s best for the team.
I was listening to MLB radio this afternoon driving home and hey were talking to Todd Frazier. During the conversation the topic when on to the Mike Moustakas contract and Todd made a statement along the lines that he deserved more than he got and didn’t get what he has earned, basically saying he should have gotten a large, long term contract instead. I can’t really say I agree with him. I think most fans aren’t against the players getting paid, they are just tired of seeing old players who are past their prime making big money, tying up payroll and not producing much. If the players stance was we need to get more money funneled to younger players early either in the form of more arbitration years earlier in their career or whatever form it may be, I think fans would be more on board with their cause, but to complain because teams don’t want to hand out 10 year deals to guys in their 30s just isn’t going to get much sympathy. It’s all about optics and saying teams should ignore guys like pujols is insane. Good luck with that argument.
Pujols is the exact reason Machado & Harper may not get 10yr + deals without opt-out clauses in them.
guess, if you can, how much arte made by signin pujols!
I put the blame on players and their agents. The players began cheating to get those monster 10 year contracts to start becoming common place. Now that the cheating SEEMS to be under control. Those 10 year contracts are more risky. The newest problem are these stupid opt out clauses after 1, 2, or 3 years that are always attached to these lengthy contracts. So if a player hits all star status they can opt out and cash in on a bigger contract…. makes no sense for owners!
Both Manfred and Clark are off base. The last CBA, and the CBT threshold and penalties for exceeding it, have had a significant impact on the free agent market. This is far more important of a factor than the number of teams rebuilding. The new CBT structure has kept teams that would normall consider exceeding the CBT to work to get under it. In 2016, the last year of the old CBA, 6 teams exceeded the CBT threshold. Last year, only the Red Sox did, and they probably will be the only ones to do so in 2018. Manfred can crow all he wants about markets, but the owners knew exactly what would happen when they offered up this And Clark has no one to blame for the current market but himself. His negotiation skills really let the players down.
The current number of teams that are rebuilding (don’t use the term tanking, it is not correct) has as much to do with analytics as anything else. Even with the penalties the CBT threshold, a lot of teams just can’t compete with the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers budget wise. Analytics have shown teams that they can win potentially without all that spending. 3 of the last 4 WS winners relied heavily on analytics. Both the Astros and Royals were under league average for payrolls in the year they won, Cubs were #5 in payroll they year they won, but were still over $80M behind the Dodgers that year and over $15M behind the Tigers who were #4. So no one should be surprised the rest of the league is trying to copy them. Plus, rebuilding, sacrificing short term gain for long term benefit is a legitimate business strategy. Why should it be different in baseball?
When free agency began. Marvin Miller was in charge. He KNEW the value of those who were to become free agents, and inasmuch, limited their numbers. The less free agents, the higher contracts they signed. Don Fehr never got this concept, telling the players 1 yr deals were acceptable if the AAV was higher than multi-year offers. So now you have a glut, created by the mismanagement of the Players association, and now they are crying foul. There was never supposed to more than 100 free agents in any single season and now that the market has a glut, and salaries are either stagnant or dropping, the Players feel they are not getting paid their worth. Why should clubs issue multi-million$$ contracts when international players at a fraction of the money with major-league skills are available?
The union sold it’s membership on the idea that if they focus on the needs of the richest players, the benefits would trickle down to everyone else.
So, they agreed to a luxury tax, draft spending cap and international hard cap, hurting most of their members in exchange for better terms on qualifying offers, which affected only the very top.
It never works.
New leadership is the solution to this failed strategy.
The dumb union burned the market themselves. I don’t know why people think the solution is just that all these teams should just arbitrarily overpay everyone like it’s eight or ten years ago.
The MLBPA fought for the benefit of only the top players, and the league has long done the same for only the top teams.
How about something really different?
How about eliminating the draft and allowing every player to be a free agent right from the get go? New players go where they want.
It would be up to the players to develop themselves just as you or I would have to do to get a good job and keep it.
Let’s have a true free market in the MLB.
What can we lose?
The current system is on the verge of collapsing with the talk of a strike.
Allow every team to bid on another teams players whenever they want just like you would if you went to another job.
Just give a 2 week notice and you’re gone to the highest bidder unless the player is under contract. All contracts are honored just as they are in the real world.
That would keep everybody on their toes.
There would be less need for long term contracts and less need to stay with non performing players.
And don’t blame the MLB union! At least right now anyway.
Let’s see if they trust a free market.
We have unions in private industry and somehow they manage to function in a capitalist economic system for the rest of our economy.
Perhaps an alternative answer is a realistic salary cap in baseball as there is in the NFL? That should be easy to do. Just take the average payroll.
We should press the MLB Players Union, the Players and MLB Agents such as Scott Boras to agree to a Salary Cap as the NFL has done.
what good would a salary cap do when the problem right now is nobody wants to spend money?
why buy a Rolls when a Chevy will get you there?
And a Rolls *might* not.
Exactly. What players don’t like is that the analytics and data analysis became very sophisticated and led to changes in the business model. This is especially true with respect to probability studies on free agent veteran pitchers. A pitcher who has been successful for 5-7 years has just as high odds to be a Tommy John case within 12 months as to have another successful season. And yet that pitcher feels he is ‘ entitled’ to a five year 125 million dollar free agent contract. Owners would rather give the talented pitching prospect that opportunity at 700 K
So what’s your suggestion for how to get them to spend?
You eliminate the draft, you eliminate the chance of ANY small-market team who cannot compete to wallow in the bottom of the division for decades. See St. Louis Browns.
Why then do we have teams in uneconomical environments?
What’s the logic of that?
Why not either figure out a way to make them economically viable or allow them to go out of business?
SQ. Before free agency in the 1970’s and the player draft was put in 1965, The Yankees gave the biggest signing bonuses and got the best prospects and won all the time. The free market was great if you were a Yankee fan.
I don’t think that’s true, actually – after Mantle, everybody else signed all the studs.
Oh god, go look at how bad the talent flow into the league was back then.
So which way do we go?
A salary cap or eliminate the draft?
Or if not either of those then what do you suggest?
@SG Neither? You need a soft cap to keep teams of different markets level, and those teams with lower caps need to use the draft to get cheap talent because they can’t spend a ton in free agency.
So the answer is to fix both. There are a few things for both that would solve it.
Be specific!
How do fix both … in your opinion?
What are those “few things” that will solve it?
They need to limit the amount of years teams have control over players and then start arbitration earlier. That lets players hit Free Agency earlier while being paid earlier. Look at teams like the Astros and Cubs. They get the cheap and relatively cheap years of guys like Correa, Arenado, and Bryant, then those players hit the market at 28 or so and the next team has to pay them for what they’ve done, full well knowing the decline will start 4 years into the contract. Teams realize that now and are mimicking those teams, getting loads of talent and using free agency to fill holes, not to build a team.
Next, fix the draft. There has to be incentive. The one I’ve heard that I like best is switching the order. The first overall pick goes to the team with the highest record that didn’t make the playoffs, and works down until the team with the worst record. Then, playoff teams finish the bottom part of the draft in reverse order, so the World Series winner gets the last pick of the round.
The game has changed. Sure, Trout is probably worth $50M per year based on WAR, but no team is going to tie up 1/3 or 1/4 of their team payroll in one player. If he gets hurt, you aren’t going to recover from that.
Teams are just smarter now.
On limiting the amount of arbitration years to less than is currently used that’s open to discussion but this was negotiated with the Players Union and Owners.
If they want to change this then change it. I don’t see the logic in the Union complaining about something they agreed to rather than simply saying the number of arbitration years needs to be lowered.
This of course will likely draw screams of protest from older players screwed under the current system with the influx of younger players competing with them when the change is made.
This will also likely draw screams from the lousy teams as they will say they will lose the low priced draft picks too soon and won’t be able to turn the team around.
On the draft order change that will probably not happen.
Perhaps an idea may be to provide each player with a “base” salary and then develop an “Incentive Package” for desired “Metrics” agreed to by the owners and the players union. This way they won’t have to become free agents, unless they want to, as they can earn the same amount of money no matter where they play based upon their performance. The players will also be able to earn extra money if they make the playoffs and even more money depending on how far they go in the playoffs.
Last year Tony Clark and MLBPA filed a grievance that the Rays, Pirates, A’s, and Marlins are tanking. Combined record 332-314. This year Harper and Machado (with good reason) are waiting to sign after the other. Meanwhile average and total MLB salaries set records for the 14th straight year in 2018 and are up 81% since 2004.. Fans of rebuilding teams are more on board than ever. The players need a better pitch than we are we are griping because the fans deserve better.
MLB is a mess but that is nothing new. It has been a clusterfuck for a long time.
Who was the last team to have $25 million/10 year contract on their payroll?
Cano mariners
Tony Clark and the players union have nobody to blame but themselves. At the end of the day they agreed to all the past Cba’s that lead up to the issues we’re seeing now. To wine, threaten to strike, threaten to walk out of ballparks, and blame the owners for something they committed to is childish. If the owners don’t concede some revenue in the next cba they’ll have just as much egg on their faces. Tony Clark and his staff should be fired for not having the vision necessary for doing their jobs. Fans will just tune out when they hear players and owners fight over money when the majority of those that are arguing make more in a year than a human needs in a lifetime
Nobody should be talking strike it’s absolutely absurd take the guaranteed portion out of the contract and you will see bigger & lengthy contracts
and never actually see half of the money in that contract when the team just comes up with some excuse to cut you… probably after you get hurt, when you actually need that money the most.
So sad Major League Babies only make an average of 4 million a year
I strongly support the owners on players salaries getting out of hand, I also think there should be a minimum and maximum payrolls, has anyone noticed that new stadiums being built now are bigger but with smaller fan seating capacity, The new Texas Ranger stadium is being built with 15 plus thousand less seats, Television revenues along with advertising is bringing in billions per contract, I recently discovered a lot of the A-ball and Aa and AAA teams are privately owned and 90 percent are not owned by the MLB teams, we own the players but not the team names and rights or minor league stadiums, Example the Rangers just got kicked out of Round-rock and taken over by the Ryan family. So much behind the scenes of baseball still to learn, example: why is a Ticket and food for a family of fans $300-$400. The revenues is coming in to where you don’t have to rake the fans for every penny.
People forget that a team is a business. And a logical and rational owner isnt gonna run a team the same way u run a fantasy team. And win any way possible. U have to think about the profit margin and the future. Just bc ur team made x amount of dollars this year in revenue doesnt mean that same amount will be there next year or in 3 years or in 5 years, but u want an owner to commit a third of a billion dollars in an unproven player, where his future productivity and future revenue of the team is uncertaim
N. And thats just crazy to think that way
Manfraud likes to complain. It’s time he resigns. He is unfit to be commissioner of baseball. Track record is proof enough.
Teams have adopted the youth movement and some have found great success and staying power. If you ran a business and had a couple bad years your spending budget would change/tighten. Great years would mean more spending.
I’d be fine with no cap and no luxury tax. Only the strong survive and if you want to take the youth movement route, do it. That method would have players signed and ready for camp.
Zzzzzz. Chief here says ‘only the strong survive’.
That’s correct Edward. Strength in drafting or strength in dollars. It will force every franchise to step their game up.
track record is proof enough? The MLB just brought in 9.4 billion up from the 9.1 billion in 2017. Track record shows he’s doing his job and bringing in the money.
MLB bringing in money from record deals done before he was named Commissioner? Um yeah, he has no right to take credit for that. He can take credit for:
– prominent players signing during spring training
– changing game rules to boost pace of play
– forcing players to join diversity training for poor tweeting PRIOR to being professional ballplayers
– looking to force a ban on defensive shifts
– constant overprotection of players, causing….
– more arm injuries amongst pitchers than ever before. It’s becoming an epidemic that nobody’s willing to acknowledge.
Track record is proof enough. Your silent service failed to remain silent from a bogus argument. Special Ed class commences on the lower floor after school you should attend.
Still going on about players wearing forearm protectors and how that’s unfair? Maybe you’re the one that needs special ed classes.
Promienent players signing in spring training is as much on Tony Clark and the MLBPA as Manfred.
Many companies / businesses make you go through training almost yearly on diversity/ sexual harassment. The Navy does some sort of training on that monthly. So are you mad at Manfred because he has forced this training, or that it took until 2017 for it to be implemented?
Does the time between innings, and mound visits really make your game experience that much worse? That’s all that has been done at the moment.
Between 2012 and 2018 inclusive, 88.6 % of teams reaching the post season have gotten there without the services of Harper, Machado, or Trout, and I fully expect that to hold true over the next 7 years, too.
So there’s that.
The only thing all of this has done for me is to convince me that a strike, which I viewed as inevitable before the new CBA, will now happen in the next 12 months.
If you want just a smidgen of an insight into the animosity between sides, catch Dan O’Dowd and Ron Darling today on mlb-tv; O’Dowd giving the owners’ side, Darling the players. It’s obvious the gulf is wide and substantial.
It’s not that either guy is a whack-job; I find both of them to bright and reflective and thinking kind of guys. But they’re so far apart, it’s hard to imagine any possible solution besides a stoppage of one type or another.
Like in any well argued disagreement, argued by well informed (and, I believe, well-meaning) people, it’s hard to pounce on one side or the other; I can see the legitimacy of both perspectives. I’m an old fashioned “union guy”, and tend to side with the players. But I can see the owners’ viewpoint.
Being purely selfish, I hope they can work it out.
The problem is Clark and Manfred are intelligent enough to sit there and defend their positions until the cows come home like freshmen poli sci majors but neither side has any idea how to sit down and negotiate.
I like to see vets play as much as the next guy, but if my starting team is full of players that likely would be near as good (talking about mid tier types) then why should i sign them?
Seems like maybe its time to add a team or two to create more competition for the players markets
Sorry Tony, but just because the players aren’t getting the unreasonable deals their agents told them they’d get doesn’t mean the teams are doing anything wrong. Teams aren’t obligated to give players contracts into their declining years at top dollar, and have grown tired of doing so. Just because you and the players are behind the curve of change here doesn’t mean the teams are the issue. You need to figure out how to adjust so players get paid more up front. But there will be some who lose out in the adjustment. You and them will have to deal with that.
There’s no shortage of user generated content full of ideas about how to adjust the financial structure of the league to help both sides get more of what they want and less of what they don’t. But we’re in the era of playing chicken with negotiations instead of actually negotiating anything. So here we are.
Next we’ll be arguing about what came first, the league’s lockout or the union’s strike.
We all bust our humps, get over yourself. Do you complain about actor X making 30 million a movie or singer Y making 10 million off of an album?
It’s hard for me to sympathize with either side – the dollar amount is just so sickening, I couldn’t really care less about Harper getting 300m or 350m, or Moustakas getting paid 9m this year and not 150m over eight.
I will say that I would rather teams not shackle themselves to horrible contracts to aging, unproductive players, thus hurting the team, franchise, and fanbase by preventing them from being competitive in the future. The fact is, some players don’t deserve a contract worth 100m.
Look at the raw dollar amount sunk in to the back end of awful contracts… there is no earthly way that isn’t going to significantly alter the market. The fact that ownership is thrilled that they finally have an excuse to go cheap doesn’t mean they’re wrong this time.
Manfred may have guaranteed a strike with his comments. Its a slap in the face to say that all the teams are trying to win. With the extreme revenue inequality in the majors today, its impossible for many teams to try to win every year. With teams like the Dodgers ($525 million), Yankees ($620 million), Red Sox, Cubs, and Giants all being over $450 million and the 5 smallest revenue teams being under $250 million we will never see all teams trying to win every year. The big revenue teams can all afford to spent $200-225 million on MLB payroll and still make a profit, while the small revenue teams can only afford to spend $110-125 million.
Try being objective, what else is the commissioner of baseball supposed to say? No one can or should be surprised he said all teams try to win. The man works for the owners!! It’s time for the players union and the players to come together and develop a with a feasible proposal that realistically address the new way player values are evaluated.
Tanking teams aren’t the reason. You see that the Padres and White Sox are trying to get these talents. $240M-$280M for Machado? That should easily be accepted, but Machado thinks he can get $300M from the Yankees. You can’t perform bad or have concerns like not hustling in your contract year and expect teams to pick you up cause you had an MVP 2015 season.
Players want to sign the biggest contract available next each year, and want longer deals. Owners realized that the best way to keep a sustainable, winning team is to get a bunch of high end prospects, wait for them to get to the majors, and then fill in gaps with free agency as needed.
One owner said it best when they said “Why pay a guy like Harper $35M per year when you can have Soto at $550k”
The solution, in my mind, is a couple of things. Allow teams less control over their players and allow them to enter Arbitration earlier.
Then, to fix the draft, make it so the first overall draft pick goes to the team with the best record that DIDN’T make the playoffs and move down with the playoff teams at the bottom then ordered from worst finish to best. So, Best team that didn’t make the playoffs gets 1st overall, and then the World Series winner gets the last pick.
Teams can’t take because record means something now, and players get more money earlier (when teams are actually willing to pay) vs. a team then having to pay for what the player did before by having to pay over the top for decline years.
So they say that NOW?
Just ask fans of the 1940s-1980s Cleveland Indians, or Chicago cubs. Or the Washington senators or Chicago white sox any year, post 1919.
That last sentence… sheesh. If you insist on using haughty diction, don’t throw in a wasteful “then” to take away from your verbiage.
definitely gonna be a lockout
Players should make less. Owners should make less. Maybe then I can take my family of 4 to a game for less than $400. Fans are the ones who should be complaining here.
It’s not the owners fault that some people are willing to pay super high prices. Until they stop doing that, there is no reason for Owners to lower ticket prices.
Manfred says that they’re all trying to win? Bahahahaha!! Wake me up when the bull crap is over and they start playing baseball.
Red Sox owner John Henry spoke to the media Monday at JetBlue Park, and when informed of Wainwright’s comments of a possible strike, he was befuddled.
“Midseason, this year?” Henry asked. “That’s crazy.”
“A lot has been said about the market, the free-agent market. But it’s a free market,” he continued. “A free market doesn’t always do what you want it to do.”
Henry stressed the need for the players union to engage with the owners’ negotiating committee to work on solutions to these kinds of issues.
“If the players are unhappy with this, then they should engage,” Henry said. “Our commissioner was a labor lawyer for a couple of decades. It’s important for the union to engage first-hand on what they would like to change. This has been a series of negotiations that have led to the kind of market that we have today.”
Quoting John Henry almost isn’t fair. He’s so far ahead of the curve on these things, I doubt that other owners even understand him. May come from being a futures trader, where by definition you have to understand (a) today, (b) tomorow, and (c) how they interrelate.
Each sides staking out extreme positions in any labor negotiation isn’t anything new, and was around for years before Marvin Miller. But, like JB above, I SERIOUSLY question if any of these guys know how to negotiate toward the common good.
That they would want to kill the Golden Goose over their (often) petty squabbles is offensive. Back in the 50s, every owner was on a cruise together and Walter O”Malley ( Dodger owner, and an SOB if there ever was one) said, “You know how much better baseball would be if this boat sank?”.
I’m beginning to feel the same about leadership on both sides of this aisle.
The days of 8-10 year contracts are over.
Deal with it
The PA continuously bargained to make minor leaguers a more cost effective replacement, then they are surprised when they get replaced by them. Outlets called this years ago.
You know it’s actually mainly the players fault. You know if Bryce accepted the 10/300 ( clearly enough money for a barely above average player) he and many other players would have jobs right now. But you know you gotta shoot for 500+ and he keeps sitting on his butt and expecting it when in reality he might not even get half of that…
Not exactly true. Their thinking is that they should have beat Stanton’s total money value, which the $300M didn’t do. Yeah, higher AAV, but they are open market, Stanton was an extension.
Yeah, $500M was probably out of the question, but you can’t blame them for wanting $350M
The slow market is because the bigger free agents are refusing to settle for less money. If they have multiple offers on the table for more than a quarter of a billion dollars then what are they waiting for? It slows down the second tier players like a moose or marvin bc teams are waiting to see If they accept their quarter of a billion dollars or not before they move on.
All these players are cry babies!!! You want HOW MUCH to play a sport???? They are all idiots. Sports should be like other hard working jobs. Here’s you base pay, and if you want more money you bust your @$$ and get bonuses to make more money. Performance base pay!!!!
@daves417 Isn’t that what it is already? They have their base pay in the minors, and the better you do, the higher to go and the more you get paid. Then you get arbitration (based on your previous track record), before you finally get the experience to test the market and get paid what you’re worth. It really is performance based pay.
The difference is that no one is paying to watch you at your day job, put you on TV, and sell merchandise with your name on the back.
The thing is they value money over passion and love for the game. If they loved the game they would have signed already and would be with their team already. Just angers me… I absolutely understand you’re anger, they don’t deserve even 100mm.
Market forces are working. It’s the new valutaion tool that MLB provided for all its owners 2 years ago. It is high math, probablities etc, taking into account history of decreased performance, injuries, profitability etc etc.
This free agency and new valutation is here to stay. Get used to it. If you don’t like it get over it. It is the new n0rmal.
First round draft picks are not the goal of tanking so altering that isn’t going to change anything. Teams that “tank” in baseball restock their minor leagues by dumping MLB talent. They even sign MLB talent for the express purpose of trading it at the deadline for more MiLB or fresh MLB talent.
The league is just so unbalanced financially. Most teams have no reason to “try” to win unless they have a lot of high quality home grown pieces performing well at once. They don’t want to waste resources for a ceiling of hoping to get lucky in a wildcard game.
Look at the low/mid market teams that did sign long contracts, whether FA or extensions. They get financially handcuffed for YEARS. It boggles my mind that anyone is surprised that all 30 teams aren’t lining up to pay $70m/yr signing Machado and Harper as a package.
— “Players commit to compete every pitch of every at-bat, and every inning of every game. Yet we’re operating in an environment in which an increasing number of clubs appear to be making little effort to improve their rosters, compete for a championship or justify the price of a ticket.” —
Tony Clark’s first sentence claims the players are trying their best. The very next sentence implies that some of these same players’ best efforts are so lame they need to be be replaced by better, more expensive players.
Make up your mind, TC! And I’ll thank you not to berate every player who isn’t making a kazillion dollars.
Aw, nuts to them both! I’m going to go watch AAF football!
If a team is tanking in baseball that is by far the most idiotic business strategy there can be. If you tank and you get the top pack or a top three pack there is no guarantee that player is going to turn your franchise around. Let’s say a player can turn your franchise around that player odds are will not become a factor for about three years. This is not like football or basketball or even hockey where a topic can change the franchise that following year.
The game has changed. Teams think you win if you go with the farm system and don’t give long contracts to vets. I don’t see teams winning with albatross contracts. I used to go a lot of games. I am priced out of the ballpark. I watch games on TV.
$545k salary to play a recreational game of ball? Yeeeah, I’ll scab for that Mr. Clark alongside any other AAAA player. Al Avila trying to win a WS this year, hah! Bleacher seats will still be filled with or without Manny & Bryce. Don’t let these owners or players fool us, pull the wool over your eyes.
if it were recreational you have a spot win or lose good or bad. mlb is biz and players are contractors with fierce competition among them.
I don’t agree with Tony Clark’s attempt to align the fans’ interest with the players’ interest. Fans (at least this fan) will not be the puppet of either the player’s union nor of the owners.
Second comment is that the players’ union is too much controlled by the aging players who still want their multi-million dollar contract for their deteriorating skills. As a fan, I don’t want to watch over the hill has-beens, I want to watch exciting, young talent, the next generation of stars. That intrigues me more than watching a relic try to individually re-live his glory days. That individualistic, selfish pursuit is hurting the game of baseball. It’s a team sport, not an individual sport. Flush the old guys, bring on the exciting new generation and I’m a satisfied fan.
It is not at all the “old guys” faults. The entire model is set up so you don’t get paid until you become an old guy, then all of a sudden the owners stopped paying the old guys so less and less players are making big money. It’s fine if owners want to go young, but that means they need to start paying the young players like the stars the owners are making them into. The owners changed the way they do things so the system needs to change with it or the players (the vast majority of them) get screwed. They won the games, they draw the fans, they deserve a healthy chunk of MLB revenue.
Every team is trying to to win. Lol, good one Manfred. It doesn’t count if the teams are trying to win five years from now, they are still tanking. They say he is not commissioner anymore can’t come soon enough.
The day*. Gosh darn cellular device.
…and what are they supposed to do? Not every team has the ability to carry a payroll of the likes of the Yankees and Red Sox. For smaller to mid market teams, building through the draft and developing players is the only real way to sustain any type of success. Once those teams are able to build up they can, at least in theory, go after some higher tier free agents to fill areas of need and/or put them over the top for playoff/championship runs. Just look at the Royals. They were able to find and develop players like Eric Hosmer, Jarrod Dyson, Alex Gordon, Lorenzo Cain, Salvador Perez, and players like Wil Myers that can be used to trade for a more pressing need. Teams, like KC, will then have a window to win and then will have to possibly start over as they see those stars leave. There is no franchise tag or Bird rights in MLB and, as like in real life, those with the ability to pay for wins can and do.
What is Clark talking about? Arenado and DeGrom both set arbitration records, and Harper and Machado are both going to be paid WAY more than they are worth. The players have no beef, and if they don’t shut Clark up they are in jeopardy of destroying the fan base way worse than previous strikes. Who the hell is going to feel empathy for a guy playing ball for 200 million instead of 300 million? Only young people with no sense think that the boss should not make more than the employees. A strike combined with all the ridiculous rule changes would mark the end of generations of loyal fans.
I keep hearing about there being over 100 free agents that remain unsigned. With a lot of those being very good players. Well i checked MLBTR’s free agent tracker and they have only 53 unsigned free agents, as of this morning. Many, if not most, of those being 30-somethings and either below replacement level or 1 skill players. I wouldn’t want 85% of those free agents on my team and only a few really hold high value.
As a rep of MLBPA, crying foul over teams not wanting to sign these guys to big money/years is ludicrous. Every off season, not just these last 2, there are a lot of vets that get squeezed out of ML baseball. It’s the nature of the beast. Quit crying about being left out over the teams going full blown analytics, when it was agents that started using analytics to try and get more for their clients.
Give Teams the 250 million dollar cable contract that the Yankees enjoy and all salaries go up. Teams are getting smart on not paying players for past performance as they get older. In most cases, the past performance has been for another team. Players, as they get older have declining performance and have more injuries.
There are just too many teams in MLB, there’s not enough MLB caliber talent to go around. Create a 4A minor league and cut back MLB to the original 16 teams.
If players and agents want longer term deals they need to stop demanding opt outs. Long term deals with player opt outs have the players eliminate their downside risk while having the teams lose the upside of a long term deal.
If this ends up killing baseball, Tony Clark will always and forever be known as the man that did it.
The ironic thing is that with the loss of fans, their pay will be lower than the worst CBA they could imagine.
Once high salaries became decoupled from performance baseball became absurd. When starting pitchers routinely are paid over 10 million dollars to win 7-10 games a year it became ridiculous. Performance became decoupled from high pay and it became all about what the market will bear.
Bad contracts abound and teams got burned. Team organizations are right to want Some form of fiscal sanity. They are entertainment businesses for profit. Fans are right that with 81 home games it shouldn’t cost 300 bucks to take a small family to a baseball game. Greed is everywhere in baseball.
Any businessman that would risk the well being of his team over the long haul to sign the likes of Manny Machado is a fool. Baseball should be careful because many milennials aren’t interested in the game. There could be a plunge around the corner.
Not to continue this, but long term contracts bind players to particular teams–and the teams like it, until they don’t like it because they decide it’s too expensive. The Angels don’t regret the Trout extension, and obviously hate the Albert deal. If ownership wants Machado, they certainly understand the risk of paying the price, and if they are foolish, then they bear the burden. You want to tie up a player and build around him, then you have to expect the possibility that they may have a down year, or be injured. There’s nothing at all wrong with owners showing restraint (so long as it isn’t collusion) but the idea that only players bear all the risk is unreasonable.