7:49pm: There’s no end in sight to this standoff. After an MLBPA board meeting on Thursday, union head Tony Clark said, “The league’s demand for additional concessions was resoundingly rejected” (full statement here via Jeff Passan of ESPN.com). The players want to return to the field, but they’re simply not open to another pay cut, as Cardinals reliever Andrew Miller told Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (subscription link). “Players are engaged like I’ve never seen before,” Miller said. “Every day through ths each of those factors is reinforced. We hope to be on the field as soon as possible.”
6:39pm: As the deadlock between the league and the Players Association continues, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that the 30 team owners are remaining “steadfast” in aiming to end the season by Nov. 1. Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick already firmly voiced earlier this week his stance that ownership’s model of not playing games in November “will never be changed.”
Twins president, CEO and executive board member Dave St. Peter offered a similar sentiment in a lighter tone than Kendrick, telling La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Getting derailed on the start/stop scenario is the worst-case scenario. You’re trying to thread a needle in getting a baseball season in before a second surge of this virus which we believe is a very real possibility.”
Never one to hold back his thoughts, agent Scott Boras again pushed back on ownership’s public-facing stance, telling The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal: “The NFL and college football – contact sports – could be playing in November, let alone December. MLB, a social distancing sport, says it can’t play playoffs in November.”
It’s possible to push back on baseball being a “social distancing sport” in a general sense — there are close quarters the dugout, clubhouse, on the bases, etc. — but relative to a sport like football, the point obviously holds true. As St. Peter and Kendrick have alluded to, however, the worst-case scenario for the league might be paying the players a prorated salary (or even a reduced rate) and then having to cancel postseason play. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale has previously reported that the standard-format postseason television revenue could approach $777MM, with an expanded format pushing that number closer to $1 billion.
Furthermore, as Reds righty Trevor Bauer and his agent, Rachel Luba, discussed earlier this spring in a detailed YouTube video, player postseason shares are derived from gate — not television revenue. In other words, those TV dollars are pure profit for the owners. Perhaps there’s additional negotiation to be done there, but if the two sides have yet to even agree on regular-season player compensation absent gate revenue, it’s unlikely they’ve sufficiently addressed postseason shares. The sheer volume of revenue owners would stand to receive from carrying out a postseason — be it expanded or not — gives enormous incentive to strike a deal at some point, but both the length of schedule and the timeframe within which it falls remain major obstacles.
All of that seems to dovetail with the league’s newfound push for a shortened schedule. It was reported over the weekend that the owners feel the standing March agreement gives commissioner Rob Manfred the power to unilaterally impose a shorter length of season. Doing so would likely entitle the players to prorated salary but over a fraction of the would-be regular season; the New York Post’s Joel Sherman suggested as few as 48 to 54 games may even be under consideration.
That push would limit the owners’ in-season expenses while bringing about a notable postseason windfall. To that end, Ronald Blum of the Associated Press obtained an email sent from deputy commissioner Dan Halem to MLBPA negotiator Bruce Meyer which expressly confirms that the league is looking into a commissioner-imposed, shortened season. A portion of said email read as follows:
We do not have any reason to believe that a negotiated solution for an 82-game season is possible. You confirmed for us on Sunday that players are unified in their view that they will not accept less than 100% of their prorated salaries, and we have no choice but to accept that representation. Nonetheless, the commissioner is committed to playing baseball in 2020. He has started discussions with ownership about staging a shorter season without fans.
However, Blum notes that the league is strongly opposed to deferring salaries, with interest, likening that to another means of accruing debt. Halem also expressed concerns about the costs of acquiring mass testing capabilities, suggesting that’d cost teams upward of $50MM.
As has been the case for months now, it’s readily apparent that both sides have considerable motivation to finalize some type of agreement on how to salvage the 2020 season. Actually moving closer to finding a common ground, however, has proven virtually impossible — even as other sports have found ways to chart a path back to their seasons.
There is no hope…
Thanks Tony Clark for all your union’s effort. You guys should be included (heroes) with nurses, police and firemen. See you in 2021 or later whenever you get proper pay compensation.
Damn! The hero bar is incredibly low for you isn’t it 2020_baseball_bye? Hey, I bushed my teeth this morning. I guess that should make me a hero too. I am heroically fighting gingivitis!!!
But me some peanuts and cracker jacks…
the owners dont care if baseball ever comes back….
Don’t feel yourself. Neither do the players. Not sides are bad faith actors driven exclusively by greed and neither could give two you-know-whats about the suckers in the stands making them filthy rich.
Fool yourself and both sides. Damn these fat thumbs of mine.
The owners are the ones with the pens and the checks, this is on them. Whether their employees are filthy rich or not, they’re due their fair share of the pie; in this case the pie happens to be larger than most businesses. I don’t think the owners are driven by their greed necessarily here, but any work stoppage starts and stops with them from where I’m sitting.
MLB to ban the Angels and Braves owners and sentence them to lifetime bans starting immediately.
Why ban the owners of those 2 teams?
Selective, bizarre enforcement.
They both helped to power a wannabe dictator?
Time to sweep the M**A out of MLB!
Fire the players too, MLBPA (they hate unions) need to turn their backs on them.
Dude, Shut up
Strike Four – I seriously don’t understand what you’re talking about.
You are an idiot. Mr. “M**A” is the best thing to happen to us in our lifetimes.
The president is a moron that failed to act on covid, and unite the people during the protests. He divides and destroys everything he touches. He will suffer a serious defeat in November and spend the remainder of his life isolated battling legal problems. Cancer, is an understatement…
Strike Four letting his political bias effect baseball, you my friend are a tool.
Can’t agree more that POTUS is a POS, but beyond that, S4, you’re bat poo crazy.
Hahaha that’s the silliest and most ignorant thing I have ever heard
I hate Mr. Orange with a passion as well S4. That being said, please shut it. I come here to b*tch about baseball, not politics.
VegasSDfan Wow you are a very hateful person. It’s hate that divides and it is the very thing you are spreading. You are what you claim to loathe.
Destroys everything he touches? You do know he’s a billionaire, right? And did the economy just take off on its own? Unemployment dropped to historic lows on its own? Religious liberties were magically strengthened?
A big difference that I‘ve been noticing more and more between us conservatives and you liberals is that although we disagree with you, we still love you. And because you disagree with us, you hate us. You spread the hate you so profess to fight and then proceed to blame others for it without looking at the speck in your own eye.
Now can we get back to baseball, please? I don’t come here with the intention of participating in political discussion, but I also refuse to let liberals solely control the discourse on here.
Owners and players: GET YOUR ACTS TOGETHER AND LETS PLAT SOME BALL ALREADY!!!
I am a centrist clrrogers. There is so, so much I could say to you about your comment right now! But since discretion is the better part of valor, and because I can see that your mind is made up and you have no desire to listen, I will let it go.
I just want baseball so I can ignore the election…. foxnews.com and msnbc.com have comment sections yall!
Did you actually just us the argument of us vs them? Do you not see that is exact problem? Of course you don’t
Vegas, do your homework or shut up. I don’t have enough space on here to lay out the factual details for you. You are another typical LW nut job.
I look forward to watching your type scream @ the sky…again.
Imbecility?
Agreed Monty. You are an imbecile.
dude actually what are you referencing?
If you support a dictator then you dont belong in baseball, period. Ban them all, thats the only reason they need, and thats what needs to happen here.
The right hates unions, so fire all openly M**A players, anyone who donated to him or supported him. The MLBPA should shrug their shoulders instead of helping them. Let them sue for breach of contract, who cares, get them all out of the game.
Really sick of seeing white teens in the 00s still getting busted on twitter for using slurs, what kind of gutter culture do we have now? Its time to clean house.
Great job at answering his question. We still have no clie what your trying to say. Come back from Mars.
S4 – Ok, so you’re a crazy ideologue who thinks only liberal minded players should be allowed in the MLB. Interesting take.
Everyone who doesn’t think the same way as you do should lose their job, got it.
A dictator would have done things a whooooole lot different than what has transpired recently. As for the twitter stuff, if you want to keep posting racist thoughts that’s your choice. I would not recommend.
You should be all over your A’s for their conduct throughout this process. Selective anger? Yes. Your President is somehow a dictator yet your baseball franchise is not taking care of minor league players and you go radio silent. Maybe not talking is your solution to all your problems. It’s definitely not the POTUS.
Hypocrite
Troll.
Why the hell do we love baseball? Fleeting moments of bliss are offset by cascading mud hurls and soul wrenches, and in between is the semblance of monotony.
Dynamite drop in, Monty!
That broadcasting school has really paid off!
NBA and NHL got it done. Figure it out. 1994 will be nothing compared to this.
They did? When are their seasons starting up?
Returning in July
July 31st for the NBA.
To be fair, they only have a spattering of games to worry about. The timing for this literally couldn’t have been worse for MLB.
I think I read the NBA is having a 22 team “post season” tournament, with all games being played at the Disney resort in Orlando, sans fans of course. Not sure if NHL has finalized anything yet, as well as MLS.
The longer both sides continue to hurl insults and demands, the less likely we will see any MLB this year.
NHL has agreed to a post season tournament style using TV two hubs but regular series.
NBA is going 22 teams, 8 regular season games, and then a play in tournament if a team is within 4 games of the #8 seed (weighted)
Correction; NBA is going with a “how do we hand Lebron another ring” tourney and make his entitled pathway much easier.
“How do we hand LeBron another ring tourney to make his entitled pathway much easier”.
He’s 3-5 in the NBA finals. Not really sure how that’s entitlement. He’s also been virtually the best player in every single finals he’s played in
Should be 0-8. Should be a triple double for his career with the calls he gets. Consistent traveler, never called. Colludes with other players to build a superteam. Probably staged. Is that enough for you or are you going to disagree wearing two eyepatches watching fake NBA games?
“Should be 0-8”. Ok……
Have a good day
25 years from now this will be just as much of a distant memory.
What will be??????
2 years from now, unless we see it comeback in the Fall. If it does then we are in trouble.
@VegasSDfan What comes back in the fall? COVID? Oh you mean that other flu virus that has less than 1% mortality rate and over 90% of those that get it either have mild symptoms or are asymptomatic? OH NOES!!!!
Mortality skyrockets if you let it spread out of control and hospitals become overwhelmed so treatable cases cant get treatment. Its also a hard one to deal with since most people that have it have it for a while. Hospitalization rate is still going up which is a better gauge for the actual spread rate since confirmed cases have a testing bias, as in more tests equal more cases found. It doesnt look great for baseball in July since outside of the NY/NJ/CT region cases are mostly rising on testing as hospitalizations keep going up as well. Almost everywhere is opening faster then the WH guidelines state, and this is one of those where sure its fine and not super scary till its really scary and much worse. Gets too bad every old person over like 75 will have a 50/50 and if its wide spread we cant keep it out of nursing homes and such.
If we stay locked down it sucks and people get hurt by the lockdown. If we open to fast it goes wild our hospitals are overwhelmed and the mortality rate skyrockets, meanwhile people that operate things like power and sanitation go down and then were all real screwed. This ones a biotch it spreads fast and before most know there sick. Not bad enough that you just die but bad and lingering, and spreads way to fast to just let it go or we end up with 100M cases instead of 1.8M and more dead then WWII.
There are so many inaccuracies in your statement i’m not sure where to start. Even during the worst of the spikes in cases, hospitals were nowhere near capacity. In fact, many of the field hospitals that were setup to ease the burden were dismantled early on with little to no use. The general public was fed this fear inspiring nonsense as a way to sell us on lockdown. Many hospitals had to furlough employees because revenue fell off a cliff… because patient load was 10% of normal capacity. Most COVID cases do NOT require hospitalization. They just don’t. I’m not arguing that COVID is not deadly. It is, and will kill a lot of people just like the flu does every year. My argument is that it would have happened with or without the lockdown. Saying that lockdown saved lives is just absurd on its face and does not jive with the data. It is perfectly normal to trade risk for convenience. We do every day when we get in a vehicle. How many people think about the 40k that die in traffic accidents every year? Yet we put on masks and gloves and drive to the store so we can buy our essential pop tarts so we have something to snack on before the all important zoom meeting. You can count me in the “juice wasn’t worth the squeeze” club. Open it up!
So will pro baseball as a major American sport at this rate.
Hockey still has a major issue to resolve…the border and quarantine issues. Have my doubts this week has helped in Canada’s decision in opening it up.
Different animal. They had most of their regular seasons complete, and they only had to negotiate for the one thing all these leagues seem to most want- postseasons. You can’t compare situations. Those owners weren’t trying to withold massive chunks of salary from their players.
So, what this comes down to is the Owners don’t want to play regular season games where the players would earn a prorated salary. They want to play post season games where much of their revenue is off-stream. And they certainly don’t want to play deep into November, when there’s too much competition from the NFL. I get it, but, as much as I want to see baseball, this reminds a lot of the client who asks “can I pick your brain for a minute–very simple question” and 45 minutes later, having gotten what he wanted out of you, says “I guess I didn’t need you.”
What I understand is that the previous agreement ensures prorated salary, pending recovery from COVID-19 and expected revenue from full attendance/economic climate.
Do you really think MLB will be able to ensure same attendance for the entire 2020 season? Even without social distancing rules hampering seating, less fans and uncertain economic situation will limit expenditure for many Americans. Concessions to merchandise sales will be affected.
Just prorating expenditures without factoring in the change in revenue (from same equation) would be financially unwise.
Only issue seems to lack of transparency by owners on revenue.
I think the whole thing stinks…bleh!
I can’t believe they are going to let money ruin it and both sides will end up with nothing.
I’d give up on MLB entirely and just follow MiLB, but they managed to wreck that too.
Agree 100% !
At the the end of the day the owners want to play just enough games to not lose money and then rake it in harder than usual because all the playoff profit will be theirs.
As well; on the other side of that same coin, the owners agree to prorated salaries, etc. and a couple or few players get infected with Covid-19 and the rest of the players fear catching it too and they all decide to forfeit the rest of the season the owners are left on the hook for the salaries for the rest of the season and no playoffs so they get stiffed and are not willing to take a chance on that happening. Wow a lot said all in one sentence, lol
Pro-rated salaries nobody gets paid if they call it off for RoS. Owners made 4B at least in the last 3 seasons according to public numbers they can afford to risk it. They just want no risk of losing money while they sit in there McMansions quarantined and the players risk there health for less then they should have made this year under normal conditions. Its the National Pastime with a built in congressional monopoly I say pay the players at risk fully or donate any discount they give to charities. Owners dont need to be making extra money right now since tickets wont be cheaper for us later. Pay up or lose the anti-trust protections MLB. You dont get to get special treatment then take a dump on the fans while the country suffers.
Players should be paid to play. There is no mystery here.
The best thing to do might be to simply cancel the season. Let the other sports stumble through playing during a pandemic. MLB can learn from their mistakes and start off strong in 2021. We all love baseball but we don’t “need” it. Lots of other things in life to experience and appreciate!
The reason other sports are able to restart is their unions are not nearly as powerful as the MLBPA. They also have salary caps and less historic animosity between players and owners. They also don’t have CBA negotiations hanging over their heads in a year. So there are a lot of reasons they can find a middle ground and play where baseball cannot.
main reason (which is helped by the others you provided) is the timing. no one felt like haggling over pay for what little bits were left of those seasons, and these leagues supposedly make so much playoff revenue that it wolnt matter. baseball was inevitably headed for a conflict for this reason, and to be honest any season that must start in these conditions, regardless of sport, will deal with this issue.
Exactly this.
They are able to restart out of greed. Health is not a serious concern unfortunately. More unknown than known and don’t forget, there is no treatment, let alone a vaccine.
Health is overblown risk if they have testing
We still have no studies of people who had serious cases and then recovered a long time after since its so new. Who knows how this will effect your lungs 5 years down the line.
If your a 22 year old playing for a pro-rated portion of 500k is it worth risking your massive future earnings over 200k or something if this gives your permanent health problems.
The NFL is theoretically looking at a full season.
The NBA and NHL have almost a full season in the books with just playoffs to play.
I don’t blame the players one bit.
The obvious compromise is an 82 game schedule with prorated salaries, but Manfred wants to squeeze money out of the players by threatening a short season. I’d tell him go to hell.
The NFL troubles will begin soon.
It’s not Manfred, he is just a puppet for the owners. They tell him what to do/say and he does it. Just like Goodell in the NFL.
if they fear having to stop for a second wave then they can really just deal with it. if they have to stop they have to stop. they can deal with it.
“Deal with it” can be deadly though. No need for MLB to be a guinea pig.
you miss my point. i dont meen “deal with it” as in suggesting to power through, im sayinh they will need to have to accept the possibility that they may need to shut things down early.
One question. Whether you’re in the NHL, NBA, or MLB…who the heck would want to win a championship this year anyway? Just feel like even if any one of those leagues continues this year it will be like an exhibition cluster “duck”. As a fan how can you think these guys will still compete at maximum effort in any one of these sports. I’m out as a fan; at least this year.
Full playoffs for NHL and NBA…why is that an issue?
bye.
They will do it because they feel like playing is the right thing to do to try and bring some entertainment with a bored struggling country. Even weird baseball is better then reruns of old shows.
Did I hear, or read correctly that it takes only 8 of the 30 owners to agree to cancel the season, then it is bye bye MLB for 2020?
Well that would be an ill-advised procedural motion. That’s like giving 33% of a legislative body complete veto rights. Oh wait! That’s the UN Security Council. Never mind.
If they really believe there will be a second wave of Covid in November then they should not start the season.
Both sides are digging in for a long battle at this point.
Why?
Yes, why? Finish in October if that’s the concern.
There might never be a vaccine for COVID-19 either, so… do we social distance and have no sports or close contact forever? Why not just have MLB use the Baseball Reference simulator for the rest of time? We’ll never get to see a baseball game again, but at least it’s being played on the computer. Then Keith Law can calculate individual and team WAR and let us know who awards and each round of the playoffs.
I just heard Bob Nightingale on a local radio show here in LA. He said on a scale 1 to 10, 10 being a for sure thing . He said a 10. Baseball will be back the middle of July.
Boras needs a padlock on his mouth.
The owners, while wrong about almost everything else, are dead right that the season should be over by November.
If the players are unwilling to accept it, then the season should be canceled. Discussion over.
Yep
The season can easily be over by November. There are 96 days from July 1 to Sunday, October 4. They just don’t want to pay the players.
And Boras is right. The owners would not be losing money because of salaries. TV revenue more than covers salaries with billions to spare. They want the players to finance their stadium debt, real estate loans, etc.
Not true. Owners would lose money in an 82 game season. Baseball is not the cash cow you think it is. It’s the fans that end up pushing profits to the teams. Sans fans, no profit.
They don’t lose money by playing more games. . MLB gets $ 10.7 billion per year in revenue, per Forbes.com
In a full season, player salaries total about $4 billion
MLB gets $ 2.2 billion in local TV revenue
$ 3.1 billion in National TV revenue, $1B of which is from the post season
$ 1.1 billion from sponsorships
So, unless all that TV revenue is guaranteed whether or not they play games, MLB makes far more per game than they pay out in player salaries.
If any team is losing money, it’s not because they have to pay the players prorated salaries.
$4M is lost by having no fans. TV revenue deals will be halved if it is an 82 game season and sponsors have withdrawn. In additional to players salaries, ball clubs have $100’s of millions of other expenses to pay, so I believe the owners when they say they are going to lose money no matter how many games are played. My guess is the 50 game season, with untethered playoff revenue gets them somewhat close to even, but every additional regular season game will lose money for them.
That math doesn’t work. Some clubs very well may lose money this season, but the fact remains that TV revenue per regular season game easily exceeds player salaries prorated per game. That’s just for the regular season, excluding post season revenue.
So, unless MLB is going to receive those revenues regardless of whether games are played, it does not cost them money to play more games. And if it is guaranteed regardless of playing games, then they’ve already been paid for those games.
If, as you say, TV revenue is halved at 82 games- that’s basically prorated, and still exceeds player salaries by a good margin. So they make more money from that revenue than they pay the players. It’s not even an opinion or a guess, it’s just math.
Sure, teams have other operating costs and some of those are related to playing games. But those costs have remained static or just kept pace with inflation while revenues have far outpaced inflation. They’ve become chump change in the big picture, compared to TV revenues and player salaries.
The costs that have soared for many teams is their debt service, which is what Boras was referring to. These are business investments- good investments, but players don’t get the profits in good years and shouldn’t have to bail out the owners in tough years.
They dont lose money on pro-rated, and the more games they play the more they make per game since there are fixed costs that max out on the first game so profits get higher when you spread them out. They may need a certain number of games to not get hit on the local broadcast deals to bad. The teams would need to do some balancing since certain teams would lose money on 82 games, but it wouldnt be most of them. Also those numbers were from fangraphs without adding in the money from RSN shares where most non LAD teams with a share have below avg TV deals to hide those profits from revenue sharing. The owners straight lied they only lose 4B if they pay 82 games of pro-rated with zero income. Also MLB has Bamtech and a bunch of other tertiary revenue streams.
Yes they wont make tons of extra money, but read the pieces at fangraphs teams make 170k on avg after pro-rated salaries, and thats without things like Bamtech, revenue from rent on other things on the stadium properties, TV money from ownership steaks in RSNs. They hide tons of revenue wont open the books to prove the losses, and are crying foul with numbers everyone knows are BS. 4B loss equals paying players and making nothing from anywhere. Go back to lawyering Cyral your accounting skills suck for a comptroller.
It’s always about protecting the owner class, even if the “workers” are millionaires themselves (in many cases). Poor owners may lose money. So much for that rugged individualism, that ethos is better left for those standing in the unemployment lines.
I wonder if these owners really give a poop about baseball to begin with or is it just another symbol of vanity and hubris? You mean my toy may cost me some money? Holding cities hostage for public finance stadiums wasn’t enough we want it all.
I think we are going to have to bail them out. Gonna need to start a gofundme and have fans start donating to replace ticket sales. What an absolute embarrassment that would be if thats what it took.
I adore this sport, but if that’s what it takes then it deserves to die.
I said it once and I’ll say it again: they can take that 48 to 54 game schedule and shove it. They are playing the fans as fools – ‘take this pittance of a season, but he sure to tune into to the bloated, bohemian post-season so we can make our money!!!’ To heck with that. There was time to get in at least an 82 game season in, but neither side wanted to give an inch. So I just hope baseball fans don’t fall for it and accept the scraps we might be given. If this comes to pass, just turn the page to 2021, if you care to even watch then, that is.
*behemoth
Ahh man, I thought Queen would be singing at all post-season games.
There’s still a lot of posturing and tough-minded rhetoric being bandied about at this point, but I think it’s still possible to see the parameters of an agreement through all this. As a professional negotiator on the union side, I tend to side with the players, but the owners seem to have the stronger bargaining position at this point based on the March agreement. The players can certainly stick to their position of pro rats pay with no further reductions, but the owners could then impose their plan for fewer games. To the owners, any hope of making money (or minimizing losses) seems to depend on the postseason, so that’s why they don’t want to push that into November. But the players do have some leverage because it would seem to be in the owners’ interest to have an expanded postseason.
So the compromise deal could be an agreement for a 68-78 game regular season and expanded postseason, with the players getting a cut of the postseason TV revenues in lieu of the shares that are usually derived from the playoff gate.
I’m pretty sure they’ll get there.
You don’t think there’s something to the “best efforts to play as many games as possible” language being an obstacle to MLB imposing a short regular season? If they are able to start regular season games in July I can’t see a schedule of under 75 being a good faith effort to play as many games as possible. Fifty games certainly isn’t. Maybe “summer” training for a month and then two and half months of games–maybe 65 games–could pass as “best efforts to play as many games as possible.” If the owners want something shorter or something different than the agreed to pro-rated salaries, they should have to bargain for it.
I certainly think so. It’s pretty hard to argue that 50 games is “as many as possible” when they already proposed an 82 game schedule, and there are still 96 days in the time frame that they proposed for the season, finishing the WS by November 1.
I also think that the players aren’t going to gift them an extended post season if there is only a 50 game regular season.
As I understand it, the language in the March agreement on “as many games as possible “ also includes reference to the economic feasibility of games without fans as one of the factors. I therefore don’t think this is an issue for further bargaining, but it could be grounds for a grievance.
Any of us really think that playoffs preceded by a 50 game schedule has any legitimacy whatsoever? I don’t waste money or time on exhibition games.
81 games minimum to be considered a legit season.
I would have accepted around 70 games, usually team position is fairly well set at that point. Injuries and a late season surge usually brings a surprise or two but i believe most teams would be in line for their post season finishing place. Less than 70 though and the teams have little chance to bounce back from injuries and build their leads or recover from a slow start. You need a one game lead per week remaining to have a comfortable chance of overcoming a deficit is the conventional wisdom.
Simple solution, don’t watch
There are a bunch of minor leagues players who would love to be getting paid anything about now, so pay each minor player a half million dollars, those who are on the 40 man roster get 1 million, and just get baseball back, and those who wanna play from the majors get paid 5 million tbe most, and who ever dont play gets nothing, is 1 freaking year..
If you truly feel this way then call your boss tomorrow and offer to cut your salary by 90%.
There’s a difference between these guys losing money and an average joe losing 90% of his wage.
All, this is going to get resolved. They are. It as far away as it seems. They need to agree on two primary issues: (1) number of games, and (2) percent of pro-rated salary that players will get. If they work those out, the rest is easy.
This is how labor negotiations always go. Both sides start out unreasonable and try to get leverage on the other side. It’s not unusual and does not mean it won’t get worked out.
Ultimately owners will need to compromise on number of games and agree to 81 or so games. Players will need to give in on getting 100% of pro rated salary and take something less (50%, 75%).
Players are not going to lose their entire 2020 salary so they can yell and scream, but ultimately they will cave on that issue in exchange for owner agreement to more games.
There will definitely be a season. Don’t get distracted by posturing in labor negotiations.
Keep dreaming.
The players opened the door to deferred salaries. Even though it was just in the event of the postseason being canceled, they put it on the table. Instead of taking that and running with it, MLB came back with more threats.
If, IF, the sides were willing to get creative and compromise, then something could get done here.
Let’s take what is really the sticking points here and work backwards. MLBPA – maximize player revenue, protect player’s ability to self determine health without forfeiting salary/benefits. MLB – minimize losses, make sure there IS a postseason.
Mlb fears playing a season where they lose money and covid cancelling the playoffs, and players want to squeeze every dollar of 2020 salary they can get back.
Middle ground? Make sure regular season ends by Sept 30. Work backwards on games. Then get creative:
Opt 1: a reduced 60 or so game season, at full proration, with an expanded playoff that starts early on sept 1st.
Opt 2: a reduced 81 game season, with a version of mlb’s further reductions of the prorated salary. Then you add a clause, something stating that every team will contribute 50% of any gate revenue to a fund to be disbursed by the MLBPA as it sees fit.
Opt 3: a reduced 81 game season, with all players receiving 50% of the prorated salary through the season (paying 255 original salary). The other 50% of the prorated will be be paid in installments based on post season being completed. 5% after WC round. 10% after DS round completed. 15% after CS round. 20% after WS.
Players get their cash, owners are protected if there’s a shutdown preventing the part of the season that allows them to afford the bills.
It’s like baseball is old and has multiple underlying factors and for the Rona
RIP baseball
Favorite sport of mine. I hope it never comes back. Burn, baby burn. To the players, owners, whatever, all you m’fers
You don’t sound as if you are a fan.
Yeah I’m done with this sport. Just a bunch of millionaires and billionaires fighting over dollars while 40 million are out of work because of the virus. I will never watch MLB again as long as I live. What an absolute joke.
Bye bye. I guess we won’t be seeing GiantsFan121416 here anymore!
Just my opinion so please don’t kill me. Obviously this comes down to money and I feel the players greed needs to take a backseat. To “play” for your job is something 99.99999% of people dream of. And to be paid like they are, damn, I’d give anything. I understand you spend what you make and everyone has debt, but let’s not forget about all the corporate sponsorship money they are still receiving too. My heart has always been with MLB but has now moved to the NHL.
So you think those players are just too greedy and the owners who keep jacking up the cost of seeing games should make a huge profit during a pandemic instead of the players some of which are young and havent made millions yet. Players risk infection to play for peanuts owners sit safely at home and laugh all the way to the bank.
I figured someone would reply with that. Not sure how the owners would make a huge profit. Little or no ticket sales, no concessions, no parking fees, all relatively small but do add up. I don’t see your logic. Or maybe it was impossible to understand because you only used two periods in that entire rant??? You choose.
So hows this for an idea? Maybe dumb but how about taking everyones contract this year and just push it one year into the future. So every player essentially gets one year added to their current contract. Example if someone is under contract from 2020-2023 now the contract will be from 2021-2024. So that way players wont lose the salary owed this year and just for this year you can do the restructured contract for the 2020 season. It a unique situation and both sides are right. Players shouldn’t be taking a massive pay cut, and owners shouldn’t have to be playing at a loss.
Players would never agree to this, especially those who haven’t hit free agency yet. It just locks in their lower salary and team control for one more season. They fought hard to make sure this year counts as a full year of service time even if they don’t play 1 game. They did that solely for the purpose of ensuring they would get their higher salaries whether through arbitration or free agency.
Yeah, that wouldn’t fly with the players, nor many of the owners.
The Tigers would not want to give Jordan Zimmermann another season at $25M after waiting for five seasons for this rotten deal to end. Detroit’s payroll would be $21.4 million for a prorated 82 game season, not including the last $6M installment for Prince Fielder.
I keep reading the figure of 65% of players earning $1M or less. That is true if you take all players on the 40 man rosters, which is relevant if you’re looking for the full MLBPA union membership. It’s more like half of all players on 26 man rosters. The owners attempted to split the union by paying those guys 90% and the guys at the top of the pay scale 10 cents on the dollar on salary above $20M. It didn’t work.
Play 75 games with the following stipulations:
1) players get full pro-rated salaries but if the league has to shut down, they only get paid for the number of games played.
2) If players decide to opt out for health reasons, they are allowed to do with no penalties, fines, etc.. but will not get paid for this season.
3) If the league makes it through a full playoff schedule then additional revenue will be shared with the players.
The worst case scenario for baseball is that the season gets put on pause (or cancelled) after 20-30 games are played but owners are forced to pay the full salaries for the agreed upon duration of the season. This will set back franchises for years; 2021 free agent spending will be minimal at best, the CBA talks will be a total disaster and this could very well end up in a lockout for the 2021 season. Most owners are prepared to cancel this season (some really want to) but I’m not sure the players are. Losing a season’s worth of pay will be very painful for them, especially the 65%+ who make under $1M per year. Let’s cut the BS and agree to play ball!
F-CK the Players and F-CK the Owners! Just cancel the season. I hope this permanently damages the sport of baseball. Greedy aholes only care about money. And I’m tired of hearing the BS about the risk players are taking to play in stadiums with no fans. There is no risk! Bunch of overpaid babies.
Or just the same amount of risk as going to your local grocery store or work for that matter. We all are taking that risk to make a living or have some kind of life.
Saint Peter is involved now? Things are getting serious.
To think that you negotiate a contract based on 162 games and large gate revenues….and that you wouldn’t expected to take massive pay cuts to play 80 games with zero gate revenue is asinine.
Did they ever take a pay cut? Or did they just agree to play less games. I have no idea what’s in their collective bargaining agreement but I am pretty sure there is a clause about if the season was less than 162 games that players would be paid a prorated amount. That’s basic collective bargaining.
Screw all those Millionaires and Billionaires
Dissolve the League.
Cancel all contracts
Empty Stadiums
I’ll watch college ball and minor league ball.
Amen
Greed is going to kill the greatest game ever created. Thanks owners, players, agents and everyone else involved in this destruction.
For Goodness sake, get an agreement.
Holy crap. Why the hell do the owners have to be so cheap. First they wanted to pay 1/5 of the players salaries. And they still wanna cut more. Just give them 75% and have an 82 game season. They have 2 weeks to get $4!7 done.
Sure we’d all like to see baseball this year, but in reality, what kind of baseball are we likely to see, best case scenario?
– Half the number of games
– Empty stadiums
– Arbitrary divisions
– No leagues
– Arbitrary rule changes
– A possible shutdown at any time
– And, a meaningless postseason, if any at all
Somebody has to ask: What would be the point?
They have to figure out the crowds. Can’t be no attendance. The fans are 75% of wbat makes baseball so great.
Japan and Korea are months ahead of us in dealing with the pandemic, and they have no plans for playing in front of crowds any time soon.
They also have what 10k cases compared to our 1.8M so were on whole separate schedule to them as well. Hospitalizations are still rising nationally so at best were plateaued with the worst outbreak in the world.
Not sure who you mean by they, but both Japan and Korea have done a much better job of containing infections. How it was done in Korea is well-known, in Japan, still a matter of study and debate. In any event, the point is both of these baseball playing countries are months ahead of us, and have lower infection rates, but still aren’t planning to allow fans into stadiums any time soon. So I rate our prospects of seeing games played with crowds this year to be approximately zero. Not that it matters so much anymore, with the joke season being proposed. Took a long time for me to come around to this opinion but now I think it’s time to stick a fork in it. Forget about this year and bring back real baseball in 2021.
Both Japan and Korea are at around 10k I believe. We are like 6 months behind in terms of stamping it down, and reopening when cases plateau at best will keep us in limbo for a while.
They still have the AL and NL, and three divisions in each league.
But they would play games only within each region. No games between east and west, or east and central teams, etc.
I don’t think the rule changes are arbitrary. They’re things that have been discussed for quite some time. Now, if they start an inning with runners on base, I’m done.
The only way that’s a good idea is the 14th inning or later. Otherwise it’s a bad idea. I’d rather have dh in the NL. And I am strongly against dh in the NL
The only realignment plan I’ve seen is three divisions of ten teams, geographically organized, which means no leagues. A lot of things get discussed at some time or other, but if this opportunity is used to implement them then it is little better than arbitrary in my book. Even assuming the two sides work something out we’re looking at glorified exhibition baseball played in empty stadiums.
Agreement seems imminent. 50 or 80 games? That’s what it boils down to.
only crying in baseball this year will be the fans, cause there won’t be no baseball
Remember the days the Commissioner would act for the best interests of baseball? Manfred can be proud to preside over baseball’s economic funeral.
I agree with the owners, going past Nov 1 is not a good idea. Playoffs are the real money maker for them and you do not want to get to a point where it gets cancelled.
I agree with the players, they made an agreement on prorated salaries and that should be honored.
Those points can be honored by each side. Somewhere there is a middle ground where a season could be played with more than 50 games but less than 114. But that means both sides have to be willing to give something. 70 is very doable, and 80-82 is possible if they get busy.
Baseball lost me back in the 90’s. Used to love the game, but both sides have killed the golden goose, eaten it, and are fighting over the bones. If they don’t play, they’ll slit their own throats and lose an entire generation.
Both sides are perfect examples of how the love of money is the root of all evil.
I 100% agree
Basketball is coming back before Baseball. This just sucks
I’ve been through every strike, lockout and negotiation since the beginning. This feels more like the ’81 strike than the ’94. I don’t want to see a repeat or either. The ’81 strike wiped out 713 games and lead to the split season. The ’94 strike wiped out the play offs and the World Series. A repeat of ’94 would really hurt the owners, while a repeat of ’81 would really hurt the players. Combine the two and miss both regular and post season will really hurt the game.
Both sides need to look at the world around them. Millions on unemployment, some not knowing where their next meal or rent/mortgage payment is coming from. Small businesses everywhere filing for bankruptcy due to government mandates to shut down.
Owners and players want to hold on to millions of dollars while individuals and small businesses everywhere in the real world try to scrape by.on crumbs.
Both sides should consider doing whatever is necessary to get back on the field as a community service to provide some relief from the stress to the public at large.
As a life long fan if this isn’t resolved I have spent my last dollar on anything baseball and I have attended my last game.
Enough already the players don’t want to play for less than they would for 162 games and the owners don’t want to pay for the lost games,owners putting tv revenue in jeopardy,all fans going to get the shaft when they cannot attend games, if you cannot play in your own parks for half these games then the season really isn’t fair to all teams, maybe this is baseballs way to get all new stadiums with retractable roofs. Just turn off the lights guys the party is over, let’s get ready for 2021.
The players are asking for prorated salary, not what they would get for 162 games. The owners want to cut that in half again.
Just shut it down already. It’s gone from disappointing to shamefully sickening—-and that’s directed to both parties. By the time both parties figure it out (if ever), whatever “season” remains would be so bastardized it would always have a huge, blatant asterisk. With so many reasons to find a compromise, to come together, both parties have found a way to succeed in failing. See ya in ‘21….maybe.
IT is amazing both sides would rather take long term damage over a short term loss. but here we are.
Seems both sides are really to go nucular
MLB owners seem to be in a pickle. MLB teams are investments. Not many people can have toys valued at billions. While the owners may love the city and team, no one would want to lose millions. No doubt that the revenue will be impacted, even should the season play out as hoped at this stage. Unemployment levels comparable to the Great Depression and increased unemployment benefits ending July makes people’s future uncertain amid shifting economy. Should many families attend, do you think they will spend as much on concessions and merchandise as before? Players are fighting further reduction as every aspect of their income will probably be affected (jersey sales etc), and against allowing lower paid players receiving more percentage of their pay (benevolent themselves, huh).
What would be fair would be to compare the overall player salaries to revenue in past and allocate same percentage of future 2020 (as well as beyond) revenue to player salary. Then agree on distribution where players earning less can keep more of their expected pay. Going from 10 million to 3 million is not as much hardship as issue as someone going from 1 million to 300k. 300k isn’t hardship obviously, but players probably are in debt themselves with various expenses guaranteed under contract (mortgage, car payments, etc) that need to be fulfilled. No one expected COVID-19 so no one could be expected to mitigate those obligations. The players were expecting a certain income from a contract.
Only issue is that the owners do not want to share their financial information to the public nor MLBPA. So the owners will have to come up with an agreement with players (give up more money), share their books, loose more money from cancelled season (game revenue as well as hit to sport affecting their billions estimated team valuation), etc
I have spent my last dollar on Major League Baseball. They will never get me back as a fan. I’ll stick to college football and college baseball. Screw this. Greedy, greedy, greedy.
The lack of goodwill towards the fans who are waiting to see games and the dreadful public negotiations are exhausting. It is making me hate both sides and MLB. I have no sympathy for either the millionaire players or the billionaire owners. Play the game already.
If you want to try to see things from both the owners’ and players’ perspective… just bend all the way around forwards and stick your head up your posterior for the owners’ perspective, and bend all the way around backwards and stick your head up your posterior for the players’ perspective.