OCTOBER 26: Commissioner Rob Manfred continued to express optimism about the possibility of hammering out a new agreement by December 1. Speaking with reporters (including Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post) before tonight’s opening World Series contest, Manfred called agreeing to a pre-December CBA the “number one priority” for the league.
OCTOBER 25: The current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire on December 1, and the general expectation is that this round of talks could be especially contentious. Ronald Blum of the Associated Press casts further doubt on the likelihood of a new deal being reached by the end of November, writing that neither MLB nor the MLB Players Association believes the other side has “made proposals that will lead toward an agreement” by December 1.
We’ve gotten glimpses of some ideas being kicked around in the early stages of bargaining over the past few months. In mid-August, Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reported the league proposed a lowering of the first luxury tax threshold from this year’s $210MM mark to $180MM. That came with a $100MM salary floor ostensibly designed to limit tanking, although the lowered luxury tax thresholds seemed likely to be a non-starter for the MLBPA. Joel Sherman of the New York Post later added additional context on that proposal, writing that the league offered to eliminate service time considerations in favor of an age-based system that would see players hit free agency once they turned 29 1/2.
With a seemingly large gap to bridge, there’s been increasing speculation about how the potential CBA expiration could impact the offseason. As MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes covered in August, teams were permitted to make moves during the last work stoppage (the 1994-95 players’ strike). Blum writes that MLB may try institute a transactions freeze this winter if the CBA expires without a new agreement. Jeff Passan of ESPN wrote last month that speculation about a transactions freeze could increase the urgency for some players and teams to hammer out contract extensions before December 1. Since then, each of Michael A. Taylor (Royals), Antonio Senzatela (Rockies) and C.J. Cron (Rockies) signed multi-year deals, although Jon Gray rejected an extension offer from Colorado.
Further complicating matters is the ongoing dispute about last year’s pandemic-shortened season. The MLBPA filed a grievance against the league a few months ago, alleging that MLB didn’t make appropriate efforts to play as many games as possible during last year’s 60-game schedule. (Player pay was prorated in 2020, so fewer games meant lower salaries). Blum now reports that the hearing on that grievance began during the final week of September. A timetable for its resolution remains unclear.
service time manipulation will always happen as long as the system exists, but any age-based system will either hurt younger or older prospects on the doorstep of the Majors. imo the best option is you start getting service time as soon as you are on a 40 man roster. maybe make college draftees eligible a year eariler then they already are. (or just make Rule 5 status a matter of age over length of time in the system, unless you signed at a notably advanced age (so as to harm older amateur free agents or indy ball signees)
I don’t think the service time on 40 would help guys like wander franco would it? He wasn’t on the 40 man yet.
The service time manipulation will continue to happen unless the mlbpa bargains for anti tanking rules. You’ve got to incentives the teams at the bottom of the standings to compete for wins the whole year somehow. When they figure that out then it helps with free agents too. If revenue was somehow tied to where you finished in the standings then you wouldn’t have 6-8 teams tanking after the deadline.
no system is going to bw perfect, but I think the one I mentioned helps basically everyone but the real phenom types. (and honestly, Wander’d going to be quite young when he hits free agency regardless, so I dont think he needs a whole lot of “help”)
I’d like to see the draft order start with the top team that didn’t make the playoffs getting the number one pick and move down to the worst team. Then the playoff teams go in reverse order of how they finished in the playoffs to finish off each round.
I really like this proposal. It’s not perfect from a competitive balance perspective—middle of the pack teams get an advantage in the draft over those at the bottom of the barrel—but it gives every team incentive to compete until the end of the ninth inning of game 162.
Certainly MLB’s proposal to have players become eligible for free agency 6 months shy of their 30th birthday would hurt younger prospects. But how would it hurt older prospects?
I think they should keep it based on service time. When a team drafts and develops a player into a major leaguer, said team should be able to have cost-controlled rights to that player at the major league level for 5-6 years.
Lol
Wish this was my words, but someone else wrote this. It gets to the point pretty well. If the owners don’t step up to the plate there won’t be a 2022 season and it will be 100% the owners fault. Their attempts at hardball have failed.
“The age based system the owners are proposing would mean players like Trout and Betts would have not been free agents yet at the beginning of 2021. Players like Acuna and Soto would have to play 10 seasons to be a FA since they started at 19. Its no wonder the MLBPA said in essence F U to the owners on that one. Over the past 10 years the owners would have paid $2.3 billion less in player salaries under a system that made it impossible to be a FA until after the season players turned 29.5 years old.
The proposal to lower the CBT threshold to $180 million would have taken $230 million out of the player payrolls in a low payroll 2021 while the $100 million floor would have only added $67 million. The MLBPA can do simple math. That was a non-starter. Remember, both are calculated based on CBT not simple player payroll numbers.
The only other proposal from the owners was expanded playoffs, a $450 plus million windfall for the owners with no additional pay for the players. In exchange the owners offered the DH in the NL. No roster expansion, just the DH which pays just $5 million more on average than the average position player. Can easily see why that was was quickly rejected by the player’s union.
Between all the agreements with the gambling concerns and the new national TV contracts MLB will have about $3 billion more per year in revenue in 2022 than in 2019.
All MLB’s proposals so far seem to be based on the revenue staying the same as 2020 when we already know that hasn’t been the case in 2021 and that they will make even more money next season. Business of Baseball is saying that this season that no team will have less than $220 million in revenue even with lowered ticket sales due to COVID and in 2022 that no team will have revenue of less than $260 million. If the players are sharing equally in that revenue then no team should be spending less than $130 million in player salaries. That same publication is also saying that the top 5 teams will average over $500 million and the top 2 will top $600 million. To me that means that the CBT threshold should start at $250 million and go up each season from there if the players are to get a 50% share of that revenue.”
“if the players are to get a 50% share of that revenue.”
I agree that revenue-sharing is the ultimate solution, but the players (stupidly, imo) have refused.
I agree pads fans. If the PA wasn’t so god awful and were only worried about personalize chefs and better hotels the players wouldn’t have gotten taken to the cleaners last time. So I agree if there’s a strike the players are so responsible.
@Pads Fans Copying and pasting comments you made on Friarhood again?
Before several people blow their tops.. Please think hard about this and the history..
It (age) will just mean many IFA’s will lie about the age as being older than they really are, instead of younger. Face it.. Records (trustworthy) in a few of the countries where IFA’s are signed out of are laughable.
Age based system just won’t hold up and work.
this is just my 2 cents and what i’m about to propose mlb will have to restructure how draft picks can be dealt. imo as flawed as it may be but i think the nhl has the best system in regards to young players. i.e. what happened this season with car and mtl, car offered a contract to mtl rfa that was either market rate or just above and mtl didn’t match so the rfa went to car but car has to give mtl there high draft picks for the next few years. (the details are foggy but i know car is sending draft picks back to mtl). as far i understand the nhl rules after your entry lvl deal you hit rfa and when your a rfa any team can bid on you but there is a cost. imo if mlbtr adopts a similar model service time manipulation will be a rare occurrence. long and short my proposal would be once added to the 25 man your clock starts and if you play a x percentage of games towards the overall games it counts as a full year (i.e. in the nhl if you play over 12 games iirc it counts as a few year now my numbers my be off but i do know the amount of games to qualify as a year is low). imo the best way to solve service time manipulation is to start a kids clock as soon as they play a mlb game and after there first 3 years there next 2~3 years there rfa’s and any team can bid on him for any amount of money. although the team that has the rfa can either match the offer (least you untill they can be ufa’a year wise) or the team signing said player (like the canes) is giving up draft picks to that team and the picks that are given up depends on what the player signs for.
I get the nature of the site and such. But it’s clear how few of the people here have ever been part of a complex high end negotiation.
Point 1: no employer sits down to renegotiate compensation and says, hey, here’s our complete itemized detailed books. Feel free to look at coworkers salaries,, where all our money is spent, etc. Dig through and just ask for what you want. Doubt it? Go into work tomorrow and try.
Point 2: even with renegotiating an existing arrangement you don’t lead with your best offer. Ever. You think about where you’d like to be, push the goalposts further, so you can give something up but still come away with something.
Point 3: if you’re smart you ask for things you don’t even want so you can give them up as a concession when trading things off. Ideally it’s stuff you don’t mind having, but don’t care either way, while you expect the other side would be very against it. Then you can back off it to get something unpalatable off the others list.
Finally, there needs to be compromise. You know, that thing the entire **** country has forgotten the meaning of. It’s not ‘we have 50.1% of leverage so **** yourself, we want it all, our way’ like those ******** in congress are doing. Players have priorities, so do owners, and you know what, for once give something up that matters to the other guy.
Imagine when non-guaranteed contracts come up, or performance based contracts. Haven’t heard of that. But, it would be more ‘fair’ if we’re spending time on all these fairness concepts right?
The best deal is one neither side is entirely happy with.
@gasoxfan i’m wondering if your my business agent (lol lil back story i’m a union carpenter) but all jokes aside i love your points. until recently (and personal greed might have something to do with all of this) we used to be a country of compromise. i mean heck look at the Missouri comprise, you had a state rep going hey let’s resolve stuff right here right now and we all give something up for the greater good. (and before anyone wants to blast me for sticking up for stuff in the 1800’s because i’m not it was a different time and at least back then you had opposing sides trying to come to an agreement). tbh imo if the mlb is going to survive both sides need to swallow some pride and give some things up and just compromise. let’s all be honest this all or nothing mentally we have devolved who has it helped other than the well off.
Thanks @brodie. Doubt I worked on your union’s behalf, not that I would’ve minded. But really those complex negotiations are a game. Clark’s clock got cleaned last time because he didn’t know how to play that game. It’d be nice if we didn’t need the gamesmanship I described, but, when there’s a good chance the othe side engages in it, and they almost always do, you’ve got to as well. anything else is malpractice.
Personally I think all of mlb – the mlbpa and mlb itself have lost the forest for the trees.
Let’s ignore the grievances and lack of compromises for a second. Heck, let’s even ignore gameday price hikes vs fan accessibility conflicts.
Lets talk the worry, and that is fanbase contraction. Try the postseason. For the most part, you can no longer watch most of the games without cable. That’s a problem in an era of cord cutting/streaming.it used to be a postseason game was on OTA broadcasts. Not so much anymore.
Let’s talk scheduling. Young fans can’t watch their teams, the games are 90% on school days/nights with 8, 830pm start times in the world series?
Even if you paid for mlbtv, you’re blacked out from streaming in favor of the cable only networks. That’s an issue.
They talk about initiatives to encourage kids to play, including inner cities. GREAT. but then they gutted the minors removing many small town affiliates. The problem? Lots of contracted teams were the only local opportunity to watch a ballgame without taking expensive trips hundreds of miles away.
And, with the increasing ties of MiLB teams to parent clubs, why don’t we rebrand the MLBPA into the PBPA – professional baseball players association. Minor leaguers need to be in the union, its how you really see a comprehensive system thay works.
The sport isn’t going away, not by a long shot, strike or no strike. And really, maybe a strike would have benefits if we thought the idiots would learn from it. However, wouldn’t happen. Worldwide everything has devolved into self segregating echo chambers – news broadcasts, social media groups, you name it. And the more you isolate into just hearing like minded content, the less tolerant and willing to compromise you become.
Pitfall of the digital age.
@ga again awesome points, when i was kid playing ll in the 90’s, it costed my dad a small fortune to go to a game and that’s with the discounted tickets for playing ll and walking around the field before the game. sad thing is the bag of popcorn and 3 sodas costed more than the tickets. also i miss the days you can turn on fox on a saturday afternoon in the summer and watch a bb game, or heck here in stl on sunday’s and some other days through the week you could catch the game on the long ca l stations, and both leagues playoffs were mostly ota. if wasn’t for the fact that my dad is tech stupid i would drop my cable and just pay for mlb tv and a vpn so i can work around blackouts. i’ll give mlb some credit with the youtube games but i still think you need a few games weekly on the ota networks. a lot of us here are bb fans because when we were lil kids we were watching games with dad and grandpa on a weekend and most of us didn’t have cable.
Clark’s clock got cleaned last time because he didn’t know how to play that game.
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The entire situation cracks me up.
MLB hires lawyers from the best Ivy League schools, top law firms, and 20 years of labor experience. The PU hire someone with a HS diploma. Clark seems like a nice guy, and I liked him as a player, but the union needs to be run by an uber-qualified shark.
But Clark is not entirely to blame either. I’m kind of a math guy, but IIRC, the cap went from $189M to $210M over 5 years. That is a $21M increase, or slightly better than 10%. Spread out over 5 years is about 2%/year. That’s grammar school math. Every player, agent, and lawyer either knew that, or should’ve known that. And that doesn’t include enhanced penalties for exceeding the cap.
Point 3: if you’re smart you ask for things you don’t even want so you can give them up as a concession when trading things off.
==============================================
Point 4 is kind of a corollary to Point 3. Ask for things that your counter-party has no objection to. I’ve gotten work-at-home days before that became a real thing. I bought a house and kept all the furniture. I asked for a lot of nickel and dime items on a new car.
Point 5, and I think this is the most important, is to have a good sense of what you want and what you’ll accept. I think that’s where the union is lost. I think they have a collective self-esteem problem because they got hammered last time. So they are afraid to go public with their offers. If you don’t have a goal in mind, it is difficult to know if you achieved what you wanted.
Here’s an easy way to handle service time:
Keep the same policy in place for the young phenoms who make it to MLB early and then adopt the following caveats:
1) Teams can only control High School draftees for up a maximum of 10 years (including minor league time). If they make it to the majors early, the existing policy would apply.
2) Teams can only control a college player for a maximum of 8 years (including minor league time). Again, if they make it to the majors early, the existing rules apply.
3) For IFA selections…most of these guys tend to be young, so teams can control them up to 10 years as well (including minor league time). If they make it to the majors early, existing rules apply. Clock would start once they actually join the team (often times, teams will sign a 15 or 16 year old but not bring them to the states until they are 17 or 18 to start their professional careers).
4) Anyone who is 29.5 years old by opening day would also become a free agent. This would help the 22 and 23 year old college seniors and older international signees who get very low signing bonuses. They wouldn’t have to wait the 8 or 10 years to become free agents.
Having a cap on total years of control over a player would all but eliminate service time manipulation, except for the really young stars, who are few and far between. Those players tend to sign for the highest signing bonuses anyways, so they should be fine (financially) if they are controlled for an extra year. No changes needed to arbitration rules either. That can remain the same.
Insert a bunch of ridiculously stupid comments below about how mlb should have a salary cap. Even though the players literally bargained for decades not to have a salary cap. If you’re suggesting a salary cap you have no idea what’s good for the sport
What’s good for the players isn’t necessarily what’s “good for the sport.” No salary cap obviously benefits the players, whereas having a salary cap would be good for competitive balance. Also, as someone who routinely criticizes any multi-year, big-money deal I’m surprised you’re not in favour of a cap.
Patriots and golden state. Now I just busted the salary cap parity myth. Baseball has more parity than anyone other sport and it doesn’t even need to manipulate the schedules like the nfl does to try to ensure parity.
Yes, every year their are 4 or 5 different teams in the playoffs. I do like the idea of a floor of 100 million, Most teams make well over that in revenue and most owners of MLB teams should be able to make that commitment. Teams should move if they don;t have a good fan base like Tampa.
Lol
All teams make over $220 million in revenue now. From what I read they will all make more than $260 million in 2022.
That being said baseball teams spend way more on their scouting and development outside of team payroll than any other sport. Facilities in other countries and paying player bonuses not even yet on the MLB rosters. I am fully in favor of a floor but it must be said that the bottom line is far more complicated than just player salaries.
“All teams make over $220 million in revenue now. From what I read they will all make more than $260 million in 2022.”
Source?
Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity.
Don’t confuse revenue with profit.
Any team that brings in $250M in revenue will have a tough time being profitable with a payroll expense of $100M or more. There are so many more non-salary costs to baseball than there are with any other professional sports team. Check out the Atlanta Braves financials. They brought in $480M one season with a team payroll of $160M and they turned a ~ $70M operating profit. They actually lost money from GAAP accounting standpoint. Here are the expenses I can think of:
1) MLB Team Payroll
2) Team paid Payroll Taxes & Benefits
3) Front Office Staff & Coaches payroll
4) Draft Signing Bonus pools
5) IFA Signing Bonus Pools
6) Stadium Operation Costs (staff, security, utilities, sales costs, medical, food costs, etc)
7) Team Travel Expenses
8) Minor League payrolls (all)
9) Minor League Stadium Costs – Either the same as #6 or rent paid to stadium owners
10) Scouting & Development costs
11) International Development Programs
12) Advertising & Marketing
13) Debt Service (for newer owners especially)
14) Real Estate taxes, Corporate Taxes, etc..
15) Charitable Contributions
Looking at the Braves financial statements. $480M in revenue, $160M major league payroll, ~ $70M operating profit. This means they had $250M in non team-payroll baseball operations expenses (Items 2-12 above as the last 3 are below the line expenses, when factored in caused Atlanta to lose money). These numbers for Atlanta are for baseball operations only, so they don’t include any of the revenue or costs from all the team owned developments outside of the park (restaurants, hotels, etc), and these numbers are confirmed by a BIG 4 CPA firm so there is no funny business going on here with the numbers.
Sorry for the long message. I wanted to prove wrong those people who think a team that generates $250M in revenue but only has a team payroll of $80M are pocketing the difference as profit. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Every MLB team has a minimum of $100M in non-payroll expenses and that is being extremely conservative. I wouldn’t be surprised if that number is closer to $150M per team (for small market teams) and can exceed $300M for some teams as well.
@dorothy – you left out the second biggest charge… revenue sharing payments.
A cap is not good for the sport.
The NFL and NBA both have caps and the same teams largely win. All a cap does is occasionally let a terrible GM luck into a playoff appearance or two.
NFL and the NBA have major network TV deals. MLB relies on smaller, incongruent local TV contracts. Someone show me how a salary cap can equitably work when teams bring in such disparate sizes or income
Simple. The richer teams pay the poorer ones. They already do that, just needs to be vastly increased.
Salary cap is not needed. Problem is not teams spending too much but some wealthy owners spend too little and abuse the monopoly. Maybe big market teams should need to share some TV revenue with small market teams?
The size of an owner’s bank account or his/her other business is not related to the size of the baseball business. They’re completely separate. No owner in any sport subsidizes his or her team, which is expected to make money on its own.
and they do make money, which is why the owners who have so much money themselves dispense of so much to buy said teams.
I think you hit the nail on the head Manny. The Yankees spent $207 million according to CBT calculations while making more than $600 million in revenue. By comparison the Cardinals had an $177 million CBT payroll while making $310 million in 2021. The Cardinals spent a much larger portion of their revenue on the players.
Expected.spending should be based on the revenue of each team, not the wealth of the owner.
Yes, but each owners has to spend a minimum to win and be competitive. I would say a team like Tampa is what is wrong with baseball, they have a small fan base and don’t spend money on their team. They are the poster boy for a floor in baseball, if they moved to Nashville and spent a 100 million a year on their team they would have already won a world series.
“No owner in any sport subsidizes his or her team,…”
The Mariners claim they do. They’ve been saying that since Nintendo bought them. The current ownership group says the same. Every year. Of course, they’ve never opened up their books, but that is their public stance. Do I believe them? Hell no! Should you believe them? Not one little bit.
The Owners have been pushing the false narrative of small market poverty for decades. The reality is that they don’t want small market teams spending money. That’s why they blocked Mark Cuban from buying the Pirates.
MLB already has a cap. Only the Dodgers and Padres are tax paying teams. The tax only gives owners cover for collusion,
The only option is for the MLPA to go to court and try damn hard to remove Baseball’s anti trust exemption. It’s an ossified rule. It needs to go.
If you think the owners are colluding after they got taken to the cleaners last time you’re a god damn moron.
@c-diddy MLB has gone the longest of any of the 4 major sports without a repeat champion. MLB has had a higher percentage of teams make the playoffs at least once over the past decade of the 4 major sports and the NBA and NHL have 50% make it every season.
MLB has a better competitive balance than the other major sports.
Salary cap helps keep all teams balanced instead of having the Yankees, Red Sox, and other teams blow the doors off.
The Rays won 8 more games than both Boston and NY, so that argument doesn’t hold water.
That’s true. I watched it happen, @outlaw.
Anyway: I’d argue that owners are pretty much using the CBT thresholds as a cap of sorts already. Before 2017 the Yanks – for example – paid the luxury tax every single year. Suddenly, these fines are onerous or whatever.
I think the current framework is pretty good.
Just bump the thresholds way up from where they are.
Yes, but the Rays have never won the world series, and the Sox and Yanks have won a bunch!
An anecdote is not data. The Rays have always been an outlier.
Seam, the A’s routinely do well. How many World Series do the Angels have? How’d the big spending Padres do?
Money helps, but it’s competent baseball GMs and leadership that determines success. They don’t need a cap. It’s just a guise to suppress player salaries
Cap won’t stop players from going to big market teams. Players will still go there for endorsement opportunities.
but it is ok for the Dodgers to blow the doors off?? And BTW the Sox have been UNDER the cap 2 yrs in a row and 2022 will almost certainly be 3–IF IF IF there is a season
I don’t have any problem with the Yankees and Red Sox blowing a wad of money. Especially when they do not win the World Series.
No salary cap, it’s not necessary as evidenced by the WS winners. Also, it doesn’t lead to the parity people claim. I’m not surprised the owners are in favor of lowering it….. it gives the owners an excuse to keep salaries lower thus pocketing more money.
People want it because they think it will make their sucky, non-spending team better. Uh, nope, it’ll just hurt the sport overall.
Football and basketball seem like they’re doing just fine.
Baltimore
New England
Tampa Bay
Twelve of the last 20 Super Bowls have been won by three teams, and that’s the parity some are so desperately wanting?
Depends on if my team is one of those or not. (Giants got 2 though.)
That is a flat out lie.
Patriots 6
Baltimore 2
Tampa Bay2
That sure sounds like 10 to me. Hell you could go back 55 years and those same three teams have 10 Super Bowl wins. Not sure where you get 12
Let’s move to baseball. The following 4 teams have won 14 out of the last 25 but let’s not let facts get in the way
Yankees
Giants
Cardinals
Red Sox
Since 2004 a whopping 1 small market team has won the series.
That has way more to do with Tom Brady than anything else. Parity – or lack thereof – is much more driven by competent GMs and high performers. Green Bay didn’t just luck into Favre and Rodgers, maybe a little, but a competent front office knew what they had in them. How’r the Pats doing without QB12? Look at the Bears – big market team, long tradition, should be a perennial contender but awful owners & GMs have made them a laughing stock.
No basis in reality. The luxury tax is a soft cap, and now ownership is proposing a floor.
Imagine thinking the salary cap would be a good thing. My god some people are absolute buffoons. The same people that want a cap are the people who hate the rays because they make their stupid narrative wrong every single year.
Fighting over money as usual
SMH
So weird that labor and management have disagreements over money
Well there should be common ground
They’ll find common ground eventually, but it probably will take a while.
That age proposal is rubbish. What you’ll see then is teams rushing prospects to the Majors as soon as they can because they will be cheap and they will control them until they’re 30. Players who make a living with their legs or their defense will never see big, long deals because decline happens faster for them. They have to get those deals much sooner. Add in most GMs are loathe to pay “older” guys now, anyway.
They are putting pretty wrap on a junky “gift”.
It is a fact that most MVPs are under 30 years old, and younger players are performing better in today’s game!
Are most CY Young’s over 30 though…? Should pitchers and hitters have different service time standards?
This is what they have always done in recent years. Ditto for MLBPA. As far as they negotiations go, it’s like Daryl Morey negotiating against himself. And no one wants any part of that.
Part of me actually hopes for a work stoppage so the casual fans can get pissed off at both sides. Because they more than deserve it for their arguing in bad faith and childish antics.
It’s always darkest outside before the lights go out.
That’s deep
What if dog actually spelled cat
Not if your power goes out during the middle of the day.
relatable
“the league proposed a lowering of the first luxury tax threshold from this year’s $210MM mark to $180MM. That came with a $100MM salary floor ostensibly designed to limit tanking, although the lowered luxury tax thresholds seemed likely to be a non-starter for the MLBPA.”
1) No way teams accept a lowering of the cap. Especially the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Nationals, Angels, and others who always hover around the cap.
2) MLBPA definitely needs to accept a salary floor. No more low spending Marlins, Athletics, Rays, etc.
3) MLBPA should do a cap freeze for a few years, install a floor, and move forward
better than Manfred
With inflation and growing TV revenues, MLB should consider maintaining the current luxury tax level a huge win.
A salary floor is problematic because it’d be so easy to manipulate by teams at both ends: the Yankees would trade a useless overpaid guy along with prospects to the A’s to help the A’s meet the floor and the result would be the Yankees get better by having more space under the tax.
but the reality is most teams are able to remain under the tax anyways, and can make such trades anyways.
Right now you have to find a high payroll team to take on the salary because the cheap teams won’t. And the high payroll teams are trying to win and to keep space under the pseudocap, so it’s hard to find a suitable partner and such trades happen only rarely.
Lol
The OWNERS proposed the lowered CBT threshold. That means that the teams already agreed to it.
The salary floor of $100 million would have only effected a handful of teams this season and with all teams having more then $260 million in revenue in 2022 that is a joke. Maybe if the owners had said $125 million the MLBPA wold not have laughed that that ridiculous proposal.
With MLB revenue going up, why would the MLBPA want to put in a freeze? That makes literally no sense at all.
Listen, they couldn’t even agree on how many games to play in 2020, that’s why it’s in litigation now – which the owners will eventually lose. If you think there isn’t a work stoppage coming you either haven’t been paying attention or you’re delusional. In spite of their billions of dollars MLB owners aren’t the sharpest crayons in the box, they think they have problems now, just wait, the worst is yet to come! Ahahahahaha!
Already better than manfred
That was mean’t for the comment up above
MLBPA needs to be aggressive. Expand the playoffs but install a floor AND lower how many years teams have control of a rookie player (5 years instead of 6 years). Also, salary cap must increase 7% a year.
Expande playoffs is bad for the players as well. You literally have the worst suggestions. Like seriously.
So the players got $50M for the expanded playoffs, and this was bad for them?
Maybe explain what you mean.
The only way to prevent teams from tanking for top draft pick is to not give them the top picks. 5 worst teams draft 11-15th. Team gets good pick but not the Harpers/Coles or Correas of the draft.
Give it to the champions and then draft downwards. This will motivate the owners to win or sell the team. No more 10-year rebuilds.
“Give it to the champions and then draft downwards.”
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So you don’t like tanking, but you want to give Baltimore the worst draft picks, and give the big-market teams the best picks?
Why not say f it and adopt an NHL style lottery? Of course there generally isn’t a consensus number 1 pick in baseball like the NHL but hay it’s different so why not?
eugh, that’s exactly why I dont buy the whole tanking thing in baseball. teams rebuild in every sport. i dont think the pick system really disuades from that. imo no one really puts in crazy effort in baseball to truely tank. being bad is a general byproduct of trading away your best talent.
Yup, there is no true tanking. It’s usually the opposite. Teams like the Tigers spend huge amounts of money on aging stars, in a hope to be relevant. Then the stars decline, and they have no money to replace them. The Tigers didn’t get bad by tanking. They just got bad.
The 2021 Cubs hope you don’t notice them sneaking out the back door
The young GM’s aren’t giving out long term contract to players over 3o anymore. I like the floor of 80 million and 210 at the top. I also like the free agency at 31 and half.
100 million floor much better if owners can’t meet it great sell! There’s plenty of people dreaming to own a team and would spend that no problem!
Why should a team have to spend 100 million when the rays continue to be successful with a shoestring budget. Is it so all these buffoons who have been saying for years the owner is cheap thats why we can’t win to make them feel better about their ridiculous narrative? No thanks. Hopefully the rays cut payroll more and win more games.
*frustratingly chews popcorn*
The only thing we can say for sure is that both sides are going to make crappy proposals, cry foul with hypocrisy, and mudsling each other through the press. It’ll be like watching Congress in action. Not worth getting too invested in such talks at this point in time. It’ll be a long while before either side gets serious, and even then there will be no one to root for.
yeah. honestly they should stop being babies and airing their dirty laundry. the reality is, while it’s only natural, people get bothered by these sorts of disagreements and it makes the game look worse off.
The problem, imho, is Clark’s ineptitude. The owners keep on spitting out new proposals. They might not be any good, but it gives the illusion they are bargaining in good faith. Clark says nothing other than saying they reject the owners’ proposals. It’s bad optics.
If he knew what he was doing, he put together a proposal, add 10% to everything, and bargain back. Even if the owners decline, it still looks like the union is bargaining. If all the union needed was someone to sit back and say no to everything, I can do that for them.
Keep in mind that if you propose something that will benefit the players, you also need to state what the players are giving up in exchange. Same for proposals that would help the owners. Its a two way street and income did not grow these last two years. Can’t be one sided. If the owners don’t make money, salaries will go down. Just like every business, payroll is a percentage of income. If McDonalds pays the worker more, they have to sell more, or cut the number of workers, or raise prices. As a fan, I can’t afford to pay higher prices.
You’re closer than many in how the complex negotiations need to go, but you miss a key component.
You can’t say “give me x and I’ll give up y” because a savvy negotiator then knows your side is willing not to have something. They then assume that concession doesnt have much resistance and put low value on it as an exchange piece.
What you need to do is insane amounts of back and forth where you say “give me x, what wouldit take to get it?” You make them spit out ideas until they say one you can live with, hopefully a piece of fluff you don’t care about.
That’s part of what takes so long.
9 years of control (including minors) if you came out of HS or are an international signing, 7 if you went to college for 2 years. If you take forever to get to the majors, you become a free agent quickly. If you’re one of those kinds that makes it to the show at 21, your team has control for a long time.
I want to start of this post by saying that I don’t know very much about the money side of baseball, But couldn’t you put all players under the arbitration rules so team owners cant take advantage of all the players, Superstars or not They would also designate the maximum a player could get, For his skill level? Don’t yell at me too much!
“With a seemingly large gap to bridge, ”
How can one determine that there is ‘seemingly’ a large gap, if they haven’t seen any of the union proposals? If the owners offered a payroll cap of $220M, and the union wanted $230M, then you can identify the gap. Without a union proposal there is gap to examine, large or small.
“There is gap to examine”
That’s neither here nor there, it is what it is. A bridge too far. So it is written, so it shall be. They said the Union forever. What now?
Also, what are you going to find in that gap? What will truly be worth examining and what will be tossed aside? These are the things that must be learned and talk to future generations. The expanse of the gap might well lead you to redefine it as a gash, if not a crevice.
That should’ve been “there is no gap to examine”
That said, nice writing. As an accounting, I’d like to see numbers from both sides. If the union wants free agency after 5 years, and a $240M cap, and owners want 6 years and $220M, then I know what the ‘gap’ and form an opinion on what I think is fair.
Go with the same 6 years of service time, but with a cap of 29 years of age, including 3 years of service time. This protects guys like Judge who was promoted too late to take advantage of his prime years.
Introduce a floor, but maintain the same ceiling. Allow teams a 3-year rolling average so that they can time their tanking and contending cycles.
A 3% increase per year in the payroll cap to make up for the fact that Clark butchered it last time.
154 game schedule, with expanded playoffs, with a 50/50 revenue split.
So the owners are conceding on service time, salary floor and season length in exchange for expanded playoffs where they’re giving up a 50/50 revenue split? Maybe the owners are feeling generous or scared of a work stoppage, but I feel like this would be a non-starter.
1-You’re conceding service time, but only on players that hit age 29 prior to 6 years. That’s not going to be a lot of players, and they are unlikely to be stars. I mentioned Judge, but he’s an outlier. And there is a sense of fairness involved. Guys like Brasier will never hit free agency.
2-Similarly, giving up 8 regular season games, in early April, is a lot smaller percentage of your revenue than a simple 8/162 calculation. When I use to split up season tickets, no one cared about those early-April Tuesday night games against the Royals.
3-A 50/50 split is almost where they are now during the regular season.
At the end of the day, this doesn’t strike me as onerous.
Here’s the thing about those brasier types…. how much time and cost were dumped in before he could even contribute amongst his prior teams?
It’s not zero when you consider infrastructure, trainers, coaches, travel, and while salary was super low, it is increasing, as are perks like housing and such.
Gets worse when you look at how many young pitchers have stalled evelopment due to prevalence of TJ these days, procedures and rehab aren’t free either, nor is the good 2 years of development setback – shelf life of recover and ramping back up to speed before continuing to develop.
Given the ‘bust’ rate on advanced age prospects, there is a risk/reward calculus to things where you need to still have it be worthwhile. Otherwise it makes more sense to spend time on young guys and wash the judges and brasiers out if they can’t make the jump early enough.
Maybe that’s where it would need to be under your model. But I think the sport is better for the judges and brasiers making it, just like when you see a 25th round pick playing every day
Given the ‘bust’ rate on advanced age prospects, there is a risk/reward calculus
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If you are talking about when drafted, there is a fair amount of time and money spent. But if a guy bombs out, and goes to Japan, succeeds and then returns, he deserves a chance to make real money.
The downside for the RS, when signing him to a minor league contract, is a minimum wage minor league salary., which is nothing. I know minimum wage in the MLB is still a lot of money, but there are younger guys, with similar talent, that have already signed FA contracts for a lot more money. Brasier is pretty similar to Joe Kelly, but Kelly has made a gazillion $$$ more because he was a FA at age 30, while Brasier will be 36 when he gets a chance.
But the thing about a guy like brasier is, he came back as an international free agent.
I can’t remember who it was, maybe another poster will. I want to say cespedes? Anyways, I recall that. Although rarely used, some players insert clauses that teams. As part of the terms of an agreement, waive the right to make qualifying offers… or that at the end of the contract, they are to become an unrestricted free agent free to sign with anyone.
He could’ve even entered an opt out after this season to reset as a free agent. Or signed a longer deal with mutual options in future years that would’ve provided a shot at free agency again instead of arbitration.
There’s tools those guys could use. But at the end of the day, you can’t make a system with a carve-out for the rare exception player.
Where did you say cancel games in April?
what does a 50/50 split in regular season have to do with giving that up for the playoffs?
Currently playoff share is based on gate receipts, what % of total revenue do gate receipts make up? Do you think changing it to a 50/50 split of all revenue, even with expanded playoffs, is going to increase the total amount of profit the owners make in the playoffs?
“Where did you say cancel games in April?”
I said “154 game schedule”. Perhaps I should’ve said the extra games would come from the April schedule, but I thought could be assumed.
“what does a 50/50 split in regular season have to do with giving that up for the playoffs?”
It’s a starting number. IIRC, the players get maybe 46% of the revenue, and I think it was as high as 54%.
“50/50 split of all revenue, even with expanded playoffs, is going to increase the total amount of profit the owners make in the playoffs?”
The 50/50 split would be for the marginal revenue supplied by the extra games. If the owners gave the players an extra $50M last year, I think it is a safe bet to assume the owners made out very also.
Millionaires fighting billionaires….Ugh. Whoever ‘wins’, the rest of us lose.
What they need is suspend players or any personal on the team that gets caught in a cheating scandal I.e stealing signs with technology and get suspended for the year like peds. And see what happens, if you get caught again you get banned from baseball
Is there 2 bigger idiots in Pro Sports on both sides?
Why is everyone here clamoring for a salary cap? All it is is a way for owners to make more money, I.e. every football owner. Owners trying to say it’s for a “competitive balance” is complete bs. They’re
Not going to work out a deal anyways because the mlb or the mlbpa Don’t see the bigger picture. They’ll strike and lose any momentum they gained getting viewers to watch the product. Just like during the 2020 pandemic when they could have been the first major sport to come back but instead they argued for 2 months about the schedule and number of games
Because they’re too stupid to know that a salary cap doesn’t prevent any of the current problems baseball has.
Charles Finley was right, years ago. Every player should be a free agent every year.
The only problem is that’s not great for fans or for marketing players. That issue could perhaps be solved by requiring all contracts to be a certain number of years long depending on player age (while placing no restrictions on who they sign the contract with or how much teams can spend).
For player development it would be best if their first professional contract is a long one. Without a draft they could make decent money on it though.
Of course owners will never allow anything resembling a free labor market, because it’s more profitable not to and they can get away with it.
Baseball PLAYERS AND OWNERS already make TOO MUCH MONEY.
PLAYERS WANT THEIR CUT OF THE MONOPOLY!!!!!
WHEN WILL THE FANS WALK OUT?
$10 HOTdogs, $20 parking, $100 special cable bills.
THE FANS SHOULD WALK OUT!
And Manfred keeps screwing with the game because they say it is losing popularity with young people…….
Gee, put it back on network TV.
Idiots.
The fans won’t walk because baseball is still a reasonably priced entertainment choice. I can go on the computer and watch almost any game, for the entire season, as I can for one ticket to a Paul McCartney concert.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, YOU SHOULD WALK OUT.
No doubt, JB. I don’t buy $10 hotdogs or beer, or $4 water. We buy the $6.25 hotdog meal (dog, chips, small soda), skip the beer, and bring our own water bottles with us. I also learned to use lower case letters, even when I rant.
I do two things. If I go to an afternoon game, and plan on going out afterwards, I go to the Dollar Store across the street from Yankee Stadium and bring in a soda, Cracker Jacks, etc. The NYY are (evil) okay with that.
If I am going for the evening, I’ll blow a couple of $$$ on some good beer. For those of us that like to indulge, an ice cold, fresh tap, 24 ounce Heineken, for $14, is a pretty good deal considering NYC prices. I’m not going to sweat it and crank on about The Man robbing me.
JoeBrady – Switch to T-Mobile and you can watch nearly every MLB game for free.
It is a pandemic and fans are not wearing face masks.
My wife cancelled the cable tv that costs 80 a month.
So now I just pay 100 bucks a year for MLB.tv. My favorite teams are Cubs and Dodgers and for me they are considered non-local so it works great.
So while I agree that the cost of in-person attendance has gone up, the cost of watching baseball on your desktop, Chromebook or iPhone is pretty reasonable.
The issue that deserves note is that while many sports teams have small net revenues, the team valuation skyrockets. There are more billionaires than ever who want to buy a team. So cry me a river if you are an owner who breaks even every year if your equity goes up very fast.
A Paul McCartney concert? Are you 100 years old?
Some people still appreciate real music.
Actually, I am apparently 230 years old, since I also listen to some Mozart. I remember at Grand Central Terminal, there was this group of young African-American men in a violin quartet. After one famous piece, I asked who wrote the music.
The dude’s facial expression was priceless. He looked at me like I just rolled off turnip truck and said ‘Mozart?’ like I was an idiot. Which, in that context, I was. So I made it a point to pay more attention to good music in whatever form it takes.
That service time bit had to be a joke? That’s like the old days where once you were drafter that team owned you and you couldn’t leave. FA at 29.5, get the hell out of here
My hope is Manfred just sits in the meetings and does not say anything.
Salary floor = $100 million
1st Luxury Tax Threshold = $230 million
That gives the fans whose teams don’t care about winning reason for hope. And it allows the teams that do the ability to splurge on another marquee player if they choose.
Why would it give fans whose teams don’t care about winning hope? Because the fans will certainly be paying more for every thing.
All you’ve done is somehow make Jason Hayward valuable.
All teams care about winning. Some are just poorly run. And some just don’t have the cash flow that the LAD and NYY have.
We’re almost in November, a month that includes a major national holiday when businesses close down for days if not up to a week. They have little runway to get to a deal by 12/1.
Can’t wait for a asterisk heavy strike shortened season championship for the Fish.
Cue Dandy Don singing…”……turn out the lights……..”
I swear. The people crying racist over the Braves name and chop are the biggest racists there are.
I couldn’t care less about the name or chop. If the Braves change their name, so be it. I actually want them to change it. Personally, “Braves” is just boring. I especially want them to change their logo. The curly A is ugly and bland. Don’t like the tomahawk below the lettering either. Personally, I love those tan color jerseys the D-Backs wear now and of course the colors of vanderbilt.
Will it be a strike or a lockout?
Manfred continued to express optimism that given half a chance he’ll screw things up but good…
Yankees would lose 100 every year on 180 million. That can’t happen.
A transaction freeze on December 1 and then a lockout of the players from Spring Training camp seems likely until there is a new contract. There’s no indication progress is being made, so both are possible.
Whatever the payroll luxury tax numbers that’s fine. Just get rid of the runner on 2nd in extras, 7 inning doubleheader’s, and we don’t need 20 teams in the playoffs. Baseball isn’t hockey or basketball. 10 is fine. If they want to expand then make the wildcard round 2 out of 3 on three straight days at the home park.
Ok Rob…. the only priority both sides have is screwing the other. There’s plenty of money to be had by all. Teams want to have control pre-free agent players and players want to be free agents sooner to make more money. One way to compromise is to have tiered minimum salaries. 1st year players make x. 2nd year players make xx 3rd year minimum is xxx. Keep arbitration for 4-6 year players no “ super 2” status. Figure out a way to put to bed any service time scenarios under the tiers. And as far as a floor/ cap goes that is nonsense. There are better alternatives to prevent tanking than that. I for one don’t care if teams want to suck. Mostly because the teams I follow don’t suck just to pick high and get free money. No matter what there will always be teams every year that are easy to beat. This all boils down to greed. One side has the money and wants to keep it and the other wants more pie.