8:24 pm: Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle writes that MLB’s proposal would also include international signing bonus pool forfeitures for teams that exceed the CBT threshold. Interestingly, Slusser adds some details on the union’s CBT proposals as well. Under the MLBPA’s proposed framework, the CBT would escalate from the $245MM mark in 2022 to $273MM by 2026.
8:06 pm: Over the past two days, both the MLB Players Association and Major League Baseball have put forth proposals on some of the game’s core economic issues. While the sides have made a bit of movement towards a midpoint — the MLBPA agreed to drop its push for earlier free agency eligibility; MLB agreed to a union formulation for a bonus pool that’d award certain pre-arbitration players based upon their performance — there’s still plenty of work to be done.
Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet (Twitter links and thread) provides more details on MLB’s offer this afternoon. Notably, the league rejected the union’s recent push for a $30MM cut in revenue sharing, reiterating its desire to leave the process unchanged. (The MLBPA had initially been seeking a $100MM cut to revenue sharing but dropped the ask in yesterday’s offer). MLB also rejected a union push for players to accrue service time during postseason play.
Both Nicholson-Smith and Bob Nightengale of USA Today note that the league continues to push for more significant penalties for teams that exceed the luxury tax threshold. According to Nightengale, MLB’s most recent offer on the matter would’ve included a 50% tax on CBT overages and the forfeiture of a third-round draft pick for surpassing the threshold.
That’d mark a rather significant uptick over the penalties in the previous CBA, which contained no draft pick forfeiture and a 20% tax on overages for teams exceeding the base threshold for the first time. The sides are also divided on where such a threshold should be set. While the union has pushed for the CBT marker to jump from $210MM to $245MM next season, MLB has offered a far more modest increase to $214MM next year, maxing out at $220MM at the end of a five-year term.
With plenty of key economic issues still to be ironed out, Jeff Passan and Jesse Rogers of ESPN write that the parties are planning to turn their attention to some ancillary subjects over the coming days before coming back to the issues of greater divide. Nicholson-Smith tweets that the joint drug agreement and grievance procedures are among the forthcoming topics of discussion.
They should keep the revenue sharing amount the same but give that $30 M cut to me so I can promote my boxing match with Joe Rogan on April 22 at the University of Texas football stadium
Joe and neil young most likely, only pacifist and under the rock hider young would get beaten to a pulp, just like Ronnie Van Zant did to him nearly 50y ago with his rebuttal song to Young’s “old man”
Neil and Skynyrd were good buddies. There was no duel. youtu.be/xCd43ntfxB0
Memory may be bad, but I thought sweet home alabama was an answer to the Young song and yes.. Am very familiar with Zant and his music, Some of the stories, makeup of where he grew up and he was not a racist etc..
My point was he was trying to say Young should stay in his west coast bubble (back then) because he didn’t understand anything about southerners, which was very true for years about most of the country.
Not familiar with the former but you’re right on with the latter and still a problem.
I learned everything I know about the south from Southern Culture on the Skids.
“Diggin’ Barefoot Jerry and the CDB”
Love Skynyrd but truth be told, Zant wasn’t even from Alabama.
No it’s gonna be me and Joe Rogan because it’s a celebrity boxing match for charity. No one remembered Neil Young was still alive until today, a southern man don’t need him around anyhow
For the steroid guys not getting in (as opposed to the many that are already in) singing along with Neil Young … “ I’ve seen the needle and the damage done .. “
Fletch, a celebrity boxing match would involve celebrities boxing each other. Who you?
It was in response to Neil Young’s “Alabama,” which I think is the better song.
Again, can someone explain how this helps competitive balance? I dont think giving teams money that they then pocket makes them spend more, but isnt the rational solution just mandating they spend it? That’s good for the union and the reality is the teams geting revenue sharing shouldn’t have any legs to stand on if they complain because they’re getting extra money.
I would think mandating they spend it on payroll is indeed the rational solution. I was shocked to learn that wasn’t how it worked to begin with.
I agree. I don’t know all the details, but it sounds like legal embezzlement, lol.
I agree but it should be as percentage of gross income so the Big markets CANT continue to pocket even more than small market teams using the lux tax as an excuse to fatten their wallets
Payroll spending should be looked equally across the league and the only fair way to do that is thru % of gross receipts
I’m in no way sympathetic to billion-dollar MLB franchises—I’m just wondering out loud here… Do these lower-tier teams—such as the A’s, Rays, Pirates and Royals—by chance struggle to pay the bills? And thus maybe that shared revenue isn’t so much pocketed, but put toward keeping those franchises solvent and operating at a level that allows them to function as MLB teams?
I doubt that’s the case. And even if it were, a franchise that’s receiving money should be accountable to the benefactors (higher-revenue franchises sharing their money) in how they spend that money. But it’s possible that spending all that shared revenue on salaries might be fiscally challenging, and thus wouldn’t actually be beneficial to the franchises, as intended.
Perhaps if there were some split, where maybe $15 million must be spent on salaries and $15 million on operations…?
Regardless, the challenge is that mandating the money be spent on salaries doesn’t work, unless maybe there’s a salary floor. Because to say that a team needs to spend an additional $15 million or $30 million, presupposes that the lower-tier franchises would be transparent about what their theoretical budgets would be for an upcoming season, and then they would go ahead and spend an additional $30 million above that on salaries because that’s what’s coming in from the revenue sharing. That’s really tricky to enforce.
They can put the revenue sharing dollars in a trust account and teams can’t withdraw the money unless and until they sign player contracts for more than the minimum salary. If they don’t spend it on payroll, they don’t get it.
THAT will stop the tanking. Or at least the refusal to spend.
Players should put that on the table, broadcast it publicly, and don’t budge.
You have overlooked the fact that it is revenue.
The need is for teams to continue to EXIST. As opposed to going bankrupt and not have any team or league at all.
You invest $100. What percentage of return would you expect? 7% at least, right?
If not, there are better things to do with your money.
Same for a billionaire.
No law says anyone has to create or support a baseball team. It has always been a fun investment.
A quick google shows the Oakland A’s, for example, had $225M revenue in 2019… compared to just $90M back in 2001. The franchise is estimated to be worth $1,125,000,000. Sure doesn’t sound like they’re in danger of folding to me.
Moonlight is easily one of the most thoughtful posters in this forum. Nicely said sir
Bob Nutting is the 10th wealthiest owner in the MLB so I wouldn’tthink that the Pirates organization would fall under the category of trying to stay solvent. The owner pushes his team as small market and lines his pockets with little consequence.
Not that I’m a supporter of the owners, but—as in any business—the owner needs to balance the books. I know nothing about Nutting (or most of the other owners), but if they have other investments that are not as profitable as their Major League team, then they may need to siphon some of their team profits to their other ventures.
However, I do agree that since MLB owners are part of a monopoly they should be held accountable to put SOME of the profits back into the franchise, specifically to the players so that fans in those cities can see reasonably competitive teams.
@Moonlight
Certainly your instincts are correct. As we saw in Money Ball the A’s may just need to use the money to fill their Coke machine. Four minor league teams cost $10-$15 million each to operate each year. Plenty is spent on international scouting. Signing the top GM’s, coaches and scouts is competitive and expensive. The analytics isn’t free. I rather doubt the money is just going into the owners pocket. The players on the other hand seem only interested in putting the money in the pockets of players that are already the best paid.
That would require disclosure of franchise finances to the public and no teams, large or small markets, would ever want that to occur.
Except the Braves, who as a publicly-traded team are legally required to disclose their finances to the public.
Look around, higher payroll does not equate to more wins. Extra early round draft pics does, and by extra I mean extra not the one everyone gets.
If it was that important the union would have demanded a salary floor or some other way to make sure that the money is used towards salaries. In the end they could care less as long as their guys get paid.
I’m not to worried about the Revenue sharing aspect of this. The MLBPA has already backed down significantly I don’t see this being what holds things up I’m excited about the progress but there is still a long way to go on pretty much every other core issue.
Sounds like the players are once again having terrible negotiationing skills, gonna give the owners everything they went with only little bit of compensation for only certain arbitration players
The public is almost always anti union these days. Do you think the players have the stomach for a work stoppage when they are sacrificing money during their short career while the public outcry is against the “greedy players”?
It’s easy to throw stones from the outside but unions in general have less and less leverage
This is why I scream “greedy owners”
Blame the people who are willing to hurt their workers and fans without budging on nearly any issues because they know they have an imbalance in power. Look at the revenue growth in the league recently and compare it to salary growth of players, we have to exclude the 2020 season so maybe a bit of cherry picking, but the trend is obvious. Hence I ask, who is actually being greedy? And the answer should unanimously be “the owners”
You is correct
Actually, I think both sides are “greedy.” Only Minor League players are the ones suffering.
It’s good to see they are talking and exchanging ideas. It’ll get done at the last minute.
“MLB’s proposal would also include international signing bonus pool forfeitures for teams that exceed the CBT threshold.” So, making the informal cap a more punitive cap.
$273m LOL… I might as well stop watching now.
MLBPA is a Joke. At this point they are slowly bending over and holding their Cheeks apart with a sign that say’s Enter.
The Owners just tell them they won’t talk about some thing and they just move on. The thing to do is Walk Away until they are willing to actually Negotiate. Basic foundation of Sales is the Deal goes to the Party willing to Walk Away.
I would do to the Owners what they did, I would shut down Negotiations until the Owners actually want to Negotiate.
Inform the Players they are in for a long wait and don’t agree to any meetings.
This is the Owners Lock Out, so let it be so. Let them start losing Money and yes,the Players will too but the Reality is the Owners have millions at stake if the Season is delayed or not played. Those TV (Streaming Services) will not pay for the League shutting down the Season.
The problem is that there are probably a lot of Players that are living beyond their means and don’t have money put away which would be a shame.
However, MLBPA won’t get anything playing the Negotiation Game the way they seem to be playing it.
So you want a lockout essentially?
What about the players making 575k that left college early who want to burn thru an arb year and enhance their resume? What about Adam Wainwrights forever quest to be awesome?
There’s a world where both parties easily get what they want (while even making the game Better! Not that that would be the {primary} goal) ….
The problem with the MLBPA lately is that getting Manny Machado a 3rd yacht rather than helping the majority of its union members has taken the forefront while baseball (and its owners) get to sneakily hide behind the guise that everything is Ok b/c did you just see how much Manny Machado got inked for !
They don’t need to fight over the bag; they just need to learn how to disperse it better
I’m with Cap & Crunch.
No service time for the playoffs! I’d walk away over that issue.
$273M? Okay, PA. You guys are slightly greedy.
Define “greed”.
Kinda like pornography. Tough to put into words, but you know it when you see it.
Average Major League salary is $4.8M. I can live on that . . .forever.
Who couldn’t? ! It’s now down to $4.15 million in 2021. The average has declined each season since 2016.
More to the point, the median salary has dropped by 30% since 2015. That’s due to teams rostering more players earning minimum salaries in large numbers.
So they need to close that pay gap
– Increasing minimum salary
– More players eligible for arbitration
– Require teams to spend the revenue sharing dollars that they receive. In some cases, that’s more than their entire payroll.
Average salary isn’t very informative.
If you take the salaries of Elon musk, Jeff Bezos and you and I—- We have a really nice average salary.
You and I don’t actually have that nice of a salary though. Looking at the percentiles of salaries is more informative. The median is definitely a better number to look at.
Ok, so let’s see you hit a 98MPH fastball, or throw one.
More than what’s in my wallet
Considering only 8 or 9 teams have ever crossed the luxury tax line and most have never come close to that stratosphere the only real difference in raising the limit to 273 million or even 573 million would be that a handful of guys on the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, etc bench would be making a few million extra bucks. It’s not like the Twins or Reds would see the increase and all of a sudden decide to raise payroll by 150 million a year. I get why the players union wants an increase but to me this would benefit very few players but significantly increase the likelihood that the same handful of teams make the playoffs every year.
Yeah I don’t see how the luxury tax increase is going to improve things. It means the Mets, Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, Giants, and perhaps the Angels & Astros can spend a little more dough.
Does nothing for the small or middle market budgets.
If you put your left foot in a bucket of boiling water and your right foot in a bucket of ice, your average temperature may be great!
The fact that the median salary has dropped by 30% over five years, and the average has dropped by just 6.25% tells you that there is some drop in the money being spent, but those at the top of the pay scale still get theirs. It’s the guys in the middle that are being squeezed out in favor of minimum salaried players.
And the owners offering a 1% increase per year isn’t greedy? It’s negotiating. Since the owners offered an absurdly low increase, the players went with an absurdly high increase. I think it should end up being increased to 225 mill with a 5 mill increase per year (note that that’s less that the 3% increase most people get each year).
The players will receive a check of $5,000@ the beginning each month starting in February.
CBT $214 Millionwith 1.5% increases
Penalties -50% exceeding CBT
Pre-arb players
Year 1-$650, increasing $50,000 each pre-arb year.
To $750,000
Bonus monies for top 30 pre arb players $20 Million.
Sign the deal and go play ball.
It gets better:
According to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, the minimum salary would also be a fixed salary for those players, so it’s also a maximum. Teams could not reward top performers with a small raise, even though they’re already restricted from earning market level pay.
So when Mike Trout wins MVP, he gets the minimum salary and his team can’t give him any more.
As for the CBT threshold, it goes up less than 2 percent the first year, but the tax goes from 20% to 50%, then it goes up $6 million over 5 years to 220M. That’s less than one percent increase over the life of the deal.
This can not be taken as a serious proposal.
On the CBT I agree with you. What they ought to do is split the diff (245-214=31) make it 230 then tie the rest to yearly inflation number with the penalty being 25% on overages. Then add in a note to say those teams receiving dollars use 85% towards FA and the other 15% towards expenses. Give them a 5% leeway on the 85% because your not going to hit that number exactly on FA spending every year and what ever is left in that 5% goes to expenses.
With 7% inflation for 2021, the threshold would jump to $224,700,000. Say 225M. Indexing the threshold to inflation is a reasonable request.
But the owners are also demanding that the tax be increased from 20% to 50%
And they want teams that go over to lose a third round draft pick
And lose international signing bonus money
In other words, they want a salary cap that isn’t called a salary cap
The players are not trying hard enough on the low end payrolls, IMO.
They have a negative knee jerk reaction to a salary floor because they see it as the flip side of a salary cap. It’s a silly position. And we’ve heard nothing about demanding that revenue sharing dollars be spent on payroll- just that they want to reduce the amount, which does nothing to inspire spending by small market teams. And they’re going to get their asses kicked again.
This is why baseball has died
And yet you’re here. But I guess you are backing up your lack of support by not ponying up $30 for MLBTR!
This is the deal… If the MLBPA is willing to bend over then this is what they get. I’m not going to get upset over billionaires screwing millionaires. I get it’s more than just the millionaires but either they try harder and hold out longer or just get what they can get out of the owners. This isn’t new and the players want to play more than the owners want to give up more things. Owners will be rich without the teams. Some players won’t be and some will be. The fans who pour the billions into the teams will suffer the most.
Tony Clark was widely criticized for bungling the CBA negotiations last time, so the MLBPA hired a professional labor negotiator this time. From where I’m sitting, so far there has been no improvement in MLBPA negotiating skills this time, perhaps even went further south than before. Every detail is going in favor of the owners.
Part of the problem is that millionaires are accustomed to getting their way, but that’s against you and me, not against billionaires. But a bigger part is trying to fix things, like “tanking” and “competitive balance”, that is not within their authority nor scope to fix. The MLBPA is simply trying to tell MLB owners what they must do to fix the problem. You know how telling someone how to run their business is going to go!
I just hope in the end the MLBPA will take any small gains they get from the owners and get back to playing baseball.
If anything the MLBPA is making the competitive balance even worse.
They’re trying to give even more spending power for big market teams by raising the threshold to 273M by 2026 (WHAT???) meanwhile not addressing a salary floor which means half of the league will limit theirselves to spending 8 figures.
Speaking of which, small market teams have utilized tanking because it’s the best way to have at least a brief window to compete with big market teams and make the postseason, at least with the previous CBA. Now give big markets even more power while trying to nerf the tanking process? There’s even more imbalance there.
When the players say “competitive balance” what they mean is “sign more free agents.”
I’m in favor of a floor, but even with one there will be last place teams.
The players prefer that to be a higher paid last place team. And I’m in agreement.
A while back I suggested that Manfred and Clark should settle this with a Donkey Kong Country speed run. However, things have escalated so I’m now thinking that Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the way to go.
Seems to me the union’s plan would create further competitive imbalance.
Taking away $30 million from the small clubs, keeping it in the hands of the big clubs, and increasing the CBT would combine to great an even greater two tiered league.
I’d rather have them force the smaller teams to use all revenue sharing dollars on payroll.
How do you know they haven’t tried that already over the years? The mlb teams won’t release their books and lower tier team cry poor. MLB rejects every one of their offers Regarding core economics. The players are going to have to sit out regular season games I think to get MLB to wake up.
Baseball Reference did an in depth study on revenue sharing. They showed the take to be about $120 million per team pre pandemic.
If you take a look at the actual payrolls, about 10 teams fell short of that number each year. Sone were close but then the Pirates were always way below.
Doing some basic math, the delta was about $250 million per year with most of that sum pocketed by the same owners year in and year out.
A “use it or lose it” clause should be something both players and big markets want. I’d be pissed at other owners pocketing my money then bringing a team nobody wants to see to my stadium.
How do you know it’s being “pocketed”, as opposed to covering other operating costs of an MLB team ?
The current (expired) CBA requires teams to spend revenue sharing dollars “to improve performance of their teams on the field”. That terminology is so broad that they can claim they’re spending on player development, stadium upgrades, coaching, computer systems, etc, etc.
Maybe the players are pushing for spending revenue sharing dollars on salaries, but we haven’t read that in the reports so far. They’re negligent if they’re not demanding it.
Got it. Thanks. I struggle with the concept that a baseball team is the investment of choice for a greedy man.
You could make the CBT
ONE BILLION DOLLARS,
Oakland and Tampa Bay
still wouldn’t spend diddly…..
I bet Oakland and Rays struggling to raise capital to build a proper stadium spend double of what Yankees spend on payroll. Go look it up – this of course as percent of revenue the way it needs to be looked at. How much is richest franchise in baseball pocketing while staying under the lux tax? How much did they make off the yes network. Cmon man don’t be fooled this is all about keeping the top 8 richest owners even richer. It’s they who pocket the most money
Love the Dodgers and Mets right now. They are truly spending to win much like competitive small market teams as much as they based on their balance sheet
Why do think large market teams can put up a new stadium with no problem. 1.5b stadium – city says with a larger tax pool – we can put half the money – large market teams say no problem here is $700m out of our team – now can a small market team do that? Hell no they don’t have that cash flow pocketed for years nor tax Pool in those cities. Revenue sharing is key and so is Big markets blowing be the lux tax to help keep league up and fair in revenue but the large market teams say no I’ll keep my money. So I don’t judge the Pirates for doing the same as Yankees
This appears to be going no where fast… Baseball will be late this year????
Punishing teams that try to win reinforces the tanking culture. The suggestion that international signing bonus pools be forfeited for teams that exceed the CBT threshold will only make that problem worse. No teams should be given an advantage or disadvantage when it comes to signing talent. Limit the size of the pool so all teams are on equal footing, but don’t remove picks.
With free agency, the higher revenue teams already have an advantage signing talent.
This is bad faith negotiation:
“MLB has offered a far more modest increase to $214MM next year, maxing out at $220MM at the end of a five-year term”.
All MLB does is negotiate in bad faith. Every time I read something on this the PA is making concessions and the owners are like, “nope, none from us.” I wish someone would yank their anti-trust exemptions and make these owners sweat and squirm. I’d have no issues with it if the players made a similar, ridiculous hardball offer and simply walked away from the negotiating table.
It’s not bad faith. They’re just so much smarter than the players – especially when it comes to big business and negotiating. There’s a reason they’re billionaires…they got there by negotiating well. The other side are a bunch of baseball players, who are good at, well, playing baseball.
They should let Scott Boras negotiate for the MLBPA. He’s a businessman.
No, it’s bad faith, and has been all along. Bad faith started in a big way when ownership said at the beginning that the purpose of the lockout was to put pressure on the players. IOW, we’re sweating them out, not negotiating with them. Look under “b” in the dictionary, you’ll find it.
Yes it’s really true. And the players have far too often accepted really unfavorable proposals in order to play ball and have peace and this has only embolded owners to be more aggressive.
Offering a 2% increase is outrageous considering MLB profits were way up in 2021. They’re obviously trying to harm salary levels and free agency. I’m totally disgusted by the owners.
I blame rich people.
Split the difference on the CBT threshold. Penalties remain the same, favoring the players. Amount of revenue sharing stays the same, favoring the owners. That said, I’m ok with adding penalties to revenue sharing for teams that are perennially bad. When being bad starts costing the owners money, they’ll start trying a little harder. Also, change the requirement that revenue sharing money be spent to “improve the team,” to something like, “80% of the money must be spent on players, with an equal or greater amount coming from the team itself.”
Not that I’m a supporter of the owners, but—as in any business—the owner needs to balance the books. I know nothing about Nutting (or most of the other owners), but if they have other investments that are not as profitable as their Major League team, then they may need to siphon some of their team profits to their other ventures.
However, I do agree that since MLB owners are part of a monopoly they should be held accountable to put SOME of the profits back into the franchise, specifically to the players so that fans in those cities can see reasonably competitive teams.
Why are we not talking about a salary floor?
If the MLBPA really wanted competitive balance they would set a payroll cap at a number all of the teams can afford such as $100 million. The players want it to be $250 – $300 million which is completely out of the range of most of the teams.
When you read “competitive balance” from players or owners, you can immediately translate that to “increase our share of the money”.
A salary cap doesn’t improve competitive balance. It puts more money in the pockets of the biggest market owners.
A salary floor would help, as would requiring teams to spend revenue sharing dollars on player salaries, but we haven’t read about any such demands.
The question is how to get the top markets to spend over the lux tax to drive more revenue to lower market teams – so in turn they can invest more into payroll. I think the cba needs to approach it from a % of total revenue at the team level. Put a cap and min % go to payroll. Penalize any team over or under!
A salary floor only helps competitive balance for those teams who continually choose not to spend.
It can seriously hurt those teams who choose to spend their money when they’re competitive window opens. A team like the Tigers haven’t really spent money in the last few years because they can’t buy a winning team. They’re in a window now where contention is possible and they’re starting to reinvest. They can theoretically spend more than they want to now bc they saved earlier.
I don’t like to punish teams that have a strategy bc other teams choose not to. Not to mention the good teams like the Rays—probably spend a significantly larger % of their budget on scouting and developing players v. Major league payroll.
Buying more players doesn’t mean you’re buying more wins.
All teams have the money to spend. If nothing else, they get it from revenue sharing. $120 million of it.
The “strategy” is to cut payroll to make money. It has much less to do with rebuilding or tanking for draft picks. Even the very top picks in the draft have a 50/50 shot of ever producing 5 WAR in their careers.
the timing for the CBA to end couldn’t have happened at a worse time for the players. Covid has cost these rich billionaires a good chunk of change and they are not going to be in a mood to be giving more then they did at the last CBA.
The players are bad at negotiating. Revenue sharing is something dumb to go after. Just ask for $100 million minimum payroll and 1 game played in a season counts of a year of service time. Ask for a million a year in minimum salary.
The players are trying to reduce to revenue sharing.
Yeah it is a stupid thing to go after. High revenue teams are going to spend up to the Luxury tax threshold. They don’t take into account revenue sharing.
A thoroughly puzzling comment. You seem to be criticizing the players for trying to reduce revenue sharing when this is apparently exactly what you think they should be doing. Or maybe that isn’t what you meant at all.
1. Hard salary cap. Harsher penalties aren’t going to deter the richest few teams from exceeding the cap.
2. Hard salary floor at 70% of the cap. You want to own a team? You have to invest in it.
3. Because of #2 above, can continue revenue sharing, otherwise the league will have to contract.
4. Increased minimum salaries with scale/bonuses for players in their first couple years. Increase year to year tagged to increase in gross revenue. Young players, especially those who are performing so well, deserve a larger share of salary than they get.
5. First year of service starts the moment that player steps on the field to make their MLB debut.
6. Non guaranteed contracts. Nothing holds a team back from being competitive again than being stuck with an albatross of a contract.
It’s really not that hard.
As to the question that keeps popping up in these threads: there is no way the small and middle market teams are struggling. Each team’s books would be released instantly as soon as they are closed, highlighting all the places they took losses (as a strategy to strong arm local/city/state governments into giving them money). We are talking about billionaires. its an unfathomable amount of money for regular folks to comprehend. If they weren’t making money off of it – these are people whose life mission is to become as rich as possible – they wouldn’t be owning teams. No one would ever be lined up when a team is for sale. If the cry of poverty would actually be true, there’d be no teams in Miami, Tampa, Oakland, KC, Pittsburgh, or Baltimore.
It’s been so quite on the negotiation front for the past 24+ hours! I take this as a positive sign that the MLBPA and MLB owners are seriously negotiating instead of throwing insults at each other in the media.
got my renewal notice for the mlb season package. canceled my subscription. $139 this year for a league that probably isn’t even gonna play a full season.