In the wake of today’s league-imposed deadline to reach agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement passing, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced this afternoon that the league is canceling the first two series of the regular season. As Max Molski of NBC Sports writes, that’d mean the loss of 91 total games. The league has stated on multiple occasions they have no plans to reschedule those contests — either via doubleheaders or the rearranging of previously-scheduled off days. In addition to the delayed start to the regular season, the league informed teams it is pushing back the start of Spring Training until at least March 12, as noted by Micheline Maynard of the Washington Post (Twitter link).
The commissioner’s announcement would seem to indicate that a 155-game schedule is the maximum number that’ll be played in 2022. Asked why the league was set on outright cancelations as opposed to postponements, Manfred pointed to the challenges of reworking interleague play in a suitable manner (via Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post). Reports last week indicated that the league intends to merely pick up where the schedule left off if/when an agreement is in place, so it seems each club’s first two series (to this point) will just be lopped off the league calendar.
Unsurprisingly, Manfred added that it was the league’s position that players would not be paid for any games that aren’t played (via JJ Cooper of Baseball America). That sets the stage for a second season in the past three years with possible debates regarding prorated salaries, as the union has maintained that they didn’t believe today should’ve represented a drop-dead date to avoid game cancelations.
MLB instituted the lockout unilaterally and could’ve lifted it at any time, electing to proceed under the terms of the 2016-21 CBA. There was never any possibility of the league taking that course of action, but the decision to set a hard deadline (first last night, later delayed until this evening) for an agreement was also made solely by MLB. The Players Association has never assented to that deadline, and Giants outfielder Austin Slater — the club’s player representative — argued that the union preferred continuing negotiations over today’s outcome.
“I don’t think it’s necessary,” Slater told Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle of game cancelations after the league deadline passed. “The PA has been setting up training camps and in 2020, we showed we could do it in three weeks. .. But that’s their prerogative and Rob’s bargaining strategy was to push up past this deadline and see if they could shove a deal down our throats.”
Others on the players’ side have taken a similar stance, arguing that the league deadline was a negotiating position of MLB’s to press the union into accepting an unfavorable deal. Slater’s teammate Alex Wood was among the players to take to Twitter this afternoon to accuse the league of exaggerating the progress made in negotiations last night, thereby allowing MLB to suggest the union was at fault for the lack of agreement today. Manfred made some references to that effect in his press conference this evening, noting the truism that finalizing a new CBA requires agreement from both parties.
After the past week and a half of daily negotiations didn’t result in an agreement, what’s the next step? Asked by Hannah Keyser of Yahoo! Sports whether the league’s “best and final” offer this afternoon meant that MLB had no plans to continue negotiations, Manfred pushed back. “We never used the phrase ‘last, best’ offer with the union,” the commissioner replied. While he conceded that the parties were “deadlocked,” he indicated that the league was open to continued negotiation. Manfred stated that today’s proposal was only the league’s final before canceling games, not of negotiations entirely. On the other hand, Bob Nightengale of USA Today hears from a source the league did use the “best and final offer” terminology.
That’s an important distinction. As Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times pointed out this afternoon, the possibility that the league had made its “best and final offer” could give way to MLB declaring a formal impasse in negotiations — a decision that could halt bargaining and involve the court system. Manfred declined to speculate on that possibility, but his stated amenability to continuing negotiations would seem to indicate that the league doesn’t plan to pursue that course of action at this point.
When negotiations will pick up isn’t clear, although the commissioner indicated they couldn’t resume talks until Thursday at the earliest. Manfred also made clear he considered the ball to be in the union’s court, stating that the league has made the most recent offer on issues “without exception,” and rhetorically told reporters to draw their own conclusions about which side should make the next move (via Scott Miller of Bleacher Report). That the league has made the most recent proposal may technically be true, although doing so an hour before the press conference with no willingness to continue negotiating today makes Manfred’s pointed barb a bit odd.
Manfred also made some ancillary statements about negotiations that are sure to draw some attention. He claimed that the past five years have been “difficult” for the industry financially, an assertion that immediately sparked backlash. As Erik Boland of Newsday points out (on Twitter), the league grossed a record $10.7 billion in 2019. The past two seasons have indeed seen pandemic-driven revenue losses — particularly in 2020, a year mostly without fan attendance — but Manfred’s claim that the entirety of the most recent CBA involved financial hardship is easy to dispute.
The commissioner also discussed the terms of the league’s most recent proposal. He highlighted what he felt to be player-friendly economic provisions (i.e. the creation of the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players) and added that the league was also seeking alterations to the on-field product. Manfred claimed MLB had proposed ways to implement a pitch clock and limits on defensive shifting during their last offer. The league’s desire for a pitch clock has been previously reported, but it hadn’t been apparent that MLB was trying to outlaw the shift this winter.
Of course, changes to the sport’s aesthetics take a back seat so long as core economics disputes continue to rage. The MLBPA released a statement in response to Manfred’s press conference (on Twitter). It reads in part:
“Rob Manfred and MLB’s owners have cancelled the start of the season. Players and fans around the world who love baseball are disgusted, but sadly not surprised. … What Rob Manfred characterized as a ’defensive lockout’ is, in fact, the culmination of a decades-long attempt by owners to break our Player fraternity. As in the past, this effort will fail.“
AlienBob
Great! Don’t let those greedy A-holes in the MLBPA play until they take a pay cut and accept no guaranteed contracts.
Evan Siggson
In light of this announcement this fan announced the canceling of his 20 game mini plan
rememberthecoop
Good for you!
Joekr
I doubt they will issue any refunds. I mean that small amount of money means more to them than it does to the common people.
Steve Nebraska
They issue refunds but not for games that are taking place. They only refund the money if someone buys tickets for a game and that game doesn’t happen. He’s not allowed to ask for his money back for a 20-game group that is still taking place. Usually when someone says something like that on the internet they never actually bought a 20-game plan. He may have been thinking about it and now changed his mind. I doubt it though. I don’t think there are many people who were so die-hard fans yesterday that they were about to buy tickets to 20 games and today decided not to. Most fans who care enough to buy that many tickets have been following this and holding off on deciding whether or not to do it until after this was settled. I doubt this guy actually had a 20 game mini plan to even try to cancel before this happened. If he did, they won’t let him cancel. They will just auto-refund any games he may have had tickets for in the first 2 series of the season.
HalosHeavenJJ
Can attest to all of this. I bought my 20 game plan for 2020 and was given an option of refund via somewhat of a headache process or account credit. I took the credit.
I renewed prior to 2021 and was given account credit for the games which were played with reduced capacity. However, as a ticket holder I was able to purchase tickets to the limited attendance games using that credit.
I knew there was a big chance of a lockout so I didn’t renew this year. Figured my money was better in my hands.
Evan Siggson
I’ve had an Angels mini plan since the late 90s. I find it strange that you have such conviction on my history of mini plans. For the record, I did call today to cancel my plan and they stated they would only refund games which are canceled. I requested a call back from management and that I want a full refund. We’ll see where it goes.
HalosHeavenJJ
Good luck. They will likely try to stick to the “subject to change” clause from when you purchased.
I’d think trying to keep a longtime fan happy would be more important than keeping 10-20 games worth of ticket money (at reduced rate to boot). But businesses operate differently nowadays.
Ducky Buckin Fent
@Nebraska –
Are you still in Jupiter? You were ahead of everyone last night, man. & I do appreciate a boots-on-the-ground take.
So. Insider dope? Please. Merci.
yewed
I’ve been a season ticket holder for 20 years and as of now I didn’t renew.
Depending on what happens will determine on what I do.
I buy season tickets for my local team even though they aren’t my main team. I also watch all the games of my team.
I never even looked into what the refund policy is. I think your comment is spot on.
Asfan0780
Use that money towards a new tv, better investment whenever this season starts
Y2KAK
Same I had 15 planned
szc55
Whiny millionaires playing a game for a living and getting to be in the 1% because of it. Zero sympathy for them.
CravenMoorehead
This is the equivalent of waking up on Christmas morning and finding a deceased hamster under the tree.
Ancient Pistol
No it is not.
1fifth2fifthRed5thBlue5th
Youre right. This is way way way worse. Mayans got the date wrong.
Red Sox Restoration Project
This analogy feels very forced, no offense.
lloyd_christmas
Petey?
mro940
Well there goes Christmas dinner…
User 355748524
Or your grandparents deceased cat.
itsallbravesnation
The game I’ve always loved… starting to lose that passion. After 2020, I guess this is too much for me.
fundaysunday
Rediculous!
Emilia
Although I have had MLB for 20 years , I don’t care at this point . Both sides are wrong, but could care less about us.
fundaysunday
Shameful! There have been weeks and months for negotiation and now this. MLB and MLBPA should all be ashamed and embarrassed. I know that they won’t be and moreover likely unapologetic to the fans that make them all very nice salaries.
Joeypower
Going to start my own league! F all this bs!
CravenMoorehead
Best of luck on your future endeavor.
lloyd_christmas
i have wanted to pitch all my life… so you’re telling me there’s a chance?
Joeypower
Tell ur dad to give me a call!
MLB Top 100 Commenter
Ask Phil Mickelson how that’s going.
Tacoshells
First two series ? So like 6 games? Not too bad.. they were threatening the first 2 months earlier.
Tom E. Snyder
It ain’t over until it’s over.
Led Hoyer
The first week and I am sure it will be another week every Monday until they reach a deal.
Red Sox Restoration Project
It could end up being that if it continues.
zacharydmanprin
Remember the owners wanted a 154 game season with expanded playoffs to begin with…they will end up sandbagging negotiations to get what they want.
Yankee Clipper
Yeah, Manfred cancels the first two series? Well, I cancel Manfred!
The_Voice_Of_REASON
SHOVE IT IN THEIR GREEDY FACES, ROB!!!
CravenMoorehead
Rob Manfred bites the heads off gummy bears for fun. No mercy.
A Seal
WHO’S BEING GREEDY HERE?
A Seal
I’ll answer my own question:
The owners.
The OWNERS pay minor leaguers less than the minimum wage. The OWNERS refuse to pay the stadium workers livable salaries. The OWNERS can keep players on the roster for three years at way below market prices while they sit in their mansions or float on their yachts and reap the profits.
The OWNERS instituted this lockout. The OWNERS refused to negotiate for 43 days after the lockout. The OWNERS wouldn’t meet for more than 15 minutes a week when the players wanted to meet every day. The OWNERS demanded increased CBT penalties. The OWNERS wanted a minimum salary to go up less than the rate of inflation. The OWNERS set an arbitrary deadline to make the regular season start on time. The OWNERS made a “last, best offer,” that was pretty much the same as everything they had said before. The owners set this up to fail. It’s not the players fault.
marlinsrising16
Good. The MLBPA shouldn’t play until Manfred resigns! Dudes the worst
jjd002
For all his faults he’s still better than Selig was
wanamba1
Well it’s like vomit or diarrhea…Which do you prefer?
Mr. Chuck
Diarrhea. And thanks for asking.
Hyatt Visa
And I hope they stick to their promise – no expanded playoffs if any regular-season games are cancelled and not allowed to be made up. S*ck it, owners!
Halo11Fan
I’m not sick of the owners or the players, but I hope you are correct. The players said no expanded playoffs and they should stick to their guns.
Joekr
Hey MLB…refund the cost of my ticket package then…
Oh wait, they won’t agree to that, it would mean being honest and caring about your fans.
rememberthecoop
Manfred is like the soup Nazi – NO BASEBALL FOR YOU!!
allweatherfan
MLB had 43 days they wasted so this is on them.
Appalachian_Outlaw
Agreed. The owners are to blame for this. They messed around forever, basically offering zero concession. Now they start actually negotiating a few days before a self-imposed deadline.
I don’t buy the league’s bs.
Bigtimeyankeefan
Look at the minimum salary they were offered … who makes that? To play baseball…look at the average salaries… who makes that? Players need to wake the f&$” up and smell reality
ea1923sports
And the owners are making billions. What’s your point??
Yankee Clipper
It’s all relative. And to your point – the answer is: others in the entertainment industry.
So, if you were in an industry that was providing a service / product, and your specific skillset led directly to your company‘s & industry’s revenue & profit exploding, you don’t think you would be entitled to percentages of raises every few years, at least somewhat commensurate with said growth?
Now, I want you to think about that same business getting granted all types of special exemptions by Congress that applies to virtually no other business and they are allowed to monopolize creating a system wherein their value & profits are increased more.
Your position is the that the producers, the ones with the incredible skill sets that make the business a public appeal, should not get a raise and just….ahem, “be happy” with what they’re already paid.
flamablanca
These dudes aren’t janitors or doing data entry, baseball is high skilled labor. They are literally some of the best in the world at what they do, why should they make what an average person makes? Do 30,000 people show up to every persons job and analyze every decision they make while working? Hate to break it to u but some people are more talented at things than others and I’d rather watch a dude hit a ball over a fence than a guy making sales calls all day
stan lee the manly
Well, now you can’t watch a dude hit a ball over a fence because both sides chose money over compromise.
Scott Costello
The owners are the worst! Unwilling to budge on anything of significance
Thornton Mellon
The owners made very little movement on key issues and all of their tactics made a joke out of the process. The players weren’t much better. They deserve each other.
Chassoo
I don’t feel sorry for the players either, but at least they were willing to negotiate in good faith.
Ancient Pistol
One reason is they may have lacked the votes to do so. Don’t forget the owners association is much different than the players. The players are unified in wanting more money etc. But not all owners want the same thing (small versus big markets). So they might nit even of had the vote to give the players everything close to what they wanted.
Yankee Clipper
Darth, this is a very good point. I believe now, more than I did a week ago, that the small market teams have more influence than what’s normally perceived, potentially creating some difficult internal group dynamics within the ownership circle as well.
Chassoo
It’s time for the Fans to cancel watching games, that will teach them to get things settled at a faster pace. Where the hell were the owners these past 4-5 months? They purposely waited to get closer to the season to put pressure on the players. What does Manfred think? The Fans will come running back no matter what happens here?
Ancient Pistol
You do realize there are no games so I’m not sure what this accomplishes. If they were fighting during the regular season then sure. But now…..
GB85
Pretty easy to cancel watching something that isn’t even being played.
Yankee Clipper
Well, no, because then we just cancel our cancel and then it’s un-canceled so we can watch it – see how by canceling stuff we can actually watch baseball?
ipwnyou
Stand firm MLBPA. Owners are greedy billionaires who want to be trillionaires by exploiting your talent
1fifth2fifthRed5thBlue5th
All teams net worth averages out to about 2.2 billion. If you got into owning an MLB team to be a trillionaire you picked the wrong path lmao.
bluesteele
We live in a capitalist society. Every person involved here is greedy. God bless it!!! You don’t think the worst players in the sport who want $700,000 a year for mediocrity aren’t greedy?
Armaments216
The worst players in the sport all have MLB contracts? Teams must be making some very poor player personnel decisions.
siddhartha finch
I see all the owners have registered MLBTR burner accounts. Kevin Durant would be proud.
Nevrfolow
The Giants would have a true home opener if all that is cancelled is the first 2 series.
Cmurphy
All this back and forth and MLB and MLBPA just forgets about all the working people that won’t have jobs without games.
helf35
$232,974 is what Sherzer loses every game. Scherzer just lost about $1.5 million.
zacharydmanprin
I can’t stand the bots and robo-accounts on this site. You would think it they can program bots they could at least spell correctly and utilize basic grammar.
BirdieMan
Go ahead and cancel all the series.
Bigtimeyankeefan
In what world do the workers tell the employers what they should pay anyway? While it’s true that no one pays to see the owners, but isn’t that true in many jobs? The employees are hired and paid to do the work… the players have great salaries, a great pension, great health care and does anyone realize that players get money for food on the road? Not to mention that they get more money in licensing fees than most of us make in our jobs… show this comment to some players and defy them to answer!!
Downwiththethickness
Any job interview:
And what is your desired salary?
You, like the players, can ask for whatever you want. Doesn’t mean you’re going to get it, sure. But if you worked for a multi million dollar business and were told they couldn’t pay you $50k, I’m sure you’d be side eyeing your boss too
Appalachian_Outlaw
Sports are different than any other job. Why do some people not understand this?
zacharydmanprin
There are only a few hundred people in the world that can do what the players in the MLBPA can do. And since MLB realigned minor league baseball even fewer are going to be able to try and get to that level. However, only a handful get great salaries and only a few ever see a pension they could live on. Owners don’t have to worry because they have tax breaks and shelters and never have to sell – they don’t even have to worry about winning. The value of franchises continues to rise while player salaries get stagnant.
66TheNumberOfTheBest
Here in this world on planet Earth.
Unions negotiate all the time.
That’s the whole point.
People with no skills who are immediately replaceable don’t negotiate because they cannot.
Yankee Clipper
In what world do businesses get granted special governmental exemptions to ensure they are profitable and explode in revenue regardless of how piss poor their performance is? Russia!
Whoops, slipped. Here in the good ol’ US of A. My country…..tis of thee. Sweet land of liberty. Of the I sing. It’s the land where my fathers died, …..wait, this is starting to sound like something I’ve heard before.
phantomofdb
Seems like an arbitrary amount of time, almost like… it doesn’t have anything to do with the timeline of negotiations.
Redwolves3
MLBPA never intended to accept any off from the owners.
MLBPA just sent a message to the FANS. They could care less about the FANS – only about fattening their wallets.
Have fun sitting at home without a paycheck.
And whenever the players finally get back on the field be prepared for plenty of boos, heckling and whatever the fans do to let them know how they really feel about the players.
A Seal
MLB never intended to accept any offer from the players.
MLB just sent a message to the FANS. They could care less about the FANS, only about fattening their wallets.
Have fun sitting at home without your profits.
And whenever Rob Manfred or an owner ever gets on stage again, be prepared for plenty of boos, heckling, and whatever the REAL fans do to let them know how they really feel about the players.
A Seal
Like I said above:
The OWNERS instituted this lockout. The OWNERS refused to negotiate for 43 days after the lockout. The OWNERS wouldn’t meet for more than 15 minutes a week when the players wanted to meet every day. The OWNERS demanded increased CBT penalties. The OWNERS wanted a minimum salary to go up less than the rate of inflation. The OWNERS set an arbitrary deadline to make the regular season start on time. The OWNERS made a “last, best offer,” that was pretty much the same as everything they had said before. The owners set this up to fail. It’s not the players fault.
geoffb1982
Rob Manfred can eat a bag of dic&s. Oh wait, he’d probably enjoy it
CravenMoorehead
I’m offended. Bags of D&$#% are delicious.
masam99
The fans are being held as hostages to greed and MLB incompetence.
LordD99
Stand strong players. Now is your time. I’d rather lose games than have the players sign an owner-friendly deal.
phantomofdb
Well that’s just a bad take. Are you receiving any benefit from your favorite player getting an extra million dollars a year?
BlueSkies_LA
Well that’s just a bad take. Are you receiving any benefit from your favorite owners getting an extra billion dollars a year?
phantomofdb
No, but I also didn’t blindly pick a side and celebrate there not being baseball. You seem to have missed that massive part of the comment I was responding to. I never said I supported the owners, I just said it’s a bad take to celebrate there not being baseball so someone else can stick it to the man.
Led Hoyer
That details I read on the last offer seemed pretty reasonable. I am sure this will get even uglier as paychecks are lost. Bad job by all parties involved. What are we talking 40-50 million dollars a year and deal could of been reached? This just seems insane.
jetpowerbass
So basically they’re killing hostages now.
CravenMoorehead
No baseball will surely escalate the situation in Ukraine.
Yankee Clipper
Is your bedroom called the You Crane too?
CravenMoorehead
That’s where I putin work
philjg73
Manfred is a POS. All this waste of time, loosing the first 2 series, could have been avoided if they planned a face to face meeting during the winter meetings. They are all overpaid to begin with. This raising this and raising that is going to eventually price them out of existence.
seanmc1983
Might as well cancel all 162. The owners’ unwillingness to move off their unreasonable positions isn’t going to change in a week’s time. When that doesn’t happen, they’ll declare an impasse, at which point the players will be forced to strike, and the season will be lost. All of this over a few million per team, but really it’s about billionaires trying to break a labor union. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either an owner, a shill for the owners, or a moron. And you can quote me on that.
mdbaseball05
Just curious as to what you think the owners weren’t budging on. From what I have seen, it looks the opposite.
UGA_Steve
Have to agree. This whole thing has been.
Players – For every $100 you make, we only make X. We want to make Y.
Owners – We will Give you X plus 1.
Players – We will take Y minus 1.
Repeat weekly, owners throw hands in air and decide to spend holidays with their families. Negotiations start back again with same nonsense.
MLBPA to the fans – We keep coming down in our demands but the owners aren’t refusing to budge.
Reality – Current negotiation status is still heavily to the benefit of the players, as the owners will still be losing a good bit. The players are not losing ANYTHING in the current negotiations. They are gaining on everything. Yet the media nonsense has people thinking the players are the ones really trying to compromise. It’s really amazing.
ea1923sports
Owners profits are rising at a faster rate than the players’ salaries over the last decade. That is what this is all about
Deleted Userr
All around me are familiar faces…
Yankee Clipper
“Hello darkness my old friend….”
Cosmo2
Frikkin’ hippies
Yankee Clipper
How’d you know, Cosmo? Closet hippie, maybe? Hmmmmmmm?
Deleted Userrr
“CUT MY LIFE INTO PIECES!”
30 Parks
Strike three.
kevnames42
Can you guys please just use the MLB logo or a baseball instead of showing Manfred or Clark’s face? PLEASE
RobM
I have grown tired of Manfred’s scowling face too, but the players should want Manfred to be the face of ownership.
manfraud
Great job by all involved for making this as embarrassing as possible
Yankee Clipper
LOVE the pic. Is that from Bleedingyankeeblue? Freaking hi-larious.
LFGMets (Metsin7)
If players were paid per game, we would see half the league batting over .300 instead of dogs like Chris Davis who take the money and run. Its no coincedence that players do their best on their contract year and then never repeat that success again till their next one
mdbaseball05
That would be a terrible idea.
Pedro Martinez’s Mango Tree
I remember being a little kid, watching the Sox games on tv during those hot summer nights. Team sucked and had no chance of winning but I didn’t care, I just loved watching baseball. Now here I am, a 44 year old man, forced to find something else to invest my time in. I never thought I would say it but they finally found a way to break my heart. I’m not here to squabble or to point fingers, but I cannot in good conscience carry on with this league as if everything is hunky-dory if this stalemate ever ends. I cannot see myself watching a single game for at least a year. This one hurts me to my core.
joeygny29
Not a Sox fan but us 40 year olds are all in the same boat. No mlb.tv back then. In NY, not the city, we had the Braves on TBS, Cubbies on WGN (Harey Carey!) and the occasional Yanks on WPIX. David Cone, his last name backwards is Enoc!
Pedro Martinez’s Mango Tree
I go back to the little black and white tv in my bedroom with no cable, rabbit ears lol. A whole lifetime of memories with this game, just completely tarnished. I even overlooked the buffoonery that was 2020 and how that went down. This is a terrible day to be a baseball fan.
bross16
You guys say you don’t care how bad the teams are. Why aren’t you watching independent baseball or college or high school baseball then. They aren’t having lockouts and they aren’t cancelling any games. If it’s just about watching baseball then just move on
Pedro Martinez’s Mango Tree
Perhaps because it’s not as easy to see a game in those leagues. I don’t have kids so I’m not in the habit of hanging around high school sports. When’s the last time an independent league game was broadcast? I have zero interest in college sports at all. Don’t tell me to move on, I’ll continue to say and do as I please. How about you mind your own damn business how I get my sports??
Yankee Clipper
Well, he’s got a point about watching baseball and those games are fun to watch. But, let’s face it, the very reason they’re fighting right now over hundreds of millions of dollars is because MLB has the top tier of all baseball players worldwide, which is why it’s the league of choice to watch. Same with the NFL, NHL, etc.
I am going to start watching more college baseball though. Years ago, when the NFL annoyed me, I turned to college football and I actually liked it better, so I watched that far more than the NFL for years.
Pedro Martinez’s Mango Tree
I’ve never been able to get into college sports of any kind. I just don’t have the same attachment to the game at that level
bjhaas1977
Manfred is evil!
madmanTX
Just fold up MLB and start over. Have all women leagues. Forget the owners and the players. Tear down the mega stadiums and repurpose the land for factories to stop sending jobs overseas.
Bigtimeyankeefan
Let the players lose money for a change… imagine if all of us had guaranteed millions whether we played or not? They go on the injured list, they still get paid… reality players, reality… face it
Appalachian_Outlaw
If you get injured on your job there is a thing called worker’s comp, so really poor comparison.
Also, once again, sports are not like other jobs. Athletes have a skillset you can’t teach.
9lives
I might watch in 2023. Might not care at all by then.
BleedzBlue
I guess that pile of burning laundry in the driveway means that couples counseling failed. You know, it’s really the kids that suffer the most.
Yankee Clipper
I must say, probably the best analogy I’ve seen written. So true.
joeygny29
Anyone who didn’t see this coming since covid 2019 is blind. All I remember from the 4th of July that summe, vacationing in Michigan seeing my brother for the first time ever there was, man, baseball could play and the nation would rally. Literally the nation. On the 4th of July! Instead they cried of prorated pay and the owners of revenue loss. Fast forward 2 years. SSDD. On the other hand, as a Pirates fan, I m not at all upset. Just give me a full minor league schedule.
mdbaseball05
I don’t know, from what I’ve seen and read, it seems that the players got too greedy in this. And, the fact that they have stated their stance hasn’t changed since the beginning shows they haven’t been willing to budge. I blame them for the time being.
– Salary: MLB agreed 700k raising it to 740k by 2026 (both are above the current minimum). win for Union. 2021 minimum salary was $570k
– Universal DH: win for league, but everyone wins by not having to watch pitcher’s hit. Plus, that’s another position player with a job for the union.
– Bonus Pool: League wanted $30M, union wanted $85M. Both values are up from 2021, so win for union
– Service Time manipulation: League offered top two finishers in ROTY voting get full year of service, union wanted top 3, Seems they were close. Neither was an option in 2021, so both favor the union
– Draft lotto: league offered top 5 picks be in a lotto, union wanted top 7 picks. No draft lotto at all in 2021, so both are a massive win for the union.
– Expanded playoffs: both agreed to increase to 12 teams. Win for both
– International Draft: league wanted an international draft, union opposes it. Can see both ways.
– Minor League options: Both sides agreed to 5 options.
In all of this, it seems the union wanted EVERYTHING on their list, and wouldn’t budge. The fact that they unanimously voted to turn down the leagues offer is baffling. You can’t get anything without giving.
And “billionaire owners” is becoming a weird term to me. All of them were billionaires from their work before having a team. It’s not like they were average Joe’s before owning the team and now are billionaires after mooching off of minor-leaguers.
Personally, MLB players should focus on higher pay for minor leaguers. That would solve the issues of people coming up to the majors and needing a higher salary because they made pennies in the minors and now need a payday. Then, accept a draft lottery and suddenly teams have to compete, thus giving them less reason to keep their young guys in the minors.
Elroy Tate
League also offered to raise caps. Union win.
Yankee Clipper
You, sir, cannot see the forest for the trees on this issue. I must say, on many issues over the years I ardently support the owners, owners/business rights, & abhor the idea of certain mandates, rules, & legislation. I must also add that I take neither the owners’ nor players’ side because, as Halo11 as written ad nauseam, both can give, both are being unreasonable to varying degrees, and there are viable solutions.
So, I conclude by emphatically reiterating that you cannot compare MLB player wages/contracts to “regular employees” wages/contracts while the owners have special monopoly rights which grant very special benefits that enable them to make billions off of their business / employees. They are much more aptly compared to the rest of the entertainment industry, but not even fully comparable because of the MLB monopoly. There’s a reason why CONGRESS gets involved in this: super terrific, incredibly awesome, guaranteed money. That’s why the players are requesting a raise. And that’s why they have a contract with MLB that enables them to do so.
To simply ignore those issues by citing that many owners had billions before is a weak attempt to redirect the conversation because your position is not defendable. I hope you take this into consideration, but more importantly, I hope they can get to a resolution and we can watch some baseball – go Yankees (not Steinbrenner, but the players).
M.C.Homer
My wife works at the local MLB stadium.
Between this and the cost of living climbing, we will be genuinely in a place of financial burden without this income. Its tough enough out there.
MLB and MLBPA….what about the “people” who work below you, many of them older or semi retired DEPENDABLE part timers?
Or all of the long term office staffers shown the door last fall?
Screw this final offer stuff.
Get to the table you big babies.
You guys act so special.
You are all acting like spoiled children, entitled ones.
GET IT DONE!
joes-6
Salary cap and floor. Let them bleed out their careers until it’s accepted. 2-3 years if that’s what it takes.
Appalachian_Outlaw
No. They don’t need a cap, nor a floor. The sport is fine sans a few markets that shouldn’t have teams to begin with.
MLB-1971
Chasso- many fans will not come running back
Bigtimeyankeefan
And a comment to down… we aren’t talking about normal everyday people making 50,000. We are talking about players telling their bosses how much their payroll HAS to be, how much money the big markets teams MUST give to small market teams. Telling their bosses how many games they must play… get the point ? Just like you or I , if you don’t like the industry, get a new job… oh wait where else where you be offered 3/4 of a million dollars as a first year employee? Show me those jobs so I can stop working 60 hrs a week just to barely make ends meet!!!
delete my account please
The owners are free to get rid of the luxury tax they impose on big market teams and the payouts to small market teams. They could also get rid of arbitration and let players become free agents as early as their 1st year. In other words allow for a free labor market to exist in baseball as exists for you. But owners don’t want that.
Trump2024
Some series’ are three games, some are four, some are two. Players have F’ed up the season already. Now we have uneven schedules if these clowns decide to get off the couch and play.
sviscusi
Players have f’ed up the season? The reason there isn’t baseball is the owners who locked the players out. If not for that the season would be going under the previous CBA.
greatgame 2
The previous CBA is null and void
Motown is My Town
Cancelling the first two series of the season is just the beginning of many more cancellations. At this pace we’ll be lucky to see baseball by the 4th of July. By then it will be way too late and these owners will reap what they sow and deservedly so…..NO MORE MLB
Scott Kliesen
Let’s celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the single greatest event in MLB history, integration of the game, by doing our level best to destroy the game.
-Scott Boras & Rob Manfred
Tigersfan82
Nothing will destroy the game of baseball.
Tigersfan82
Nothing will destroy the game of baseball.
OneLoneGone
Can’t help but love the owners recent stance of issuing rolling deadlines after declaring their “final offer” lol. But seriously…at this point the player’s union should take the deal now and avoid the negative consequences of losing games that won’t be played resulting in losing paychecks. If their whole argument was based in getting younger players paid more early in their careers before becoming eligible for free agency…they can say and feel they’ve accomplished what they set out to do with this CBA.
paindonthurt
Both sides are overestimating the product. Sosa & Big Mac aren’t showing up to save the game this time. Kids for the most part don’t care. Baseball is middle -aged to old -man game. Congratulations to all involved. Stick a form in it. You are done.
paindonthurt
“Fork”
Bigtimeyankeefan
Msbaseball05…. Good points , great work
mdbaseball05
Hey thanks! I wasn’t really sure which side I was on, so I just decided to look up the main points. Figured I’d share my findings
Halo11Fan
The owners are doing what they feel like they need to do and so are the players.
I realize sports is built on rooting for one side or the other, but you don’t have to.
I’m not rooting for the owners; I’m not rooting for the players. I hope it gets resolved but I don’t see one side as the good guys and one side as the bad guys.
It will work itself out.
Yankee Clipper
Well said, Halo11. That’s a perfect way to frame this issue. Everything in society is so polarized that people align with one side and strap in at all costs.
Let’s get back to baseball!
sss847
Players: can we get paid during our 20s?
Owners: no
Players: ok, how about our 30s?
Owners: no
Players: so when do we get paid?
Owners: why are you being so unreasonable?
Halo11Fan
Owners: The young replaceable players are overpaid.
Owners: The Players that make it to their 30s are almost always overpaid
Owners: The few young players we can treat as cash cows… we do.
Players. Keep paying the young replaceable Players, Keep Paying the old decerped players, And you need to pay the few young players that are being exploited.
What I wrote is accurate, what you wrote is drivel.
mdbaseball05
You are very accurate, Halo. I think the players are going about this wrong by fighting for more rights for major league players, like service time manipulation, higher minimum salary for major league players, etc. If they would have fought for higher pay in the minors, then you wouldn’t need all players coming up to the majors needing a ton of money. The Union has to give somewhere, and they aren’t.
If the Union was actually caring about players, then focus on the ways to pay younger guys all while incentivizing to bring up said young guys. Draft lotto helps that as does things like the universal DH and increased playoff spots.
You’re right… right now, the Union is just saying “No, pay all players more from age 17 to age 40”. Players should focus on ways to get the owners to give out more big contracts to players in their 20’s rather than having to pay the likes of Pujols and Cole $30M plus when they’re 36 and provide little value to a team.
Halo11Fan
If you want owners to pay the bill for players not worth their contracts, that money has to come somewhere.
Personally, I think the young valuable players should be paid. But something has to give.
mdbaseball05
Agreed. Find a way to pay them the most in their prime. Right now, they are paid less while they are doing their best, and then get their big payout based on previous accomplishments, forcing teams to pay them the most in their crazy decline. Then, teams are stuck with that contract after trying to compete, and then can’t pay the young guys that are actually worth being paid. Vicious cycle.
prov356
Manfred is posturing still. He has the ability to lift the lock out and play the season under the old CBA and settle a contract over the next couple of weeks. The government does it with continuing resolutions when a budget can’t be agreed upon. The government works under the previous funding levels. Manfred and the owners are trying to strong arm the players and I think the players should stand strong and continue to call their bluff.
As I’ve said, I am not a union guy by any definition, but I think the owners have negotiated in bad faith all throughout this process using time as their strategy.
I also think sports figures are paid way too much. But the free market sets the price. The process has to be honest on both sides.
Halo11Fan
How can manfred play under the old CBA… it expired.
There is no way the Union would agree to play under those conditions and promise not to strike. If they were to play under those conditions, we’d have a strike this summer.
I’m not really sure why this is hard to see.
prov356
Halo11 – from paragraph 4 above:
“MLB instituted the lockout unilaterally and could’ve lifted it at any time, electing to proceed under the terms of the 2016-21 CBA.”
It could have been lifted while the negotiations were completed, and still can. That’s why I have been vocal about the owners/MLB posturing and not negotiating in good faith. A lock out is not required. They chose to go that route to force the players to back down.
Halo11Fan
And the players would have not signed anything and summer baseball would have been cancelled.
This is the first time the owners have cancelled games. The players have cancelled around 1700 games.
prov356
Halo11- The solution could/should be simple if both sides are acting in good faith. Go through spring training under the terms of the old CBA with opening day as a new deadline for a new CBA. They are close at this point so that should be more than enough time to work towards the middle on every issue remaining.
Again, it takes both sides to be acting in good faith to get it done. The lock out and postponement was and is unnecessary.
Halo11Fan
And when summer rolls around, the players would strike. The players would have no incentive to negotiate. We’ve seen it too many times.
Nobody is acting in good faith, both sides want to win and both sides are full of it.
The players have made some outrageous demands and the owners have not done much regarding the young good players and luxury tax.
The players haven’t given up a thing. Backing off crazy demands is not compromise anymore than the owners agreeing to the DH. But so far all the give has been on the owners side, but they do need to give more.
Pay the young “good” players. Don’t force Acuna or Franco to sign sign horrible deals to ensure their security. And stop with unreasonable luxury cap thresholds.
This should not be hard, but it is because both sides are being disingenuous jerks.
prov356
Halo11 – We agree as usual. It just always takes a minute to get there.
My statement of working under the old CBA requires both sides to negotiate in good faith. Neither have. But I think that started with the owners and the lock out. Instead they could have told the MLBPA that they are choosing not to lock players out in exchange for good faith negotiations. But now we have what we have and as usual, pride is involved.
I think they will get something this week and perhaps come up with a plan to make up the lost games.
I need Spring Training to start soon because I’m in Phoenix in two weeks and I want to see a couple Angels games.
Halo11Fan
I’m hopeful it will be resolved this week, but each side has to stop the rhetoric. The players couldn’t care less if the Pirates win games, they just want them to spend.
With six teams, I’m not worried about the tax. Any team that wants to compete will be able to compete.
And Young players shouldn’t have to sign ten year undervalued deals just to gain security. They need to be paid. And I don’t care if the fodder are paid. Most of fodder guys are 100 percent replaceable. But if a young player is making real contributions, he needs to get paid.
I don’t know what team you root for, but you know which young players need to get paid and which don’t.
prov356
I’m a diehard Angels fan. I thought you knew that.
Yankee Clipper
Prov356: I really have enjoyed reading you and Halo11 on these issues because I agree with both of you. On this issue I think you hit the nail on the head, Prov. There was a definitive way to jump this hurdle but the leverage is too good to pass up. They think they can strong-arm this into a win.
But, your last paragraph is the most crucial. Honesty on both sides. Wow, imagine if we had TWO sides being honest and negotiating in good faith?! It’s a shame, man, but indicative of a much, much bigger problem that occurs on a macro level.
prov356
Thanks Clipper. Agendas have replaced honesty. There’s for sure a larger problem.
Bigtimeyankeefan
Appalachian, workman’s comp you have to prove your case, not cut and dry. As per your point about about their special skills, everyone has a skill, be it teaching, managing or cleaning… theirs is a really really high paying job with many perks.
Bigtimeyankeefan
Ss87… the players don’t get paid??? Did anyone here know that? News to me… I thought they were paid really well
joeygny29
Perhaps had they both come to the initial meeting with the realization their requests were obscene, they might then be a little further along in the process. Instead they waste their time and our money… but hey, take all December off. Show up with a piss poor plan and take 2 more weeks off. Then repeat as needed.
AlienBob
The MLBPA has $2 billion in their pension plan. They should loan half to Oakland and the other half to Tampa Bay for the construction of new stadiums. The teams should pay them 2% annually for the money. The players want to share in the profits let them take some of the risk. They will get their money back in 30 years unless the franchises go broke or move to another city. Then the stadiums would become non performing assets. But hey, its just money. The players have lots.
GabeOfThrones
As a Braves fan, the longer the lockout remains, the longer we stay champions. Take your time, guys.
Yankee Clipper
That is the kind of confident inspiration the team needs!
Darthyen
Keep them locked out until July and don’t offer them the same deal. Give the greedy players less than what they would have got in this deal.
This whole deal from MLBPA was suppose to be about the younger/newer players getting more…well MLB gave them more BUT the Union then shows their true reason they are here more money for the richest players…….45M a year for a 37 year old pitcher in the middle of a pandemic not good enough……give me a break well now they will see where their greed gets them good luck with another 45M a year deal when people turn their backs on baseball….again.
TheRickestRick
But the owner was more then willing to sign the check for that 37 year old pitcher making $45mil.
believeitornot
He should have cancelled the first two weeks of the season.It is March and spring training hasn’t even started.
Poopscab13
Is there a list out there of all the cancelled games? MLB already scrubbed them from the schedule on their website
Paulie Walnuts
F Manfred
F Clark
Yankee Clipper
Do both of their first names begin with an F? What a coincidence! Lemme guess…. Francis?
swinging wood
Are the Manfred nut lickers actually serious or is are they just trolls? Ridiculous.
mdbaseball05
Not a Manfred “licker”, but I side with the league in this. Let’s hear your arguments for the union then and why this is “ridiculous”
LetGoOfMyLeg
The clock is ticking on the players. Every day is a day lost is a day lost to their playing prime years. A 2 year lockout will unemploy most of these players.
RobM
One thing history has shown us, and perhaps some younger fans may not remember, but when the MLBPA gets serious, they are willing to sacrifice weeks, even months of games. They’re united recognizing how much they’ve gained from prior members, and they are determined to begin to make gains for current and future players.
That all aside, I don’t believe they’re that far apart, so there’s still a chance a deal is reached at some point this week. MLB, though, has to realize the players are very serious about the CBT, which the owners misled them on originally as they’ve been trying to turn it from a drag on salaries to a harder cap on salaries. It’s worth fighting.
Yankee Clipper
The irony of the same people on here demanding a cap because of small-market status, while concomitantly admonishing that money doesn’t win championships is astounding.
“Spend all you want you Yankee losers, money doesn’t buy championships you fools! What?! What do you mean raise the CBT?! It’s going to create such “competitive imbalance” because they already spend so much more than other teams they’re going to win every year!!!”
dirkg
Some of the mainstream media is jumping all over Baseball’s failure. Or worse, they’re not.
In a time when it absolutely could not botch this negotiation up, MLB and the MLBPA proved to so many naysayers that indeed, they are this stupid.
Congrats guys. Enjoy those shiny paychecks.
Silas
just cancelled, finished with this crap
riffraff
I’m watching the MLBPA give their press conference and my first thought was ” I bet Tony Clark dresses up as papa smurf every halloween”
Yankee Clipper
I had him pegged as Smurfette but we can agree to disagree. Whatever.
RDOZ
Shame on all involved. Half a million for the minimum? Hell you can suck and be that guy. Earn that contract. I feel more for the kids trying to make it in the minor leagues. The MLB basically absorbed all the minor leagues and eliminated ones. Then they pay them less than $15k? If my kid was going to play I’d Definitely tell him to goto college at least you can get an education and free room n meals if you are good. Other than that steering away from baseball. No wonder we cant even field 4 teams in little league anymore.
IHLgulls
I can’t understand the posters here who want the players to win this. If the players had their way the Yankees or Dodgers would win every year. Every other sport has a salary cap. The situation in mlb isn’t sustainable at all. It had reached absurdity when Juan Soto looks at 350 million dollars to play a game and says “nah, that’s not enough”. Plus, do people actually enjoy watching their favorite players go to hated division rivals? How about the revolving door of guys with 1 year deals? We’ve been rooting for laundry for decades now. The current situation is fabulous for guys who can throw a ball hard but terrible for fans.
Cancel the season, come back with replacement scrubs. They might be worth rooting for.
YardGoatsFan
I don’t have any hated division rivals ♂️ I just enjoy baseball and the boys of summer that play the game and make it entertaining to watch.
I do have teams I don’t like because they just always seem to perform poorly, regardless of what they try – I genuinely feel sad for Mets fans.
Maybe Soto said no because he didn’t like some of the provisions in the contract offered, it might not have been about money – maybe he wants to leave the team, for one he feels has a better shot winning the World Series in his career ♂️
2020vision
Has anyone noticed there are no MLB teams for sale? Why is that? Teams aren’t strapped for cash when they’re signing players to $350Million contracts. And, players aren’t working in coal mines when they get minimum contracts fast approaching $700k a year. Just play ball and quit looking like a pair of 400 pounders fighting at the all you can eat buffet.
nutznboltz
You are correct 2020 vision.
redhaze1
At least the Reds won’t be out of first place after the first two weeks.
MiddleIn
Lowlifes
LordD99
Make no mistake about it. The pressure now is all on the owners. As has been the case previously, the final deal will include full pay for players. The owners are now losing money. The players are simply delaying their pay.
I support God, America and the MLBPA!
mdbaseball05
What? MLB players are the ones with the pressure. They get a pro-rated pay when it comes to missed games, not a full salary over less games. Manfred canceled the first two series’ of the season already. It’s ALL on the players now, as it has been most of this time already. Both are losing salary, but those fringe MLB players are the ones losing.
UGA_Steve
I think what LordD means is that the players will end up demanding pay for the cancelled games as part of the final agreement, and will likely get some sort of compensation back, especially if it causes some players to lose more than others based on unbalanced loss of games. Hence, the owners will be losing money if that happens.
Of course, it might not, but it probably will.
LordD99
Yes. That has been the history. Could change here, but I suspect the players will get full pay in the final CBA.
RobM
I suspect in the final deal, the CBT will be raised, the bonus pool will be raised, players will get paid (unless the full season is wiped), but the players will have to agree to the 14 team postseason the owners want. I’m not a fan of that, but it almost feels inevitable.
mdbaseball05
They already both agreed to a 12-game postseason
UGA_Steve
Yes, but if the owners move further towards the players on other demands, they may re-up the ask for a 14-team postseason. They only agreed to 12 to offset the cost of the other player asks they have met to this point.
RobM
There is no deal. Everything is still subject to negotiation and change.
Yankee Clipper
L99: I think you just came up with the perfect t-shirt/hat combo for the ‘22 players’ union.
“I support God, America & the MLBPA!” I love it, dude!
dlw0906
This is what happens when too many owners are corporations or not fans of the game.
Halo11Fan
The owners are bigger fans of the game than the players.
After they retire, few players even follow the game.
You know more about your favorite team, than a typical retired player, and an owner knows more than you.
ABStract
Dang you just love being completely wrong, don’t you Halo?
It’s just constant nonsense outta you…
Halo11Fan
You think players that leave the game are fans? That’s laughable.
TheRickestRick
Where are you getting this info from?
Halo11Fan
Here them interviewed in broadcast booths for one. You think Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds turns on their TV sets to watch their teams play? They don’t.
He called George Brett on our KC trip last year. We got a personal tour by Bob Kendrick of the Negro League Baseball Museum. He knows what’s going on. These guys play baseball, they don’t take time out to root for the home team.
UGA_Steve
Bah. The owners care less about profit than you think. They are already wealthy or just small percentage owners of an entity that probably makes far better returns on their other endeavors.
On the opposite side, kids dream of being big leaguers to play the GAME for a living. They still dream that way. These players have lost site of that in their greed, otherwise they would be content making something along the lines of the average salary in the USA, knowing they were playing a game they love (a very hard game with a ton of work involved, but still a game they love).
ABStract
Thus giving the owners billions in profits?
The players generate that income, they deserve to get a fair share of it.
If you made millions for your boss, but only brought home “something along the lines of the average salary in the USA”…you’d be fine with that? Give me a break!
The rest of us live in a place called reality, you should visit sometime.
mdbaseball05
In all fairness, there are also those that get paid a crap ton.
In your analogy, it’s more like “hey, you’re in an entry level position demanding far more pay and benefits while we also have to consider the fact that we have to pay your co-worker 30 times more than you to hopefully do the same job a little better.”
Should they get part of the revenue… of course. And they do the more they play. But baseball isn’t like the real world. If that was the case, you’d be paid 700k while the person next to you makes $35M to do the same job description, all while half of your team is making more than your managers (coaches).
If this was the “real world”, it would be more equivalent to the interns demanding millions in pay. When the teams know what players are actually generating that profit, they get very well paid in the end. If you want the interns to make more, then you have to stop paying the guys that were best at their jobs 5 years ago the most money.
foppert
I’m not sure it’s greed. They have sort of billed themselves as the good banding together to fight the evil empire after years of unjust oppression. A band of modern day superheroes standing up for the downtrodden and leaving an everlasting legacy. Whatever floats your boat, I suppose. I wish they would just play baseball.
Fred Park
So how many games are cancelled?
I haven’t seen an accurate count. It can’t be a 155-game schedule left, as this article states in the second paragraph.
That would mean only 7 games have been cancelled at this point.
So can somebody state an accurate count?
mdbaseball05
It’s the first two series’ right now, so 5-7 games depending on the schedule of the team. That is just for now, could be more if they can’t come up with a deal soon.
RobM
I believe he said the first two series, which is probably five or six games per team. There’s usually a built in off day in the opening series. My uninformed guess is if they can come to agreement this week, the games will be made up over the course of the season and we’ll still have 162 games.
jimmertee
As I have been saying for weeks, it has been out there that the owners are willing to cancel 25% of the regular baseball season to achieve their CBA goals. Why is this a surprise? #MLB #MLBPA #CBA
zeikul
I’m canceling my mlb Fandom. I never want to see my state help pay for another stadium again. I hope all the owners go bankrupt.
Vizionaire
some series are 2 games. some 4. who knows.
Bigtimeyankeefan
I have a decent question … why do they make this a 5 year contract? The nfl has I believe a 10 year contract… can’t they do it for longer so we don’t have to start hearing about this in 3 years?
A Seal
No clue. I think it’s just precedent. They probably could change it.
mdbaseball05
That would be even worse if there was no expiration. They would be in meetings forever to decide on how the game is going to look 20 years down the road. If anything, we’d probably hear about them less if they changed every 3 years instead. Things would be less permanent, therefore we’d probably see more leeway both ways and things getting done.
Malicious Phenoms
First baseball game ever played – 1846
Last baseball game ever played – 2021
Rsox
In Slater’s comments about it not being necessary to cancel games referring to 2020 and “what we could do in three weeks”. Slater seems to forget the “offseason” hasn’t finished yet. There are still over 100+ free agents and arbitration eligible contracts that still need to be worked out before teams will even consider playing games
vtbaseball
Thanks, owners…
oldmanblue
Rob Manfred and MLB’s owners have cancelled the start of the season. Players and fans around the world who love baseball are disgusted, but sadly not surprised. … What Rob Manfred characterized as a ’defensive lockout’ is, in fact, the culmination of a decades-long attempt by owners to break our Player fraternity. As in the past, this effort will fail.“. F@#$K YOU PLAYERS!!!
kscheer
Manfraud is the worst thing to ever happen to MLB.
Thomas E Snyder
Now that MLB has cancelled games the players should go on strike for failure to pay them as contracted.
flamingbagofpoop
Do you think they’re going to get paid while on strike?
LetGoOfMyLeg
Not $200,000 a game/$100,000 an at-bat like some. I think even the minimum wage guys get $900 an hr which for sure is not happening while on strike. How will they get by?
kberg
How about we don’t defend either side. It’s rich people arguing about money we can’t even dream about. I see both sides, I get it. They can argue, complain and blame each other but at the end of the day theres no baseball. Baseball is the only reason we talk about any of these people and until the love for the game returns no side wins. Someone will cave and in 5-10 years we will do this again. It should be an honor to play a game or work in the front office in a sport we all grew up idolizing and getting paid unheard of amounts. So compromise and get on the dang field. Both sides don’t get the normal fan is what keeps this game alive. Without our money and support both sides don’t have the possibility to argue over millions and billions. Im tired of the bickering and picking sides, the game is on life support and we’re all here to watch it die.
Bucky76
He is the biggest Di**o in sports business today he is going to stick it into every players a** to just not run a business that should be running full steam ahead…Manfred is a cancer on baseball…I thought Bettman was bad but ……
Randy Red Sox
him and Putin should get locked in a room together
Vizionaire
manfred laughed announcing delaying of the start of the season. he is a devil!
ABStract
Aaaaaaand that’s a wrap on baseball folks!
It was fun while it lasted!
Done.
brucenewton
Players better smarten up or they’ll lose a full year.
Cosmo2
All this absurd talk of what players are entitled to as if that’s how salaries work for everyone. They’re rich. They want more? Fine. But this is no working class fight for basic rights. This is the two richest kids on the block getting into a hissy fight.
Vizionaire
are billionaires’ boots sweeter?
Cosmo2
Vizionaire, I get it, a joke, but it’s more complex than one boot or the other. Try to perceive it, it’s not so simple as one side or the other. Try.
flamingbagofpoop
Wouldn’t get your hopes up for complex thought if that’s their response to your original comment.
Yankee Clipper
Cosmo, you’re right, and I have mistakenly used the “entitled term” too often. I think it’s a default of arguing a position of support, but your point is valid, nonetheless. They’re both entitled only to what they agree to, and that’s it.
gbudell
The MLBPA got concessions and overplayed their hand. Both have been totally tone deaf to the fans and real world we live in. They ruined the Hot Stove. A pox on them all.
I wish to thank MLBTR for doing an AMAZING job of filling the offseason withe great chats and feature content. . Premium membership is worth every penny.
My personal COL has gone up over 300 per month. We always hear that “TV money pays the bills” but games have gotten very expensive. It’s never been the same for me since ’94 but this kills it for me.
sviscusi
They gave as much as they got.
Unclenolanrules
Billionaires. Show me 100 billionaires, I will show you 50 of them that stole it, and 50 of them that inherited it from someone who stole it.
Cosmo2
What’s your point?
Unclenolanrules
Buy a slide rule.
flamingbagofpoop
Cool story, comrade.
Randy Red Sox
See you in 2023 guys. I’m out for this year.
RedBirdFan
I’m no fan of MLB owners. Ticket prices, concessions, parking fees. All too hight My Comcast regional sports fee goes up every year. Why? It’s mainly has to be player salaries, right? Guaranteed contracts, No matter how you play or even if you miss all year due to an injury. No salary cap.. The players make an obsene amount of money already. It’s ridiculous. Once the great Stan Musial in the latter part of his career had a bad season and wanted to decline a $100,00 contract because he didn’t think he deserved it. Baseball needs a reset. I doubt if it will happen. As far as I’m concerned they can CANCEL THE WHOLE DANG SEASON! (I watched almost every Cardinal game last year and have been a fan since 1967 or before.).
Yankee Clipper
No it’s not player salaries. It’s owners knowing you’ll pay for it. You’ve got the cart before the horse here.
Owners make the money off of you, then the players get paid and request increases. Not the other way around. That’s where so many have gone wrong with thinking players are not entitled to ask for more – owners would still be requiring the same money of you, just pocketing more instead of paying the players demonstrate the skills you are paying to see.
Cardsfanatik redux
I wish they’d cancel Rob Manfred.
sufferforsnakes
(Insert flipping the bird emoji)
Yankee Clipper
Can birds fly upside down?
slider32
This is a standard case of brinkmanship, both sides are still playing each other. I think Thursday cooler heads will prevail. Owners get 14 game playoff and players get a better deal on the CBT.
breckdog
After watching how the owners are operating the last few years i can see a clear pattern. The owners value post season games far more than in season games. The loss of regular season games seem to be icing on any deal they cut. Any loss of regular season games should be met by the players refusal to play post season games so that this foolishness will end and a deal will get struck. Mlb has cancelled the first two series so the Union should not agree to add those two extra teams to the playoffs.
larkraxm
I think the greedy players should have to pay the owners and there should be no baseball until they give back the money they already earned.
MarlinsFanBase
I have to say that there is one piece of humor I get in fans taking sides in this.
With the fans that favor the players, I notice that many of them are the same guys that bash anyone that points out the flaws in analytics dependency and many of the stats. Clearly if you support the players and argue that they should make more money and that the owners are greedy; but also bash anyone that points out the flaws in analytics dependency, it seems that you live in a paradox or just don’t fully understand the goal of analytics for ownerships…not just in sports, but in all forms of business.
Yankee Clipper
This is a great point, and while I don’t take sides because I think both are at fault for different reasons, I find it amusing that many of those who are ardently pro-owner are the same ones that will be pissed when their owner won’t sign the next top FA, or any decent FA, so their team can fill a team need with an outstanding player. Coincidentally, many are also the same that hold the opinion that the player should hold out in FA for the highest offer. Truly confounding….
MarlinsFanBase
@Yankee Clipper
So true. Many paradoxes seen in these debates between the posters that favor one side or other. I guess those of us that blame both sides can just make some popcorn, get a drink and a chair and just watch this entertainment since we won’t be seeing baseball for a while thanks to both MLB and MLBPA…at least when our NBA, NHL, or MLS teams aren’t playing.
Halo11Fan
I never get upset when my owner doesn’t sign a high price free agent.
Both sides have good points, however, as I have said before, good young players like Vlad Jr, need and deserve to get paid, the owners need to put more money in that pot. The luxury tax should be a speed bump. With 12 teams making the playoffs, I’m not afraid of dynasties.
Everything else is noise. Most of the takes on these threads are just noise. And virtually all the takes blaming the owners or players are noise.
By definition, fans are not rational.
MarlinsFanBase
I for one blame both sides and root for us fans getting what we deserve. Nobody is in those rooms fighting for us. They keep this up and chase us away, they won’t have the amount of money they are fighting for now.
Yankee Clipper
Halo11: Once again, your wisdom shows, particularly in your last line. I find myself resorting more and more to comedy when I can, hoping to make someone laugh as they angrily scroll through these threads. And, I hate expanding playoffs – truly. But, twelve, I can live with and your point about balancing competitiveness through that alone is excellent. 14 – I couldn’t be satisfied with that.
Marlins, to your latter point you’re right as well. Both sides should be even more thankful for their fans because without us, they’ve got nothing. No viewership, no attendance, no money.
realistnotsucker
ITs because we realize how much money all these rich billionaire owners make and we recognize they use the term small market as an excuse to be cheap, have you seen how much the braves made last year but there debating about adding an extra 30 million a year to bring back a franchise icon despite there revenue, also I don’t pay and watch games to see owners I watch the players , and for that reason I will always be pro player, but owners in professional sports realize sports are the only business where they can put a inferior product out and posters like yourself will continue to support them no matter what, whatever business can you have that type of loyalty? Only if these owners had the same passion and drive to be a successful team as they do for there other ventures
48-team MLB
How does that math work? The Braves are having six games canceled. 162-6 = 156. Where is 155 coming from?
kellyoubreisgod
They’ll probably remove a game later in the season so everybody has the same amount of games
jorge78
Yes! Get rid of the shift!
Nothing else matters!
To the barricades!
Dadbodfromseattle
Good. While I’ll miss baseball, the greedy of these players is Ludacris. Millions and millions of dollars for a nearly non contact sport is Ludacris. And yes owners are greedy also, but that’s tbier business. They are the business . The players are employees who are extremely well compensated.
Yankee Clipper
You’re right, sir, thankfully we have the contact sport of ownership to take all the profit!
Astrobabg93
This is a bunch of crap honestly. The owners and the commissioner need to just give in. The players are the most important, and what they say matters most, give them what they want. They’re the whole reason you guys are even making the money that you are in the first place. Without the players, you have nothing,
flamingbagofpoop
This is such a low IQ take on how negotiations work for…basically anything.
realistnotsucker
No it’s actually high iq, you seem like the one with low iq if you did your research you would know the owners had a plan to cancel games because they want to save money from the CBA, but you probably go to games to watch owners with Your pro owner low iq
Cray MC
I’m curious about Manfred’s point about MLB’s recent financial struggles. Like practically everybody else, the pandemic has hurt business. No one disputes that concept. But I’m wondering – and apologies if this has already been discussed someplace – whether MLB or individual teams have applied for government COVID relief funds, and if they’ve received any.
Does anyone know?
Yankee Clipper
No, I don’t believe they did as of July, 2021. They lost $3B I’m cash losses in 2020, according to Rob Manfred via The Athletic (some assert $7B in total lost revenue). They made nearly $12B last season, up from $10.7B in 2019, according to Bleacher.
Hard to tell because the won’t open their books. So they can tell whatever story they want and use whatever figures they want – nobody knows but them.
Cray MC
I completely agree with you. There ought to be some rule in public discourse that you’re not allowed to plead hardship to an audience that you have no intention of informing about the existence and extent of that hardship.
That’s why I hope people don’t take the position of simply shrugging their shoulders and saying, “it’s just millionaires fighting with billionaires,” (even though that’s technically true.
We know exactly how much players make, and it’ll be plenty under either side’s proposal if accepted as it. But while we’re all considering who’s reasonable and who’s unreasonable and who are the good guys and the bad guys in this, we have virtually no information on the finances of the teams.
This isn’t to say, “that makes the players the good guys and the owners the bad guys.” It just means that there’s no basis for believing that the owners are being reasonable or unreasonable, when we have no idea how much they make. (I know there are periodically estimates of how profitable MLB ownership is, but I’d imagine with such secrecy that those numbers are more likely to UNDERSHOOT the actual numbers.)
Yankee Clipper
Cray: That’s a very well worded post. I think you sum up nicely my feelings on the matter. I don’t take either side, but I cannot take the stance that the players don’t deserve more money when the owners won’t open their books and still say they can’t afford it when it’s consistently reported their revenue & profits are increasing rapidly.
If owners truly demonstrated the money is not what it’s purported to be, I think many of us would clearly and definitively side with their position. But, it stands to reason that if their own books reflected the numbers they claim (not great), then why hide them? It just seems counterintuitive. And I think the lockout was a bad-faith gesture to strong-arm a deal under pressure when it wasn’t needed, so that moved just irritated me as a baseball fan, just like a strike that wasn’t needed would (and did in ‘94).
hyraxwithaflamethrower
The other half of this story is that many teams own media outlets as well to broadcast their games locally. That revenue doesn’t count as team revenue, so it’s entirely possible for the team to charge the station a low fee for broadcast rights. The team makes less revenue (poor them), the station sells ad time at the full rate and makes a huge profit. I’m sure there are lots of other ways owners are hiding some team-related revenue as well.
And perhaps more to the point, I get that they weren’t happy about losing money in 2020. Nobody was. But it’s a business. Risk is on the owners. Trying to screw over the players for the next five years because owners have had one bad year in the last 20 is going to tick off far more people than it will get them to side with the woebegone owners.
Yankee Clipper
Hyrax: That’s why I’m really confused at the people that are so pro-owner & anti-player. It’s like they simply can’t stand the money going to the guys with the skill, but are just fine with it going to the Congressionally protected ownership that finds loopholes & hides profit a million-and-one different ways so they can keep upcharging every one of the fans. I just don’t get the logic.
Augusto Barojas
If there is any relief money going from the government to billionaire owners of professional sports team, somebody needs to be shot.
Dogs
Read This
propublica.org/article/the-billionaire-playbook-ho…
Tigersfan82
I’ll definetly be in the minority if anyone agrees with me at all,but personally i wouldn’t have a problem if this lockout lasts awhile and the season is reduced to 80-100 games,The season would be more exiting with less games played as 162 to me is too long the games aren’t important individually since there’s too many of them.i’m not worried about the integrity of the schedule since it’s already been destroyed years ago.
Tigersfan82
I’ll definetly be in the minority if anyone agrees with me at all,but personally i wouldn’t have a problem if this lockout lasts awhile and the season is reduced to 80-100 games,The season would be more exiting with less games played as 162 to me is too long the games aren’t important individually since there’s too many of them.i’m not worried about the integrity of the schedule since it’s already been destroyed years ago.
Downing was safe!
Good bye MLB and good luck. It’s time for this fan to move on.
Cray MC
Don’t give up so soon! My interest in baseball has been an important part of my life since 1968 and I gave up after the 1995-1996 strike. I ended up not coming back until 2012, 2013. I love the game as much as I ever did, except my extensive knowledge of baseball’s history has a gap of over a decade and a half.
Let’s give one or both sides a change to screw this up for awhile before we give up. For most of the issues, apart from the owners for some weird reason taking the position that numbers for a 5 year agreement shouldn’t be indexed for inflation, both sides made a lot of progress toward middle ground.
I hope they work it out. I think they reasonably could.
rond-2
Clowns…..
realistnotsucker
Owners think there the product we care about and have convinced a lot of people they are here, funny how this comment section is so much more pro owner compared to Twitter where it’s pro player
Ignorant Son-of-a-b
LOL all these guys saying they’re done watching baseball forever will be the first ones logging onto MLBTR when the transaction freeze is over.
9lives
I’ll be watching Milb instead this year so I will be logging into this site daily but not for MLB. I doubt I’ll stay away as long as I did for their last work stoppage but I definitely will skip 2022.
Ignorant Son-of-a-b
The fans are the last ones to ever be considered yet we keep coming back because baseball played by professional athletes is a hell of a sport and often our narcoticizing drug that makes life suck just a little less. Bring it on, I need my hit
Jays_need _a_LH
I’ve already decided my love for baseball is not stronger than my hate for these idiots. If they want to willingly take games away from me, I’m giving them a penny this year. And I invite the rest of you to do the same. Remember after 1994? Fans stopped going and they felt it. Time to remind them.
MLB Top 100 Commenter
My prediction remains that the parties will agree to a new collective bargaining agreement on Thursday, March 24, 2022.
Yankee Clipper
Yeah, man, that could work because I have May as the pool date. I’ll give them permission to do it then.
Jays_need _a_LH
Well then, I hope no one watches this year (in person or any other way). Like me. 1994 should have taught them not to mess with missing games. They won’t get any money from me. And they shouldn’t get money from anyone else. They should have (and could have) figured this stuff out well before now.
66TheNumberOfTheBest
Has any of the CBA discussions revolved around how to make the sport, you know, watchable?
Here’s an idea…
Any batter who touches his gloves during an at bat is automatically out.
4 hours of TTO and OCD….
etex211
After the 2020 fiasco, I just never imagined that they would allow this to happen.
66TheNumberOfTheBest
And here’s the thing…
Do they realize baseball is dying? Yes, dying.
“But…but…but….they just got record TV money?!?” Yes, any live programming is being bought for absurd money right now because of the fracturing of the content market.
When is the last time you saw kids playing on a field outside of a league game? I haven’t seen it in probably 25 years. Even league games are rare. Those fields sit empty.
Baseball is practically a punishment to kids raised on YouTube and TikTok. A chore.
Barring an alteration to the current trajectory, baseball dies with the boomers.
SMART businessmen would be OBSESSED with how they can hook the next generation on baseball, but these myopic silver spoons will just focus on squeezing the players and every last drop of blood from baseball’s carcass.
Snuffy
You’re right, the fan base is old and getting older. I am an avid sports fan, as is my 35 year old son. The difference is he doesn’t know who Fernando Tatis is, and has never heard of Juan Soto.
Yankee Clipper
There was an article today by Suzanne Carbanero citing that owners don’t realize how shortsighted they are being by demanding to save dollars now. The reason? Because over the course of time, every time there is a work stoppage it inevitably hurts the game of baseball and the owners much more than the players; each and every time, which research supports. It’s simply trying to win the battle (breaking the union) instead of the war (making the game better and winning future generations while ensuring their future financial growth).
dan2
Manfred’s already substantial nose obviously grows even more as he stands behind the podium spewing lies and half truths.
Baseball lacks leadership. From the baseless cancelation of the all star game in Atlanta til these negotiations, baseball lacks objective leadership.
The_Voice_Of_REASON
Right, bring thinly veiled bigotry into this, you pathetic, irrelevant dinosaur.
goob
Comparing Manfred to Pinocchio isn’t bigotry, veiled or otherwise, you wretched, inconsequential troglodyte.
ChuckyNJ
This constant whining and crying about “the fans” makes me wanna holler “Y’all are a spoiled, snotty bunch!”
Amazon is siccing the NYPD on union men trying to organize workers at a warehouse in Staten Island. The keyboard warriors are sure as hell not too worried about that.
Cantfixstupid
Just wait until someone’s crystal lite package is late….
uvmfiji
Please cancel the entire season
Redwolves3
MLBPA you’ve done this to yourselves. Until a new CBA is reached I hope the teams will re-access their rosters; even to the point of giving more opportunities to minor league players who are ready to move up to the majors. If that means getting rid of veterans who are blocking (or hanging on) minor league players … so be it.
Teams need to re-access whether they really need to sign free agents to long term contracts who may not immediately put them in the playoffs or World Series or be productive throughout the length of the contract.
Let players like Correa, Castellanos, Bryant, Schwarber and “hanger-ons” like Kershaw, Grienke, Cueto, Cruz come up empty with no team to play for. Or only sign them to an MLB minimum contract.
Yankee Clipper
So, I take it you think owners actually care if they win? Because that’s not true and has been proved out over and over. And over and over. And over and over again. And again…and again…and again.
The_Voice_Of_REASON
Seal the gates, cancel the season, hire unhinged armed guards for all MLB buildings that the “players” use, hire an army of trolls to spread rumors about the players and their wives. SHOVE IT IN THEIR GREEDY FACES, ROB!!!
LordD99
Sigh.
Cantfixstupid
Cancel the whole 2022 season for all I care. MLB is a joke and needs to change. Heck just shut it all down as I don’t care to spend money or time at any Stadium or any web team shop this year or next for that matter.
LordD99
Ken Rosenthal’s closing words today: “The owners wanted to win in another rout. Now everyone loses.”
Bob333
Baseball is dead and will never recover GOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!
Yankee Clipper
Why is this good?
Randy Red Sox
Manfred just cancel the ENTIRE season and see if you can fix this for 2023—GREEDY PIGS BOTH SIDES !!
stevep-4
Since players won’t be paid I assume that means I will be fully refunded for those games in my season ticket plan, not given a useless ‘credit on account’ to use to buy some other games.
No, that is not team policy? Hmm so you sell a product, do not deliver the product, there is a word for that…oh yeah, fraud!
Reick
Too bad both sides won’t just move on. Players form your own league. Owners bring in players that actually want to be there. Probably never happen but I would love to see it.
Malicious Phenoms
The fans are at fault. Letting entertainers make this kind of money, by attending sports, concerts, movies, streaming, etc, etc. Get out of the house, get a life that doesn’t include entertainment. I grew up being outside playing as a kid, fresh air and sunshine. No video games, no million TV channels. Stop spending your money on entertainment. Its your money that is making them all wealthy ffs.
JayFan
Just read Manfred’s letter to the fans. What a crock of BS. Both sides are to blame for this situation given they barely meet for the first 2 months of the lockout. The only losers in this process are us, the fans.. these bloody dirtbags better start working damn hard to get this resolved.
tigerdoc616
This is unfortunate but entirely predictable. This is what the owners have been gunning for ever since they instituted the lock out. They want to punish the players by having them miss game checks. They want to force the players to knuckle under and accept a worse CBA for them than the last CBA. Owners have one on many of the issues over the years, scaling back arbitration, the institution of the CBT, strengthening the penalties on going over the CBT, and most recently, the take over of the minor leagues.
There are only 12oo 40 man spots in the major leagues. Only a small percent of that are players who make life altering money. The vast majority will make a little money and will have to go do “a real job” after their playing days.
But the owners do make truckloads of money. We don’t know exactly how much because their books are closed. to the public, except Atlanta which is publicly traded. Those numbers showed how profitable the Braves have been recently. The only other source we have that gets at it is Forbes, in their annual “Business of Baseball” articles. Hard to know how accurate it is, but it is the best we have to go on. I put their data into a spread sheet and came up with the following:
For the 10 years ending with the 2020 season, MLB teams cumulative operating income was $5.2B dollars. 2019 was the most profitable season during that time with a cumulative operating income for all 30 teams of $1.5B. For that 10 year period, only 6 teams lost money, and only 2 would have if you leave off 2020, the Marlins and my Tigers. Interestingly, the Yankees and Dodgers were 2 of those 6 teams, along with the Blue Jays and Mets. Some of the “poorest” franchises did pretty well over that 10 year period. Jays made $194.8M, The A’s $166.3M, the Pirates$313.6M, Cleveland $195M, Twins $158.6M, Brewers $261.4M. Those are all numbers that include the losses of 2020. The top earning team was the Giants at $498.9M followd by the Cubss at $479.8M and the Astros at $435.3M. Again that includes the 2020 losses.
IDK how accurate the Forbes numbers are. They have slightly different numbers than Liberty media released regarding the Braves. But they did not miss by much so I am inclined to think Forbes numbers are in the ballpark (pun intended). So baseball is extremely profitable for those 30 owners. Two of the richest teams have been less profitable than some of the poorest teams. Also, the Yankees, Dodgers, and Mets were the biggest losers during the pandemic. The teams that lost the least? Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Baltimore.
So I don’t want to hear how poor some teams are. They may not be able to spend with the Yankees and Dodgers but they have been making good money at the game with the revenue sharing and going cheap on payroll. And baseball makes more than enough to give the players, THE source of their income, most if not all of what they ask and still have a lot left over for themselves. This really IS on the owners.
Let's Play Ball
The raise to offered to prearb players was $150K on the minimum or 26% plus $30M in a bonus pool which equates to roughly 88K per full-time equivalent earning the minimum. This assumes 100 full-time equivalents are used to replace injured players. In other words, 4 players playing 4 games each are 1 FTE. I could be a little off on this but it’s an adequate measure for this purpose. That’s a total average increase of $238K and average of $808K and a raise of 41%.
They also eliminated draft pick forfeiture which will increase free agent salaries but hurt smaller market teams in terms of their ability to hold onto players.
The universal DH which would mean replacing 10-15 jobs with much higher paying jobs. Net effect of something in the neighborhood of $100M to players.
Expanded playoffs means more pay for players. Teams spend at least 85% of revenue on employees and operating cost. Therefore, the players benefit at least as much from the players from the TV revenue. More fans would be engaged which is good for the game, good for fans, good for players, and good for owners but the players fight playoff expansion as well.
They also added a draft lottery.
Name one thing about the MLB proposal that is worse than the previous CBA for the players?
Let’s keep in mind that the average payroll has been around $140M the last few years. Therefore, the average player capable of making an opening day roster earned $5.38M. We have players making over $40M season. Scherzer would earn roughly 1.34M per game if he remained perfectly healthy and he would make $43M next year if he didn’t play at all. The premise that the veteran players were not adequately compensated under the old CBA is absurd. The amount paid to prearb players needed to go up, but the MLB proposal was reasonable in that regard.
Yankee Clipper
That’s what I don’t get about this argument. The last CBA expired. Why shouldn’t players get increases commensurate to increases, at least somewhat, to profit ? What’s the basis of the argument that owners should keep making more but players should stagnate, especially when the owners have a system designed to facilitate their profit through Congressionally protected monopolies?
I just don’t understand this logic and how the entertainers in only MLB should accept stagnated salaries when all other entertainers get paid in accordance with the real or expectant profit. And, this is the purpose of negotiating every 5 years anyway, so it’s not like it’s unexpected.
Dogs
The more losses they can claim at tax time helps them. If they can use all tax laws to make it look like they lost money, they can use that tax loss & recoup it by lowering their gains in other business adventures which means they pay less in taxes & pocket more money. Even though they are making a profit, their Accountants can & will legally make their books look like a huge loss.
It pays to have good Accountants
HubcapDiamondStarHalo
Based on the way that MLB has “negotiated” so far, my guess is that this cancellation is a toe-in-the-water sort of gesture to let the MLBPA know they’re serious. When negotiations resume, watch for MLB to impose another deadline before more games are cancelled and again try to bully the players into accepting virtually the same offer.
OrangeCrushCity
A lockout and missed games immediately on the tails of the pandemic shutdown is not winning baseball any popularity points. No amount of rule changes or juiced baseballs is going to fix this.
Jimbob 57
The biggest problem is the CBA. Just remove the 12 poorest teams and then let the players can have free reign. Their agents would love this ,they could get a lot more of Steve Cohen money that way. Ask Scott Boros if this would be alright with him !
Old York
I look forward to after the lockout when MLB realizes that it needs to attract fans back to the game. We’ll have MLB turning a blind eye to cheating so we can have the first ever 100 HR season and the first pitcher to have a 0.00 ERA, 20 no-hitters and pitch 30+ games. Bring back the sticky stuff, too.
Jplane
Manfred should have been fired two years ago for the BLM disaster. Bring back Bud Selig, who actually loved baseball more than seeing his face on TV every night acting like he really cares.
Chicago Whales
Both sides are wrong. They are killing the golden goose. If baseball doesn’t come back this year (and I suspect it won’t) I won’t be back. Millionaires arguing over millions. They should go get jobs in call centers where they get 35k a year, no raises, bonus, vacations and have to work 50 plus hours a week and after a year of that then go back to the table. I’m betting both sides would be anxious to work something out then.
mike156
This is just business. Let them do their thing. MLB punishing MLBPA by cancelling who series when they didn’t need to do that yet tells you why these negotiations are so poisonous. We fans can return if we feel like it when the games resume. In the meantime, there’s a war going on in the real world, there’s family and work, there are books to be read, hobbies to be pursued, lives to be led. A month of no baseball is bad, but in the larger scheme of things…let me know when they’ve finished.
Old York
No one wants to watch Seattle vs. Minnesota or Boston vs. New York so not a big loss.
mike156
Nope. No fan wants to watch any game, they just want to pay for tickets in advance and not get them refunded…
Old York
Considering most people are on their phones at the game instead of watching it, I’d say that’s an accurate description of the fanbase today. Maybe they’re watching the game on their phones at the stadium?
rightwingrick
The average value of a MLB franchise 10 years ago was about $475 million.
The average value of a MLB franchise today is about $2.2 BILLION.
Meanwhile, the average major league salary has DECREASED by about 4% over the last several years.
AND 70% of players make below $1 million, and have short careers, reaching their prime at about age 26-27 and go into decline in about 5 years.
AND the minimum salary in ML baseball is the lowest of the major sports.
AND….minor league players barely make minimum wage AND they do NOT get paid for required Spring Training.
Seems pretty out of balance to me.
Yankee Clipper
It is. Just out of curiosity, if you’ll be honest, are you truly conservative as your moniker indicates or is that wordplay? I only ask because there seems to be certain notable trends on these threads as well, but there are a few crossovers that are viewing this scenario with complete objectivity and aren’t siding based on political or economic ideology (which I think is appropriate because of the unique industry of sports & the monopoly protection of MLB).
LetGoOfMyLeg
Looks like a good investment. The owners are well educated. By the way – has your home increased in value over the past 10 years or are you a renter?
Halo11Fan
About the house, it’s great it goes up in value, but if the government taxed it to the point that I was spending more money than I make, and the only way I could get in the black was to sell my house, then fxxxxx.
It doesn’t matter if my house goes up in value, I’m not selling it. It doesn’t matter if teams go up in value. They shouldn’t have to liquidate their prized asset.
I don’t take anyone seriously when the talk about the increased value of the asset. Unless you are going to sell, who gives a f….. and why should the choice be “accept running in the red or sell”?
sonorawind
So, owners are running in the red? Yet no teams are for sale, no teams have declared bankruptcy and no teams (with two exceptions, apparently, and those AREN’T running in the red) will open their books to prove it?
ALL franchises eventually sell. Why not consider the profit from that as income over the life of ownership?
Ask Jeffrey Loria about how poor an investment an MLB franchise is? Dude, completely destroyed one franchise and the owners kept giving him sweetheart deals to get rid of him. Believe he turn 150 million into 1.2 billion, or something close to that.
Even the poorly owned Mets turned a profit for the Wilpons.
LetGoOfMyLeg
The bottom line is $200,000 a game, $100,000 an inning with a minimum wage of $900 an inning ($2,000 an hr?) underpayment to the players? What the owners make is really irrelevant. Do you not buy from Amazon because of what Jeff is making?
Yankee Clipper
Amazon is incomparable to MLB. One is entertainment, one is not. One generates revenue directly from the skill of a very select few in the world, the other does not. One has Congressional protections, the other does not. Very, very different. To compare the two is to compare Amazon to the US Postal Service and even that’s a better comparison because they both mail stuff at least.
Yankeesniper
Looks like we will be chasing players away from dumpsters trying to find scraps of food to feed their kids.
I am sure those minor leaguers that come from a poor background hoping to change the fortunes of their family are happy that multi-millionaire representatives shot down their prospects over a mere 25000 dollars.
I have read the advantages of metrics and analytics to the point of ad nauseam on these boards and yet now that the owners use them to find better deals, they get criticized for it, yet in the same breath, I read over and over how nuts the Astros were for giving Verlander 50 million. Gimme a break
I have read both offers and the Union’s angle is nothing more than having teams like the Yankees going back to paying a ridiculous salary for over-the-hill players.
LetGoOfMyLeg
An interesting point about the big-spending teams My take is I wonder if ‘Under the table’ millions to Union leadership if you can get the CBT doubled? It blatantly exists only for a few teams.
Yankeesniper
teams like Brewers and Giant and Rays have used metrics and analytical successfully to find good players at a bargain price, for which those same players can parlay into better deals as success comes their way, but the Union doesn’t want that to happen. No, they need to raise the tax threshold to give teams like the dodgers and Yankees room to spend recklessly thus benefiting the union, only for those teams to bump up against the threshold once more, which comes to head again at the next CBA..
The Owners proposed a league minimum to foster competitiveness and to put a better product on the field and the union show no interest in it, because it is all about the flashy dollar sign to them.
Yankee Clipper
Why does everyone care so much about the owners’ money? That’s befuddling to me.
sonorawind
Yeah, and who “forced” the owners to pay guys like Trout and Scherzer 30+ million a year? The owners have savvy accountants. They KNOW they can afford salaries like that, given all the TV money, internet income PLUS the standard operating income at the stadium.
I don’t get people getting angry at players making an average of five million across the sport. Sure, it’s a lot to play a game. The operating income must support that kind of salary. No team has declared bankruptcy, have they? Heck no. They have found many more ways to monetize ownership. And that’s how they can afford to pay players 5 mil/year to “play a game”.
To me, it is SOOOO revealing that the owners cry poverty………..yet won’t open their books to prove it. They don’t because they don’t dare let people know how lucrative a monopolistic business is, irrespective of valuation. An exemption to anti-trust laws will do that for you…The explosion of media/internet monetization will do that for you.
I cancelled my MLB subscription three years ago when I moved to a city that was 500 miles from the nearest MLB team AND I WAS BLACKED OUT OF WATCHING THAT TEAM’S GAMES! THERE IS NO LOCAL BROADCAST OF THAT TEAM’S GAMES TO “PROTECT” FROM ME WATCHING ON MLB. It’s pure monopolistic choice.
I have been a fan since ’61. I think I am done.
breckdog
They will have to beat the owners to those dumpsters then. The cry of poverty is the owners rallying cry and they continue to make that assertion as they continue to hide their books.
Yankee Clipper
I think one thing that bothers me most about Manfred is his attitude toward baseball’s more dire topics. For example, when speaking about canceling the first two series, he’s joking and laughing. He’s not a good representative for the owners or the game, imo. He doesn’t appear to take the game seriously, particularly during during dire circumstances like the current.
LetGoOfMyLeg
I suggest Manfred is but only a puppet, The puppeteer are the owners. If he wants his job he does as he is told.
Yankee Clipper
I agree with you. I still think he’s a terrible rep for them though. You’d think they would get someone who is sincere & relatable.
mafiabass
… and blame it on the players even though they started it by locking the players out.
Ga
We need to remove these oligarchs who steal taxpayer money to fund their teams, these socialist criminals, from control over our national sport! Teams owned by fans/cities/regions just like Packers and countless soccer teams. No more Putin oligarchs, no more US oligarchs! Long live baseball!
myaccount2
Manfred is an absolute dolt.
Poundsy24
The lockout should have never happened. They literally had YEARS to come up with a new CBA. The fact that it’s reached this point should be unacceptable on behalf of the owners. If I were an owner, especially for smaller market clubs, I would be livid with Manfred’s inability to reach an agreement and essentially be forced to cancel games because the players refuse to be swindled. They played a full year without a CBA, they can do it again. Stop using the lockout as a leverage tool
Karlander
Maybe we will get lucky and they will cancel the entire season. The greed and entitlement on all sides is disgusting.
Baseball began to lose me when mediocre players and bench warmers started getting between 5 and 10 million per year. It reached a point of absurdity that so many players that hardly contribute are still paid very substantial dollars. It’s nuts. Not to mention that at most ball parks these days a beer is the cost of an entire 12 pack at grocery store. 6 dollars for a small bag of peanuts. Really??
I can afford it but refuse to do so on principle. Baseball was economic sports entertainment for an entire family to go when I was growing up. Now it’s a fortune for an entire family of 4-5 persons. Now it’s a rip off.
I certainly won’t miss it if the whole thing goes down the tubes this year.
MLB
I
Doral Silverthorn
Suck it Manfred
Doral Silverthorn
Did he say Boggs? I read Ripken, and that moment he broke Gehrig’s record brought us all back “in”.
rightwingrick
Just got an email from “my” major league team today saying (as a season ticket holder) I would “get a credit” for games not played and the credit must be used for extra tickets, other items in the park or team store, and I must access it within the next 14 days !!!! Nothing will be carried over to 2023. Can you believe that?
I wrote back and said I would not accept ANY of those options and wanted my money back for games MLB has canceled unilaterally. I also said “it’s a stupid rule and it sucks” and asked how much more did they want to piss off their fans.
Shadow Ball
You poor season ticket holder. Woe is you.
KingSall77
How many games then we playing in 2022? Predictions? I say 132.
kellyoubreisgod
Upper 140’s for me, I don’t think they’ll skip the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson Day (April 15th), then again this is the MLB owners were talking about. I’m fine with games being cancelled through May
kellyoubreisgod
Through April should I say, but when it hits May it gets to be a huge problem
Eatdust666
I hate Manfred but you got at least mostly blame the greedy players union on this one.
Shadow Ball
Don’t give an inch to the union. BREAK THE PLAYERS UNION TO SMITHEREENS!!!
Yankee Clipper
Cool! And illegal if they partake in behavior that meets the unfair labor practice laws, which is not advisable because it will backfire in court if it goes to mediation/arbitration.
Redwolves3
Now it’s Mike Trout’s turn to call out Manfred because the owners locked the players out.
Trout nor any of the MLBPA never mentioned or volunteered that the players would sign an agreement to continue negotiations and to not strike during the regular season, playoffs, or World Series provided the owners unlocked the facilities.
ws_champs
Fire Manfred.
sonorawind
This just in. Baseball IS a game on some levels but is a BUSINESS at the top levels. Like all professional sports are.
Why people keep using this ridiculous argument that the players are paid too much to “play a game” is ludicrous.
64' Yanks
Aww for the days when people complained about Mays and Mantle getting $100,000 a season.