2021 Collective Bargaining Negotiations

[andyb]

Figured this will be a huge topic this winter with the CBA expiration and it does not really belong in the general MLB threads. Here is an Athletic summary of how we got here from the last couple of CBA negotiations:

How we got here: The decisions and changes of the last decade that brought...

I definitely buy the theory that the players lost the last negotiations. I guess it is unfair to say that they settled for creature comforts (2 seats on the bus!) rather than pay raises and competitive balance revenue sharing that would have raised overall salaries. But even if they proposed much of that, they did not get it and as a consequence their pay rose at a much slower rate than overall revenues. Hence the dilemma and likely work stoppage, as owners will claim the loss of revenues over the pandemic to force the players into more concessions.

[andyb]

And my comment on that article:

MLBPA needs to get more creative and figure out what the incentives are. Take that age-based free agency (age 29.5) and counter with age 28 or the 6 years we have now. They should also increase revenue sharing (50% of local money instead of 30-something) and pair that with a salary floor. Ask for arbitration after 2 years, and allow salary cuts greater than 20% as something to give MLB. Also they need to tie revenues together with salaries. Whether this means the competitive balance threshold needs to increase at the pace of revenues (maybe with an escrow option to account for things like the pandemic) or some other means, it needs to happen. Ideally with an increase in minor league pay.

MLB should listen. There are solutions that guarantee them a consistent share of revenues where they will almost always make money. No work stoppage also makes them money. Let's just hope for adults on both sides who realize that there are pretty easy solutions here in a sport where franchise values keep going up.

[bkox]

and counter with age 28 or the 6 years we have now.

this bothers me for one reason. Had this been in place... the 2008 Phillies might have never happened. Howard, Utley, Werth and Chooch all would have been a FA either after 2006 or 07. Only Rollins and Burrel had enough service time to have already qualified for FA... and obviously the Phils worked deals with them. But not sure they would have with all of em.

The increase in player movement takes interest away from the game. Even if this 2021 team would somehow win the World Series.. I wouldnt have the same feelings for this team long term that had a bunch of home grown stars with pieces brought in to shore up the edges. I follow the Phillies pretty closely and these have been times this year they have made transactions and I said who the heck is this. ANd yet if could probably name the entire roster of the 1980 Phillies without looking.

[zambonir]

But if that system has been in place Howard and Utley would have been called up two years sooner. And Werth was already on his third organization. I get it, I miss having the same roster for years and years too, but the teams are just as aggressive as the players in pushing them out, and even more so in the analytics era. As it is, reaching free agency at 28 still means the player is technically past his prime.

You could fix some of that with earlier arbitration and much higher salaries for all players, but owners won't want to do that either.

The irony is the Phillies wouldn't have lost Howard, but they probably would have given him a better contract than the one they eventually did, if only because it would have ended sooner. And had they been unable to keep him, that would have been the karma for only paying him minimum salary while he was winning league awards.

[andyb]

An age 28-based free agency would just necessitate signing long term contracts earlier. We were paying Howard free agent money that entire period and went essentially 7 years before we had to. In age based free agency Howard would have made roughly the same. Utley too. We had a really low cost long term deal with him. We would have done that regardless. The real thing with Utley though is we would not have messed around with him for an extra year moving him to 3B potentially. MLB clubs benefit from delaying the callup of a prospect. That saves them money but hurts the game overall.

In general I care about the health of the game more than the health of the Phillies. I think any system will still have salary disparities, so a team like the Phillies will always be able to have a higher payroll than the Royals. If we are going to eliminate tanking and huge talent disparities though, we really need more level revenue. Which means sharing TV and digital money more equitably.

[Philsmania]

I've long believed that they should get rid of arbitration and make free agency available after three years since now organizations value youth more. Back in the day, baseball's grand bargain was that players were underpaid when they were younger and overpaid when they were older. Well, teams aren't abiding by that anymore. Players should have the opportunity to maximize their earnings earlier.

As for Howard, I think if you take his year-by-year salaries and turn them completely around (ie. he made what he made in 2016 in 2005 on down to what he made in 2005 in 2016), it all probably comes out in the wash. If anyone was worth $25 million per year his first five years, he probably was and he was probably only worth ML minimum at the end.

[andyb]

I've long believed that they should get rid of arbitration and make free agency available after three years since now organizations value youth more. Back in the day, baseball's grand bargain was that players were underpaid when they were younger and overpaid when they were older. Well, teams aren't abiding by that anymore. Players should have the opportunity to maximize their earnings earlier.

Completely agree with this in concept, though it would provide a big advantage to the large market clubs. Increased revenue sharing really would need to be part of such a tradeoff. Maybe also something like NFL player franchise rights to let a small market team keep a star for a fair market value wage. The arbitration system is not entirely bad. It just favors the owners a bit much and we do want young players to get paid more.

[Lucky_Beagle]

One concern for middle of the road (or lower) players has to be if they make too much they can easily be replaced by a rookie salary and not have the opportunity to gain more service time and the advantages that come with it towards pension etc. There does come the point of pricing yourself out of the game if you aren't an above average player.

[andyb]

I think the NBA deals with that by having a veteran's minimum salary that increases with service time - but the league pays the difference in some way between the rookie and veteran minimum. In baseball you could do this if shared league funds were used to pay that part of the salary. Might cost like $3-$5 million per team. Rookie minimum $1 million. 2-4 year veteran minimum $1.2 million. 5-7 year $1.5 million. 8+ year - $2 million. So the Phillies could pay Matt Joyce $2 million with the league kicking in the second million. That would put the veteran on a more even playing field and protect the lower revenue clubs.

Of course we still might not want Matt Joyce, but that is a different question.

[BostonRoss]

The owners want more money from the players, and the players want more money from the owners. Both sides want more money from the fans. Neither side wants to share more with the minor leaguers. I have no sympathy for either side. Both groups have ceded power to smaller groups who are essentially fiduciaries whose goal is to get more from the other side.

Neither groups is homogeneous. The players' union caters to the highest paid starts; the owners group caters to the big market teams. Each is pushing for ideas that make the game worse.

Earlier free agency is fairer to players, but it would make it impossible for small market teams to have more than a single fluke good season. Small market success like the 2014-2015 Royals could not happen. Expecting big money teams to meaningfully share revenue is a pipe dream.

The concept of paying younger players who are currently underpaid is fine, but where does the money come from? Would the union like to see older players paid less? Will the owners recognize the injustice and give the players a larger share?

[zambonir]

I think for most players that would be balanced out if early-career pay improves and artificially suppressed service time ends. In the former case it would also mean you can't count on automatically cheap rookie/2nd-year labor. As it is we're seeing so many $6-8 million players simply getting non-tendered, but teams (at least not the Phillies) would still rather pay Matt Joyce and Brandon Kintzler $2-3 million than a rookie making $500K. If you can play there's always going to be a team ready to pay you on the open market but you don't want teams like the Rays to not only able to afford to keep Ian Snell, but not even Wander Franco after three years. Bird rights or franchise tags woul be interesting.

Not sure either side of this debate is going to be near that creative, or amenable to big change.

[bkox]

I guess its not really a CBA issue.. but if teams could find a way to cut down on the injuries in todays game.. that would help with saving money. I understand the increase in pitcher injuries because everyone throws 95+ now. But why is there so many more hamstring, groin, quad, oblique injuries now compared to 20 years ago. I dont even remember hearing the term oblique when I started following baseball. Or sports hernia. Im sure they existed but it was much rarer.

Having a star like Trout out not only wastes the most of the 37M hes being paid this year.. and probably decreases fans in attendance who might come out just to see him play.

The top 20 in salary this season... Several have lost a big portion to the whole season to injury.. Trout, Verlander, DeGrom, Strasburg, Kershaw, Rendon. IM guessing teams have lost hundreds of millions to injuries this year.

Compare this to the 1980s.. The 1983 Phillies, known as the wheeze kids, because of their age, only had one player in their starting 8 not play at least 120 games. Their 38year old ace threw 287 innings and their 40 yo reliever Ron Reed appeared in 61 games throwing 95 innings. In the 1980s it seemed to be huge news if a star was lost for an extended part of the season. Now its almost expected.

If the owners want to save money.. and MLB wants to put on a better product.. figure out whats causing all these soft tissue injuries and how to prevent them... the MLB product is better when Trout and Acuna and Bellinger and all are on the field.

[Philsmania]

Bkox, the best I can do is theorize about why there are so many more injuries these days. The best ideas for why that i could come up with are these.

1. Back in the day, the prevailing mentality was "be a man, play hurt". That mentality, for better or for worse, is now in disrepute.

2. A big part of what made #1 possible was a steady supply of painkillers and other drugs flowing through ML clubhouses (and not through means of duly-issued prescriptions). MLB put the kibosh on that.

3. Improved sports medical knowledge is more cognizant of the longterm damage that can result from playing through injuries.

4. An outgrowth of #3, players don't want jeopardize future earning potential.

5. At the same time, players train harder, longer and more strenuously these days and that takes a toll on the body, especially considering that players are bigger and stronger today and possibly pushing the boundaries for what evolution intended for the human body.

[allentown]

I think this would have a lot of negative repercussions, including leading to the further diminution of the minor leagues, scouting, and player development. Teams just won't value these as highly if their period of team control of the guys they develop is cut in half. Also, this will cause guys to be left in the minor leagues longer, because teams won't want to waste any of their precious three seasons of control on any year less than what they expect to be one of the prime seasons of the players career. It also will make MLB much more of a FA league in which teams at salary max have an even larger advantage.

Far better to revise arb to base awards on the player's actual value, not a % discounted value as today. Also, raise the MLB minimum and guarantee the players a % of revenue. If that % isn't met in the normal course of baseball contracts for the season, at the end of the season, the players divide the shortfall.

[allentown]

Other reasons:
1) pitchers are expected to throw a lot harder and also to produce higher spin rates
2) players join professional ball injured -- the college game and CWS leads to injuries, especially for pitchers; the draft encourages H.S. and college prospects to hide injuries to get a larger bonus
3) with many more playoff berths, more teams play full-out for most of the season. There are a lot more playoff games than when I was young, and that after a 162 game season
4)more players playing almost year-round gives less recuperation time between seasons
5)big signing bonuses plus higher player salaries and 'contract years' change the risk/reward ratio
6)not controlling a player for his full career allows teams to be more cavalier about players' long-term health. This especially impacts pitcher usage

[schillingfan]

It could be looked day statistically, but back in the day there were probably a lot of players, particularly pitchers, who washed out due to arm injuries. Those who made it to the majors were the sturdiest. There are many fewer teams and there weren’t surgeries that extended careers.

[andyb]

Just about a month away from the potential lockout:

How a Major League Baseball lockout would work this winter

[zambonir]

So for now the key question - since a timely resolution seems unlikely - is if they will extend the CBA, or if the transaction calendar will simply continue apace for a while (i.e. no actual lockout declared until after the holidays). And if so, will there actually be transactions? And how many might we see in November?

[bkeich]

It always seemed odd to me that the baseball calendar does not synchronize with the contract. We will have about a month of offseason free agency on this contract between owners and players and then a lockout. Going to be very odd to see if any teams sign players since clearly a lockout is coming (whether it involves any actual games or not).

The Phillies have obvious needs and some money to spend. Do they wait again and try to get discounted players that fall through the cracks or do they actually try and fix some of the problems at full price? Plan one (discounted players) will probably result in yet another .500 season and just missing the playoffs. But is the problem that our poor farm system creates a circumstance problem here we just don’t have the depth needed to win?

[andyb]

I think there are minor transactions in November like any rule 5 related stuff. A handful of players resigning with their clubs, etc. But no major trades or free agents because where the competitive balance threshold lies is going to be really important in the new CBA for these decisions. And what if free agent eligibility goes to 5 years instead of 6? Or even that age based 29.5 thing the owners proposed.

Even under an agreement where the owners largely win and maintain the rough financial parameters of the current deal there could be a bunch of free agents. Still coming off the pandemic a flood of free agents on the market this winter might even depress the salaries of those new free agents because there is too much supply.