2021 Collective Bargaining Negotiations

[zambonir]

I think it needs to go on for a while, owners think they can just cancel a few weeks of games (and not pay the players), not make enough changes, and then cash in come October (when revenue is essentially guaranteed even if fans lose interest this season).

Major League Baseball has canceled opening day, with commissioner Rob Manfred announcing Tuesday the sport will lose regular-season games over a labor dispute for the first time in 27 years after acrimonious lockout talks collapsed in the hours before management's deadline.

[Dirk41]

I agree. Do you think they risk the entire season? Half?:

[LoneStarPhan]

MLB has disrespected the fans. MLB has disrespected me. Yes, I take it personally.

Anything less than a full season and I do not spend a dime on MLB or any related products this year.

Evidently, MLB does not realize they are no longer in the top tier of major professional sports in the USA. They now fall somewhere between the NFL and NBA and the NHL. While the owners collect millions from TV, they do not evidently realize that they could just destroy what they have built.

Shame on the commissioner and the owners.

[fish]

I wonder where this falls along political allegiances . In ‘94 I was all against the players. Now I’m all against the owners in the billionaire bs millionaire fight- I’d like to think because of gained life experience. But if ‘94 was a lockout I’m not sure where I would have come down.

Now I am biased because I am a union guy, but in general I think the evolution of public perceptions has been changed because of the availability of much more information.

Reading the comments section on the Athletic left me puzzled who all these people are that still have the mindset that greedy players are the problem and not greedy owners. Then it occurred to me, what if the Phillies were still crying poor like they were in 1994- back then I sided with the owners. So maybe all the people complaining about the players are the teams who profess to be handcuffed financially that shape their fans perception? Just seems so clear to me though that the owner's proposals only propagate the problems in the current system.

[zambonir]

Evidently, MLB does not realize they are no longer in the top tier of major professional sports in the USA. They now fall somewhere between the NFL and NBA and the NHL.

I would say they are third on that list and have been for a long time. And arguably some other things (auto racing and soccer, at least in aggregate) have pushed hockey to 5th.

I think I read like one Athletic comment like that before I had to stop.

The sad thing is you can't even turn to the minor leagues as an ethical alternative (or one that is independent from MLB, in most cases).

[andyb]

Another pretty good recap of the problem here:

Brisbee: Baseball games will be canceled, and there's no both-sidesing this one

[LoneStarPhan]

I agree that baseball is solidly third in professional sports in the USA. It was clearly #1 when I started following the Phillies for real around 1952. During those 60 years, the NFL, NBA, NASCAR, NHL and now professional soccer are clearly gaining in popularity. Baseball seems to be going down relative to other professional sports.

If we ask ourselves who is responsible for players not being in spring training right now, there is only one answer. The owners.

If we ask ourselves why there will be games lost this season, there is only one answer. The owners.

Clearly, the owners do not care about the fans except to take our money. They believe we will flock back to pay whatever prices they set for their product. Sadly, they may be right. But don't ever think that the owners care about the fans other than getting our money.

[schillingfan]

The owners haven’t negtated I good faith the whole time. They have pretended to be negotiating, when I think it was always their intent to cut off the beginning of the season to save money and squeeze players. I’m guessing two weeks to three weeks worth of season loss will be the point when the finally feel some pan and start bringing their offer up.

[andyb]

I guess there was an informal meeting today but doubt there was much progress. One item in this Ken Rosenthal story is spreading around and that is MLB teams generally do not have to give back any local TV money until about 25 games are cancelled. So in a 140-game season they would get almost all their TV money while the players would lose 22 games of salary.

It would not surprise me if it were one of the MLB goals, because their profit is likely greatest in that in between scenario.

Rosenthal: MLB's owners had every advantage, and still it wasn't enough for them

[flyers19rw]

The only part of the season that really matters to the owners is the post season one. That’s where the big national tv money comes in. MLB will somehow manufacture a bunch of teams to fill the slots for a post season tournament. If the players are going to win this thing they have to be willing to go to the wall-pay for 162 games or no season at all.

[zambonir]

I wonder if that is industry standard or MLB-required for local TV deals? Either way, the Phillies do still stand to lose some money, since they have a stake in the network and the ad revenue. But not compared to paying the players of course.

The other thing that jumped out to me in that story:

But if Meyer fails to restore the players’ full pay and service time, they will collectively lose $20.5 million for each day removed from the 186-day regular-season schedule. Once 15 days are missed, the free-agent eligibility of star players such as Shohei Ohtani and Pete Alonso could be delayed by one year, and the service time of hundreds of others will be affected as well.

[andyb]

I am guessing any settlement will absolutely have to pro-rate the service time, especially since they did that in the COVID year. Any player on the roster for the entire season absolutely has to get a full year of service time. Partial years might be different but free agency and arbitration are just not going to be delayed because of missed games. I know it will need to be bargained, but players are not signing anything where full time players lose service time.

[bkeich]

Completely fanciful thought which will never happen and no one of consequence is considering it.

What if the owners leave the players locked out, promote their AAA roster, sign others and decide to play. Sell stadium tickets for $5/$10/$20 seats, so they fill the stadium, still make $0.6-$1.0M per game in revenue and pay the players at the league minimum.

In 5 years No one will remember the locked out players.

Ok, a friend of mine suggested this. I know it is never going to happen and isn’t even on the possible outcomes, but what if.

Oddly enough it might bring in fan interest. Family of 4 can go to a game and great great seats for $100 with food. I bet they will quickly start drawing 30K.

[zambonir]

You're describing the Atlantic League, and the St. Paul Saints and Sugarland Skeeters (both of which still jumped at the chance to become affiliated).

I know you're not serious but who does that even serve? The fans want to see Bryce Harper and Juan Soto, not AAA players. And the owners want their billions in TV money.

If they did it, Scott Boras and IMG and CAA would start their own league with the major league players, and that would be the bigger draw.

[bkox]

If they did it, Scott Boras and IMG and CAA would start their own league with the major league players, and that would be the bigger draw.

I agree they could start their own league... but where would they get MLB sized stadiums to play in?

Wasnt there talk of using minor leaguers/replacement players and former MLBers in 1995? I seem to remember Marty Bystrom being a consideration

[allentown]

I agree they could start their own league... but where would they get MLB sized stadiums to play in?

They don't need that to bring in a fair amount of $ for TV rights. They either die quickly as a replacement league to MLB or the major league stadia will fall to them within a year or two, since the owners won't want to pay stadium costs with no games for fans to attend. The major league players starting their own league would be an interesting turn. The players would make less short-term, but perhaps not as much less as one might expect, given the owners ever-increasing share of revenue. The players don't really need the owners, who contribute very little to baseball. It's a billionaires business, where the owners by-and-large don't pay for the stadiums and don't pay property tax on them.

[LoneStarPhan]

We know for sure that owners are 100% responsible for spring training not starting on time.
Owners are also 100% responsible for the 2022 season having regular season games canceled.
Owners are 100% responsible for teams not being able to shape their rosters in preparation for the 2022 season.
There is no way to know what would have happened had the owners not instituted the lockout but clearly, their action has failed. We have no settlement. We have no baseball.

[zambonir]

Yeah it would pretty much be a TV play though I'm sure MLB's partners would not rush to do it (but other networks would). And stadium leases would remain in force. But you're probably not drawing more than 10 or 15,000 people and you wouldn't have more than six or 10 teams.

Of course this is all fantasy, it would no more happen than if a bunch of striking Amazon workers started their own website.

Personally I think the rhetoric is a little overheated, because baseball is still in its own bubble. No, the work stoppage isn't good. A repeat of '94 would also be terrible. But not "disastrous" probably. It wasn't then, ultimately. Now baseball's biggest problem/fear might be that no one would miss it, at least not until June.

[andyb]

Commenting here instead of the minor league thread on MLB's desire to skip the rule 5 draft. It is yet another way to control service time for a handful of prospects and lack of information is really not a good reason to skip it.

But going back to the CBA, I am surprised we have heard nothing about roster rules. I am guessing some things have been discussed but since they don't have giant dollar figures attached that nobody cares. All I have heard is about limiting the number of options in a season a player could use (to like 5). That is a good thing generally but I do get the need for teams to have emergency call-ups.

Here is a potential set of roster solutions:

• 42 man roster instead of 40 (let's be real in that 40 is too small with the MLB rosters going up one and pitcher injuries increasing.
• Minimum salaries for anyone on the 40/42 man roster at 25% of the MLB minimum. I think veterans get $150K these days but it would help the younger players that do not get that yet.
• When a player is optioned he cannot be recalled for 10 days unless there is an injury (like today). Change would be the player gets 10 days of major league service time when optioned and 10 days of major league minimum pay. Make there be a cost to bouncing players up and down and it will happen less. Players sometimes get 1 day of pay/service time to fly halfway across the country when the bullpen is short. This compensates them.

All these rules probably would cost teams an extra million or two every year (going to the lowest paid players) but they would also get the flexibility of a larger roster. And for the players that is 2 more players making a 25% of the MLB minimum ($175K these days?).

I hope they try to implement something like this. The NFL has reformed their practice squads on the fly in a similar manner and the NBA is increasing their development league pay. I think the NHL already pays their AHL players pretty well comparatively. MLB has a long way to go in paying minor leagues (just paying them something like $30,000 to $50,000 yearly based on experience seems fair though that would cost MLB teams $5-$7 million more than they are currently paying them.

[zambonir]

Commenting here instead of the minor league thread on MLB's desire to skip the rule 5 draft. It is yet another way to control service time for a handful of prospects and lack of information is really not a good reason to skip it.

I think the issue is more, too much information! Which is to say, the lists were locked November 19 and since then there's been three months of winter ball private workouts and gossip (and now minor league camps, which, it surely doesn't matter if scouts are banned, there will be word of mouth).

But yes, the players deserve their normal amount of (highly limited) movement freedom. There should probably just be a brief window in which teams can change their lists. But it also needs to get done before trading and free agency resumes.

A concern from the MLBPA side: I could easily see 20 teams keeping a Rule 5 picks where they'd usually go with five. Cheaper than signing major league FAs and can still change their mind later.

Really they should cancel the Rule 5 draft forever and give the unprotected players full minor league free agency. Expand the 40 at the same time. But I don't think the union is taking up for either.