MLB 2021-2022 Offseason Hot Stove

[WestPhillyPunisher]

True, though like I said both sides will try to portray themselves as the victims, the defenders of the fans and such...

Defenders of the fans my ebony posterior! The only thing the owners and players are defending because of this nonsense are their bank accounts.

[MRP]

The sides met today, but no progress was made. But at least they spent more than 15 minutes together in the same room. Minor issues were discussed, and MLB made minor incremental increases in some of their numbers, but the sides are still wide apart. They met and talked for a whole hour before breaking up to caucus among their own sides for most of the rest of the day despite being in the same room together, and then briefly reconvened before calling it a day and agreeing to meet again tomorrow. IT seems MLB now feels it is the players turn to compromise on some issues, but the union does not seem inclined to budge. They have about a week to come to terms before they would have to push back opening day.

-M

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The sides met today, but no progress was made. But at least they spent more than 15 minutes together in the same room. Minor issues were discussed, and MLB made minor incremental increases in some of their numbers, but the sides are still wide apart. They met and talked for a whole hour before breaking up to caucus among their own sides for most of the rest of the day despite being in the same room together, and then briefly reconvened before calling it a day and agreeing to meet again tomorrow. IT seems MLB now feels it is the players turn to compromise on some issues, but the union does not seem inclined to budge. They have about a week to come to terms before they would have to push back opening day.

-M

This could be problematical for the union. If it's seen, correctly or not, that the owners compromised, but the players haven't, guess who the fans will take their ire out on? Come out on the losing side of the court of public opinion, and the union has trouble on its hands.

[MRP]

This could be problematical for the union. If it's seen, correctly or not, that the owners compromised, but the players haven't, guess who the fans will take their ire out on? Come out on the losing side of the court of public opinion, and the union has trouble on its hands.

I hear you, but the owner numbers were so ridiculously low to begin with that those incremental increases are still way below player asks. For example, one of the incremental increases was in the pool of money available to go to pre-arbitration eligible players who perform well, the so-called super twos. The players asked for the pool to be $100 million. The owners offered $10 million. Their incremental increase was to raise it to $15 million and now they expect the plyers to come down close to their number. While it is an incremental increase, it's hardly a good faith offer that might ignite enough compromise to reach an agreement. It feels more like a sap in the face in some ways.

So, yeah I guess there is a chance folks could look at it and say the owners are trying and the layers aren't, but if you look at the actual numbers, those owner efforts really look like empty gestures, and that could then turn out to be problematic for the owners inthe court of public opinion as well.


-M

[achilles]

This could be problematical for the union. If it's seen, correctly or not, that the owners compromised, but the players haven't, guess who the fans will take their ire out on? Come out on the losing side of the court of public opinion, and the union has trouble on its hands.

I personally doubt that fans in general will blame the players who they like, instead of the owners who they don't like. It's a case of billionaires trying to screw multi millionaires who do at least work for their living, and are the faces fans cheer for and buy jersey's for. No one is a fan of the owners. No fans have an overwhelming liking for the super rich owners.

IMO, the overwhelming fan sympathy will go to the players, and the blame will attach to the owners. Especially since the players' demands are normal and just, while the owners are trying very obviously to screw the players over yet again.

Nor have the owners compromised in any meaningful way. They've been trying to have it all their own way with nothing real to compromise.

[MRP]

This article at ESPN gives a decent overview of what the key economic issues are that are at the center of the standoff between owners and players

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...al-compromises

It also gives some suggestions as to what the compromises should be, but they come across as a little naïve and overly optimistic to me. It's worth reading to get a sense of what the issues are, but the commentary can be skipped for the most part.


These are the key issues:

Arbitration and pre-arbitration pool
The issue: The union wants to get young players paid more. It has proposed two ways to do so: First, by getting them to arbitration more quickly. Currently, only 22% of players are arbitration-eligible after two years of service time. The union's last proposal was for 80%, and it also included over $100 million in a bonus pool that would award the top players who aren't yet eligible for arbitration. The two sides are far apart here: The league is steadfast on keeping Super 2s at 22% and has agreed to the new pool, but offered just $20 million.

Minimum salaries
The issue: Baseball lags well behind the other sports in minimum salaries. In 2021, it was $570,000. NHL rookies make $750,000 with similar-sized rosters. With the career span of a player less than five years, it's incumbent on the league to raise the minimums, and it's a key priority for the players.

Service-time manipulation and tanking
The issues: According to the players, the cycle of rebuilding teams has gotten out of hand. It takes up to half the league out of the bidding for players every offseason, crushing the demand while the free-agent supply is plentiful.

Teams that clearly aren't going to win in a given season also have no incentive to bring up top prospects and give them a year of service time. Even the contenders tend to hold players down for a few weeks in order to keep them from getting to free agency for an extra season, but the issue is much more prevalent for teams entering a season with no chance of competing.

To help combat tanking, a draft lottery that would keep the worst team in baseball from automatically getting the No. 1 overall pick has been discussed in proposals and seems likely to appear in the new CBA. As part of Tuesday's negotiations, MLB added a fourth team -- up from three in previous discussions.

Revenue sharing/CBT
The issue: In 2021, the first threshold of competitive balance tax sat at $210 million. The owners' latest proposal offered a slight raise throughout the life of the next agreement, beginning with $214 million and ending at $222 million. The league also wants to increase the financial penalties for teams for going over the tax. The union believes harsher penalties will further de-incentivize teams from spending -- and that the threshold is too low, anyway. It has asked for it to go as high as $245 million in 2022.

The union also wants to see less revenue sharing with the smaller markets -- it sees it as a way for the bigger teams to keep more of their money and spend up to (and beyond) the CBT.

Until these four issues are solved, everything else in the negotiations is essentially meaningless (universal DH, expanded playoffs, etc. etc.) and until the two sides can make significant progress on these, we will be no closer to baseball being played. Unfortunately, these are the issues neither side want to compromise on either, which is why we are where we are, and will be unless one side or the other decides to move form their position on these issues.

-M

[Deathstroke]

Former Mariners and White Sox 2nd baseman Julio Cruz, who spent the last 19 years on the Spanish language broadcasts for Mariners games, has passed away.

[MRP]

So the only movement at all in today's negotiations was that the league upped their minimum salary offer to $640K, the union still wants $750K as a minimum. The major news coming out of the negotiation today though was that the League stated unequivocally that if a deal is not in place by next Monday the 28th, they will begin cancelling regular season games. The games will not be made up and the players will not be paid for a full season. The League had stated previously that they wanted at least 4 weeks of spring training before opening day, which marked 2/28 as the deadline, but never stated it would cancel games if that deadline was not met. They did so today though. The players union has never acknowledged that deadline, and still haven't commented on it. The only thing coming form the players camp previously was that if they did not get paid for a full season, they would not agree to an expansion of the playoffs. No word if that is actually the case though after the league made their announcement today.

With them being so far apart, and the league only making incremental increases to their offers while the players aren't budging at all, I think things are looking grim for the season to start on time. I don't think the players believe the owners will hold out and are playing chicken. The owners have offered mediation twice now and been rebuffed by the players both times, and all of their counterproposals have moved the goal posts farther, so I don't see them changing their tune before Monday, and I don't think the owners are going to cave on the key economic issues either. I could be wrong, but nothing I have seen has been a glimmer of hope this gets done by Monday.


-M

[MRP]

I am not trying to pin blame on either side, but it's become clearer over the last day or so that the players do not take the Monday deadline set by the league seriously and hence still have no sense of urgency to get things done. They believe they can regain any lost games and pay through negotiations by having double headers and such throughout the season while the league has been adamant that isn't happening and games lost will not be rescheduled. The Players think it is a bluff and believe the League will cave on everything if they call their bluff so see no need to make compromises. The League however doesn't seem to be bluffing at all and hence we have an impasse as the sense of urgency that is needed to make something happen is not there because one side (or maybe neither side) i taking the other seriously and don't believe any real losses are at stake yet. The players only response has been yeah right, if you cancel games we won't agree to things we already aid we would like playoff expansion and advertising patches on uniforms, which really is a step backwards not forward. The owners however, seem to have decided they are going to play hardball and not move much in the players direction until the players take them seriously, and as one reporter put it the meetings ended early yesterday because the League was literally "out of ideas" how to move forward.


-M

[babyblob]

I heard the advertising patches on uniforms idea a few times from people. And man I really hate it. Nothing like seeing the classic Yankees uniforms with a big Pepsi Logo on it. Give me a break. I know a couple years ago the station I watch that shows the Reds games puts a company Graphic on the pitchers mound during the game. Grrr.

[thwhtGuardian]

I am not trying to pin blame on either side, but it's become clearer over the last day or so that the players do not take the Monday deadline set by the league seriously and hence still have no sense of urgency to get things done. They believe they can regain any lost games and pay through negotiations by having double headers and such throughout the season while the league has been adamant that isn't happening and games lost will not be rescheduled. The Players think it is a bluff and believe the League will cave on everything if they call their bluff so see no need to make compromises. The League however doesn't seem to be bluffing at all and hence we have an impasse as the sense of urgency that is needed to make something happen is not there because one side (or maybe neither side) i taking the other seriously and don't believe any real losses are at stake yet. The players only response has been yeah right, if you cancel games we won't agree to things we already aid we would like playoff expansion and advertising patches on uniforms, which really is a step backwards not forward. The owners however, seem to have decided they are going to play hardball and not move much in the players direction until the players take them seriously, and as one reporter put it the meetings ended early yesterday because the League was literally "out of ideas" how to move forward.


-M

Why should they cave to the league?

Their four big asks aren't some crazy pie in the sky ideas...they're pretty basic, so if they give an inch they lose out.

The "out of ideas" comment was the most laughable comment yet, how about just pay them what they're worth?

[achilles]

Here's what the Braves posted in revenue and net profit: https://www.yahoo.com/sports/champio...173334889.html

Now, over a half BILLION in revenue and over $100 million in pure profit....and the teams can't increase the League minimum a few tens of thousands? Now sure, this was the eventual World Series winner, but it's not the biggest media market, and it sucked most of the season. Apart from teams like Arizona, which has tens and tens of fans, these guys can afford to not treat the non stars and younger players better.

[MRP]

Today is allegedly deadline day.

In other baseball news, Derek Jeter has resigned as CEO of the Marlins nd given up his 4% stake of shares in the team.

-M

[MRP]

Why should they cave to the league?

Their four big asks aren't some crazy pie in the sky ideas...they're pretty basic, so if they give an inch they lose out.

The "out of ideas" comment was the most laughable comment yet, how about just pay them what they're worth?

I'm sure MLB will give up profits to pay the workers what they're worth just as soon as every other major business in the US does. I lose less sleep about jobs where employees start at $640K a year wanting more money than I do for just about every other business in the US where employees are underpaid and the companies' profits and CEO salaries continue to grow without regard to what the employees who make it possible are earning. I'd rather see the league up the salaries on every employee who works in the stadiums and spring training facilities (vendors, groundskeepers, scoreboard operators, ticket sellers and takers, etc.), league offices, or in MLB adjacent jobs spreading the billions in profits to the folks who truly are underpaid than worry about whether players are getting "what they're worth" but those are the people who are losing out in this whole thing because while billionaires and millionaires argue over pittances to them, they are out of work and not getting paid at all.



-M

[achilles]

I heard the advertising patches on uniforms idea a few times from people. And man I really hate it. Nothing like seeing the classic Yankees uniforms with a big Pepsi Logo on it. Give me a break. I know a couple years ago the station I watch that shows the Reds games puts a company Graphic on the pitchers mound during the game. Grrr.

Yes, it's a terrible idea, and I hate it with every fiber of my being.