This reads as an objective attempt to provide both sides of the argument.Originally Posted by Pilchard
If neither side is willing to compromise, the season could be lost. The sun will continue to rise and set and the earth will continue to spin on its axis. The fans will accommodate and will develop other interests. The result, both sides will be losers as a new, post pandemic normal develops. The vital step is to get past the pandemic.
I don't agree with the Cardinals owner at all! They try to make $100 million per year for the ownership group to divvy up. So for him to say they don't make any money is simply preposterous.A few more union disputes in sports and TheReff may see the perspective from unions and employees POV
And yeah it's very reasonable that players want to hold the owners to a pro-rata agreement that they had reached terms on back in March and it makes sense that they shouldn't take a cut on this. The Cardinals' owner said that owners make limited profits on the baseball team while the company has increased from like 150 million from when he bought it to over 1 billion.
Someone on twitter pointed out that the Marlins had the worst organization in any sport, had no fans for 15 years and still had enough money to offer Stanton an insane contract with the additional bonus of selling for over one billion with five different interested buyers. Nobody anywhere is (or should - maybe Deacon is?) be sympathetic towards the owners in this situation. If you don't think you're making any money off of the team, just sell it and cash out for over a billion and walk away.
The next CBA discussions are going to be brutal. This is but a preview.
Particularly if, as expected, the pandemic lingers into 2021. With the ill will created via the public labor spat, and the economy's hit because of the pandemic, teams are just not going to spend money in 2021 and there will be a glut of free agents, this will make the MLBPA further dig in when the CBA is negotiated after the 2021 season. If MLB players did not like the free agent market over the past couple of years, just wait until this upcoming free agent season, the money is just not going to be there.
That said, salary de-escalation will be an issue for all leagues soon. Baseball is dealing with this first because the pandemic hit just before the season started (and because of years of owner/player distrust), but even the leagues with a salary cap based on revenue sharing, league revenues will plummet with no revenue from ticket sales and concessions (even the NFL salary cap will drop big time). So, expected salary cap levels are going to bottom out, with teams committed to pay amounts to guaranteed contracts, there is not going to be room to pay free agents. Baseball will be the worst, but other leagues will feel this in 2021, unless the economy makes an epic comeback in short order.
The MLBPA could take the high ground by saying they would take less than 100% of their prorated salary and use the diminution to pay all minor leaguers 100% of their salaries after the owners screwed the little guys so horrifically.
Another creative way would be for the players to accept say a 15% cut this season, in exchange for 6% add-ons for each of the next three years, for whole year salaries. And, for those not in the league, payment based on the highest annual salary earned, or league minimum for any year from 2020 through 2023, whichever is greater.
Apparently some progress:
- MLB sent the MLBPA a new proposal
- 60 games, possibly a few more
- Full pro rata pay
- Season would begin on July 19
- 16 team playoff
Apparently, the MLBPA is intrigued, but will seek to play more than 60 games.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/...20-season.html
60 is about 75% of the 81 games players wanted. So owners getting 25% cut in payroll costs. And fewer game cost "losses."
There is speculation that the MLB and MLBPA will settle on 66 games.
This DH thing is pretty much the final nail in the MLB coffin for me.
Ok boomer.
Reports are that MLB teams will be permitted to include advertising on the uniforms. Here we go with Chico's Bail Bonds.
I can live with that.
Another step down the slippery slope toward two platoon baseball? One DH for pitcher. Why not a second one for the light hitting great defense shortstop?
It seems like an exaggeration to say that instituting something in the NL that has been in the AL for decades is likely to be followed by something that would fundamentally change how the game is played and how rosters are constructed. It's pretty easy to draw a line between pitchers and position players for the purpose of the DH.
I lean on the side of preferring no DH, having been an NL fan by whole life, but I'd imagine that this is the sort of thing that fans will not think or care about within 5 years. Same thing for whenever football finally gets rid of kickoffs.
Agreeing to the DH for both leagues is a concession to the MLBPA because of the notion that the DH allows for higher paid older players to stick around longer, is that the theory?
On the flipside, I thought that MLB was intent on speeding up the game, and traditionally NL games are shorter in duration than AL games because the pitcher bats, and in the NL, pitching changes are slightly more likely to happen in between innings rather than in the middle of an on-going inning.
Last edited by Pilchard; 06-18-2020 at 02:52 PM.
MLBPA has counter-proposed a 70 game season. Looks like a deal with be reached somewhere in between. For scheduling purposes, it's helpful if the number of games is divisible by 3; so, 66 is the speculated number.
I think it's just something that the majority of players want. There is a (loud) minority of NL pitchers that enjoy hitting, but most don't. Hitters across the board are going to want the DH because it increases opportunities for them to play/stay in the league for longer. As the game becomes more focused on power-hitting, the DH allows for the big power, poor defense type of player to be utilized by both leagues. A good example of that is JD Martinez, who had almost no chance of being signed by a NL team when he signed as one of the better overall players in the MLB.
As an aside, I think the real problem is that growing up in baseball pitchers don't have to hit, especially past the high school level. So they don't practice hitting at all and they suck at it. If MLB had pressured college/MiLB to not use the DH, it would have been much easier to exclude the DH. I would have preferred that hitting skills be developed in young pitchers so that they could hit in MLB, but that hasn't happened, so we end up with NL pitchers hitting 0.072 or whatever, which objectively isn't interesting.
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