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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 2, 2021 3:44:34 GMT -5
MLB owners lock out players, beginning sport’s first work stoppage in 26 years By Michael Silverman Globe Staff,Updated December 2, 2021, 2 hours ago
IRVING, Texas — The baseball industry has pulled the plug on itself.
Late Wednesday night, before Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expired at 11:59 p.m., the 30 MLB owners voted to lock out their labor force and, effective at 12:01 a.m., start the sport’s first work stoppage in 26 years.
MLB informed the MLB Players Association that the players were being locked out, effectively turning out the lights on a business that is four months from playing regular season games.
The decision snapped a run of labor peace marked mostly by nearly uninterrupted revenue growth of the industry over the last decade and half. It’s the fourth lockout in MLB history, and the ninth overall.
The choice to lock out the players certainly did not come out of the blue. Three days of face-to-face talks here essentially failed, with neither side budging from long dug-in positions on core economic issues.
In a letter to fans, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred expressed his disappointment that “despite the league’s best efforts,” it could not reach a deal with the players.
”We hope that the lockout will jumpstart the negotiations and get us to an agreement that will allow the season to start on time,” wrote Manfred. “This defensive lockout was necessary because the Players Association’s vision for Major League Baseball would threaten the ability of most teams to be competitive. It’s simply not a viable option.
“From the beginning, the MLBPA has been unwilling to move from their starting position, compromise, or collaborate on solutions.”
In response to the decision, the MLBPA wrote that the lockout decision was “specifically calculated to pressure Players into relinquishing rights and benefits, and abandoning good faith bargaining proposals that will benefit not just Players, but the game and industry as a whole.”
“This drastic and unnecessary measure will not affect the Players’ resolve to reach a fair contract,” said Players Association Tony Clark in a statement. “We remain committed to negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement that enhances competition, improves the product for our fans, and advances the rights and benefits of our membership.”
After the last two five-year CBAs were seen as favoring the owners, the players in this round of bargaining sought more substantive changes, focusing on shifting salaries to younger players, increasing the minimum salaries, and tweaking service-time rules.
The owners, who are largely satisfied with the overall economic structure as it is, have not responded positively to the players’ proposals. The players, in turn, have been underwhelmed by the owners’ proposed solutions.
The sides have been bargaining for most of this year.
While there were never any indications that talks were advancing, at least some hope had been held out that a visit from the MLB negotiators and the seven members of the owners’ labor policy committee to the players’ annual meetings might move the needle. Related: MLB is headed for a work stoppage. We’re answering 15 big questions about it
That hope withered by Wednesday afternoon, when a last-ditch, seven-minute conversation between the leaders of each side’s bargaining group ended with the MLB contingent, without comment, walking briskly out of the hotel.
Negotiations could resume as soon as the sides want. A lockout status has no bearing on talks continuing, and in theory its implementation is intended to have players negotiate with more urgency. With the baseball calendar still near the beginning of the off-season, it is doubtful either side considers an actual loss of spring training or regular season games to be a given.
It’s far from a remote possibility, though.
The union has been told that the owners will never agree to changes to the six-year minimum it takes for a player to become a free agent, changes to the revenue-sharing system, and changes to rules regarding service-time transactions, according to a source familiar with the union’s position.
In addition, the source said, if the union drops those requests, the owners in turn will make unspecified binding proposals in other areas, including the competitive-balance tax and reserve system.
An article headlined “The latest on the CBA negotiations” on MLB’s website Wednesday morning prompted the source to offer the union’s perspective on the sides’ differences.
The article said the union “hasn’t moved away from its original proposal from May,” a statement the source disputed. On Tuesday, according to the source, the union made a number of proposals the owners said they did not agree with and would not counter.
Among the proposed changes were, for the first time, an agreement from the union for expanded playoffs if they are part of a larger package. The format offered by the union is different from what the owners are seeking.
Regarding the pursuit of broader changes to core economic issues such as shortening service time to become a free agent and service-time manipulation, the union has seen the owners’ responses of an age 29½ minimum to become a free agent and elimination of arbitration in favor of a pool of money for younger players as radical and unresponsive.
The union agreed to advertising patches on uniforms. It also proposed what it deemed a modest increase in the minimum salary and a small increase in the competitive-balance tax. The source said the union has not received any proposals from MLB regarding on-field changes such as pitch clocks, defensive shifts, and automated strike zones.
Mets pitcher Max Scherzer, one of eight members of the executive subcommittee that is the top-level bargaining unit of the players, said incentivizing winning and eliminating tanking are central to the players’ wish list for the next CBA.
“Adjustments have to be made to bring up the competition,” he said. “When we don’t have that, we have issues.
“We’re trying to make the game better, more competitive. We’re absolutely committed to doing that. It’s just not me, it’s everybody. It’s obvious to all of the players.”
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 2, 2021 4:04:15 GMT -5
Pete Abraham @peteabe · 3h MLB.com dumped all the stories about the current players. That'll show 'em.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 2, 2021 8:13:30 GMT -5
Peter Gammons @pgammo · 2h Having been in Joker Marchand Stadium, Lakeland, for the first strike in 1972 and went to Johnny At The Bat w/ Harold Reynolds and Scott Bradey ib the '90 lockout, I have learned one constant that remains:the owners will not break the players, no matter how great the $ divide
The lowest low in 50 years of labor unrest was the 1995 Replacement Players, the then-owners of the Marlins promoting "the players who really care" and, after those replacements were treated by the union as "scabs" not being supported by the owners that put them in the middle
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 2, 2021 8:15:25 GMT -5
Historically, millionaire players playing a kids’ game have gathered the brunt of fans’ scorn with the billionaire owners somehow escaping the worst judgment. ========================================== The issue is that it a whole easier to get a stupid quote from 1 of 750 players than from one of thirty owners.
Don't worry when that Ricketts of the Cubs puts his foot in his mouth while crying poor I will be sure to mention it.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 2, 2021 10:06:51 GMT -5
Major League Portion Of Rule 5 Draft Canceled
By Darragh McDonald | December 2, 2021 at 8:49am CDT
The MLB instituted a lockout yesterday after the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Until a new CBA is agreed to, the lockout will remain in place with teams prohibited from making transactions during that time. This apparently will include the major league portion of this year’s Rule 5 draft, as Kyle Glaser of Baseball America reports that it has been canceled. The Triple-A section of the draft will still take place as scheduled, however.
As noted by Glaser, the draft has taken place each year since 1920, even going ahead during past MLB work stoppages such as the 1994 strike. However, 2021 will see that century-long streak come to an end.
The Rule 5 draft has long been used as a way for players to get opportunities to play at the MLB level when not given them by their previous club. Teams with open 40-man roster spots can select a player with four to five years of pro experience from other organizations if said player hasn’t been given a spot on the 40-man roster. Players who signed at 18 years of age or younger but have five years of experience can be selected, as can players signed at 19 or older who have four years of experience.
As Glaser points out, the most recent iteration of the draft led to the breakout seasons of such players as Akil Baddoo, Garrett Whitlock and Tyler Wells. From a historical perspective, the draft also led to the first MLB action of such stars as Johan Santana, George Bell, Joakim Soria, Roberto Clemente and dozens of others.
It’s fair to wonder whether teams knew that this decision was going to be made since, just a couple of weeks ago, they still went through the usual process of adding players to their 40-man rosters in order to protect them from being selected in the draft.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 2, 2021 10:07:14 GMT -5
How The MLB Minimum Salary Has Changed With Each New CBA
By Tim Dierkes | December 2, 2021 at 9:02am CDT
As we enter Day 1 of the MLB lockout, one key issue in the current labor negotiations is where the players’ minimum salary will land. Given the union’s stated goal to get players paid more when they’re younger and more productive, it stands to reason that they’re seeking a more significant increase than usual. The minimum salary was set at $570,500 in 2021. It’s not known how much MLB proposed raising it in their most recent offer. Here’s a look at how the minimum salary has changed with each new CBA.
1968: Minimum salary went from $6K to $10K, a 66.7% increase 1970: $10K to $12K, a 20% increase 1973: $13.5K to $15K, an 11.1% increase 1976: $16K to $19K, an 18.8% increase 1980: $21K to $30K, a 42.9% increase 1985: $40K to $60K, a 50% increase 1990: $68K to $100K, a 47.1% increase 1997: $109K to $150K, a 37.6% increase 2003: $200K to $300K, a 50% increase 2007: $327K to $380K, a 16.2% increase 2012: $414K to $480K, a 15.9% increase 2017: $507.5K to $535K, a 5.4% increase
In the free agency era, the minimum salary had always increased by at least 15.9% until the just-expired CBA. There is historical precedent for a leap as high as 50%, which would mean $855,750 for 2022. An increase of 16% would be more in line with the ’07 and ’12 CBAs, which would set the minimum at $661,780. It should also be noted that the minimum salary typically increases each year within a CBA, with the ’20 and ’21 rates involving cost of living adjustments.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 2, 2021 10:12:31 GMT -5
OverTheMonster @overthemonster · 1h Looking forward to the 2022 season
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 2, 2021 10:16:58 GMT -5
Chelsea Janes @chelsea_janes · 9m Manfred on lockout: “It’s not a good thing for the sport. It’s not something that we undertake lightly. We understand it’s bad for our business. We took it out of a desire to drive the process forward to an agreement now.” Said MLB didn’t sense urgency, wanted to apply pressure.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 2, 2021 10:20:02 GMT -5
Bob Nightengale @bnightengale · 13m Commissioner Rob Manfred said that the union is seeking a $100 million reduction in revenue sharing
Rob Manfred on the lockout: "It's not a good thing for the sport ...we understand its bad for the business.''
Manfred: "We made a proposal yesterday, if it had been accepted, it would have provided a clear path towards an agreement.''
Rob Manfred said there has not been any on-field rule changes proposed in their labor talks.
Rob Manfred says he still is optimistic an agreement will be made before the loss of any games.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 2, 2021 12:05:10 GMT -5
How The MLB Luxury Tax Thresholds Have Changed By Year
By Tim Dierkes | December 2, 2021 at 10:01am CDT
There was a time when the MLB players’ union felt that a luxury tax is just a salary cap in another form, with is why they rejected such proposals back in 1994. Nonetheless, in the first post-strike collective bargaining agreement, executive director Don Fehr “finally said yes to the luxury tax – the first time the union agreed to any form of payroll restraint since free agency changed everything in 1976,” to quote Jon Pessah’s book The Game.
Though Pessah called that CBA a “huge victory for Fehr and the union” for other reasons, the owners did get their foot in the door on the matter of a luxury tax. The luxury tax wound up snowballing into a major problem for the players in recent years.
In that CBA, the tax thresholds were set like this:
1996: no luxury tax 1997: $51MM 1998: $55MM, a 7.8% increase 1999: $58.9MM, a 7.1% increase 2000: no luxury tax 2001: if MLBPA exercises its option for ’01, no luxury tax
Mechanisms were also put in place that could allow the 1997-99 thresholds to be higher, depending on where the fifth and sixth-highest payrolls in the game landed. Tax rates were set at 35% on the overage for ’97-98 and 34% for ’99.
While that CBA technically ended with two years sans luxury tax, it became part of all future agreements. The agreement that began in 2003 saw the luxury tax rebranded as the “competitive balance tax.” The MLBPA was able to achieve an initial major increase in the thresholds from where they left off in ’99:
2003: $117MM, a 98.6% increase from ’99 2004: $120.5MM, a 3% increase 2005: $128MM, a 6.2% increase 2006: $136.5MM, a 6.6% increase
For this CBA, a concept was introduced to penalize second, third, or fourth-time offenders with a higher tax rate. The first-time offender rates were set at 17.5% in ’03 and 22.5% in 2004-05, yet was removed entirely for ’06. 30-40% tax rates were set for teams that exceeded the threshold multiple times during that CBA.
For the CBA beginning in 2007, the tax thresholds were set as follows:
2007: $148MM, an 8.4% increase 2008: $155MM, a 4.7% increase 2009: $162MM, a 4.5% increase 2010: $170MM, a 4.9% increase 2011: $178MM, a 4.7% increase
Here after an initial “new CBA” leap, we start to see the tax thresholds moving up more slowly. The tax rates were set at 22.5%, 30%, and 40% and began penalizing teams for exceeding the thresholds in consecutive years, introducing the concept of teams “resetting” its rate by getting under the threshold for one season.
For the CBA beginning in 2012, these were the tax thresholds:
2012: $178MM, no increase 2013: $178MM, no increase 2014: $189MM, a 6.2% increase 2015: $189MM, no increase 2016: $189MM, no increase
Here, the players’ union made large concessions that had a compounding effect they’re still feeling today. If the MLBPA had achieved simply a repeat of the increases from the previous CBA, the 2016 tax threshold would have sat at about $232MM.
The next agreement introduced the concept of luxury tax tiers, adding first and second surcharge thresholds after the base tax one. For example, 2021 included thresholds at $210MM, $230MM, and $250MM. This CBA also introduced penalties involving the draft.
2017: $195MM base tax threshold, a 3.2% increase 2018: $197MM, a 1.0% increase 2019: $206MM, a 4.6% increase 2020: $208MM, a 1.0% increase 2021: $210MM, a 1.0% increase
While better than the previous CBA, the MLBPA again agreed to tiny increases in the base tax threshold. A simple 5% increase per year beginning in 2012 would have put the 2021 base tax threshold around $290MM, yet it sat only at $210MM. Not coincidentally, only the Dodgers and Padres exceeded a $210MM payroll this year. You can see the restraint this put on a club like the Yankees, which had a lower 2019 Opening Day payroll than it had in 2005.
In the current negotiations, MLB made an initial proposal that included lowering the base tax threshold to $180MM. According to Gabe Lacques and Bob Nightengale of USA Today, “In final proposals exchanged Wednesday, players requested a $245 million luxury tax threshold, with no progressive penalties for offenders; owners are offering a $214 million threshold, rising to $220 million in the final year of a five-year agreement.”
With a request to jump to $245MM, the MLBPA is proposing a 16.7% jump over the ’21 threshold, which would only begin to make up the ground they lost due to the non-existent or miniscule increases from 2012 onward. MLB, meanwhile, would like to increase the base tax threshold by 1.9% for 2022 and is proposing average annual increases of less than 1%.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 2, 2021 14:33:54 GMT -5
Rob Manfred, Tony Clark Discuss Start Of Lockout
By Anthony Franco | December 2, 2021 at 1:16pm CDT
Major League Baseball’s first work stoppage in more than a quarter-century went into effect last night, with the owners unanimously voting to lock the players out until a new collective bargaining agreement is reached. Each of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and MLB Players Association director Tony Clark met with the media this morning.
Both Manfred and Clark suggested the other side was primarily to blame for the lack of progress to date. Manfred justified the call to lock out within minutes of the previous CBA’s expiration — a decision the owners weren’t legally bound to make — by indicating the MLBPA hadn’t previously been anxious to move talks along. “People need pressure sometimes to get to an agreement, but candidly we didn’t feel that sense of pressure on the other side during the course of this week,” Manfred told reporters (including John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle).”The only tool available to you under the act is to apply economic leverage.”
Unsurprisingly, Clark pushed back at the assertion the MLBPA had been dallying in negotiations. “From the outset, it seems as if the league has been more interested in the appearance of bargaining than bargaining itself,” Clark claimed (via James Wagner of the New York Times). He also took a swipe at the lengthy “letter to baseball fans” MLB penned in announcing the lockout last night, quipping that “it would have been beneficial to the process to have spent as much time negotiating in the room as it appeared was spent on the letter” (via Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post).
The game’s core economics structure has long been the biggest divide between the parties. Such issues as the service time structure, the number of playoff teams and the competitive balance tax threshold are the particularly strong concerns. Economic discussions have unsurprisingly been the focus of early negotiations, as Manfred said the parties haven’t yet begun to discuss potential on-field rules changes (via Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer).
It is generally expected that there’ll be some alterations to the on-field rules. Most around the industry anticipate the introduction of a designated hitter to the National League. Manfred has previously gone on record to voice support for the potential introduction of a pitch clock. Seven-inning doubleheaders and the extra-inning runner of the past two seasons — to date temporary measures — have been topics of debate for fans. It seems those are ancillary negotiation points MLB and the MLBPA will address at a later date, with the broader economic divide the more pressing matter.
It’s not clear when the sides will get back to the table to discuss anything, though. After fairly brief discussions earlier this week seemingly didn’t make much progress, Manfred told reporters this morning no further meetings are currently scheduled (via Evan Drellich of the Athletic). The commissioner added that it was the league’s desire to “get back to the table as quickly as we can.”
The sides will no doubt reconvene at some point, and Manfred again expressed optimism a deal will be reached before the potential loss of any Spring Training or regular season games (via Bob Nightengale of USA Today). That’s a particularly important date for owners, who would first stand to lose revenue in the event of cancellation of games. Manfred has already drawn a clear distinction between an offseason work stoppage and one that threatens play, and we’re still months away from the specter of lost Spring Training revenue.
The players, however, are no doubt less thrilled with the freeze on free agency — and, to a lesser extent, their ability to access team facilities and personnel. While players aren’t in danger of losing salary until games start up, there’s some risk that a shortened transaction window on the eve of the season could leave some players in the cold. There was a flurry of activity before December 1, and the free agent market remained quite strong. Yet the MLBPA has always resisted the possibility of a formal offseason transaction deadline, fearing that teams would have increased leverage to wait players out until the very final stages of free agency in hopes of lowering asking prices.
While the MLBPA has expressed disappointment with the lockout, Clark pushed back against the notion they’ll need to acquiesce to end the transaction freeze quickly. “Players consider (the lockout) unnecessary and provocative,” he said today (Shea link). “The lockout won’t pressure or intimidate players into a deal they don’t believe is fair.“
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 2, 2021 16:30:59 GMT -5
On first day of baseball lockout, the sides come out blaming each other By Michael Silverman Globe Staff,Updated December 2, 2021, 56 minutes ago
IRVING, Texas — The first day of Major League Baseball’s first work stoppage in more than a quarter-century kicked off with dueling press conferences between owners and players.
Predictably, the rhetoric pointed blame at the other side rather than point to a quick path to labor peace.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred went first Thursday morning, stepping to the podium inside Globe Life Field in Arlington, where a football field for high school playoff games was set up on a baseball diamond.
Just nine hours earlier, Manfred had informed the Players Association that all 30 owners voted to lock out the players and shut down the industry. He placed the onus in the lap of the union for an “aggressive set of proposals” that it has “refused to budge from” since May. Those proposals, said Manfred, are “bad for the sport, bad for the fans, and bad for competitive balance.”
Owners cannot sign off on concepts such as a reduction in the time it takes for players to become free agents, Manfred said, because that would make it even harder for small-market teams to compete.
“It’s also bad for fans in those markets,” said Manfred. “The most negative reaction we have is when a player leaves via free agency. We don’t see that making it earlier, available earlier, we don’t see that as a positive.”
Manfred’s comments were less barbed than those in the midnight letter released by MLB to fans. That missive spoke of “extreme” proposals that threatened competitive balance, coming from a union seeking confrontation rather than compromise.
That letter prompted sharp pushback from Tony Clark, the MLBPA executive director, and Bruce Meyer, the union’s lead negotiator, in press conference No. 2 held at the Four Seasons hotel in Irving where three days of face- to-face talks totaling less than four hours had led nowhere.
“It would have been beneficial to the process to have spent as much time negotiating in the room as it appeared was spent on the letter,” said Clark.
In one of Wednesday’s brief sessions, Manfred said MLB made a proposal “that if it had been accepted I believe would have provided a pretty clear path to make an agreement.”
Meyer disputed the owners’ definition of a proposal.
“They said they weren’t going to respond but they would respond if we agreed in advance to drop a number of our key demands in a number of areas,” Meyer said. “We don’t consider that to be a proposal.”
Clark said the owners “refused repeatedly to make counter-offers on any of those core issues” and that “from the outset, it seems as if the league has been more interested in the appearance of bargaining than bargaining itself.”
Manfred said the lockout decision, while made reluctantly, was the only recourse, needed to spur negotiations and thus serve as “the best strategy to protect the 2022 season for the benefit of our fans.”
Clark said the players — many of whom changed their Twitter avatars to the faceless head shots that replaced their photos on MLB websites — did not take kindly to the league’s reasoning on the lockout.
“Players consider it unnecessary and provocative,” said Clark. “This lockout won’t pressure or intimidate players into a deal that they don’t believe is fair. When our game is being seen and viewed as something that’s a negative, it is personal to players in that regard.”
Manfred’s letter cited the record $1.7 billion spent on free agents in November as evidence that free agency is not broken.
Meyer said using that dollar figure was “oversimplified and misleading.”
“First of all, the fact that this year there seems to be more activity sooner by clubs and free agency than in a normal year raises more questions than it answers about all the other years,” said Meyer. “Secondly, you have to take into account the strength of the free agent class; this happens to be an extraordinarily good free agent class.
“I would just say that, you know, one good week of free agency doesn’t address all the negative trends that we’ve seen over recent years with respect to free agency and doesn’t address negative trends in other areas of the system that we’ve made a priority.”
If there was a positive note to emerge, it might have been Clark saying that the tension between the sides was being overstated.
“I say that because, fundamentally, the interests of management don’t often track the interests of the union,” said Clark. “And so there are inherent friction points that are part of the relationship.
“It makes for a nice headline, but at the end of the day, a deal is going to get done and the game and the industry is going to move forward.”
Manfred said he felt disappointment, not frustration, over the labor status.
“I think we’re in a process,” said Manfred. “I’m prepared to continue that process, and I’m optimistic that we’re going to get a deal.”
As of Thursday afternoon, a date for further negotiations had yet to be scheduled.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 3, 2021 3:36:14 GMT -5
Collective Bargaining Issues: Service Time Structure
By Anthony Franco | December 2, 2021 at 4:10pm CDT
The process for determining free agency and arbitration eligibility figures to be among the more contentious aspects of collective bargaining negotiations transpiring over the coming weeks. The MLB Players Association is expected to push for an overhaul of the existing system to get more money to players earlier in their careers; MLB, on the other hand, would seem to prefer the status quo.
Under the current structure, players are first eligible for free agency after logging six full seasons of big league service. Most play their first three seasons on salaries right around the league minimum, first qualifying for arbitration after three years. (The top 22% of players in the two-plus year service bucket also reach arbitration via the Super Two exception).
Jeff Passan of ESPN wrote earlier this week the MLBPA is hoping for players to reach free agency after six years of service or after five years of service and 29.5 years of age, whichever comes first. The Athletic reported in August they were also seeking arbitration eligibility arising after two seasons. The former ask would be an unprecedented development; since the 1975 abolition of the reserve clause, every collective bargaining agreement has set a six-year service threshold for free agency qualification. There is some precedent for the latter proposal, though. Between 1973 and 1987, players only needed two years of service to reach arbitration.
The league, unsurprisingly, hasn’t been keen on either idea. Over the summer, MLB proposed scrapping service time considerations altogether and making players first eligible for free agency at 29.5 years old. That was an obvious non-starter for the MLBPA.
While an age-based threshold would certainly be of benefit to some late-bloomers (hence the MLBPA’s desire to incorporate age into the equation to some extent), it’d also have a negative effect on many of the game’s top young stars. Carlos Correa and Corey Seager — each of whom is either expected to command or already has commanded one of the largest deals in major league history this offseason — would still be multiple years out from free agency under that kind of setup.
An age-based system would, however, address another concern players have expressed: service time manipulation. Calling up a player just days after the threshold passes for a player to earn a full season of service can give clubs a de facto seventh year of control, a loophole multiple teams have exploited when deciding when to promote their top prospects. That’d no longer be a relevant consideration under an age-based system, but even the MLBPA’s modified “age/service time hybrid” proposal could lead to gaming of players’ service clocks.
Evan Drellich of the Athletic wrote yesterday that the MLBPA has resigned itself to the potential for manipulation in any system with service time considerations. As a means of somewhat offsetting that issue, Drellich writes they’ve considered more creative ways of players “earning” service time beyond simply counting days. He floats the idea of a player who narrowly missed a service time threshold picking up additional service credit depending upon All-Star nominations or MVP voting.
Regardless of the specific form it takes, it’s clear that getting more money to early-career players is a priority for the MLBPA. Last week, Mets right-hander Max Scherzer — a member of the Players Association’s eight-person player subcommittee — told Drellich “unless this CBA completely addresses the competition (issues) and younger players getting paid, that’s the only way I’m going to put my name on it.”
Earlier free agency eligibility seems to be a non-starter for the league, however. Drellich wrote yesterday that the league refused to make a counter-offer to the MLBPA’s proposals on service time and luxury tax issues unless the union dropped its push for earlier free agency. Drellich reported this morning that the league has been similarly steadfast in its objections to arbitration eligibility after two years.
MLB has shown a willingness to revamp arbitration, albeit not in a manner the MLBPA has found acceptable. Over the summer, MLB proposed abolishing arbitration altogether and replacing it with a revenue-based pool system to be distributed to younger players based on performance. In MLB’s vision, salaries would be fixed based on objective performance metrics — likely some form of Wins Above Replacement statistic.
At a press conference this morning, Commissioner Rob Manfred reaffirmed the league’s objection to earlier free agency and arbitration eligibility (link via Bob Nightengale of USA Today). Manfred argued that the league “already (has) teams in smaller markets that struggle to compete. Shortening the period of time that they can control players makes it even harder for them to compete. It’s also bad for fans in those markets. The most negative reaction we have is when a player leaves via free agency. We don’t see that making it earlier, available earlier, we don’t see that as a positive. Things like a shortened reserve period … and salary arbitration for the whole two-year class are bad for the sport, bad for the fans and bad for competitive balance.”
Manfred echoed competitive balance concerns in pointing to another issue of contention: revenue sharing. The MLBPA has sought to cut back on the amount of money being distributed from higher-revenue franchises to their lower-revenue counterparts, Drellich wrote this morning, believing the reallocation “goes too far in keeping teams afloat without having to invest in players.”
The MLBPA has expressed concern about whether smaller-market clubs adequately reinvest those funds, filing grievances against teams like the Pirates, Rays, A’s and Marlins in years past. The 2016-21 CBA required teams to use revenue sharing money “to improve its performance on the field,” but investments in such things as scouting and player development staffs fit that criteria without offering direct financial benefits to players.
Manfred implied this morning that the MLBPA has expressed a desire to reduce revenue sharing by around $100MM, a development he said would further harm small-market clubs’ ability to compete. How significantly those proposals would harm competitive integrity is up for debate. MLBPA negotiator Bruce Meyer argued they’d have the opposite effect.
“Our proposals would positively affect competitive balance, competitive integrity,” Meyer told Drellich. “We’ve all seen in recent years a problem with teams that don’t seem to be trying their hardest to win games, or put the best teams on the field. Our proposals address that in a number of ways. And we’ve offered to build in advantages for small-market teams.”
There’s some room for debate about the competitive balance impacts of the MLBPA’s goals. There’s little question, on the other hand, that shrinking teams’ windows of contractual control would get more money to younger players. Unless paired with a drop in spending on older veterans, that’d raise the players’ overall share of revenues — a development with which Manfred and league ownership groups certainly wouldn’t be enamored.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 3, 2021 3:56:52 GMT -5
Red Sox Stats @redsoxstats · 12h We'd all be better off to just mute Manfred, Clark, and CBA now and not read nonsense until like January 20th. Figure that's when real movement happens, get it sorted by February 1st, another 2 week free agent and trade blitz, and then players report mid-February as usual.
Jon Couture @joncouture · 9h This can't be said loudly enough. Unless someone's paying you, there is no reason to watch pieces of a negotiation be leaked out without any context and with the express purpose of the leaker trying to curry favor.
That or just read old pal @evandrellich , who is killing it.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Dec 3, 2021 4:19:07 GMT -5
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