Two different answers to this:
1. You’re right. That’s a good point.
This should be something that Red Sox and Yankee fans agree upon. These fan bases support our teams financially and I would prefer that money go into their own major league payrolls. Not to Liverpool or to the Rays or anywhere besides back into the team. It’s infuriating actually.
The average salary for a physician in the DR is $18,715 a year, while for software engineers, it's $8,450. For Mercedes, as a 17 year old, to make $20k on the spot, then make $12k a year during the baseball season, and tack on a few more by working some other low-wage jobs (so say, $15k a year) for a decade, and then landing $250k for a year in the majors, means he has made approximately (rough estimate here) $390k over 11 years. The average salary for a physician in the DR over that time frame would be roughly $206k. So he's earned, by playing baseball, close to twice what a physician would have made over the same time frame.
No, I got it, not trying to be harsh in your direction. I am just infuriated about how short-sighted the owners are being here, it's sickening.
Should I stop posting when people are responding to me? If you want me to, I will.
The below is a pretty good indication - the players arent even trying to argue that the CBT should grow with the industry. Their proposal was to have it start at $245M - part of that is an admission that they didnt do a good job negotiating the last deal or two, but its also pretty indicative of what they want (and an acknowledgement that the absolute max payrolls is not the most important item on their negotiating position). Almost all of their proposals were guided towards getting more at the bottom - they were pushing hard on 5 years of service time and then switched to pushing hard on the pre-arb bonus pool and additional super 2s.
You should figure something out because you have posted in this thread more than 30 times since this morning and many of them were not necessary. We understood your perspective a while back.
I do not understand why you are more invested in billionaires making more money than you are in some incredibly talented kid from the Dominican getting paid. Although it’s true that I turn in the TV every night at seven to get a glimpse of John Henry’s translucent face.
Yes, exactly. It was crystal clear to anyone paying attention from the moment that the previous CBA was signed that it was disastrous for both the players and for MLB as a whole (not the owners, the sport). This is the first time since then that the MLBPA has been able to try to bounce back from that shitty deal, and they tried to incorporate some structural changes, but the owners vetoed those all essentially without choosing to engage. Revenues have skyrocketed in recent years and seem like they will only keep going up (Travis Sawchik thinks that MLB has a bunch of new deals ready to announce after a deal is agreed upon) and the owners refuse to share the pie.
It is kinda stunning. Also a bit misleading. The Pirates signed Jason Kendall to an extension of 6/60m in 2000 and Andrew McCutchen to a 6/51.5M extension in 2012. But still, they traded both of those contracts away before they expired so it's not as though they should be shining examples of how the Pirates really do spend money. They don't.
I'm not. I'm on the players' side on this.
The problem is that free agency is a pretty bad investment from the team's perspective. The Rays never spend in FA either and they do just fine. Same with Oakland. Teams like the Dodgers and Yankees and Red Sox spend because they have revenue and really no other way to utilize it. And they can afford to sign the players who have a chance to really make a difference. But why would the Pirates pay the premium it would take to sign say, Kyle Schwarber, to get maybe 9 extra wins over 4 years? The Pirates will contend when they have a confluence of young, cost-controlled talent, not when they hit big in the FA market.
Just have to nitpick this part out. Here and throughout the thread you seem to be fixated on absolute salaries, as opposed to reflecting on the player values versus total salaries paid. Just taking last season's salary compared to 2021 Opening Day 26-man Sox salary total, he is being paid 6.25 million / 180.1 million = 3.5% of the team's salary total. As a player who would have been in his last arb eligible season in '21 off of two 100+ OPS+ seasons who clocks in near top of league for games played at his position, and even in a poor hitting year is slightly below average at the important catcher position (#20 in 2021 per Baseball Prospectus), I think this is a bargain. (As an aside, Vazquez is 31 and I think he will fall off sooner rather than later, which is to say I wouldn't extend him unless the other options are not palatable.)
Freudian slip by Bernie there, separating it into two words?
This is why I think blame is important. I feel the owners saw two alternatives: a) get a favorable 5-year deal or b) chop 1-2 months off the 2022 season and get a favorable 5-year deal. Both are money makers. The sacrifice for b is minimal to them.
I’m in a similar spot and see things quite differently. I’m way more fungible than Plawecki.
Yes. You’re proving my point and helping explain why I am also firmly on the players’ side. The system is stacked in favor of the owners, and they’re taking full advantage it. And we the fans get screwed.
Because he basically is. There is no more useless sentiment than "man, I'd kill to be able to play baseball", as if that's what matters here: it may be your childhood dream, but it's someone else's livelihood. It's almost as reductive as focusing on what players can make on there fame post-retirement, as if they're young 20 year olds being forced to produce web content for free for "the exposure".
I think it's weird to care who wins between these two parties and not just be pissed off that they're both disregarding the fans who make their business profitable.
Last I'll say on the topic...when one side has proven time and time again that they want to see the players as weak as possible (and the union disbanded), that's more than enough for me to hope the players get a smaller piece of their due.
Don't you think it's the small market owners as driving the lack of an agreement? Maybe I'm being naive but I don't see the Red Sox, Yankees, or Dodgers as not wanting to play.
No team’s finances are public except the Braves (because they’re owned by publicly traded Liberty Media) but the answer is definitely the big market teams, but it has nothing to do with relative spending and everything to do with much greater revenues.
They would if teams consistently went over the limits, but instead most teams treat it like a hard cap (there were also other penalties like losing international spending) and rarely go over.
For the record, the initial delay was fully on the owners who locked out the players allegedly to help things move faster and then did not make an offer for 43 days. 43 DAYS!
I'm so sick of the "hot takes" that athletes are overpaid. Stop it.
I was hopeful that Nutting would be retreating from society after he sold the local ski areas. But he’s a self-declared “baseball fanatic”, so…
Everything I've seen says they have no negotiations/meetings scheduled. The only mention of Thursday was by Manfred on Tuesday, and the sentence reads like a clear attempt by him to lay the blame at the players' feet: "We're prepared to continue negotiations. We've been informed that the MLBPA is heading back to New York, meaning that no agreement is possible until at least Thursday."
YOU: I am furious and I want baseball back! These asshole billionaires are fighting with asshole millionaires and neither of them cares about me, the fan who pays their salary. Both sides are to blame. I’m furious and I want baseball back!
The idea that the players ought to prioritize the customers over themselves is much weirder to me. What other industry would you say that about? "How dare those Kellogs workers strike, how could they disregard the people who make the business profitable like that!" Absurd. The scale of their salaries changes nothing: Those who own and operate the company, who take a direct benefit from the profits, can be concerned with the customer. Those who work for someone else in exchange for a salary have every right to look out for themselves and each other.
All professional sports in the US have special treatment under the US (and EU) antitrust laws (I know you know this but at any rate see: https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1321&context=mslj) so removing MLB's antitrust exemption isn't going to mean much.
Just one example: https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/01/17/moore-save-the-children-fire-the-teachers-unions/
Those attacks happen for most government employees/government unions. I dont think its a particularly fair comparison to a union that negotiates with a private enterprise. No one really complains when the UAW stops making cars because there's a labor dispute with Ford/GM. Pretty different dynamics than when the employer is literally everyone's representative government.
Well, to your specific example, here's one recent example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcollins/2019/09/16/the-uaws-nonsensical-strike-at-gm-hurts-everyone/?sh=3d866a896b4d
The whole point of this lockout is so that the owners don't have to spend. Plus I think the small market teams like the tax assuming they are the ones who receive the taxes.
Yea, I think wayyyy back in this thread I mentioned that they should be considering player exemptions or other creative solutions. For example, if a player has come up with the team, they can be designated a franchise player and be exempt from CBT. Keep the rates where they are. Aaron Judge makes $25m next year? No CBT hit.
Sure, I didnt mean to say that no one believes that the UAW doesnt strike, but that strike got close to zero national coverage. It certainly wasnt a big deal - public union strikes often do become a huge deal so its important to point out that: 1) those employees typically provide core services; and 2) the employer is literally pretty much everyone.
Take that, strawman! (The bolded is like 100% not what I, or anyone else, was asserting)
All of this has been covered above, but the owners locked the players out to prevent the inevitable player strike on the eve of the playoffs. There were ways to continue negotiating and avoid a lockout, but the players would never have agreed to give up the threat of a strike. You're being naive if you think the owners locked them out just because.
