I am moving the top half of this post over from the Off season thread
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Honestly I’m becoming more confident that we are going to have a longggggg work stoppage/lockout/strike when this CBA expires.
Owners are going to try and make the CBA even more one sided towards owners than this current CBA already is and I hope tony Clark actually grows a pair and doesn’t cave to their demands.
And honestly given how terrible the last few offseason have been in terms of good players getting screwed $$$, I wouldn’t blame MLBPA if they strike. They deserve to get paid what they actually deserve.
The system is broken and it needs to be fixed. I mean he couldn't even beat the deal that Russell Martin got 4 years ago, despite being younger than Martin when he hit FA and having near similar wins in the 4 years prior to FA ( via Craig Goldstein) ..... Grandal's deal is only three hundred fifty thousand more than the damn QO for this season...
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Of course we are all aware of the "FA spring training" that occurred last season due to the obscene amount of "star" FA's that were left unsigned going into spring training... It will be interesting if we see a repeat of that this year.. It will also be interesting to see what FA contracts Manny Machado and Harper end up with....
FA spending has also been down the past few years:
Jeff Passan wrote last January for Yahoo sports why baseball's economic system might be broken.
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For the past few years its been pretty apparent that FA is broken. And there have been signs that the MLBPA and MLB have growing tensions...
From Late last season:
From Evan Drellich, the MLBPA is beefing up its legal firepower
Brodie Van Wagenen when he was an agent last year accused MLB owners of collusion and threatened spring training boycott
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$18.25 million!
It's a lot less exciting when you realize he turned down the $17.9M qualifying offer from LA a few months ago as well as a 4 year/$50M+ offer from the Mets more recently. Terrible job by his agent.
Honestly I’m becoming more confident that we are going to have a longggggg work stoppage/lockout/strike when this CBA expires.
Owners are going to try and make the CBA even more one sided towards owners than this current CBA already is and I hope tony Clark actually grows a pair and doesn’t cave to their demands.
And honestly given how terrible the last few offseason have been in terms of good players getting screwed $$$, I wouldn’t blame MLBPA if they strike. They deserve to get paid what they actually deserve.
The system is broken and it needs to be fixed. I mean he couldn't even beat the deal that Russell Martin got 4 years ago, despite being younger than Martin when he hit FA and having near similar wins in the 4 years prior to FA ( via Craig Goldstein) ..... Grandal's deal is only three hundred fifty thousand more than the damn QO for this season...
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Of course we are all aware of the "FA spring training" that occurred last season due to the obscene amount of "star" FA's that were left unsigned going into spring training... It will be interesting if we see a repeat of that this year.. It will also be interesting to see what FA contracts Manny Machado and Harper end up with....
FA spending has also been down the past few years:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2814675-mlb-stars-have-to-prepare-for-war-with-cheap-owners-pocketing-millionsNowhere is this more evident than on the free-agent market. It was the avenue for players to find great riches for decades. Heck, it paid out a whopping $3.84 billion just four years ago, according to Spotrac.
But that now looks like a fluky one-off rather than a sign of things to come. Free-agent spending didn't surpass even $1.5 billion in either of the last two years, and the latter of those sent up red flags aplenty.
Notable 2017-18 free agents such as Yu Darvish, J.D. Martinez, Eric Hosmer, Jake Arrieta and Alex Cobb lingered on the market into February and beyond, and only Hosmer and Cobb beat their projected paydays from MLB Trade Rumors. Other stars—e.g., Mike Moustakas, Lance Lynn and Greg Holland—had to settle for one-year deals with small guarantees
Jeff Passan wrote last January for Yahoo sports why baseball's economic system might be broken.
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For the past few years its been pretty apparent that FA is broken. And there have been signs that the MLBPA and MLB have growing tensions...
From Late last season:
The growing labor tensions between MLB and the MLBPA stepped up again yesterday as MLPBA Exec Dir Tony Clark said the players consider last winter's slower offseason free agent market a "direct attack" on their rights. Clark, in part referencing more than 100 unsigned free agents at the start of Spring Training in February and many others signed to shorter and smaller deals than expected, said, "What the players saw last offseason is that their free agency rights are under direct attack, and those rights have been a bedrock of our economic system. If that's the case, we're going to have difficult decisions to make." Clark, speaking before the Baseball Writers Association of America, went further to suggest that a work stoppage could occur when the current CBA ends after the '21 season, ending a quarter-century of labor peace. "To the extent there are challenges to those rights, historically I would suggest those have manifested themselves in a particular way,
https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2018/07/18/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/MLB-Labor.aspxREASON FOR WORRY: THE ATHLETIC's Jayson Stark writes Manfred and Clark did a "fine job of avoiding ... popular phrases like 'strike,' 'lockout' and 'NLRB.'" Stark: "But if you spent a couple hours, as I did, listening to them talk about the state of the sport ... you'd be terrified right now." Terrified that things are "bad and getting worse." Traditionally, that "never ends well" in this sport (THEATHLETIC.com, 7/18). In N.Y., Ken Davidoff writes the current ownership-player dynamic carries a "dangerous tension that hasn't been witnessed in a generation." One that "threatens baseball's viability as it tries to push forward" (N.Y. POST, 7/18). In Cleveland, Paul Hoynes writes the "free-agent freezeout" of '17-18 is over, but the "scars remain" (Cleveland PLAIN DEALER, 7/18). In Toronto, Richard Griffin writes there are "storm clouds forming on the labour horizon" and "battle lines are being drawn" (TORONTO STAR, 7/18).
From Evan Drellich, the MLBPA is beefing up its legal firepower
Brodie Van Wagenen when he was an agent last year accused MLB owners of collusion and threatened spring training boycott