Will There Be MLB in 2020?

[jon abbey]

Yeah, if anything I think football is (slowly?) dying for safety reasons, baseball I think could be in good longer-term shape if they got their shit together and the owners realized that the players are the game and that if they work together, everyone will end up ahead. I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

I don’t think I was suggesting the death of baseball as an industry .. just As We Know It. What’s going to happen to small market teams ? Sure , they won’t have to pay the players .. but , in the absence of any revenue AND no revenue sharing , they will be forced to lay off all their non playing staff .. not to mention their entire minor league player roster that aren’t on the 40 man roster. In other words, they will cease to exist. Planning their recovery will be hugely complicated absent a vaccine. I thing MLB is staring into an abyss .. and both sides are too driven by short term gain to see it.

 

[djbayko]

I agree. But at this point, I don’t care. I just want to see sports come back. Any baseball is better than no baseball. Games will be played, guys will compete. It will be bizarre but oh well.

Some might say you have a baseball jones.

 

[jon abbey]

On first glance, this seems fairly reasonable from MLB.

View: https://twitter.com/karlravechespn/status/1270005587242295310

 

[BaseballJones]

Some might say you have a baseball jones.

Can't deny that!

 

[jon abbey]

The MLBPA seems to disagree with my quick 'fairly reasonable' assessment above:

View: https://twitter.com/BNightengale/status/1270007960249397249

 

[Max Power]

On first glance, this seems fairly reasonable from MLB.

View: https://twitter.com/karlravechespn/status/1270005587242295310

75% of pay for a 76 game season works out to 57 games of full pay. The original offer was 50 games at full pay. I think it's clear how much cash the owners think they have to be paying out on salaries this season and it's between 50 and 60 games. It seems like they'll settle on something in the 60 game range for full prorated pay, otherwise the players are simply playing extra games for nothing.

 

[jon abbey]

75% of pay for a 76 game season works out to 57 games of full pay. The original offer was 50 games at full pay. I think it's clear how much cash the owners think they have to be paying out on salaries this season and it's between 50 and 60 games. It seems like they'll settle on something in the 60 game range for full prorated pay, otherwise the players are simply playing extra games for nothing.

I am far from an expert on the details here, but I think one difference here is that the owners are offering more playoff pool money than usual (otherwise it wouldn't be in the tweet). I will wait for people who understand all of this better than me to analyze it though.

 

[Pitt the Elder]

75% of pay for a 76 game season works out to 57 games of full pay. The original offer was 50 games at full pay. I think it's clear how much cash the owners think they have to be paying out on salaries this season and it's between 50 and 60 games. It seems like they'll settle on something in the 60 game range for full prorated pay, otherwise the players are simply playing extra games for nothing.

Is it in the players best interest to play more or fewer games? I was listening to Olney and Kurkijan on the Baseball Tonight podcast and they said that, for players entering into FA this offseason, playing 50-game season risks underperformance in a small sample size that could impact a players market value in the offseason. Not that 76 games is that much better, but still meaningfully bigger sample than 50.

At this phase, it feels counter-productive for the MLBPA to come out and declare this a non-starter. At this point, they should play the game and make a counter-offer of 90 games at 85% pay and see if they can end up somewhere around 82 games at 80% pay. I also don't see why they don't try to gain concessions from MLB for 2021 and future years, maybe by knocking off a year of team control on all pre-arb players or permanently eliminating compensatory draft picks.

 

[jon abbey]

I was listening to Olney and Kurkijan on the Baseball Tonight podcast and they said that, for players entering into FA this offseason, playing 50-game season risks underperformance in a small sample size that could impact a players market value in the offseason. Not that 76 games is that much better, but still meaningfully bigger sample than 50.

I've heard other people say this but it seems pretty wrong to me (for the writers to believe), Bryce Harper went into FA after a mediocre full 162 game season and he still ended up with a huge deal. GMs are pretty smart collectively at this point, they will pay for (their guess at) future performance, past performance doesn't matter nearly as much as it did even 5 or 10 years ago.

 

[Murderer's Crow]

Is it in the players best interest to play more or fewer games? I was listening to Olney and Kurkijan on the Baseball Tonight podcast and they said that, for players entering into FA this offseason, playing 50-game season risks underperformance in a small sample size that could impact a players market value in the offseason. Not that 76 games is that much better, but still meaningfully bigger sample than 50.

At this phase, it feels counter-productive for the MLBPA to come out and declare this a non-starter. At this point, they should play the game and make a counter-offer of 90 games at 85% pay and see if they can end up somewhere around 82 games at 80% pay. I also don't see why they don't try to gain concessions from MLB for 2021 and future years, maybe by knocking off a year of team control on all pre-arb players or permanently eliminating compensatory draft picks.

Players won't likely turn the % of salary lever until they agree on the number of games. If I were negotiating, I wouldn't concede on salary until everything else is exactly how you want it and you're within fighting range of where you want to be on salary. My guess is MLB players would go down to 75% but they don't have a great reason to accept it yet with other details to be worked out.

On the other hand, as I've said before...time is working against the players and they lose more leverage every day. The owners know this, which is why I'm gonna say they're taking their sweet time making concessions

 

[Harry Hooper]

I am far from an expert on the details here, but I think one difference here is that the owners are offering more playoff pool money than usual (otherwise it wouldn't be in the tweet). I will wait for people who understand all of this better than me to analyze it though.

Presumably more playofff games means there's more playoff revenue to go around. You have to be a player on a playoff team, however, to garner any playoff $$$.

 

[djbayko]

"It's time to get back to work. Tell us when and where."

So does that mean they'll play the ~50 game shortened season the owners want to force if there are no further player concessions on salary? Or are we possibly headed for a strike? I suppose there's a slight chance this MLBPA bluff works and MLB improves their offer significantly.

MLBPA Communications
@MLBPA_News
Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director Tony Clark today released the following statement:

View: https://twitter.com/MLBPA_News/status/1271944664711680002

 

[Catcher Block]

Yeah, it's going to be ~50 games and a pill no one will like swallowing.

I don't see an offer getting any better. Manfred has been able to say all along, "The season will be X games long. It will begin on this date. Players will get their normal, prorated pay for those games." The owners have presumably told Manfred the # of games they're willing to pay players their full (prorated) rates, and with no other offer on the table, that # will be the same number of games the players will be okay playing.

The owners have made attempts to get the players to play more games for less than their prorated salaries, which has understandably been a non-starter. Players have made attempts to play more than those X games for their prorated salary, which the owners don't see as a satisfactory alternative, at least in part due to lack of in-park revenue.

The final headaches will be pay and service-time related for players who have objections that go beyond their own individual health issues, and whether some of the agreed-to issues like draft pick compensation and roster size/makeup will remain or be rolled back. Manfred can't make those decisions unilaterally.

 

[jon abbey]

I think the owners really want/need the TV money from a potential extra round of playoffs, so they will have to give the players something in exchange there.

 

[EvilEmpire]

Since the playoffs are somewhat uncertain, I think an equitable share of playoff money for players, whatever that is, makes sense for that extra round.

 

[Papelbon's Poutine]

Hell ya.

I'm as stressed, angry, and depressed as anyone about the state of our country. I'm not the only one here to lose their job and be unsure about their future. You can infer in this part of the forum that there is adequate concern while simultaneously wanting nice things. There would be little to discuss otherwise here.

And fitting in your boat, I can say I’m a big enough adult to realize that watching, arguing or talking about a game isn’t solving any of those other things you mention here.
We all Focus our energy in different places.

 

[Couperin47]

So, the Owners will force a season which no players or fans will ever deem legitimate in any sense and virtually guarantee a strike/lockout of epic proportions down the road. It's simply impossible to ever under estimate the greed or stupidity of MLB ownership.

 

[jon abbey]

View: https://twitter.com/joe_sheehan/status/1272647474713374722?s=20

 

[j-man]

i was 90 % a week ago now i am 50/50

but baseball needs tweaks to speed up the game here is what i wouild do

1 Pitch clock 25 seconds 30 seconds after the 6th inning
2 instead of 1-9 it wouild be now 1-6 9 players play def but now u can hide your 3 weakest hitters
3 SP can only throw a max of 105 pitches RP can throw 40 CP 25
4 if a team is winning by 10 or more runs after 7 innings the game can be called and that team gets a bonus win that is used for tiebreakers
5 walks count as a hit
6 each team has 3 levels they can used on payroll 300 mil your yankees red sox dogers etc 200 mil most of the leauge is here and 100 mil your miami oakland kc tb Pittsburgh 300 mil u must spend to 270 mil 200 mil u must spend to 175 mil 100 mil u must spend to 85 mil if u fail below your number u have a loss on your reg season record like let say Pittsburgh oh i will just spend 65 mil this year fine well u start 0-20 with 142 games left

 

[Murderer's Crow]

i was 90 % a week ago now i am 50/50

but baseball needs tweaks to speed up the game here is what i wouild do

1 Pitch clock 25 seconds 30 seconds after the 6th inning
2 instead of 1-9 it wouild be now 1-6 9 players play def but now u can hide your 3 weakest hitters
3 SP can only throw a max of 105 pitches RP can throw 40 CP 25
4 if a team is winning by 10 or more runs after 7 innings the game can be called and that team gets a bonus win that is used for tiebreakers
5 walks count as a hit
6 each team has 3 levels they can used on payroll 300 mil your yankees red sox dogers etc 200 mil most of the leauge is here and 100 mil your miami oakland kc tb Pittsburgh 300 mil u must spend to 270 mil 200 mil u must spend to 175 mil 100 mil u must spend to 85 mil if u fail below your number u have a loss on your reg season record like let say Pittsburgh oh i will just spend 65 mil this year fine well u start 0-20 with 142 games left

You should get a job in Manfred's office. Some of these ideas are right out of his playbook!

@jon abbey Suppose we will see. The tone and story shifts daily but there's a lot of players doing a faux victory lap on twitter right now and again, I wish they wouldn't.

 

[j-man]

the last one will never happen too much like a cap but 1-5 wouild be good for the game

 

[jon abbey]

View: https://twitter.com/jposnanski/status/1272719414375391232?s=21

 

[jon abbey]

Some people (Joe Sheehan, Sean Doolittle) have recommended following Eugene Freedman on Twitter, a knowledgable labor negotiator, and I definitely agree, as he cuts through a lot of the double-speak gobbledygook floating around. Here he dismantles a dumb NY Post article from today:

View: https://twitter.com/EugeneFreedman/status/1273242878983143424

 

[jon abbey]

Also Joe Pos wrote a full article based on his tweet above:

"One of the great mysteries of sports is that there will always be fans who worry about the financial well-being of billionaire owners who have been given every single advantage imaginable. They would much rather point their ire at the richest baseball players who have the audacity to make a lot of money from the otherworldly talents that they have spent a lifetime developing. They would much rather boo Joe DiMaggio for wanting to be paid like the best player in baseball because he was, at the time, the best player in baseball."

https://theathletic.com/1875769/2020/06/17/posnanski-mlb-owners-are-committed-to-not-spending-more-fans-will-pay-the-price

 

[jon abbey]

As has been the case in recent years, billionaires love capitalism when prices are going up, then they instantly become socialists when things turn down.

(that is me, not Pos)

"But now we are in a moment, one unlike any moment in American history. And what we see are baseball owners refusing to sacrifice for the game and their communities. What we see are billionaires refusing to spend some money to bring their game to fans who have loved this game unconditionally and could use just a small diversion from the madness.

What we see is a group of people who are shouting from the rooftops that in good times, we fans have a share in their teams — so much so that we should build their stadiums, we should buy all the tickets, jerseys and overpriced beers, we should invest our deepest emotions into the team — but in bad times, we are nothing but an insignificant column in a balance sheet."

(more Pos from the piece above)

 

[CarolinaBeerGuy]

That Posnanski article is spot on. I’ll come crawling back as soon as the games return. A significant number of people won’t and may never return.

 

[bankshot1]

Ford Frick put an asterisk on 61.

Baseball fans will put one on 60*