2020 MLB Thread

posted by Laley23

I think this new proposal will be worked out. Owners get their expanded playoffs and players get prorated pay. 

Watch the owners get their deal and then turn around and say "Oh, looks like we can have 25% attendance after all...."

The owners are being fucks, but how does Mlb recover if no season? Fans are gonna be pissed.

posted by iclfan2

The owners are being fucks, but how does Mlb recover if no season? Fans are gonna be pissed.

I might side with the owners on this one.  If there won't be any fans at the games, then 75% prorated pay seems more than reasonable.  I think there was even a sliding scale of proration at one point, too.

The minimum salary would clock in somewhere around $210k (with no sliding scale).  To act like that's not enough money to play a game when 30M people are out of work is pretty ridiculous.

Obviously the players think public sentiment will turn against the owners and so they'll hold out for 100%.  Owners should just give them the last proposal again and say "take it or leave it".  Maybe throw in a bonus pool that adjust if fans are allowed back, or in the other direction if the playoffs get canceled.

posted by gut

I might side with the owners on this one.  If there won't be any fans at the games, then 75% prorated pay seems more than reasonable.  I think there was even a sliding scale of proration at one point, too.

The minimum salary would clock in somewhere around $210k (with no sliding scale).  To act like that's not enough money to play a game when 30M people are out of work is pretty ridiculous.

Obviously the players think public sentiment will turn against the owners and so they'll hold out for 100%.  Owners should just give them the last proposal again and say "take it or leave it".  Maybe throw in a bonus pool that adjust if fans are allowed back, or in the other direction if the playoffs get canceled.

Why should Lindor even think about playing for less money? He tears his Achilles and losses out on $400M, or sits and losses out on like $10M? 

posted by Laley23

Why should Lindor even think about playing for less money? He tears his Achilles and losses out on $400M, or sits and losses out on like $10M? 

How is that different for any other athlete in any other sport in a contract year?  Some players address that risk by taking out an insurance contract. 

The offer on the table was 75% of per game pay for just under half a season.  It's not like they're being asked to play for 1/3 of their salary.

I think it is just about a third of their "salary", and it is pretty fair.

posted by Laley23

Why should Lindor even think about playing for less money? He tears his Achilles and losses out on $400M, or sits and losses out on like $10M? 

That makes no sense. “Why should a player think about playing before he’s about to get a big contract?” Is what you just said. 

posted by gut

How is that different for any other athlete in any other sport in a contract year?  Some players address that risk by taking out an insurance contract. 

The offer on the table was 75% of per game pay for just under half a season.  It's not like they're being asked to play for 1/3 of their salary.

Because every other player in a contract year is getting what they negotiated beforehand, whether their own contract or collectively bargained arbitration decision. Not way less. If you are going to break the contract (for a second time, after the players all agreed to a pay-cut initially) and pay them less, they should have the right to say nah, I'm good. I'll wait till February to suit up again.

posted by SportsAndLady

That makes no sense. “Why should a player think about playing before he’s about to get a big contract?” Is what you just said. 

No. It is not what I said.

posted by Laley23

No. It is not what I said.

That’s how I took it. If Lindor shouldn’t play because he’s about to be due a big contract, how is that different than anyone else not playing in a season where there due for a big contract after?

posted by SportsAndLady

That’s how I took it. If Lindor shouldn’t play because he’s about to be due a big contract, how is that different than anyone else not playing in a season where there due for a big contract after?

I explained it to Gut in the post before. If you are due $17.5M this upcoming year, but have it slashed to $10M or whatever the proposal is I wouldn’t want to play and risk injury when a longer contract/more money is coming in 6 months. If you are getting what you’ve already agreed to, that’s a lot different and a holdout would be dumb and selfish.

Think of it like a small business owner. A window guy or whatever. He’s hired to install new windows on a 30 story’s building. Then COVID happened and the building owner said we can only pay you to do 65% if the windows, and we have to slash the pay by 25% as well. The window guy understands and agrees to the new job offer. Then at the last minute the building owner says, well actually we lost tenants in all those spaces so my income is going to be less. I can now only offer you 30% of the agreed upon fee, but you still have to do 65% of the windows. 

At some point you can’t just keep caving and accept less and less money when the job being performed is the same quality as before. In the analogy above, why wouldn’t the window guy just wait for the building to be full again and collect all the money for all the windows versus 2/3 the windows for 30% of the money?

Its obviously not apples to apples, I just hate when someone gets mad at someone else for trying to maximize their worth simply because they would still be making ungodly amounts.

Now, in a completely unrelated topic, the owners and players really need to figure it out and have a season. The money will be slashed in ways beyond their control if they aren’t careful and miss the season. Fans already dont watch national telecasts. If local ratings/attendance dip that would not be great.

posted by Laley23

I explained it to Gut in the post before. If you are due $17.5M this upcoming year, but have it slashed to $10M or whatever the proposal is I wouldn’t want to play and risk injury when a longer contract/more money is coming in 6 months. If you are getting what you’ve already agreed to, that’s a lot different and a holdout would be dumb and selfish.

Think of it like a small business owner. A window guy or whatever. He’s hired to install new windows on a 30 story’s building. Then COVID happened and the building owner said we can only pay you to do 65% if the windows, and we have to slash the pay by 25% as well. The window guy understands and agrees to the new job offer. Then at the last minute the building owner says, well actually we lost tenants in all those spaces so my income is going to be less. I can now only offer you 30% of the agreed upon fee, but you still have to do 65% of the windows. 

At some point you can’t just keep caving and accept less and less money when the job being performed is the same quality as before. In the analogy above, why wouldn’t the window guy just wait for the building to be full again and collect all the money for all the windows versus 2/3 the windows for 30% of the money?

Its obviously not apples to apples, I just hate when someone gets mad at someone else for trying to maximize their worth simply because they would still be making ungodly amounts.

Yeah but a) Lindor is still making $10mm, just not $17mm but that’s because of the shortened season and b) you’re still arguing that Lindor should not play for that amount because if he gets injured it’ll effect future pay—which can be said anytime anywhere with any other player. 
I either Just don’t agree or I’m just not understanding what you’re saying. 

posted by SportsAndLady

Yeah but a) Lindor is still making $10mm, just not $17mm but that’s because of the shortened season and b) you’re still arguing that Lindor should not play for that amount because if he gets injured it’ll effect future pay—which can be said anytime anywhere with any other player. 
I either Just don’t agree or I’m just not understanding what you’re saying. 

The basis of my argument is, the prorated salary was agreed upon. I think its low of the owners to go public at the last minute trying go even lower and make it seem like the players are being greedy, when the owners are being just as greedy. 

The prorated salary being changed is something I think the players should fight for. If there is indeed no gate, then factor in owners paying nothing to stadium workers, factor in a massive TV deal spike, factor in expanded playoff revenue.

From what I’ve read from the players side, the owners are simply saying we lose this gate revenue so you lose this salary. Not taking into consideration anything else of that trickle down and giving a portion of that back to players. That’s unfair, and players should fight it.

posted by Laley23

The basis of my argument is, the prorated salary was agreed upon. I think its low of the owners to go public at the last minute trying go even lower and make it seem like the players are being greedy, when the owners are being just as greedy. 

The prorated salary being changed is something I think the players should fight for. If there is indeed no gate, then factor in owners paying nothing to stadium workers, factor in a massive TV deal spike, factor in expanded playoff revenue.

 

From what I’ve read from the players side, the owners are simply saying we lose this gate revenue so you lose this salary. Not taking into consideration anything else of that trickle down and giving a portion of that back to players. That’s unfair, and players should fight it.

Yeah I’m not too well versed in what’s going on, but I wouldn’t Be surprised at all if the owners are being cocksuckers. 
I don’t disagree that the players shouldn’t play for less than fair compensation. What I do disagree with is not playing at all this year so that they don’t risk a contract this upcoming offseason (assuming they get a fair prorated salary this season). 

In general, the fault belongs to the owners. Players are down with a prorated salary, but owners also want them to take less than that in order to blunt their losses for potentially playing with no or limited fans. The players take some share of the blame for being in a pure "can't see the forest for the trees" refusal to negotiate, if for no other reason than they could use any concessions they make to gain major leverage for their next deal with MLB (basically in a "we'll give you this, but when our deal needs renewed, you WILL be giving us concessions on this, this and that" sort of way) and because fans in general are mainly going to remember that while other sports leagues are gearing up to resume or start their seasons, MLB is a bunch of people holding their dicks and yelling over money.

Personally, I think it's a short-sighted look that assumes the sport has higher prestige at the current time than it probably actually does. With three months of very little sports taking place, I can say that personally, I can tell I've missed having sports on to the degree that I've even found myself having NASCAR on and I sat through arguably the worst UFC card of all time on Saturday. But I can't say I've specifically missed any one thing in sports -- just sports in general. I'm a big fan of MLB, but the fact I haven't been able to watch any over what should have been the first 2.5 months of the season hasn't overly bothered me even if, normally, I'd have had a game on as at least background noise virtually every night I'd have been home over that time. That probably isn't good!

I'm a Pirates fan. Their cheap, shitty ownership is enough to erode a person's love of the sport simply because, with how they're run, any windows of contention are going to be short-lived and likely will need a lot of good things happening at once to even exist. Watching their rivals make legit moves to get better and (in theory) place themselves in contention while they exist under a "make the team cheaper, not better" mantra fucking sucks -- they went from being a playoff team to sucking again nearly overnight simply because they refused to spend money to keep players. In other sports, if your team sucks, it's probably got more to do with talent evaluation and coaching; but in MLB, due to the nature of things, some teams simply are set up to fail because their owners won't open up the wallet. Adding the potential to not have a season simply because people can't agree on money is just one more self-inflicted wound.

Going without baseball so far hasn't been this horrible, life-altering event -- if anything, it's taught me that I don't have to be invested in my shitty club and its cheap ownership. They keep spinning their wheels and not making any headway towards playing games, well, the longer that takes, the more likely I'll be slow to return to caring about it when/if they do come back.

posted by Laley23

Because every other player in a contract year is getting what they negotiated beforehand, whether their own contract or collectively bargained arbitration decision. Not way less. If you are going to break the contract (for a second time, after the players all agreed to a pay-cut initially) and pay them less, they should have the right to say nah, I'm good. I'll wait till February to suit up again.

The first deal never changed their per game pay.  All it did was say you're not getting paid for the games we couldn't play.  His perceived risk and pay, as you put it, remains the exact same per game.  But on top of that, the owners then asked for a 25% cut.  Reality of the situation is contracts were never intended to guarantee pay for a canceled season.  I think everyone intuitively understands with no games there's no money to pay salaries.

So if Lindor was going to make about 100k per game, they've asked him to play for a meager 75k per game.  25% less, same deal for everyone. He's not being treated unfairly.  

Manfred told Greeny today that he isn’t confident they’ll have any season this year. Woof.

posted by iclfan2

Manfred told Greeny today that he isn’t confident they’ll have any season this year. Woof.

The players haven't given an inch.  All they "gave up" was their salary for games that couldn't be played - a contractual oversight you can bet MLB (and other leagues) won't make again.  And then the economics that had been disclosed was the owners would lose like $680k per game, and the 25% cut to salaries would have put about $300k of that loss on the players.

I wonder if the players are a little too confident their contracts would hold up in court.  I don't think it's impossible that the players end-up with $0 for a canceled season.

Bauer putting Manfred on blast. His thread:

https://twitter.com/baueroutage/status/1272641345941721088?s=21