Mike Francesca, who I ordinarily never get to hear, has been beating a drum that if MLB scrubs their season with the other sports coming back, it's going to be worse for MLB than canceling the WS.
Or, give that money to all the other employees laid off, fired, or had their hours reduced. I'm sure the players have seen what the owners have done to the other staff. Why should everyone, but the owners, take a financial hit?
Then they would return after 17 months with no baseball to a lame duck 2021 season with the CBA expiring after the season, good luck getting the sides to agree on a multi-year deal then.
I love how iPad auto corrects Francesa to Francesca. Hope Mike doesn’t know!
Disagree, if only because a full year of no income for both owners and players is going to make them a little reticent to do it again a year later. Frankly I think the players have the owners by the balls here and I wouldn't budge either.
It seems to me that there might be an inconsistency in time horizons for players versus owners here which makes it rational for players to care less about the long term impact. The average MLB career is something like 5-6 years. That's not even enough time to get to free agency. Any big shock to salaries from the fallout is probably further down the line, impact players who aren't currently under contract anyways. Most of these guys will be out of the game in only a few years - so the long term health of the game is unlikely to impact them financially. For players currently under contract, what is the incentive to sacrifice?
The only way this would work is if the owners are willing to open their books, which they are not, to prove what the losses are . If they were willing to open their books they might be able to reach an agreement with the players.
Of course, by "100% salary demand," he's referring to them asking to be paid what they were supposed to be on a pro-rated basis. Some might suggest that that's a little different than demanding to be paid 100% of their salaries.
Apologies if I am repeating someone else here, as I have not religiously followed this thread or the one in the MLB forum.
This came today
What's amusing to me about all the different counter proposals brought by the owners is they all basically amount to paying the players roughly the same sum of money. Basically, they're asking the players to play 10-14 games for free in this latest proposal. What's the point?
Yes, this proposal is we'll pay you for 60 games and you'll play 70-75. Better than we'll pay you for 50 and you'll play 82!
Wasn't that agreement based on certain assumptions, and those assumptions have changed?
We all know there is an outcome where the players get a full prorated salary, just not at a number of games that they want. The players know it too. That deal signed two months ago gives MLB the authority to set a number of games. That seems to be the baseline right now.
The owners can choose 80 games at full pro rata salaries. Or 60. Or 50. Or 30. Or 10. Or they can give the players something in exchange for expanding the playoffs and increasing owners' revenue.
Yeah, these are all negotiations built on that original agreement. The players want more regular season games, which with pro-rated salaries is in their best interest. The owners want the fewest regular games at full pro-rated salary possible, which is obviously in their own best interest financially. All of the negotiations to this point have been trying to find a middle ground. They're fast approaching a time where the only option left, other than no season at all, is 50 games at 100% pro-rated salary.
I don't know if that's necessarily true. Passan says that it's a $326M gap in this article - https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29269242/inside-mlb-financials-fight-numbers-solve-it. My gut thinks that his numbers while accurate for estimates are probably low and it's probably more like twice that but even if it's a $700M problem, it should be surmountable. Plus, the extra revenue if playoffs are expanded brings that down.
Sure. They can do lots of things within the framework of the deal they signed. The point is, I don't see additional negotiations that include less than full prorated salary as the owners reneging on anything. Like RHF just said, these are negotiations built on that original agreement.
Which is why I've been saying for awhile that the players have absolutely no leverage. I can't see the owners moving off 50ish games worth of salary unless the players move off prorated salaries. I can't see the players moving off prorated salaries after hemming and hawing about it on twitter. So, owners can just run the clock and the union's levers disappear by the day. You don't have a negotiation unless the players create leverage for themselves and the only real leverage they have here is to say they won't play at all.
They are going to play 50 games, the lowest-paid guys will paid over $170k, they'll get a full year of service time, and the players will have shown each other that they can be unified in the face of being messed with by the owners. I'm missing where this has gone awry for the players given the breadth of the Commissioner's powers in this situation.
So a guarantee of 70% pro-rated salary over 72 games is pretty much the exact same guarantee as 100% pro-rated salary over 50 games. The owners keep making these counter offers that on the surface look like compromises, but never actually increase the money they're willing to pay out.
Again, this is essentially Boras (the MLBPA) speaking via Heyman, but owners definitely don't want their books opened and all their bullshit accounting tricks exposed (for instance, Jeffrey Loria paid himself $50M per year when he was the MIA owner and called it 'debt') and if they start the season without an agreement and the players file a grievance, it's possible that could happen.
I think they're pushing hard to minimize the total amount they have to pay players, they'd presumably be happy to schedule tripleheaders every day for three months if they only had to pay players 10 percent pro rata.
I really don't understand the "tainted title" argument. They've had shortened seasons before that resulted in champions, and those were shortened by their own doing (strikes, lockouts). This season is shorter for reasons beyond anyone's control. I see no reason to not recognize the last team standing this year as the 2020 World Series champion, same as the Dodgers were 1981 World champs and the 1918 Red Sox were World Champs. Whether the regular season was 50 games, 100 games, 154 games or 162 games, what difference does it make?
As I've said before, it seems like some people here want to come up with excuse after excuse of why this season just can't work.
Yeah. It sounds like a reflection of how some fans feel about their team right now. Which is fine. Probably the same stuff on Orioles boards right now.
I don't see how this really matters at the end of the day. They're in the midst of fiddling over percentages of salary and games. The number of games they are able to play is directly impacted by the amount of time they have to play them, which everyone agrees late October or early November is a good estimate. MLB can keep waiting and taking a hard line and the players won't even be able to demand 70 or 80 games anymore.
Yes. I have zero love for MLB owners and their long track record of dissembling...but to suggest the agreement in March didn’t have assumptions which were explicitly stated (and which have changed) is embarrassing. And many people are doing so.
