Agreed. Anyone relying on revocation of the antitrust exemption to end the lockout can plan on no baseball this year and possibly next year. Congress works slowly if at all these days and there has been no indication that I'm aware of to date that the current lockout is even on the radar of Congress.
MLBPA has made it very clear there's no deal without better compensation for younger players. They initially asked for a $100 million bonus pool for pre-arb players, who are over 50% of major league rosters. They also asked for a much, much higher percentage of 2+ year service time players to be eligible for arbitration. The owners came back with a $10 million bonus pool and no change in arbitration eligibility. I'm not seeing how you think the MLBPA is only focusing on giant contracts.
I do not believe they only care about that, nor did I say that.
More from the poll below
It would benefit the Sox .....unless to get that high of a threshold MLBPA would have to agree to a 14 team playoff structure in which a playoff that was already a crapshoot becomes an even bigger one.
This is silly I mean, none of this is even remotely disputable.
And here are some of Fehr's accomplishments according to Wikipedia
Michael Weiner was on the job for just four years. He led the union in negotiations that resulted in the 2012 CBA, which seems to have been notable primarily for allowing testing for HGH, limiting bonuses for international FAs, resetting arbitration eligibility for a class of players that were stripped of it in the 80s, and expanding the playoffs to ten teams.
What do you mean by "keeps getting worse"? You appear to be arguing that the 2016 CBA was just one in a string of bad deals agreed to by the union. And you are making that argument because it would support a contention that, well, of course union is blowing this deal, of course they're simply bad at what they do--they've been blowing these deals for years! I'm saying that the evidence clearly indicates that this is not at all the case. As I said multiple times in my prior post, the 2016 CBA was a costly negotiating mistake by the MLBPA, one that was in fact a departure from decade after decade of tough, competent union leadership going all the way back to Marvin Miller. It came at a time of a changing revenue landscape for professional sports. I am saying that nothing that I have seen or read indicates that the union has failed to learn from those mistakes or that there is a better deal out there for the players if only they would get more creative and less stubborn in their thinking. (I have substituted the word "better" for "good" or "fair" to address the concerns raised by you and WBCD.)
I am aware Fehr made a bunch of deals. What I've teed up is the more strategic question of whether (in aggregate) these deals met the player's collective interest as well as possible. I can't tell whether you have an opinion on that and why versus citing what you read---either way, my comment has been that facing a challenging negotiation context it is unclear to me across all those individual deals that MLBPA actually has fully succeeded. I shared what I think would be good broader goals; you can agree or disagree with those, and respond specifcally or not, but it is really unhelpful to say things like "This is silly I mean, none of this is even remotely disputable." I get that given your biases and set of knowledge it may seem so, but several posters have been specific about why they feel otherwise.
Honestly curious about your thoughts on two questions.
I absolutely have an opinion on whether, in the aggregate, the deals that Fehr made were in the players' collective interest. I'm surprised to read that you are unaware of what my opinion is since in the post to which I was responding, you specifically pointed to it, writing "...don't you think there's a fundamental inconsistency between stating MLBPA has done a good job (as you have asserted)...." So, yes, historically, as I indicated, I believe that the MLBPA has done a good job representing the interests of its players.
I honestly have zero idea about number one, and I am very comfortable acknowledging what I know and what I don't know. I would be most intrigued to read anything that would make that argument as it would have the potential to cause me to reconsider my opinion about this stalemate. If you have come across any articles that make the case for that system in MLB please share and I will read with a very open mind. Do you think there's a better chance that owners would accept that system versus what players have put on the table so far? That is a genuine question to someone whose opinion I respect. I honestly have no idea about that and would appreciate your thoughts.
The first week of the scheduled season was cancelled. Doesn't mean the schedule couldn't be re-done to get 162 games in if they came to an agreement today.
No financial terms announced yet, according to Forbes. Looks like you won't need an Apple TV+ subscription to start, but you'd think that would change before too long. The article also speculates that MLB is not done with streaming deals.
To me, these deals just increase the likelihood of a new CBA on the sooner side. But we shall see.
Was I relying on revoking the antitrust exemption.? I think I wrote it is another means to an end. My only thought was how to get the owners off their butts and get the games going. While we are on the subject.....Liberal Bernie Sanders and Conservative Ted Cruz (when do those two agree on anything) are both on record to revoke the exemption. So, yeah, if this is a long strike, there could be a floor vote.
IMO if all they "lost" was a week there was always going to be a good chance that they play a full 162 games schedule. You're looking at 5 games probably for most teams which are easily put back into play via double headers.
Well they’re already 3 weeks past where pitchers and catchers were supposed to report. I would have thought that if there was an agreement the day before the 2 series cancellation then you would have the 5 or 6 doubleheaders.
IIRC at that point opening day wasn't in jeopardy and they were going to go with an abbreviated spring training.
It seems like every time the owners appear to be moving, the next day brings news that they’re trying to force something else that the players are dead set against. I won’t be optimistic until a deal is announced
Again, the entire possible spectrum between owners' and players' current positions represents a lopsided deal for owners. It's easy to sit on the sidelines and tell the players to cave even more because we all want to watch baseball, but also it's absurd that they have to (and maybe they do).
Here's a hard truth about negotiation: you can only make an agreement which both sides will say yes to. Otherwise, you are stuck with what you can do on your own. The players alternatives alone without MLB are not great; thus, since they refused to try to broaden the discussion (e.g. tax/rev share etc.) they are stuck with the narrow negotiating range they currently are working within. You can say that is "unfair" but the reality is that fairness is not directly at the table here, two parties are and they are trying to meet their own interests. And besides---there's lots of different standards parties can bring to argue what is "fair"
Thank you.
MLB has been talking about the international draft for literally years (5 seconds of googling returns articles on this back to 2014). It is not at all a new issue and there is zero evidence or reason to believe either side hasn’t considered the issue.
Appreciate the response. As for your first question, I haven't seen anything detailed on how baseball might fare if it did have a NBA-style agreement - probably way too speculative and would have to make gigantic assumptions about the future - but seeing the NBA's growth in revenues ever since the players and owners started working as a partnership rather than antagonists, my feeling is that it would be win-win but it's just a feeling.
The antitrust exemption is a red herring or a MacGuffin or whatever you want to call it. No changes are going to be made to the antitrust exemption and everyone knows it. We here at SOSH will have more effect on the negotiations than bringing up the antitrust exemption.
