Chris Davis 2019 and beyond

[Maverick Hiker]

2 hours ago, OFFNY said:

 

 

o

 

Joe DiMaggio had several salary holdouts when he played for the Yankees. In the first of these disputes, not only did the Yankees not give him a dime more than their original $25,000 offer, but they fined him $100 per day for each day that he held out in Spring Training.

DiMaggio eventually cracked, and reported to Spring Training for the Yankees' original offer (minus the several hundred dollars that Yankee management fined him for the missed days.)

25K was a lot of money back then.  Sometimes the holdouts worked sometimes they didn't but at least the contracts were not for millions of dollars into players' 50's as the Davis contract is. 

That being said I'm glad to see Chris is hitting better the last few games. He is still an Oriole and I regret booing him this year when I went to a game.  I can't blame him for signing the contract they offered him, although I do think he should take a buyout if his performance does not improve. 

 

[OFFNY]

12 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

 

Yes, it's vastly easier to keep a group of guys together when management has complete and total say over how long a player is on the team. Owners usually had no qualms over giving a player a significant pay cut for perceived lack of production, or releasing or trading him after many years on the team.  Did anyone ask Frank if he wanted to go to Baltimore after 13 years in the Reds' organization? Of course not, he's a ballplayer, he does what he's told or he can go dig ditches. Never mind that he and his family were long-established in the Cincinnati community and his excellent play sold hundreds of thousands if not millions of tickets.  He should take his $57,000 a year and like it.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, OFFNY said:

o

 

Joe DiMaggio had several salary holdouts when he played for the Yankees. In the first of these disputes, not only did the Yankees not give him a dime more than their original $25,000 offer, but they fined him $100 per day for each day that he held out in Spring Training.

DiMaggio eventually cracked, and reported to Spring Training for the Yankees' original offer (minus the several hundred dollars that Yankee management fined him for the missed days.)

 

o

 

 

1 hour ago, Maverick Hiker said:

 

25K was a lot of money back then. Sometimes the holdouts worked sometimes they didn't but at least the contracts were not for millions of dollars into players' 50's as the Davis contract is. 

That being said I'm glad to see Chris is hitting better the last few games. He is still an Oriole and I regret booing him this year when I went to a game. I can't blame him for signing the contract they offered him, although I do think he should take a buyout if his performance does not improve. 

 

o

 

25K then was about $260,000 today. That was a lot of money compared to what most other players were making at the time (some of whom were paid as little as $4,000 per year and had to get jobs in the off-season to supplement their baseball income), but it certainly was not a lot of money compared to what players make today.

 

More significantly, it was Joe DiMaggio, and it was one of multiple times of contract disputes throughout his career in which the Yankees ownership and management "put him in his place" and made it clear that they had him by the balls. DiMaggio was known as a player who gave his all each and every game that he played, even if it was late September and the Yankees had already clinched the Pennant ........ his reasoning was that there might be a few kids at the game who never saw him play before, were watching him for the first time ever, and it was important to him that they see him playing as best as he could, even in a meaningless game. DiMaggio bitterly resented what the Yankees management did to him throughout his life after baseball (including ripping him in the press, and giving him the appearance of being a selfish, greedy player during their numerous contract disputes.) Many people long for "the good old days" in numerous aspects of life, but in doing so all of the reality and the baggage come with it in the process.

 

o

[DrungoHazewood]

5 hours ago, Maverick Hiker said:

Ideally MLB should just go back to a 1960's- early 70's type of structure. NO free agency at all would , solve a lot of these problems.

All these and more  problems can be traced to free agency.  If the MLBPA won't budge then the owners could sit out a strike until they do.  

You do understand that if the owners tried to lock out the players until they agreed to return to the conditions of 1965 the players would eventually form their own league.  The MLBPA wouldn't agree to those conditions ever.  And the players would win, because the fans want to watch the good players, not the really cheap players.  If you want really cheap players there's the Atlantic League.

Going back to a reserve clause and owner-chosen salaries is about as likely as the Sultan of Brunei buying the Orioles and spending $750M on payroll.  Actually I think the Sultan thing is more likely.

[DrungoHazewood]

5 hours ago, Maverick Hiker said:

Ideally MLB should just go back to a 1960's- early 70's type of structure. NO free agency at all would , solve a lot of these problems.

The Orioles of 1968 would not have given a player like Chris Davis a contract that would pay him over a million dollars a year into his 50's.  They would not have had to worry about him walking out the door and signing with another team.

 The 1968 Orioles would've offered him a fair  but not a ridiculous contract, and if Davis didn't like it he has the option of holding out for more money (Like Koufax and Drysdale did one year, it worked for them as I recall).  Or he could always walk out of MLB.  But players wouldn't quit t because they made far more in MLB even in the 60's than they could have made elsewhere.

Free agency is the root of the cause of so many problems in MLB.  

*Contracts like Davis' are unfair to the teams, the owners,  and especially  to the fans who end up paying for it. Also free agency favors the big market teams who can afford free agents and who. can afford to keep their home gown talent.  

*Free agency means players can walk out on hometown fans, in the old days there was much more affection for players who stayed their whole career and the fans would know their strengths, weaknesses, even their gait. 

*Outrageous contracts have raised the ante for players to succeed at all costs, and if that includes going on the juice (steroids or HGH) the richest players can afford to get the best stuff which can't be detected.  

All these and more  problems can be traced to free agency.  If the MLBPA won't budge then the owners could sit out a strike until they do.  

 

Yea, it was nice for fans to pretend that players who didn't have any choice in where they played or for how much were always happy guys.

I think the players should give up free agency the moment when the general population is subject to a draft.  If you're an engineer and you graduate from college you might get drafted by a crappy company in Des Moines.  If you don't like Des Moines, screw you.  Go live in a different country.  You'll work where the company wants you to work.  Choice is for losers.

[Maverick Hiker]

The engineer analogy is not really a true analogy to the situation in MLB in the 1960s. The game was thriving back then and yes players were for the most part happy and content.   Besides player happiness isn't paramount. What is more important is what's good for the fans and the game. Paying millions to players like Bonilla and Davis extending  into  their 50's, that isn't right for fans to have to pay for that.

Also the competitive balance of the game isn't what it used to be in the 1960's. Market size and payroll was not as important as today. The Orioles won the AL East 3 straight years by 69-71 by  large margins, I think by like 18 games in 1969, not possible today for a smaller market team going against the Yankees.

Better system then.  Maybe we can't go back to the way it was but a few steps in that direction would help. 

 

Edited July 5, 2019 by Maverick Hiker

[LA2]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Yea, it was nice for fans to pretend that players who didn't have any choice in where they played or for how much were always happy guys.

I think the players should give up free agency the moment when the general population is subject to a draft.  If you're an engineer and you graduate from college you might get drafted by a crappy company in Des Moines.  If you don't like Des Moines, screw you.  Go live in a different country.  You'll work where the company wants you to work.  Choice is for losers.

This is a brilliant analogy.

One thing that it lacks though is the fact that, due to its exemption from antitrust regulations, major league baseball is even more omnipotent than any professional organization of said engineers and of whatever related technology and commerce (as far as I know, which isn't much).

For those with the patience to read through legal history, there's a fascinating address by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. on the process that led to the exemption--one in which BALTIMORE's attempt to maintain its own locally-funded team in the Federal League played a central role:

https://sabr.org/research/alito-origin-baseball-antitrust-exemption

Many interesting passages to quote, but I'll limit myself to the final paragraph and its ironic twist:

Quote

There is some irony in the outcome of the Federal Baseball case. In law, the view of baseball as a local affair prevailed. The argument that baseball was a big interstate business lost. But the real losers in the case were local people. The local interests were those connected with the Baltfeds, a ball club owned by some 600 citizens of Baltimore. The city felt slighted when the soon-to-be Yankees left town, and so the local political machinery stepped in and joined a renegade league to bring baseball back. For the people of Baltimore who backed the team, baseball, like politics, was local.

 

[ScottP]

2 hours ago, Maverick Hiker said:

Maybe we can't go back to the way it was but a few steps in that direction would help. 

 

It would help if we didn’t have a meddlesome owner who bid against himself for a player whose albatross of a contract will weigh this franchise down for years to come

[thezeroes]

2 minutes ago, ScottP said:

It would help if we didn’t have a meddlesome owner who bid against himself for a player whose albatross of a contract will weigh this franchise down for years to come

3 more years after this one.  2022 will be the last of it. Hopefully before that.

[Maverick Hiker]

1 hour ago, thezeroes said:

3 more years after this one.  2022 will be the last of it. Hopefully before that.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bs-sp-orioles-chris-davis-bobby-bonilla-20190701-story.html

The deferred money will be going to Davis to the tune of more than a million a year through 2037, unless he agrees to a deal to retire for less (ideal but unlikely),. Thus the Davis contract will continue to weigh down the Orioles for 18 more years. 

[DrungoHazewood]

9 hours ago, LA2 said:

This is a brilliant analogy.

One thing that it lacks though is the fact that, due to its exemption from antitrust regulations, major league baseball is even more omnipotent than any professional organization of said engineers and of whatever related technology and commerce (as far as I know, which isn't much).

For those with the patience to read through legal history, there's a fascinating address by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. on the process that led to the exemption--one in which BALTIMORE's attempt to maintain its own locally-funded team in the Federal League played a central role:

https://sabr.org/research/alito-origin-baseball-antitrust-exemption

Many interesting passages to quote, but I'll limit myself to the final paragraph and its ironic twist:

 

Frobby can weigh on this better than I can, but I get the feeling that the anti-trust exemption isn't worth a whole lot any more.  The NBA, NHL, and NFL don't have it, and free agency works just fine there.

[DrungoHazewood]

9 hours ago, Maverick Hiker said:

The engineer analogy is not really a true analogy to the situation in MLB in the 1960s. The game was thriving back then and yes players were for the most part happy and content.   Besides player happiness isn't paramount. What is more important is what's good for the fans and the game. Paying millions to players like Bonilla and Davis extending  into  their 50's, that isn't right for fans to have to pay for that.

Also the competitive balance of the game isn't what it used to be in the 1960's. Market size and payroll was not as important as today. The Orioles won the AL East 3 straight years by 69-71 by  large margins, I think by like 18 games in 1969, not possible today for a smaller market team going against the Yankees.

Better system then.  Maybe we can't go back to the way it was but a few steps in that direction would help. 

1. The Bonilla and Davis contracts cost their teams less overall by using deferred money. Teams could have said no deferred money and the players probably would have high-fived, because deferred equals less.

2. The last few years competitive balance has declined a bit, but that's mostly because team realized there's little benefit to winning 78 games instead of 58.  But prior to that competitive balance was higher than in the 1960s.  Competitive balance generally just goes up, and it consistently has throughout baseball history.  From 1920-1965, all prior to free agency, the Yankees were in the World Series 29 times in 45 years.  Seven separate times they made the WS at least three consecutive years.  During that entire period the Yanks had one year with a losing record.

And during that same general period the Browns were in one Series, during the war, and had five winning records.  They had seasons where they drew under 100k fans.  The Phillies had a run where they lost 100+ games in a 154 game schedule 12 times in 25 years, including five straight.  From 1935-68 the A's had one winning record.  From 1917 through 1946 the Braves never finished higher than 4th.  From 1935 until they moved in 1960 the Senators finished 6th, 7th or 8th 19 times, never won the AL pennant, and only finished as high as 2nd twice.  Most of those teams moved because they were uncompetitive for generations and their fanbases withered away.

Do the math - there is a smaller average distance from first to last over the last 20 years than there was from 1940-60, and we simply don't have the situation where the Yanks are in the World Series two out of three years any more.  Yes, that's because of expanded playoffs, as much as better competitive balance, but the result is the same.  The Yanks cannot win the Series every year, or even close

3. Keeping your team together as long as the owner decides to sounds great.  Unless maybe you're the 1930, 40, 50s Braves or Browns or Phils or A's or Senators.  Doesn't accomplish a lot to have a team of indefinitely indentured (but happy and contented!) servants who win 63 games a year.

4.  We're not going back to 1960.  It just isn't happening.  Every team sport I know of has free agency.  Even the Russian hockey league has free agency.  And that's good, because free agency is a good thing.

[DrungoHazewood]

6 hours ago, Maverick Hiker said:

https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bs-sp-orioles-chris-davis-bobby-bonilla-20190701-story.html

The deferred money will be going to Davis to the tune of more than a million a year through 2037, unless he agrees to a deal to retire for less (ideal but unlikely),. Thus the Davis contract will continue to weigh down the Orioles for 18 more years. 

That's a pretty light weight.  I'd guess that in almost all of those years the O's will pay a middle reliever or a utility player more than Chris Davis.  If a million in deferred money is keeping them from being competitive you must have won your fight and the average MLB payroll has reverted to $500k per team per year.

[LA2]

44 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Frobby can weigh on this better than I can, but I get the feeling that the anti-trust exemption isn't worth a whole lot any more.  The NBA, NHL, and NFL don't have it, and free agency works just fine there.

 

The antitrust exemption has been frequently used in court decisions, including recent ones.

[thezeroes]

6 hours ago, Maverick Hiker said:

https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bs-sp-orioles-chris-davis-bobby-bonilla-20190701-story.html

The deferred money will be going to Davis to the tune of more than a million a year through 2037, unless he agrees to a deal to retire for less (ideal but unlikely),. Thus the Davis contract will continue to weigh down the Orioles for 18 more years. 

The Baltimore Orioles will give Chris Davis 15 deferred payments, $3.5 million annually in 2023 through 2032 and $1.4 million annually in 2033 through 2037.

[UpstateNYfan]

17 minutes ago, thezeroes said:

The Baltimore Orioles will give Chris Davis 15 deferred payments, $3.5 million annually in 2023 through 2032 and $1.4 million annually in 2033 through 2037.

2037?? I wonder how many pages this thread will be by then??