NEW 60 GAME Proposal [Baseball is Back!]

[DirtyBird]

21 minutes ago, TheOtherRipken said:

How about you come explain your views about the disease to my wife and best friend who work on Covid wards?  I thought OH was not about politics, in fact, I’ve been warned for that very reason on this site.

I’m sorry man, I’ve defended you every step of the way but even if you own this site, its not your political platform, and a more calmed down/ level headed version of Tony would agree with that statement.

You can go ahead and ban me if you want, but honestly I expect better from you and am dissapointed.

One of the OH contributors tweets and retweets about politics on their OH twitter account. Not sure why we can’t talk about it in the site.

[atomic]

4 minutes ago, joelala said:

...Why? To punish the players for trying to take the moral high ground with that statement? That would only further reinforce many’s view that the owners are the bad guys here. Also, it would just suck cuz no baseball. You confuse me. 

Because the players want more than full salary.  They are greedy and are going to file a grievance to try and get even more money.  The Orioles are a small market team who are hurt because of there being no salary cap.  Destroy the union now so we can get a salary cap in.

[ORIOLE33]

Could someone please tell me exactly what the players want? 

[joelala]

12 minutes ago, atomic said:

Because the players want more than full salary.  They are greedy and are going to file a grievance to try and get even more money.  The Orioles are a small market team who are hurt because of there being no salary cap.  Destroy the union now so we can get a salary cap in.

I don’t disagree that a salary cap could be beneficial to the sport, but I do disagree with the notion that canceling the season would destroy the union. It would destroy MLB which I think would strengthen the bargaining position of the players

[TheOtherRipken]

16 minutes ago, DirtyBird said:

One of the OH contributors tweets and retweets about politics on their OH twitter account. Not sure why we can’t talk about it in the site.

Been the rule on here as long as I remember, and I’ve been here years. You want a site about Orioles discussion to devolve into political disputes? That kind of defeats the entire purpose.

[cnmilton]

What happened to the players (including but not limited to: Mike Trout, Garrett Cole, MLBPA head Tony Clark, etc...) saying tell us when and where we are playing, we j8st want to work?  Each and every single one of them that said that is now a stone faced LIAR!!!!

[Frobby]

54 minutes ago, DirtyBird said:

One of the OH contributors tweets and retweets about politics on their OH twitter account. Not sure why we can’t talk about it in the site.

Because those are the board’s rules, and they’ve been that way since at least 2003 when I joined the site.    I’m not a Twitter user but if you don’t want the politics on the person’s OH twitter account you don’t have to follow that person.    It’s a lot harder to skip politics when it appears in the middle of a thread.

[SteveA]

We're about to find out if the players' saying "Announce a season and we will show up" is sincere.  The owners just announced a 60 he season beginning July 24 - 26, with Spring Training 2 to start a week from Wednesday.

[Moose Milligan]

Looks like they're gonna play under the March rules, if I understand the ESPN alert I just got.

[jcaponio]

2 hours ago, atomic said:

There goes your season.

Wrong. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

 

[spiritof66]

1 hour ago, atomic said:

Because the players want more than full salary.  They are greedy and are going to file a grievance to try and get even more money.  The Orioles are a small market team who are hurt because of there being no salary cap.  Destroy the union now so we can get a salary cap in.

Why do you say that?

Once the U.S. started getting serious about the coronavirus in March, a lot of companies couldn't (or, for health/ safety reasons, chose not to) operate, or had to eliminate a large part of their operations. Their revenues dropped dramatically, to zero or close to it in some cases, but some of their expenses continued, putting lots of companies in a squeeze. Congress's approach focused on making payments to assist smaller businesses, on the theory that larger companies had sufficient cash reserves to get through the crisis. So far, almost all those big companies have stayed afloat. Many of them have met their contractual obligations to pay employees, or have kept those employees on the payroll, even though there has been (or still is) little for them to do.

Unlike some businesses, MLB teams didn't lose all their revenues, but they lost a lot. I believe they kept their rights fes payments from regional sports networks, though that might not be true in every case, as well as smaller revenue streams like those from merchandise sales. But two characteristics about MLB put teams in a difficult position. First, unlike most businesses, they wouldn't be able to just flip a switch when they were ready to operate; they would need to work out and announce a schedule, and get the players ready to play that schedule.

Second, MLB player salaries represent a very large portion of MLB teams' expenses. Unlike a lot of businesses, MLB teams can't  fire, lay off or furlough those employees to reduce their payment obligations. Every MLB player has a uniform contract under which the team promises to play the player a certain amount and the player makes himself available to play the major-league schedule, not to play for any other team, and to abide by certain rules. They get paid by the year, not by the game. So far as I can tell, nothing in those contracts says that the team doesn't have to pay the player his full salary if the team is either unable or unwilling to play the full schedule of games defined in the CBA. I may be wrong about that, but if so I wish someone would point me to something in the uniform contract or the CBA that leads to a different result.

In March, as it became clear the season wouldn't start on time and the length of the season was and would for a while remain uncertain, the threat of having to pay players their full salaries (or a negotiated discount from those salaries) was hanging over the clubs. Of course they were able to pay those salaries, even if some of them had to borrow to do so. Sure it would have been painful, just as a lot of companies have lost a lot of revenues and felt a lot of pain since the pandemic shattered their business models. But the union bailed out the teams. We don't know what the March agreement between MLB and the union says since it hasn't not been made public -- hell, we're just the fans; what business is it of ours? --  but what we do know is that the union/players agreed not to seek salaries higher than their full season's salaries prorated for the number of games played. 

I don't know why the union and players agreed to that salary cut. Maybe they thought that concession was necessary to save the season. Maybe they underestimated the amount of games that would be lost to the virus, or overestimated the owners' willingness to play as many regular-season games as could be scheduled. Maybe MLB lied about how this concession would make the owners flexible about saving the season or other stuff, or spewed some crap about how this kind of good faith would be helpful when the CBA gets negotiated. But the players will end up making a lot less than their full salaries, somewhere from about 37 percent to 0. 

 

[UMDTerrapins]

Assuming there is a season, I’m happy to see it happen. But what a colossal failure by baseball that it took so long to make it happen. And instead of a feel good story for the country, it’s two warring groups at an impasse over money, one forcing the other to play per contract terms. We should already be over a month into the season by now. 60 games is a joke. And I’m extra salty that I’m siding with the owners...how much does that suck!

[atomic]

13 hours ago, TheOtherRipken said:

Been the rule on here as long as I remember, and I’ve been here years. You want a site about Orioles discussion to devolve into political disputes? That kind of defeats the entire purpose.

I think people have worked their political beliefs into the covid situation rather well on here.  Opinions that cannot have been made with out totally distorted political view have come from both sides.  

[Can_of_corn]

13 hours ago, ORIOLE33 said:

Could someone please tell me exactly what the players want? 

To play as many games as possible while making their full per game salary.