MLB Lockout Thread

[Tony-OH]

23 hours ago, seak05 said:

Players aren’t just workers, they’re also the product being sold (and even if you replaced them with other players, the players are still the product).

I’m going to be honest, your overall reply shows reads as very condescending  towards “workers”. In true capitalism owners wouldn’t be making any profit (but rather a wage they would pay themselves). 

Regardless fair wage and living wage aren’t synonyms. The fact that the players receive (much) more then a living wage, has nothing to do with it being an unfair offer. Fair wage is based on revenue. 

Well, that's because you are looking at this from an ideology vs from my point of view. I absolutely am not against "workers". I'm absolutely not on the owners side or any side really other than the fan. I've said this time and time again.

What I find laughable is your opinion that some how players who are making what they are making are somehow instituted into some kind of serfdom. 

At the end of the day, they a replaying a game they for at a minimum over ten times what the common "worker" makes in America. If they become very good at what they do, they will become very, very rich. 

If they are in the beginning of their career or they have mediocre skills that can be replaced by a cheaper worker, then I don't have an issue with an employer, in this case the owners, from paying someone else to replace you.

Every player knows the business of the game. They are will payed once they make the major leagues. If they live a normal lifestyle like the American worker, they can make their money last many years past they are no longer paid by a major league franchise. 

At the end of the day, I don't care how much anyone makes unless his destroys a team's ability to be able to compete because the player no longer can compete at the level yet the team is not able to make up the difference by getting another expensive player.

Seemed to me the last offer was fair by the owners. Not perfect by any sense of the word, but fair. Saying that, the lack of negotiations or proposals for much of the offseason or since they locked them out is on them, but it did appear they are willing to give up April and May baseball to get what they want.

That tells me they don't care about the fans, which is why I'm NOT on the owners side here. 

But my main point is simple. Let's not act like the players are some guy/gal fighting for a living wage who is working in a coal mine and risking his life and health every day while the mine owners are buying their second yacht! 

 

 

[Sports Guy]

19 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

The one thing I think we all can agree to is Manfred is the lead clown of the clown show!

He’s so bad.  I said it last night but the man is as likable as Hilary.  He’s just the worst.

[Tony-OH]

8 hours ago, orioles119 said:

I agree here.  There will probably be a deal in about a week.  All the tweeters need to step away from the computer and stop puffing their chest about cancelling MLB.tv and being mad over a week's worth of games.  They'll be back when it returns - don't deny it.

I figure if they are playing by the time the NHL playoffs are done, then I'll be good with that.

You are the exact fan Manfred is counting on for sure. 

I hope more people will have a little more gumption and make MLB pay for years to come for missing games when this should have easily been avoided.

[Tony-OH]

6 hours ago, AlbNYfan said:

Most of you make valid if not arguable points about the current labor problems in MLB. I have been involved in labor negotiations many times. I have learned that at the end of negotiations both sides should never come away totally satisfied. If one side truly "wins", there will be Hell to pay the next time negotiations come around. The hardest thing about these negotiations is listening to leaders on both sides trying to explain their rational.

The truth IMO, is that most here don't really care about who wins, they just want to watch MLB or the Orioles and argue (I mean discuss) the game.

My last points about the current issues and who I am most concerned about, that neither side seem to be concerned about.

1) The non-ardent fan..those that enjoy the game, but life goes on without it.

2) "Small" businesses that depend on the game to make their businesses profitable. This includes restaurants, souvenir shops, vendors, the cities in Florida and Arizona that support Spring Training.

3) Lastly, 24-26 year old minor league players that were on the cusp of at least a taste of the bigs 2 years ago and are now 26-28 and perhaps lost that because of COVID and now labor strife.

Millionaire players and multi-millionaire (billionaire) owners discussing labor inequities is rather bizarre. 

Great post. Your last sentence could not be more accurate, but there is a perverse ideology that encourages some people to think the players are victims here. I've battled with them, but to no avail as it's so ingrained that they must "fight for the worker" that they don't even realize that these workers are very well paid and could care less about them. 

 

[Tony-OH]

4 hours ago, SteveA said:

Pretty much what I said heading into the weekend.   Either the players would cave (they didn't), or we were probably in for a long work stoppage.   The owners hoped they could use the leverage of cancelling games to make the players go way more than halfway.   It didn't work.   Now the owners have time on their side.   They are more than happy with a 100 or even 80 game season as long as there is postseason on TV.   They'll probably resort to the 43-days-without-a-new-proposal strategy now and wait for the players to come to them with terms they want.

I do think you are right. The owners have probably run the numbers and realize getting the right deal is worth missing these games. It's a long game and when you see fans who say "as long as they're back after the NHL playoffs they'll be back" it tells them they just keep cancelling games. 

Billionaires will always win out against millionaires because they have more money to live of. Eventually the players will crack because the guys making $600k have bills that will need to be paid. 

[Sports Guy]

No way they are only missing 6 games and that a deal is done in a week or so.

[LookinUp]

If it were up to me, there would be:

1. No guaranteed contracts. Only bonuses, like the NFL.

2. Greater revenue sharing.

3. A substantial salary floor of some kind.

4. A salary cap with more teeth than what exists today.

5. Players making more earlier in their careers.

6. No disincentive to bring up your best guys. Easier said than done.

This is all a pipe dream though.

[Hallas]

50 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

If it were up to me, there would be:

1. No guaranteed contracts. Only bonuses, like the NFL.

2. Greater revenue sharing.

3. A substantial salary floor of some kind.

4. A salary cap with more teeth than what exists today.

5. Players making more earlier in their careers.

6. No disincentive to bring up your best guys. Easier said than done.

This is all a pipe dream though.

 

The current luxury cap is such that only 3-5 teams ever exceed it, and they never exceed it for more than a year at a time, so I'd say that it's got a lot of teeth as it is.

[Camden_yardbird]

4 hours ago, LookinUp said:

Just wanted to point out that this above paragraph, to me, was excellent.

Also, in response to many other posts, I wanted to say that I'm not convinced that a level playing field is better for either the owners or the players.

MLB gets more revenue from the Yankees going to the World Series, by far, than just about anything. That's what they want. It hurts them to have Tampa play the Diamondbacks or something like that.

So while a level playing field is a really romantic thing to root for, I think you're fooling yourself if you think that's the goal of either side even if you think that's the fundamental problem with the number of fans watching. 

I agree, nietger side want a fair playing field.  The CBT is there just to cap salaries on the "false promise" of competitive balance.  If the owners wanted a competitive field they would have also proposed a salary floor.  And yet no one did?  Why is that?

The players don't care about floors as much as they do caps.  They will get a higher floor with the minimum salary increases they proposed.

I know both sides think a lottery system will help incent teams to try and cyclically compete.  I doubt it, the stats are just too clear on the lifetime war of picks 1, 2-4 and 5-10.

That is why I am seriously frustrated with these negotiations.  Neither side seems interested in the health of the game.  That and I am frustrated because of the two sides I think the owners proposals are much closer to a balanced system than the players.

[Sports Guy]

 

[Sports Guy]

 

[Can_of_corn]

Obviously agents are not going to be pleased.

[Sports Guy]

10 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Obviously agents are not going to be pleased.

No but doesn’t mean he’s wrong either.

[WI O’s Fan]

The players are losing a combined $ 20 million per game.  With 6 cancelled games, that equals 120,000,000 - just staggering to image.  It is millionaires vs billionaire.  The fans and small businesses are the losers.  I hate reading the tweets from the players about the unfairness of it all.  Guys making 15 bucks an hour I can defend them against mgt, but not the millionaires or the billionaires.  Stop the rhetoric and play ball.

[Moshagge3]

5 minutes ago, WI O’s Fan said:

The players are losing a combined $ 20 million per game.  With 6 cancelled games, that equals 120,000,000 - just staggering to image.  It is millionaires vs billionaire.  The fans and small businesses are the losers.  I hate reading the tweets from the players about the unfairness of it all.  Guys making 15 bucks an hour I can defend them against mgt, but not the millionaires or the billionaires.  Stop the rhetoric and play ball.

What about, like, Rylan Bannon? He signed for $122K but that was five years ago. Is it fair that he's locked out?