MLB Lockout Thread

[Hallas]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Eh, I get it your opinion and others, but at the end of he day, this is about players trying to score a bigger pay day when some are making $40 million a season and the MLBPA is making huge money on royalties and likeness deals for players, We're talking about the first three years where a player will make at minimum over $1.8 million before arbitration kicks in and they start getting their worth.

Again, owners share a lot of the blame for this work stoppage, but when you choose gigantic hypocrites like Tony Clark and Scherzer to be your mouth pieces, you lose any credibility with me.

Plus, don't get me started with their "unique abilities." They make the money that they make because people are willing to pay to watch them "work". There are fewer brain surgeons than major league ball players.

 

 I don't really think it's all that relevant to fixate on the 40 out of 1200 players (3% the MLB player base, which is already the best of the best in the world) that make 20 million+.  Most of the MLBPA proposals are designed to help the bottom 70% earners, which, yeah they make a lot but the average career length is only about 5 years.  They are not making enough to set themselves up for life, and they won't have life skills after they are cycled out for another set of young pre-arb players.  And I don't think that Scherzer being a spokesperson for this should make the MLBPA lose credibility if their proposals are in good faith.  He's not here to negotiate for himself.

 

I also don't think that the 1.8 million goes all that far because of things like agent fees etc.  And even if they didn't have to pay that, an IT worker working for 10 years at age 21 will make a similar amount, and have lucrative job prospects going into traditional retirement age.  A baseball player does what exactly after he washes out?

[owknows]

30 minutes ago, Hallas said:

 

 

I also don't think that the 1.8 million goes all that far because of things like agent fees etc.  And even if they didn't have to pay that, an IT worker working for 10 years at age 21 will make a similar amount, and have lucrative job prospects going into traditional retirement age.  A baseball player does what exactly after he washes out?

It seems so unfair that the baseball players are snatched away from their families before the age of 5... and sold by unscrupulous traders into pro sports slavery... robbing them of the opportunity to be IT guys.

Wait.... you mean they do it voluntarily?

Eagerly?

The devil you say

[forphase1]

4 hours ago, Hallas said:

  Most of the MLBPA proposals are designed to help the bottom 70% earners, which, yeah they make a lot but the average career length is only about 5 years.  They are not making enough to set themselves up for life, and they won't have life skills after they are cycled out for another set of young pre-arb players.

Wait, do you really think baseball should be set up in such a way that anyone who plays in the MLB for 5 years should make enough to be set up for the rest of their lives?  Is that really what you expect?  

[NCRaven]

I wonder if the Orioles were one of the four teams that voted no on the owners last proposal.  Had to be four small market teams.

[Moshagge3]

7 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Eh, I get it your opinion and others, but at the end of he day, this is about players trying to score a bigger pay day when some are making $40 million a season and the MLBPA is making huge money on royalties and likeness deals for players, We're talking about the first three years where a player will make at minimum over $1.8 million before arbitration kicks in and they start getting their worth.

Again, owners share a lot of the blame for this work stoppage, but when you choose gigantic hypocrites like Tony Clark and Scherzer to be your mouth pieces, you lose any credibility with me.

Plus, don't get me started with their "unique ." They make the money that they make because people are willing to pay to watch them "work". There are fewer brain surgeons than major league ball players.

abilities

Can you identify what player demands you specifically find "hypocritical"? 

Pretend you're from a very remote island and you have no idea what any player currently makes or even what baseball is. "Baseball player" might be very lucrative or it might be a working-class job as far as you know. All you know is that there is a labor dispute where the baseball players have conceded and dropped every one of their demands to make major changes to the structure of the current agreement. They want only for the numbers involved to increase basically at the rate of inflation, retroactive to when the deal was signed. Hmmm, you ask, is this industry in financial decline? No, in fact, not only is the industry still turning a healthy profit, the baseball players have agreed to things that make the owners a lot of extra money on top of that. Hmmm, you ask, are these workers easy to replace? No, in fact, their skills are so freakishly rare that it costs a fair amount of money just to identify those skills in people and then to develop them. 

When you zoom out like that, it sure sounds like the players are being reasonable and even conciliatory and the owners are being unbelievably petty. It's only when you intrude your emotions into it, "can't believe they make millions to hit a ball with a stick when my mom's a teacher and only makes 65k a year etc. etc." that you start to blame the players, and that's exactly what the owners count on and have counted on for more than a century.

[SteveA]

6 hours ago, NCRaven said:

I wonder if the Orioles were one of the four teams that voted no on the owners last proposal.  Had to be four small market teams.

https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/status/1499624274298126338?t=i_y01YnuyodXic7CoIM4UQ&s=19

[Can_of_corn]

34 minutes ago, SteveA said:

https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/status/1499624274298126338?t=i_y01YnuyodXic7CoIM4UQ&s=19

Loved the bit about meal money.

[osfan83]

I would think with the unfair working conditions the players are subjected to, there would be a shortage of players. How come the "Great Resignation" hasn't impacted MLB like other companies? Most industries in this country are having a hard time filling positions, I haven't seen the O's help wanted ad for a slick fielding SS yet. 

[Can_of_corn]

23 minutes ago, osfan83 said:

I would think with the unfair working conditions the players are subjected to, there would be a shortage of players. How come the "Great Resignation" hasn't impacted MLB like other companies? Most industries in this country are having a hard time filling positions, I haven't seen the O's help wanted ad for a slick fielding SS yet. 

You say that as if they were not currently in the midst of a labor dispute with ownership.

We are currently in a situation in which players are not willing to work under the terms being dictated to them by ownership.

[Bahama O's Fan]

49 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

You say that as if they were not currently in the midst of a labor dispute with ownership.

We are currently in a situation in which players are not willing to work under the terms being dictated to them by ownership.

Is it the players or the owners? Just thinking, if the lockout was lifted tomorrow by the owners, what happens? Do the players strike? Do they just work under the old CBA? I wonder what scenario would take place.

[osfan83]

11 minutes ago, Bahama O's Fan said:

Is it the players or the owners? Just thinking, if the lockout was lifted tomorrow by the owners, what happens? Do the players strike? Do they just work under the old CBA? I wonder what scenario would take place.

They would work under the old CBA until Mid Sept, then they would strike if no agreement was reached. 

[MurphDogg]

Just now, osfan83 said:

They would work under the old CBA until Mid Sept, then they would strike if no agreement was reached. 

Because the expired CBA had a sunset clause on the CBT (the CBT expired at the end of the 2021 season independent of the expiration of the CBA) there would be no CBT this year if they played under the old CBA, so there would be a ton of creative free agent signings with salaries being front-loaded rather than back-loaded. My guess is that 

[Camden_yardbird]

1 hour ago, osfan83 said:

I would think with the unfair working conditions the players are subjected to, there would be a shortage of players. How come the "Great Resignation" hasn't impacted MLB like other companies? Most industries in this country are having a hard time filling positions, I haven't seen the O's help wanted ad for a slick fielding SS yet. 

Feels like this might be missing the boat.  Unlike IT or retail, there is no competitive job market for MLB players.  The closest thing approximating that is the foreign leagues and you have in fact seen a larger number of players taking that route.  So I guess we could call that a "great migration."

Article

The point being this is a situation where the owners provide one of the only forums for workers of this skill.  Thus the need to unions and collective bargaining.

I dont think anyone thinks a player having a 5 year career should be set for life, but there should be four things:

1.  The player should be paid fairly according to their production.

The players bonus pool offer for prepare players approxamates this.  The owners on the other hand had a proposal that would give each team less than $2 million a year in bonus for pre arb players.

2.  The pay should be commensurate with the value of the commodity. 

Baseball makes billions a year and the players who are the principal workers leading to the product should get a fair share.

3.  The pay should be a living wage.

Sadly this is not even part of the conversation.  It is well documented that minor leaguers are paid trash wages.

4.  The pay should be enough to support the players end of career transition.

Baseball is a unique job for players wherein there is a necessary career transition for the players.  For someone who makes multiple millions that is easy, but for a player who has devoted most of their twenties to the development of a skill that has minimal uses outside of the industry and maybe makes the minimum for two years, the pay needs to be sufficient so that they may maintain their life while they learn those new skills, whether that be coaching or whatever else they go into.

For example my little league coach, who got to AAA, went on to become an EMT.

 

[MurphDogg]

As I suspected, the Orioles are reportedly not one of the teams that are fighting hardest against a raised CBT. More interesting than the naming of the teams themselves, is the question of who on the ownership side leaked the names (and the info that four teams voted against the "last, best offer") and why?

The big question to me is how united the owners are in maintaining this lockout deep into 2022. To me, this leak indicates that they may not be particularly united and perhaps they are not satisfied with Manfred's leadership. 

[NCRaven]

I was surprised that a large market team like the Angels voted no.  Guess they’re tired of the Dodgers kicking their butts in the LA market.