MLB Lockout Thread

[Big Mac]

10 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Plenty of people on here are acting like the players are some poor indentured servants who are getting scraps from the owners. 

I work for a Corporation (away from the Hangout). I get a raise every year. What I don't do is sit around and worry how much the corporation made. 

The owners are dbags, and if it were true that they tried to slide a bunch of stuff in at the last second, then they truly have to own this, but the players have a pretty good thing going and they're just being greedy trying to get more and more when they already have so much.

I want baseball back. There are no good guys in this situation and the only thing that annoys me is when people try to cry poor for them. If you don't think so, go back and read the posts. 

This is not 1973 when Charlie Finley was trying to give Reggie Jackson a $1000 raise after he was an MVP candidate and the team won another World Series. Pre Free agency players were 100% right in what they wanted. Now they are ready and willing to get a work stoppage when they are being paid very, very well.

I've worked at a couple of large law firms and things like firm revenues, profits per partner, etc. are publicized.  There have absolutely been times where these firms will boast about how it has been a record year and then things like associate bonuses and salaries stay stagnant which does not sit well with them.

It's far from a perfect comparison, but sports are not the only industry where employees are in tune with how much the employer is making and to what extent those gains are being passed down, if at all. 

[Can_of_corn]

17 minutes ago, owknows said:

Baseball Player Salary as a function of revenue has been pretty steady, and well over 50%...  generally closer to 60% for some time.

It is substantially higher than the NFL..... and the NBA... 

 

This is old, 2018, but that was before the MLBAM payments so if anything the situation is worse now.

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/2/21/17035624/mlb-revenue-sharing-owners-players-free-agency-rob-manfred

[joelala]

2 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Hamilton not Trout.

At least not yet on Trout, I guess we'll see.

I think the Trout deal will be worse, sadly.

[Moose Milligan]

24 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

 

I really don't care about any of them or really anyone's opinion about this situation anymore. I'm on no ones side other than the fans, and some of you aren't even on your own side. 

 

 

It's not that I'm not on my own side...or anyone's side, really.  I just don't think they ever cared about the fans (as I've previously mentioned) past how far they can reach into our pockets.  

We aren't of any use to them otherwise.  So...no, they don't care.  And quite frankly, I'm not sure what difference it makes as to who's "side" any of us are on.  I mean, what are we doing here besides arguing on a message board?  It's not as if any of us have real skin in the game here, like being financially tied to the MLBPA or the owners.  

 

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

This is old, 2018, but that was before the MLBAM payments so if anything the situation is worse now.

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/2/21/17035624/mlb-revenue-sharing-owners-players-free-agency-rob-manfred

I'd like to know some details of the "Total Revenue" column.  Like, do MASN revenues go there?  How about if the Mariners owners have a side business called Baseball Stadium Parking, LLC?  Or the money made by the Texas Rangers' Secondary Ticket Market Corp?

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I'd like to know some details of the "Total Revenue" column.  Like, do MASN revenues go there?  How about if the Mariners owners have a side business called Baseball Stadium Parking, LLC?  Or the money made by the Texas Rangers' Secondary Ticket Market Corp?

There is very little transparency when it comes to team finances that's for sure.

I personally like the elder Angelos move of loaning his team money from his personal wealth.

[Can_of_corn]

58 minutes ago, joelala said:

I think the Trout deal will be worse, sadly.

I hope not.  The Hamilton deal was 5/125 and they got two years, 2.7 rWAR and no end of headaches out of it.

At least Trout is by all accounts a decent person.

[ThomasTomasz]

2 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

This is old, 2018, but that was before the MLBAM payments so if anything the situation is worse now.

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/2/21/17035624/mlb-revenue-sharing-owners-players-free-agency-rob-manfred

What should MLBAM, which was an investment by the owners, have to do with the players?  I don’t think they have a standing there.  Really curious on what you think there.  

Also, the numbers now might be less, because their biggest outside draw, WWE, switched over to Peacock. 

[DrungoHazewood]

44 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I hope not.  The Hamilton deal was 5/125 and they got two years, 2.7 rWAR and no end of headaches out of it.

At least Trout is by all accounts a decent person.

So they paid $46M per win for Hamilton. Trout is on a 12-year, $426M contract, so to equal Hamilton's dollars-per-win Trout would have to produce just 9.3 wins from 2019-2030.  So far, despite missing most of the past two years, he's produced 11.5 wins.  Therefore he'll need to be worth -2.2 rWAR or less over the next nine seasons.  In other words, he'd have to turn into end stage Chris Davis more-or-less right now.

[Hallas]

14 hours ago, forphase1 said:

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?  

Is this controversial?  Making it to MLB is hard, and these players have forsaken a traditional career.  So I think at the very least they need to earn enough so that they can forego working after they wash out for a fairly long period while they figure out alternative career prospects.  Especially considering that all athletes have a far higher injury rate than a typical worker. Maybe not for the rest of their lives but at least for the 10-15 years following their exit from the league.  I don't know if a utility guy making the league minimum for parts of 6 seasons really meets this bar.

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, ThomasTomasz said:

What should MLBAM, which was an investment by the owners, have to do with the players?  I don’t think they have a standing there.  Really curious on what you think there.  

Also, the numbers now might be less, because their biggest outside draw, WWE, switched over to Peacock. 

It's revenue.

 

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Hallas said:

Is this controversial?  Making it to MLB is hard, and these players have forsaken a traditional career.  So I think at the very least they need to earn enough so that they can forego working after they wash out for a fairly long period while they figure out alternative career prospects.  Especially considering that all athletes have a far higher injury rate than a typical worker. Maybe not for the rest of their lives but at least for the 10-15 years following their exit from the league.  I don't know if a utility guy making the league minimum for parts of 6 seasons really meets this bar.

It's the entertainment business.  Hanson made 60M (net worth) off of one song that anyone remembers.

The guys that did Macerena make over 250K a year in royalties off of one song.

To say that a player, who probably put in five years or so in the minors, shouldn't be able to live off a five year career is a bit odd to me. 

[Big Mac]

10 minutes ago, Hallas said:

Is this controversial?  Making it to MLB is hard, and these players have forsaken a traditional career.  So I think at the very least they need to earn enough so that they can forego working after they wash out for a fairly long period while they figure out alternative career prospects.  Especially considering that all athletes have a far higher injury rate than a typical worker. Maybe not for the rest of their lives but at least for the 10-15 years following their exit from the league.  I don't know if a utility guy making the league minimum for parts of 6 seasons really meets this bar.

All professional fields are littered with people who took non-traditional routes in their careers.  It is perfectly reasonable to expect someone who washes out of pro ball in their twenties after 3 or so years in the MLB making almost $2M to be able to transition into a different career.  Many of them have college educations already and if not they should have saved enough to be able to go back to school.  

I think it's unreasonable to expect every player who makes it to the MLB to be set for a 60+ year retirement from their earnings playing ball alone.  If they are smart with money they should have enough of a cushion to buy some time to figure out what they want to do next after their playing career. 

Also, if you spend just 43 days on an MLB roster you get a fully vested pension that at least in 2011 started at $34k/year.  You get health insurance for life if you spend one day on an MLB roster.  

 

 

[Ripken]

1 hour ago, joelala said:

I think the Trout deal will be worse, sadly.

Rendon deal is gonna look awful, too.

[Hallas]

3 minutes ago, Big Mac said:

All professional fields are littered with people who took non-traditional routes in their careers.  It is perfectly reasonable to expect someone who washes out of pro ball in their twenties after 3 or so years in the MLB making almost $2M to be able to transition into a different career.  Many of them have college educations already and if not they should have saved enough to be able to go back to school.  

I think it's unreasonable to expect every player who makes it to the MLB to be set for a 60+ year retirement from their earnings playing ball alone.  If they are smart with money they should have enough of a cushion to buy some time to figure out what they want to do next after their playing career. 

Keep in mind that players also spent time in the minors.  A player with a 5 year MLB career probably has spent 8-10 years in pro ball, and earning basically a subsistence salary during his minor league career.