MLB Lockout Thread

[Moose Milligan]

13 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I don't think it is.  None of the baseball fans I talk to in real life are worried about the lockout.  I think it will start to hurt them if spring training is delayed (especially down here since for some of us it's our best chance to see our favorite teams) and will only make a big dent in the public if regular season games or delayed.

Most folks aren't paying attention with the NFL playoffs going on.

Yeah, I agree.  No games have been missed yet, no damage has been done.  

[Frobby]

What hasn’t been discussed much is all the craziness that is going to occur when the lockout ends.   You’ve got dozens and probably hundreds of unsigned free agents.   You’ve got a ton of arbitration-eligible players who haven’t had serious contract discussions with their teams, much less exchanged the formal demand and offer that precede an arbitration hearing.   And of course, nobody knows what the rules will be.   Even assuming that 2022 will operate under the prior rules for the most part (which seems highly likely), there’s going to be a ridiculous amount of work for front offices to do in a compressed amount of time.   That will be pretty fun to watch.  

[Frobby]

20 hours ago, Frobby said:

I’d be interested to know what the total amount currently paid to pre-Arb players is.   Then you’d have a sense of proportion of what these numbers mean.

Without knowing that, even $105 mm strikes me as a pretty small number, and allocating it all to the top 30 guys strikes me as possibly too restrictive.   
 

Ben Clemens of Fangraphs essentially answered my question today: 

“In 2021, teams spent roughly $3.842 billion on player salaries, per Spotrac. Minimum salaries accounted for roughly $289 million of that, or 7.5% of the total outlay.

On the other hand, those players accounted for roughly 47% of the service time accrued in 2021. That’s not quite the same as games played – you accrue service time while on the injured list or while on the 26-man roster but not appearing in games – but the player pool skews heavily towards pre-arbitration players no matter how you slice it. 58% of all players to appear on a 26-man roster in 2021 haven’t yet reached arbitration.”

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-economic-impact-of-yesterdays-cba-proposals/

 

[LookinUp]

 

Not sure I believe this, but take it fwiw.

[Frobby]

10 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

 

Not sure I believe this, but take it fwiw.

I don’t think it’s worth anything.  

[interloper]

13 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

 

Not sure I believe this, but take it fwiw.

Well if the Marlins BBQ Co-Host says it....

[waroriole]

53 minutes ago, LookinUp said:

 

Not sure I believe this, but take it fwiw.

Guy has less than 1,000 followers. Probably not much of a source

[DrungoHazewood]

On 1/25/2022 at 7:41 PM, OriolesMagic83 said:

Not a perfect system, but its better, IMO, than saying player X deserves more money than player Y because he played 5 more games.  RBI isn't a great stat, but is it worse than PAs? 

RBI worse than PAs... actually, yea.  Certainly could be.  Rickey Henderson's career high in RBI was 74, Jay Gibbons' was 100.

If someone told me I had to come up with a system to allocate bonus money by some kind of performance metric I think I'd divide up the pool by WAR and available pool dollars.  Let's say you have 100 eligible players, worth a total of 150 WAR, and $30M to give out.  Give everyone with positive WAR $20k per 0.1 WAR.  If you're a 0.5 win player you get $100k.  If you're a five-win player you get $1M.  10-win, $2M.

I'm sure someone will pick holes in the edge cases, like giving some guy who goes 1-for-5 a $100k bonus, so you'd have to put a floor like maybe min 100 PAs or 30 innings to get a bonus.

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

RBI worse than PAs... actually, yea.  Certainly could be.  Rickey Henderson's career high in RBI was 74, Jay Gibbons' was 100.

If someone told me I had to come up with a system to allocate bonus money by some kind of performance metric I think I'd divide up the pool by WAR and available pool dollars.  Let's say you have 100 eligible players, worth a total of 150 WAR, and $30M to give out.  Give everyone with positive WAR $20k per 0.1 WAR.  If you're a 0.5 win player you get $100k.  If you're a five-win player you get $1M.  10-win, $2M.

I'm sure someone will pick holes in the edge cases, like giving some guy who goes 1-for-5 a $100k bonus, so you'd have to put a floor like maybe min 100 PAs or 30 innings to get a bonus.

I'd love to toss WPA in there somehow.

[DrungoHazewood]

20 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'd love to toss WPA in there somehow.

Gotta make sure Taylor Teagarden gets his bonus.

[OriolesMagic83]

21 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

RBI worse than PAs... actually, yea.  Certainly could be.  Rickey Henderson's career high in RBI was 74, Jay Gibbons' was 100.

If someone told me I had to come up with a system to allocate bonus money by some kind of performance metric I think I'd divide up the pool by WAR and available pool dollars.  Let's say you have 100 eligible players, worth a total of 150 WAR, and $30M to give out.  Give everyone with positive WAR $20k per 0.1 WAR.  If you're a 0.5 win player you get $100k.  If you're a five-win player you get $1M.  10-win, $2M.

I'm sure someone will pick holes in the edge cases, like giving some guy who goes 1-for-5 a $100k bonus, so you'd have to put a floor like maybe min 100 PAs or 30 innings to get a bonus.

Runs created would be a much better stat than RBI, obviously.  I'll take players who drive in and score lots of runs over players who make a ton of plate appearances every day.  I have to credit Davis with 1 thing.  He showed up every day for 6+ years of his contract.  Even when O's fans wanted him to stay home, he kept showing up. 

[Camden_yardbird]

I hate to say it because I would rather side with labor, but I think a lot of the players asks would end up in a weak competitive system.

No (or inflated) top end cap.

No revenue sharing.

Lottery.

Opposition to an international draft.

4 years of player control

If you want to increase salaries and competitiveness, raise the minimum salary, adopt revise player control rules that ensure market value salaries in years 4-6, expand the playoffs.

As far as the two sides are off I think we could see what the OP suggests. Kick the can down the road.

 

[wildcard]

On 1/3/2022 at 8:39 AM, wildcard said:

And play 2022  season under the 2021 rules.

Maybe they determine that since both sides are making a lot of money its better to play than lockout or strike.

The Owners call for a Federal mediator is a move toward what I was suggesting in the OP.   Here is what MLBTR is reporting about a mediator.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/02/mlb-requests-federal-mediator-to-help-resolve-lockout.html

[Tony-OH]

On 1/19/2022 at 8:49 PM, Can_of_corn said:

Curious about something I went to visit Wikipedia and found something interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLB_lockout

If this is accurate we've never had missed regular season games after a Lockout.

But let's see if the owners lift the lockout, how fast the players strike. 

[wildcard]

2 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

But let's see if the owners lift the lockout, how fast the players strike. 

I think there will have to be an agreement from the union that they will not strike before the end of the World Series  for the Owners to lift the lockout.    That may be the first step  of  the move to mediation.