MLB Lockout Thread

[waroriole]

9 hours ago, Frobby said:

Annual revenue is up over $1 bb since the last CBA negotiation.   Why wouldn’t the players want a raise in the luxury tax threshold?    

 

I’m not sure how players guarantee a bigger piece of the pie without a salary floor. And if there’s a salary floor, it stands to reason there will be a maximum. If both parties could just hurry up and get there we’d have baseball soon, plus a better product as it would end the ugly type of tanking we’ve seen in Baltimore the last few years. 

[Frobby]

53 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I find this hard to believe.   The current CBA is from 2017-2021.   They played 60 games I'm 2020 and had smaller crowds because of the pandemic is 2021.   I know the TV revenue may be higher in 2021 but the take at the gate should be down.

One site says MLB lost 1B in 2020.

I’m sure 2020 is not included in the calculation.  

[wildcard]

5 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m sure 2020 is not included in the calculation.  

So your statement is probably wrong.  I can not even find what MLB revenue was for 2021.   However MLB attendance was down almost 40 percent from the beginning of the current CBA.   2016 attendance was 73M. 2021 MLB attendance was 45M.   Attendance is reportedly 30 percent of MLB overall revenue.  

And there was no attendance in 2020.  

 

 

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

From David Laurila on Fangraphs:

MLB and the MLBPA are currently at war, the former having implemented a lockout while the two sides negotiate a new CBA. With the scheduled start of spring training fast approaching, and progress seemingly at a standstill, fans are becoming increasingly impatient, if not frustrated and/or angry. With that in mind, I ran the following Twitter poll on Thursday afternoon:

With the caveat that bargaining is a two-way street, which side do you support in the CBA negotiations: MLB players, or MLB owners?

A total of 1,198 people weighed in, and the results spoke volumes. An overwhelming 94.5% voted MLB Players, while only 5.5% sided with MLB owners.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/sunday-notes-the-crime-dogs-equal-carlos-delgado-deserves-another-look/

Fangraphs is probably a somewhat skewed audience, and I’d expect a more general poll to be less lopsided, but it’s apparent that those who are blaming the players are in the minority.   That’s important in the negotiations because public perception will affect how fans react when the work stoppage ends.   

This is exactly how I would expect readers of FG to vote.

[Frobby]

49 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

This is exactly how I would expect readers of FG to vote.

Why?   

[Sports Guy]

29 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Why?   

Many reasons..some of which aren’t worth getting into.

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Many reasons..some of which aren’t worth getting into.

All I could really say about FG readers is that they are more ststistics and analytics oriented than an average fan.  My guess would be they tend to skew younger than the average fan.  That’s all I could really say.   

[Frobby]

Here’s another poll favoring the players, though several weeks old and not nearly as lopsided as the FG poll (as I suspected): https://today.yougov.com/topics/sports/articles-reports/2021/12/15/americans-side-baseball-players-mlb-lockout-poll

[justD]

13 hours ago, wildcard said:

 He should put himself in the place of players on teams that can't compete instead of just thinking about money.

The solution can't be just good for rich teams.  It has to be good for all the team including the low revenue teams.  

The fans are smart enough to know the money difference between the teams is too much  to have competitive  baseball and they will make the situation worse by no supporting team that have not chance to win.  It bad enough now.  Making it worse is not the way for the CBA to go.

Wasn’t it the players’ lottery proposal that had several points specific to small vs large market teams?

I suppose that might not apply to the rest of what they’re proposing, but it seemed like they were the ones addressing the inequity of markets in this case, not the owners. 

[Can_of_corn]

 

[Moose Milligan]

5 hours ago, Frobby said:

Here’s another poll favoring the players, though several weeks old and not nearly as lopsided as the FG poll (as I suspected): https://today.yougov.com/topics/sports/articles-reports/2021/12/15/americans-side-baseball-players-mlb-lockout-poll

Most polls are going to favor the players, I believe.

The people that don't favor the players, IMO, are the ones that are constantly astounded by someone like Scherzer who's made an astronomical amount of money in his career wanting more...not taking the time to realize that the owner of any team has an incredibly higher amount of wealth than any player.

It goes back to the little man, "I'D PLAY FOR FREE" complex.  And the fact that the players are more recognizable and vocal than the owners are here.  Owners aren't offering up soundbytes like Scherzer did.  

It's entertainment to us that is seemingly (but not really) irreplaceable and necessary.  It's a business to them.  

It's funny, when we see guys get traded or sign a FA contract, the comment is made "It's a business...blah blah blah..." and then we forget that it REALLY IS A BUSINESS until a time like this. 

And then there's whining about how it's a business.

[DrungoHazewood]

16 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Most polls are going to favor the players, I believe.

The people that don't favor the players, IMO, are the ones that are constantly astounded by someone like Scherzer who's made an astronomical amount of money in his career wanting more...not taking the time to realize that the owner of any team has an incredibly higher amount of wealth than any player.

It goes back to the little man, "I'D PLAY FOR FREE" complex.  And the fact that the players are more recognizable and vocal than the owners are here.  Owners aren't offering up soundbytes like Scherzer did.  

It's entertainment to us that is seemingly (but not really) irreplaceable and necessary.  It's a business to them.  

It's funny, when we see guys get traded or sign a FA contract, the comment is made "It's a business...blah blah blah..." and then we forget that it REALLY IS A BUSINESS until a time like this. 

And then there's whining about how it's a business.

Orioles fans on every free agent ever: Not my money, just pay him whatever it takes.  Overpay if it means he'll come to Baltimore.  Angelos is the worst owner ever.

Orioles fans on labor disputes: Can't believe these entitled, pampered suckers won't just agree to whatever the owners offered, that's more money than they could ever use. Angelos put his own money into this, he's taking the risks not the players.

[Tony-OH]

On 2/5/2022 at 8:55 AM, wildcard said:

Max Scherzer should be traded to Pittsburgh.   Here is part of his most recent statement.

“We want a system where threshold and penalties don’t function as caps" 

With this statement he proves he does not care about the players playing for small market team.  That in as system without luxury tax and revenue sharing the players on small market teams have no chance of winning.   Especially were there is no tanking to try to build a team with high draft choices.

Scherzer should have no say in any MLB/Union agreement.  His opinions are not good for baseball.

Scherzer has become the spokesman for the ultra rich out of touch baseball player. I've lost any respect i ever had for him after his ridiculous comments that sows he cares about nothing but making as much money as possible, even if that means just the big market teams get to compete year in and year out.

 

[Tony-OH]

On 2/5/2022 at 8:57 AM, Sports Guy said:

The only topic the players care about is getting the aging, mediocre guys more money.  That’s really it.  How can we get those guys paid?

Just impose a salary floor.

I don't that's necessarily true. Greedy out of touch ultra rich players are also worried about how they can increase their 30 million+ a year contracts. We no cap or penalties for the big market teams, who knows how big a contract Scherzer and his greedy brethren can squeeze out of a big market Billionaire owner?

 

[Moose Milligan]

27 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Orioles fans on every free agent ever: Not my money, just pay him whatever it takes.  Overpay if it means he'll come to Baltimore.  Angelos is the worst owner ever.

Orioles fans on labor disputes: Can't believe these entitled, pampered suckers won't just agree to whatever the owners offered, that's more money than they could ever use. Angelos put his own money into this, he's taking the risks not the players.

Very true.  Quoted for emphasis.