New CBA proposal on draft lottery

[Tony-OH]

5 hours ago, LTO's said:

What percentage of players are making $12 million a year and for how many years? The median income for MLB players is $1.15 million which is vastly different than how you're framing it. The average salary is declining. I really don't understand the "millionaire vs billionaire" framing of this dispute. Most players don't make nearly as much money as some think they do and most don't have long careers to make that money. Owners are sitting on a cashcow that steadily increases in value that is independent from how they earn their wealth anyway. I don't understand how Ubaldo getting $12 million is somehow worse for the average fan. Put me on the team of guys like Mullins over the owners any day of the week.  

You literally said the median income of a player is $1.15 million. That means their median income makes them millionaires. 

I don't doubt the owners can give more when it comes to profit sharing, but prove me wrong on anything I said about the union and what they've been asking for.

Show me one thing they've asked for that will improve the experience for the fans?

[LTO's]

11 hours ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

It seems like the union has been more interested in the past in improving the pay of the guys making 20 mill/yr than in improving the earnings of those making $2 million or less.  There is always a big push to get an increase on the largest contract or highest salary per year.  Seems like the less well paid players would have a bigger voice.  I guess seniority rule and mega salary guys have 6-20 years of experience vs the 5 years or less just trying to keep their spot and find a voice.

Have you read their proposals this go around? There were many things in there to help improve the conditions for guys like Mullins who were way underpaid relative to their production. Ownership will do all they can to suppress those wages/bonuses. Apparently, that's good for the fans according to some.  

[LTO's]

11 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

You literally said the median income of a player is $1.15 million. That means their median income makes them millionaires. 

I don't doubt the owners can give more when it comes to profit sharing, but prove me wrong on anything I said about the union and what they've been asking for.

Show me one thing they've asked for that will improve the experience for the fans?

Do you have any idea how long the average MLB career is? How many players on a given 40 man roster make it to FA and make 10+ mil AAV? What I'm saying is that for most baseball players, the salary they receive is not as extravagant as you frame it. It's not generational wealth, it's often short lived and is vastly more similar to the average fan than to the average owner. You single out someone like Ubaldo, who was a good player at one point and earned a reasonable contract from the Orioles, as a situation that is so bad for the average fan. Can you explain how that is the case? I still don't follow your reasoning though I suspect there isn't any other than you're an Orioles fan who is upset he wasn't a very good player here. 

The union offered earlier FA, higher minimum salary, and a $100 mil bonus pool for high performing pre-arb players. That would mean that Cedric Mullins, who was top 20 in WAR last year would be rewarded and paid more than the 500K he received last season. Want to explain how those proposals are just for the Bryce Harpers and Manny Machados of the league? I think you just fundamentally don't understand what the MLBPA is doing or what their function is at all. They represent the players not the fans. They are not and should not be concerned with improving the fan experience. That's for MLB and the teams owners to be concerned with. And they are failing miserably at that anyway. 

[forphase1]

1 hour ago, LTO's said:

I think you just fundamentally don't understand what the MLBPA is doing or what their function is at all. They represent the players not the fans. They are not and should not be concerned with improving the fan experience. That's for MLB and the teams owners to be concerned with. And they are failing miserably at that anyway. 

And this here is part of the problem.   Both the union and the owners really only care about the bottom line,  how much money is in their own pockets.   Fans and the long term health of the game really isn't considered by either side.   And it's incredibly foolish to only expect the owners to be concerned while the players can just reap the financial benefits with no responsibility for the game at large.  Both sides should be concerned with the health of the game and the ability to keep cashing those large checks for both sides for the foreseeable future.  

Was Mullins underpaid based upon the production he produced?  Sure.   But many players were also overpaid, based on their performances (see Davis, Chris).  Why is it we whine and moan about the poor underpaid player who is panhandling before games to make ends meet yet don't have a problem with an owner paying players much more than they deserve.  In both cases everyone entered into the contracts knowing the possibilities.   I know it'll never happen, but personally I'd love to see contacts largely based on performance.  A reasonable base for all,  then vet or rookie, they get paid on how they perform.   Will never happen of course.

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, LTO's said:

Do you have any idea how long the average MLB career is? How many players on a given 40 man roster make it to FA and make 10+ mil AAV? What I'm saying is that for most baseball players, the salary they receive is not as extravagant as you frame it. It's not generational wealth, it's often short lived and is vastly more similar to the average fan than to the average owner. You single out someone like Ubaldo, who was a good player at one point and earned a reasonable contract from the Orioles, as a situation that is so bad for the average fan. Can you explain how that is the case? I still don't follow your reasoning though I suspect there isn't any other than you're an Orioles fan who is upset he wasn't a very good player here. 

The union offered earlier FA, higher minimum salary, and a $100 mil bonus pool for high performing pre-arb players. That would mean that Cedric Mullins, who was top 20 in WAR last year would be rewarded and paid more than the 500K he received last season. Want to explain how those proposals are just for the Bryce Harpers and Manny Machados of the league? I think you just fundamentally don't understand what the MLBPA is doing or what their function is at all. They represent the players not the fans. They are not and should not be concerned with improving the fan experience. That's for MLB and the teams owners to be concerned with. And they are failing miserably at that anyway. 

Then we agree. I don't know why you are so pro player union but that's your right. 

I 100% understand what the MLBPA's role is and suggesting I don't is disrespectful and ridiculous. 

Your fanboy like love for the MLBPA tells me you have an another reason for pretending that the poor millionaire players are so underpaid. 

Should the union be fighting for players like Mullins to make more money earlier, sure, that's reasonable. But most of their concerns are over making minimal salary floors and screwing up the draft to try and get teams to pay for overpriced veterans who are no longer worth that money. 

As you stated "They represent the players not the fans. They are not and should not be concerned with improving the fan experience." 

That's why they are failing their own constituents because if you don't worry about the fan experience, then you won't eventually have fans. The players union leadership is money and power hungry and most likely corrupt like most other union leadership. They are listening to the big money players who can sit around and not play or get paid because they have plenty of money squirreled away.

I don't believe for a second that they really care about the younger players and are using that as a chip to get a system in place that will basically force teams to overpay for mediocre older talent that are no longer worth the money (ala Jimenez).

Because at the end of the day, they care about making the ultra rich players richer, veterans richer, and of course by default, themselves richer. Making the fan experience better or making a more competitive game is not their concern.

And don't get me wrong, the owners are not without fault here. They are just as greedy as the MLBPA and the ultra rich players who control them.

[DrungoHazewood]

37 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

I know it'll never happen, but personally I'd love to see contacts largely based on performance.  A reasonable base for all,  then vet or rookie, they get paid on how they perform.   Will never happen of course.

I think what you want is contracts to be based on year-to-year performance after the fact, right?  So everyone gets, say, $500k, then they also get $500k per WAR.  So if you're a 1-win player you get $1M.  If you're a 7-win player you get $4M.  If you're Mike Trout $5.5M.  Or something like that.  You could scale it to revenues, and perhaps have it be non-linear so wins above some level are worth more.

That may not be worse that what we have today.  But maybe:

• Teams would be incentivized to use players for short-term gain.  If a pitcher is hurt trying to make 40 starts a year, eh, don't really have to pay them next year so who cares?
• Related to the first bullet, how do you handle injuries?  Players just get paid the minimum while they're hurt?  Wouldn't that incentivize players to come back before they're ready and/or hide injuries so they make more money?
• This scheme might exacerbate leaving prospects in the minors.  The only way to be sure you're not paying top dollar is to not play the player at all. If you're a 60-win team maybe you just leave everyone in the minors that's any good.
• What metric do you use?  Half the world hates WAR. Be prepared for 1000 articles from oldtimey sportswriters about how stupid WAR is.
• How do teams plan when they don't know their payroll? The 2012 Orioles probably expected to win 70-75 games.  Instead they won 93.  At the end of the year they're responsible for an extra $15-20M in payroll, at least in the scheme I concocted above.
• Are long-term contracts no longer a thing?  Why would anyone sign up to five or 10 years if the financial piece is separate?  If those kind of contracts are gone, then is every offseason a free-for-all, where good teams just pick up the players who don't want to play for bad teams?  No more talk of the Orioles overpaying for a free agent, everyone is paid by performance.  So why would anyone come to the Orioles?

[Frobby]

34 minutes ago, LTO's said:

Do you have any idea how long the average MLB career is? How many players on a given 40 man roster make it to FA and make 10+ mil AAV? What I'm saying is that for most baseball players, the salary they receive is not as extravagant as you frame it. It's not generational wealth, it's often short lived and is vastly more similar to the average fan than to the average owner. 

I have posted some numbers on this from time to time.   If my memory is right, pre-Arb players make up 58% of the players in MLB and earn 7% of the salaries.   Also, more than half the players who debut in a season have careers of 5 seasons or less.

To me the fundamental point is that the primary purpose of the union is to negotiate the best deal for the players.   Sometimes elements of that deal may coincide with the interests of the fans, sonetimes it may be contrary to the interest of the fans, and in many respects it’s just neutral.   To try to get what is good for the players, the union may characterize certain aspects of their proposals as good for the fans/baseball in order to court public opinion.   But it’s not their job to look after the fans’ interests except insofar as those interests coincide with the players’.    

As I said before, it’s really on the owners to be aware of what is in the long term interest of fans and the sport, because the owners are the ones who will suffer long term if fan interest dwindles.   
 

[Moshagge3]

9 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

As you stated "They represent the players not the fans. They are not and should not be concerned with improving the fan experience." 

That's why they are failing their own constituents because if you don't worry about the fan experience, then you won't eventually have fans. The players union leadership is money and power hungry and most likely corrupt like most other union leadership. They are listening to the big money players who can sit around and not play or get paid because they have plenty of money squirreled away.

 

I keep hearing versions of this rant, but I still don't understand. Players are employees of the business. The owners are, well, the owners. It isn't Cedric Mullins who decides what a hot dog costs at OPACY, it's ownership. It isn't Aaron Judge who decides what time playoff games start, it's ownership. It isn't Mike Trout who decides how highlights are shared over social media, it's ownership. It isn't Max Scherzer who decides whether the baseball factory is going to put out dead or juiced baseballs, it's ownership. What aspects of the fan experience do the players have any say over? When they only have so many bargaining chips, are the players supposed to put their livelihoods on the line to demand day games in the World Series, which the owners could make a reality whenever they wanted? 

[spiritof66]

On 1/28/2022 at 9:35 AM, ShoelesJoe said:

Don't like this at all. The only concrete benefit for fans of a bad team is the hope of grabbing high value prospects in the next draft. To think that an organization could have the worst record in baseball and then watch as better teams -- maybe even teams that had winning records -- get higher picks in the next draft is ludicrous. 

To me, the amateur draft does not create major problems, and a lottery would attack those problems with, if not a sledge hammer, a mallet where a well made flyswatter is all that's needed.

I don't think there's much dispute over the principle underlying the draft: teams should have dibs on the talent coming out of U.S. high schools and colleges in order of how much they are in need of talent, and that generally a team's won-loss record in the immediately preceding season is a reasonable measure of that need. (There are alternatives: you could make all those players free agents like they were before the draft was instituted, or limit the draft to two rounds, or have the teams draft in random order, or have the selection determined or affected by assessments of the strength of teams' minor league talent, or lots of other things.) 

The main problem with the current draft is the incentive it creates for teams that don't expect to qualify for post-season play to put together rosters that will lose lots of games and move to the top of the draft pecking order (with the added bonus of a very low ML payroll), and the perception of some fans that improving draft position is driving some teams to perform poorly even if that's not the case -- there's just no way to know. I think there's a related concern that it's somehow unfair or unseemly for a team to hang at the bottom of the standings while it piles up first or second picks for several consecutive years. 

I don't see it as a problem that the team with the worst record gets the 1:1 draft pick. Somebody has to draft first, and who better or fairer than the worst team in the immediately preceding year? I wouldn't much mind if I believed, or knew, that a bad team was trying not to improve for a year because it was eying a number one pick it thought could be the next Mike Trout. What bothers me is when a a team -- like the Orioles -- seems not to be trying to build a better ML team for several years, picking up successive very early draft picks and hoarding the owners' cash along the way.

You could impose changes that narrowly get at that problem, and otherwise leave the draft as is. For example, a team that drafts first in Year 1 can't draft higher than fourth in Year 2 and third in Year 3. A team that drafts second in Year 1 can't draft higher than fourth in Year 2 and second in Year 3, and the teams that draft third and fourth in Year 1 can't draft higher than third in Year 2. There are countless variations, but something like that. Couldn't that approach be used to solve the current problem while preserving much better than a lottery what the draft is supposed to accomplish?

 

[Tony-OH]

9 minutes ago, Moshagge3 said:

I keep hearing versions of this rant, but I still don't understand. Players are employees of the business. The owners are, well, the owners. It isn't Cedric Mullins who decides what a hot dog costs at OPACY, it's ownership. It isn't Aaron Judge who decides what time playoff games start, it's ownership. It isn't Mike Trout who decides how highlights are shared over social media, it's ownership. It isn't Max Scherzer who decides whether the baseball factory is going to put out dead or juiced baseballs, it's ownership. What aspects of the fan experience do the players have any say over? When they only have so many bargaining chips, are the players supposed to put their livelihoods on the line to demand day games in the World Series, which the owners could make a reality whenever they wanted? 

I think you are interpreting "fan experience" a little differently. I agree that the ballpark experience has little to do with the players outside of their performance on the field. 

However, part of the "fan experience" is having a fair game where teams have a chance to compete year in an year out. The players don't have interest in ensuring anything but that the large market teams can spend as much as possible, because that's more money for them. They don't care about competitive balance which is a pretty big for fans.

No one asking any player to "put their livelihoods on the line" but let's face it, the lowest paid major league players makes about ten times what the average fan makes in a year. You also have to face the fact that the MLNPA doesn't really care about the younger players making minimum salary, they care about ensuring a system where teams are forced to meet minimal salary structures and that big market teams can spend what they want. 

This world where players can make the most money is not a fairly competitive world and that affects the fan experience for many fans of teams that can not afford to keep up with the mega market teams. Now does that mean they can't compete some years no, but it makes it a lot harder when your team's budget is $120 million and the Dodgers and Yankees can go to $300 million.

I don't think there are any good guys in this situation. The owners won't open the books nor do they want to be fair about revenue sharing which would be the best way forward, more than allowing unfair advantages to big market teams.

[Tony-OH]

7 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

What bothers me is when a a team -- like the Orioles -- seems not to be trying to build a better ML team for several years, picking up successive very early draft picks and hoarding the owners' cash along the way.

 

But why should this bother you if a team choose to rebuild that way? I get watching teams like the Orioles stink at record levels each year is no fun, but as fans we have a choice to stop watching if we want to. Why should anyone tell a team how they should rebuild?

I'm not even saying what the Orioles have done was the right way or not, I'm just saying that no one should penalize a team for trying to rebuild how they see fit. 

Perhaps a way around this is to to take the last three years records to determine the draft order. I like this idea because it stops the Red Sox from tanking once they know they are not going to be good and then get a high draft pick while signing every high price free agent and be to competitive the next season.

 

[forphase1]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think what you want is contracts to be based on year-to-year performance after the fact, right?  So everyone gets, say, $500k, then they also get $500k per WAR.  So if you're a 1-win player you get $1M.  If you're a 7-win player you get $4M.  If you're Mike Trout $5.5M.  Or something like that.  You could scale it to revenues, and perhaps have it be non-linear so wins above some level are worth more.

That may not be worse that what we have today.  But maybe:

• Teams would be incentivized to use players for short-term gain.  If a pitcher is hurt trying to make 40 starts a year, eh, don't really have to pay them next year so who cares?
• Related to the first bullet, how do you handle injuries?  Players just get paid the minimum while they're hurt?  Wouldn't that incentivize players to come back before they're ready and/or hide injuries so they make more money?
• This scheme might exacerbate leaving prospects in the minors.  The only way to be sure you're not paying top dollar is to not play the player at all. If you're a 60-win team maybe you just leave everyone in the minors that's any good.
• What metric do you use?  Half the world hates WAR. Be prepared for 1000 articles from oldtimey sportswriters about how stupid WAR is.
• How do teams plan when they don't know their payroll? The 2012 Orioles probably expected to win 70-75 games.  Instead they won 93.  At the end of the year they're responsible for an extra $15-20M in payroll, at least in the scheme I concocted above.
• Are long-term contracts no longer a thing?  Why would anyone sign up to five or 10 years if the financial piece is separate?  If those kind of contracts are gone, then is every offseason a free-for-all, where good teams just pick up the players who don't want to play for bad teams?  No more talk of the Orioles overpaying for a free agent, everyone is paid by performance.  So why would anyone come to the Orioles?

All of these are valid questions and concerns, and just a few reasons among 100s why it would never happen.  But since I brought it up I'll continue playing along.  For a long time, ever since I was a kid, it's bothered me to see players sign HUGE contracts and then not live up to it when other new guys straight into the league were outproducing them (yeah yeah, this was going from the standard baseball card stats back in the day) yet not making much in comparison.  I've always wished that performance bonuses were more readily allowed and accepted, though of course they have their issues also.  And there is nothing that said the contracts can't be for longer than year to year, just that the payment of those contracts would be based on performance.  Perhaps even have an NBA type system where teams can play their own players a bit more base salary than other teams could.  That said...

1) How is that different than players in their walk years now?  In many cases teams aren't wanting to resign them, but you don't see them being worn out or abused.  There could be safeguards put into place if this was really a concern.  But again, I never said contracts would only be year to year, just that the amount paid during those contracts be year to year, a variable contract of such.  

2) Sure, there would need to be some insurance policy in place for injured players that could perhaps pay them what their average production would have been.  But while it could incentivize players to come back before they are ready, it would also perhaps keep folks from milking injuries, and taking longer off than is needed.  Not sure how much of a problem that is though.

3) As to prospects you could still have free agency timelines and the like to keep teams from keeping top players down longer, similarly to what is currently being discussed.  Though undoubtedly some teams would take full advantage of whatever system is in place, just like they do now.

4) Sure, what metrics to use is a big issue.  Be it WAR, OPS or RBI (always a favorite here) the metric would be argued back and forth.  I'm not sure a 'perfect' system could ever be created that would satisfy everyone and handle ever specific player, and some niche roles would be hard to quantify right.  I'd envision some sort of a WAR based system, but perhaps with other variables mixed in to account for those factors that are worth paying for, but that WAR does not take into account well.

5) Sure, payroll would change from year to year, even with the same players.  Mullins this year, for example, would have been much bigger hit on the payroll, but Mancini and Santander would have likely been less than what was in the budget, so there would be some cancelling out.  But yes, teams would need to make sure they had plans in place for breakout seasons and the like, and would maybe need to say we expect payroll to be X, but let's have enough resources set aside to pay X+20% or something along those lines.  

6) Yes, you could still have long term contracts to ensure you were getting paid that base salary.  There could even be incentives where your own team could sign you for a larger 'base' salary, or allow small market teams to sign for a somewhat larger base make them more attractive to free agents.  I certainly don't want the chaos of every player being a free agent every offseason, but some system where production is actually rewarded is very attractive to me as a fan.  Owners and certainly players see it differently.

 

What I want is the same as usual for me.  I want robo umps as I want the pitcher to be rewarded or punished based upon what he actually did.  Not what a human perceived him as doing, and not what a catcher fooled the ump into thinking happened.  But if he threw a ball, it's awarded as a ball, and if he threw a strike it's rewarded as a strike, regardless if the name on the jersey was Baltimore or New York or Maddux versus Joe Blow.   On the same hand I'd love some system where the good players are rewarded for being good players, the average players paid like average players, etc.  This year Mullins SHOULD have been paid more than Chris Davis, and we know it wasn't even in the same ballpark.  Again, I fully realize such a system isn't going to be put into place for many, many reasons.  At the end of the day maybe it shouldn't be as the issues and flaws are too numerous to overcome.  But at least a system like this would get the young players paid as their production deserves and keep the over the hill players from sucking, both on the field and from the team budget.    

[forphase1]

37 minutes ago, Frobby said:

As I said before, it’s really on the owners to be aware of what is in the long term interest of fans and the sport, because the owners are the ones who will suffer long term if fan interest dwindles.   
 

Yeah because if the baseball money dries up, all those unemployed players or hope to be players can find similar money by bagging groceries at the local supermarket.  You are right, the union shouldn't care at all about the long term health of the sport....

[Moshagge3]

19 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

However, part of the "fan experience" is having a fair game where teams have a chance to compete year in an year out. The players don't have interest in ensuring anything but that the large market teams can spend as much as possible, because that's more money for them. They don't care about competitive balance which is a pretty big for fans.

No one asking any player to "put their livelihoods on the line" but let's face it, the lowest paid major league players makes about ten times what the average fan makes in a year. You also have to face the fact that the MLNPA doesn't really care about the younger players making minimum salary, they care about ensuring a system where teams are forced to meet minimal salary structures and that big market teams can spend what they want. 

This world where players can make the most money is not a fairly competitive world and that affects the fan experience for many fans of teams that can not afford to keep up with the mega market teams. Now does that mean they can't compete some years no, but it makes it a lot harder when your team's budget is $120 million and the Dodgers and Yankees can go to $300 million.

 

The players do care about competitive balance in their own weird way, though. Of course any FA would rather have 30 teams competing for their services than five teams. The players didn't ask for a team to be placed in, say, Milwaukee, or negotiate the regional TV deal with FOX Sports Upper Midwest or whoever carries the Brewers. So if the owner of the Brewers can't compete, why did he buy the Brewers and why is that the players' fault?

 

[DrungoHazewood]

33 minutes ago, Frobby said:

As I said before, it’s really on the owners to be aware of what is in the long term interest of fans and the sport, because the owners are the ones who will suffer long term if fan interest dwindles.  

I think the owners look at the sport as something that will continue to produce $10B+ in revenues because it's a big part of cable/streaming.  MLB franchises have increased in value almost without exception for more than half a century and they don't seem terribly concerned about that reversing.

And I also think, maybe slightly cynically, that the fanbase is as old as they are and they'll keep revenues respectable by catering to the old guys who don't want anything changed and they'll all die off around the same time and it won't matter so much any more.