Collusion?

[dorfmac]

Hey everyone - everyone seems to be blaming the slow market on the economic uncertainty, a shifted focus away from giving older players lucrative deals, etc - but has anyone else considered that it may just be some form of collusion?

It amazes me that a guy like Adam Dunn - a complete animal with the stick - is being offered such poor deals, and no one seems interested in adding him. Any other year, a player of his caliber is being offered 15+ and 4 years! Look at Carlos Lee!

Everyone acknowledges that baseball players are paid WAY too much money. Is this the owners/GMs/teams way of fixing the issue, since there is most likely no chance of a salary cap?

Feel free to move to the MLB board if appropriate.

[Orioles West]

I'm thinking the economy is the greatest factor.

My guess is most baseball owners lost substantive capital with the recent market downturns and are losing revenue of licensed items, etc.

I don't know if was ESPN or MLBN, but I overheard one 'insider' suggesting that a number of teams will be looking to dump or trade additional high dollar players if ticket sales projections continue at the current pace.

I think if Manny lowered the number of years, he could be signed in a day. A lot of teams are not looking for long term contracts of any kind.

The Yankees, with a new place and getting a ton of money off the books, were in a unique situation, even for them, to blow big bucks.

-Don

[Mark Carver]

A poll on here from 12 days found with 34 voting... nope and I agree.

What? Have you seen the Yankees? NO Way! - 1 - 2.94%

Yep. Its collusion round two!! - 1 - 2.94%

The owners are just responding to the market. No collusion. - 31 - 91.1%

Yep its collusion. Everyone except the Yankees. - 1 - 2.94%

And Adam Dunn is a DH, who does not want to DH. If he would be receptive with being a DH, he'd get more offers.

[lint06]

I hope there isn't collusion, but I'd be fine if it was happening. These players make too much anyway.

[BaltimoreTerp]

I hope there isn't collusion, but I'd be fine if it was happening. These players make too much anyway.

So the owners get richer while fans pay the same either way?

[Mad Mark]

I hope there isn't collusion, but I'd be fine if it was happening. These players make too much anyway.

So the owners get richer while fans pay the same either way?

I remain stumped by the fact that in a battle between millionaires with short careers and billionaires who don't go away until they die (or wind up in ugly divorce battles) people still come out in favor of the billionaires.

Screwy stuff.

[BaltimoreTerp]

I remain stumped by the fact that in a battle between millionaires with short careers and billionaires who don't go away until they die (or wind up in ugly divorce battles) people still come out in favor of the billionaires.

Screwy stuff.

Well, to be fair I think the owners who make the business investment deserve to make money too.

[Mad Mark]

Well, to be fair I think the owners who make the business investment deserve to make money too.

Well, yeah...but I still don't get the whole "rob from the rich and give to the unbelievably rich" vibe. (And if we're talking about non-FA, non-superstar players, we're not even talking about "rich". "Very well compensated"? Yes. "Rich"? Not so much.)

[Migrant Redbird]

Well, yeah...but I still don't get the whole "rob from the rich and give to the unbelievably rich" vibe. (And if we're talking about non-FA, non-superstar players, we're not even talking about "rich". "Very well compensated"? Yes. "Rich"? Not so much.)

What's with the "robbing"?

Just because baseball owners choose to invest in a franchise doesn't obligate them to operate the business at a loss.

By the Forbes estimates, 10 percent of major league teams operated at a loss in 2007, those being the Yankees, Red Sox, and Blue Jays. Rather surprisingly, the team which made the most money, according to Forbes, was the Nationals.

By the way, I think that most Americans would probably include all but the very lowest paid major league baseball players in the category of "rich". Economist Ken Goldstein set his own threshold as those earning $500K or more per year, which would put them in the top 1 percent of taxpayers. I suspect that many "poor" people would set the threshold even lower, perhaps even below $100K a year.

[RShack]

Well, to be fair I think the owners who make the business investment deserve to make money too.

I fully agree that anyone who takes a business risk deserves to reap reward from any resulting success.

The heart of that is the risk/reward dynamic. I don't think just "ownership" alone warrants reward.

When it comes to somebody joining the club of MLB owners, it's the "risk" part I'm kinda hazy about.

[DrungoHazewood]

I fully agree that anyone who takes a business risk deserves to reap reward from any resulting success.

The heart of that is the risk/reward dynamic. I don't think just "ownership" alone warrants reward.

When it comes to somebody joining the club of MLB owners, it's the "risk" part I'm kinda hazy about.

There's a big risk that you could only make a large profit on the sale of the franchise instead of a massive profit. In the free agent era I don't know if there's ever been an owner take a loss on the sale of his team. And most of those annual paper losses are accounting tricks and depreciation and the like. MLB has set up itself so that it's almost impossible to take a real loss financially. Bud has been great at divorcing revenues from the ability to run a baseball team (see: The Nationals).

[lint06]

I remain stumped by the fact that in a battle between millionaires with short careers and billionaires who don't go away until they die (or wind up in ugly divorce battles) people still come out in favor of the billionaires.

Screwy stuff.

I feel that if players couldn't make as much money, I'd have to be less worried about "homegrown" players taking off for more money. My view is a selfish one, but I don't apologize for it.

[Mad Mark]

I feel that if players couldn't make as much money, I'd have to be less worried about "homegrown" players taking off for more money. My view is a selfish one, but I don't apologize for it.

Well, if MLB's revenue distribution system wasn't so out of whack, more "homegrown" players could stay with their teams. Once again, this is an ownership problem, not a player problem.

[Mad Mark]

What's with the "robbing"?

Just because baseball owners choose to invest in a franchise doesn't obligate them to operate the business at a loss.

By the Forbes estimates, 10 percent of major league teams operated at a loss in 2007, those being the Yankees, Red Sox, and Blue Jays. Rather surprisingly, the team which made the most money, according to Forbes, was the Nationals.

By the way, I think that most Americans would probably include all but the very lowest paid major league baseball players in the category of "rich". Economist Ken Goldstein set his own threshold as those earning $500K or more per year, which would put them in the top 1 percent of taxpayers. I suspect that many "poor" people would set the threshold even lower, perhaps even below $100K a year.

"Rob from the rich and give to the unbelievably rich" was just a riff on the Robin Hood "steal from the rich and give to the poor" thing. It just seems counter-intuitive to me to side with the owners vs the players on salary issues, given the sports history. Obviously, neither side has the fans' interest at heart...but that's just a given in my world.

[RShack]

There's a big risk that you could only make a large profit on the sale of the franchise instead of a massive profit. In the free agent era I don't know if there's ever been an owner take a loss on the sale of his team. And most of those annual paper losses are accounting tricks and depreciation and the like. MLB has set up itself so that it's almost impossible to take a real loss financially. Bud has been great at divorcing revenues from the ability to run a baseball team (see: The Nationals).

Here's what I'd like to know: Who was the last guy who lost his shirt owning a ML ballclub?

I can tell you exactly when I became convinced there was actual collusion. It was when Ray Kroc wanted to take the Padres, the club he owned lock, stock, and barrel, and sell it to the SD fans, so that the ballclub would be rooted there, much like the Packers are permanently glued to Green Bay. The owners-club wouldn't let him do it. They mandated that the Padres could be sold only to somebody who they thought would fit in well with their little club of wealthy private owners. I would have reached the same conclusion earlier, when they prevented Veeck from moving the Browns to Baltimore for the '53 season. The price of moving the team included Veeck agreeing to leave the owners-club. However, when that happened I wasn't old enough to sit up yet, so I had no opinion about that at the time.

Anyway, the idea that these guys are like businessmen who are taking an investment risk, like the risks that that apply in normal cases of business ownership, just doesn't hold up. It's a lot more like OPEC than NASDAQ.