MLB work stoppage almost certain on Dec. 2

[Syd Thrift]

Yeah, I don't know... I'm a bit disenchanted with the way baseball is played on the field right now but if anything the thing that turns people off the game isn't so much the large amounts of money people make - the same can be said for sports who aren't hemorrhaging fans like basketball and soccer - but that every single time the CBA expires there's some form of work stoppage. At that, as a fan of baseball history I'm also keenly aware that virtually every stoppage in the past has come down to the owners being turds, and this time has much of that stink as well given that they are still refusing to share their books with the union (this is a thing by the way the the NBA and NFL do, so let's not pretend this isn't a baseball problem).

One thing I will say even to the bits about what I don't like about modern baseball, I don't think they can work together to change that until/unless there is even a little bit of working together. But we don't have that at all; instead we have the players wanting to share some of the already extant wealth they're receiving with younger / less experienced players via a pool - a thing that would by definition be levied to all teams equally and so should not caused outsized harm to the latest batch of teams MLB is crying will die within 6 months - and the owners responding with such an absurd pool size that it's basically no pool at all. How are they ever going to agree to, like, experiment with moving the mound back in the low minors or changing the size of the ball or what have you if they can't even conquer simple economic splitting?

Man, at that, one thing that really, really turned down the conflict in pro basketball in particular was the agreement that whatever else happens, payroll will be X% and the owners get to keep 100-X%. I know that the last couple seasons the lowered revenue has led players to lowkey taking pay cuts. You don't notice because all of the money that's talked about is the base, pre-sharing amounts, but it's there. I'd love to see that arrangement in baseball... but again, it's never going to happen until the owners actually share their books, and god damn, this has been a thing I remember the owners refusing to do going back to the 1990 lockout.

[cephasjames]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

if anything the thing that turns people off the game isn't so much the large amounts of money people make... but that every single time the CBA expires there's some form of work stoppage.

100% this. The large amounts of money highlight the ridiculousness of the squabbles that happen over the CBA.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Rain King

If you agree they have been fleeced in the past few CBA's how is it that you can consider anything MLB has offered at this point "a reasonably good deal"?

The owners have gone full-blown villain/bully status here as far as I can tell...even as much as throwing new random stuff into their last-minute offers hoping the players might miss it due to the deadline.

How do you think the previous bad deals came to be? The owners have and continue to strong-arm the union while using their vast resources to buy positive PR and make the players out to be the villains.

The union isn't even really standing up to them, their last offer doesn't really get them anything they were hoping to get at the beginning of this process, which is younger players getting paid closer to the value they are providing and rules to prevent teams from going into full tank mode (a la Astros, Cubs, etc.).

The owners are flat-out trying to break the union at this point.

Yes (previously known as instantaneously mashing the "Thanks" button).

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Those of us who have been through arbitration hearings shudder at the thought of that in baseball. It seems simple; but it is not. Start with the arbitrator. If he/she has absolute ability to dictate a solution, full discretion, the only real issue is who that person is. I don’t think there is any one person to whom both sides would agree to give that power. So a fallback would be a “baseball” arbitration, where each side makes a final proposal, and the arbitrator is bound to pick one of them. Still tough to imagine a person with that authority that both sides would trust.

A mediator is a better tool here, IMHO. Not a person who decides the deal; but someone with good communication skills who is given the authority to convene meetings and require submissions. The best mediators can talk very candidly to each side about what is at stake, appeal to their fears, appeal to their better instincts. The best mediation technique is to lock the negotiators in a room, or better yet two rooms with a conference room in-between, and not let them out until they have an agreement. I once had a mediator deny me coffee until I worked on my client to be reasonable. It worked!

While I largely agree I don't think a mediator is a thing that makes any sense either until/unless both sides are reasonably close to reaching an agreement. And frankly this always seems to happen, every single damn CBA. The owners make some absurd line in the sand, claim that 31 of the 30 teams in the league are losing money (the Rays are losing money twice!), and when the players ask to see the books the owners refuse. And then over time both sides slowly climb down from the original demands until they wind up being close enough to each other that they could hammer out an agreement or bring in an arbitrator or mediator to help out.

Yes, this is about a lot of money for everyone, although let's be fair here: minor league players, whom the MLBPA doesn't appear to be ready to take on and who the owners most certainly don't want to start worrying about, are absolutely hosed in the current system. I *think* that with reducing the levels they got rid of most of that old system where families would agree to house guys for a few months, but that crap is absolutely unconscionable for a corporation as large as Major League Baseball to do to its employees. Without even talking about all the ancillary jobs that baseball kind of screws over - as another example, I've looked into doing analysis/web stuff for baseball in the past but I can literally make 2-3 times as much doing the same work for enterprise clients - these are actual baseball players who aren't only not making millions, they don't even get paid enough to rent their own apartment for 3 months.

Just an FYI, the minimum salary for the G-League (the NBA's minor league) is $37,000 a year, which is itself pretty bad for a professional athlete but at least you can make a living on that. The NHL's lowest minors pay $907 a month, which is kind of horrible but wait... MLB's minor leagues got a *raise* from 2020 to 2021... from $290 a month to $500. That's absolutely insane.

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

The owners make some absurd line in the sand, claim that 31 of the 30 teams in the league are losing money (the Rays are losing money twice!), and when the players ask to see the books the owners refuse.

This tool has been weakened somewhat with the Braves earnings reports being made public.

[rudel.dietrich]

The frustrating part is that both sides are arguing over issues that not even the core issues threatening their sport.
They are arguing over the arrangement of the living room furniture while the house is on fire.

[Mike D]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Really, at this point it’s the MLBPA who is providing the clown show. They are so hell bent on making up for the last two deals they got fleeced on. (Their own fault). Now, they won’t even accept a reasonably good deal.

Yeah, I keep forgetting the players locked themselves out

[cephasjames]

Have the Three True Outcomes bled down into the minors as well? Or is this mostly a major league issue?

[cephasjames]

Originally Posted by cephasjames

Have the Three True Outcomes bled down into the minors as well? Or is this mostly a major league issue?

Answering my own question: Homers, walks, strikeouts all trending higher in Minors than MLB

...since Major Leaguers set the three-true-outcome record in 2015 -- a record that's been broken three times since -- Minor Leaguers have seen their own combined homer/walk/strikeout percentage climb more than seven points. In fact, Minor Leaguers are doing more of all three than their Major League counterparts so far this season for the first time since 2013. [As of 2019 when this article was written]

[Braden]

Has anyone noticed that ML Baseball is no longer a game?

[Pelican]

Hey, I’m down in West Palm Beach, not far from Jupiter [the town not the planet, I think?], where the players and owners have been meeting. Since I can’t watch any Spring games as planned, I figure I might drive up to the parking lot and either heckle both sides, or offer my services as mediator or arbitrator - for free! Any thoughts any of you would like me to impart to either side at this point?

[Mr. Marlin]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Hey, I’m down in West Palm Beach, not far from Jupiter [the town not the planet, I think?], where the players and owners have been meeting. Since I can’t watch any Spring games as planned, I figure I might drive up to the parking lot and either heckle both sides, or offer my services as mediator or arbitrator - for free! Any thoughts any of you would like me to impart to either side at this point?

I'm in Loxahatchee, just across town from you. Count me in!

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

This tool has been weakened somewhat with the Braves earnings reports being made public.

True! Honestly, my natural distaste for the ownership class aside, I just don't understand why they don't do this. The NHL shares their books. The NBA shares their books. The NFL, who actually succeeded in crushing their players' union in the 80s, shares their books. Why is it only MLB who's the holdout on this?

[low]

Rumor has it that the players have agreed to ban shifting...

JFC.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by low

Rumor has it that the players have agreed to ban shifting...

JFC.

I’ll take “Things That Don’t Matter” for $600, um, Levar.

[low]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

I’ll take “Things That Don’t Matter” for $600, um, Levar.

I disagree because grown babies like Joey Gallo don't have to become better hitters.

[Reed]

Originally Posted by cephasjames

Have the Three True Outcomes bled down into the minors as well? Or is this mostly a major league issue?

I don’t watch MLB anymore but I read somewhere that the Braves had only ONE ground ball out during the whole World Series. Is that really true??? I still don’t believe it and that is why I am asking it here.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Reed

I don’t watch MLB anymore but I read somewhere that the Braves had only ONE ground ball out during the whole World Series. Is that really true??? I still don’t believe it and that is why I am asking it here.

Not true. I think you heard a fact about game six of the NLCS and thought it applied to the entire series

https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/02/02/death-of-ground-balls

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by low

Rumor has it that the players have agreed to ban shifting...

JFC.

So people complain about batting average falling off a cliff but then complain when adjustments and fixes are applied.

Sometimes I hope the ****ing sport just dies. Its remanning fans are infuriating when it comes to trying to fix it.

[Reed]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

Not true. I think you heard a fact about game six of the NLCS and thought it applied to the entire series

https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/02/02/death-of-ground-balls

Thanks, makes more sense.