Official *MLB Season Delayed* Thread

[TranaGreg]

But it is equally distributed? Do the minimum guys lose the same % as the stars? And how do bonuses work? What a mess.

There is lots of motivation to come up with answers to these questions that most people can live with.

Also interesting to me is how MLB will address the health issues raised by many but most prominently Sean Doolittle today ... I'll post them below ...

edit: it was a 14 tweet thread, too much to paste here ... but let me try this (clicking on the tweet leads to his thread) ...

[chancellor]

He was doing great until the "ethically procure tests" post. That won't go over well with the union at all, I suspect.

[TranaGreg]

Scott Boras says it's a done deal, no room for negotiating it.

[chancellor]

Scott Boras says it's a done deal, no room for negotiating it.

That's pretty amazing from the guy who believes anything is negotiable.

[cavebird]

That's pretty amazing from the guy who believes anything is negotiable.

Yes, but his point is that the players should reject it. His negotiating position is not to negotiate from that proposal.

[Art Vandelay]

Scott Boras says it's a done deal, no room for negotiating it.

the 'end' as in "no baseball this season" kind of end?

if yes, borass better keep his damn mouth shut when winter 2020-2021 free agency happens and nobody getting the kind of offers he and the rest of the ball players are used to.

right or wrong they or enough of them don't want to play that the season is cancelled, there isn't going to be wheel barrels of cash to get paid this winter. and maybe this lack of funds carries into another off-season or two as well...

[cavebird]

This pretty much sums up what I feel about the offer being made. It's garbage, and the owners know it is garbage, but they don't care. And who cares what the free agent offers are if the owners insist on renegotiating the contracts after they are signed? MLB teams, in aggregate, have profited about $10 billion or more in the last three seasons without offering to share the extra revenue, now, when they might take a small hit, the players, not the owners need to take the hit. And, oh yeah, it won't be the owners taking any health risk to play the games. Of course the players will balk at it. Forget what Boras said, Clark also said this was a non-starter.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/after-years-of-profits-mlb-owners-ask-players-to-subsidize-potential-losses/

[chancellor]

Yes, but his point is that the players should reject it. His negotiating position is not to negotiate from that proposal.

If so, then I believe him to be mistaken. I happen to share your view about the owners pushing risk off on the players and their offer being poor, but they need to counter with their pay and safety proposals. Pay is easy - it's a simple "you agreed to this earlier" reference - safety is more complex. If the union does not get in front of that issue, they'll continue to have guys social media their own ideas which may not align with what the union wants to get done.

[Sour Masher]

If so, then I believe him to be mistaken. I happen to share your view about the owners pushing risk off on the players and their offer being poor, but they need to counter with their pay and safety proposals. Pay is easy - it's a simple "you agreed to this earlier" reference - safety is more complex. If the union does not get in front of that issue, they'll continue to have guys social media their own ideas which may not align with what the union wants to get done.

I assume the owners threw in the 50/50 thing so they could concede it back to what the originally agreed to, which will make them look good and players bad if players still balk. As you say, the health stuff is more complex, and I think that is what they will want concessions on. Cavebird is right. The players take the risk. They should at least get the money promised and owed.

[cavebird]

If so, then I believe him to be mistaken. I happen to share your view about the owners pushing risk off on the players and their offer being poor, but they need to counter with their pay and safety proposals. Pay is easy - it's a simple "you agreed to this earlier" reference - safety is more complex. If the union does not get in front of that issue, they'll continue to have guys social media their own ideas which may not align with what the union wants to get done.

Oh, I am sure they don't hang up. The idea that you and Sour Masher mention is probably what will happen. But they are going all negative on it because the owners have been leaking this for days to build public sympathy and the players want to cut that down.

[revo]

If you've listened to MLB Network at all today, the big hangup naturally is the 50-50 revenue split, which the players deem similar to a salary cap and a non-starter. Some of the hosts (particularly Steve Phillips) believe the players need to understand that this is not a normal year and need to be a little more flexible, but understands the fact that they flinch every time a revenue split is mentioned. He also believes that the language used in the March agreement clearly lays out a plan to renegotiate if there were no fans, and doesn't understand how they can defend their position.

There might be a few contentious days, but I think this will get worked out.

[cavebird]

If you've listened to MLB Network at all today, the big hangup naturally is the 50-50 revenue split, which the players deem similar to a salary cap and a non-starter. Some of the hosts (particularly Steve Phillips) believe the players need to understand that this is not a normal year and need to be a little more flexible, but understands the fact that they flinch every time a revenue split is mentioned. He also believes that the language used in the March agreement clearly lays out a plan to renegotiate if there were no fans, and doesn't understand how they can defend their position.

There might be a few contentious days, but I think this will get worked out.

Given that the expected revenue (depending on how you define it---I am sure MLB wants to lowball it and act as if the Yankees and Cubs, for example, have market rate local TV contracts, when they don't because they own the stations) is probably about double the salaries owed the players under the March agreement, the obvious deal would be to have the players give some small concession on salary (say 95% of pro-rated salary) just to make it look good, and avoid the whole revenue split thing. However, also given this, the only reason MLB proposed it was to try to get that as a basis for future deals, so I doubt they'll give up on the salary cap idea quickly. Given that the CBA expires at the end of the 2021 season, it is hard not think that there is going to be a lot of posturing going on here for a while---these guys don't trust each other either, which never helps. But there is a deal to be made---which is good. There was also a deal to be made in 1994, which shows that this does not always matter.

[Sour Masher]

Given that the expected revenue (depending on how you define it---I am sure MLB wants to lowball it and act as if the Yankees and Cubs, for example, have market rate local TV contracts, when they don't because they own the stations) is probably about double the salaries owed the players under the March agreement, the obvious deal would be to have the players give some small concession on salary (say 95% of pro-rated salary) just to make it look good, and avoid the whole revenue split thing. However, also given this, the only reason MLB proposed it was to try to get that as a basis for future deals, so I doubt they'll give up on the salary cap idea quickly. Given that the CBA expires at the end of the 2021 season, it is hard not think that there is going to be a lot of posturing going on here for a while---these guys don't trust each other either, which never helps. But there is a deal to be made---which is good. There was also a deal to be made in 1994, which shows that this does not always matter.

Yes, if everything goes just as planned, the 50/50 split won't lose the players any money, and they may come out a bit ahead. But as you say, this isn't about the money, it is about the precedent. And also, it is about the money, because what if things don't go as planned,, and revenue is less than expected? There are some risks with a revenue split that could cost the players money, like a disruption of play in the playoffs. So for both precedent and risk reasons, the players want no part of it.

Passan has a good article on it all: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...ly-really-ugly

[chancellor]

Yes, if everything goes just as planned, the 50/50 split won't lose the players any money, and they may come out a bit ahead. But as you say, this isn't about the money, it is about the precedent. And also, it is about the money, because what if things don't go as planned,, and revenue is less than expected? There are some risks with a revenue split that could cost the players money, like a disruption of play in the playoffs. So for both precedent and risk reasons, the players want no part of it.

Passan has a good article on it all: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...ly-really-ugly

I believe Passan's back of the napkin math has a large error in it. He's assuming only local TV dollars are halved, with national TV dollars holding and all other non-ticket, non-TV income at 100% of last year. I believe his last assumption to be in error, and it's much more likely to be 50% than 100%, dropping the owners income somewhere into the $3.5 - 4.0 Bn range. Nor does he add in cost for health and safety impact, which even if baseball implements something less than the Dolittle plan, will be a still-significant cost.

By my admittedly rough math, the owners are not only asking the players to accept revenue sharing, they're also asking them to take an additional $180 - 400 million haircut on top of the pro-rata salaries of $2.18 billion.

[revo]

Arizona governor Doug Ducey says all professional sports leagues can play in Arizona without fans in attendance starting May 16th.

I believe Passan's back of the napkin math has a large error in it. He's assuming only local TV dollars are halved, with national TV dollars holding and all other non-ticket, non-TV income at 100% of last year. I believe his last assumption to be in error, and it's much more likely to be 50% than 100%, dropping the owners income somewhere into the $3.5 - 4.0 Bn range. Nor does he add in cost for health and safety impact, which even if baseball implements something less than the Dolittle plan, will be a still-significant cost.

By my admittedly rough math, the owners are not only asking the players to accept revenue sharing, they're also asking them to take an additional $180 - 400 million haircut on top of the pro-rata salaries of $2.18 billion.

He does say that the addition of 13-26 postseason games would make up for the loss of the regular season games (and All Star game) that were cancelled. So that's their alternative to a make-good.


Players get bonuses for the postseason games. Of course, for players on teams who won't make the playoffs, they won't participate in that, so it's also asking for these players to bear the brunt of a loss in personal revenue (here's looking at you, Tigers & Marlins!)