CBA '21-'22 Thread

[madducks]

I'm all for banning the shift. You can still position a middle infielder next to the second base bag and have three infielders covering a 91-foot area.

Nothing says "I'm not a good enough athlete" than having four infielders positioned on one side of the infield. You may as well let the infielders use 10-foot-long fishing nets to catch the ball with too.

[Sharky]

I’ll disagree.

The players are seeking asks that are much higher than the last CBA, or didn’t exist at all. And then they’re slowly coming down from them. You can’t go to your boss and ask for a $1m raise and when he or she think you’re nuts, you ask for $900k instead.

The owners are willing to burn down their own ships as well. Both sides are at fault here.

Maybe revo, but it’s “anchoring” to assume the starting point was reasonable in the first place.

[Bene Futuis]

I’ll disagree.

The players are seeking asks that are much higher than the last CBA, or didn’t exist at all. And then they’re slowly coming down from them. You can’t go to your boss and ask for a $1m raise and when he or she think you’re nuts, you ask for $900k instead.

The owners are willing to burn down their own ships as well. Both sides are at fault here.

This is a very naive take, imo. It’s also hard for me to fathom why regular people the side of the gazillionaire masters over the players, who actually have talent and deserve to be paid.

[Bene Futuis]

You can’t go to your boss and ask for a $1m raise and when he or she think you’re nuts, you ask for $900k instead.

This is actually a semi-decent analogy, although not for the reasons you think it is.

Yes, let's imagine that you go to your boss for a raise. You are one of the best in your profession in the entire world. You know because you operate at the absolute pinnacle of your industry and your measurable performance far exceeds anyone else in the entire world. And your elite performance is the single driving factor for your entire industry's income. Without you and your worker colleagues, the quality of the product put forth would be relative garbage. And your bosses profit from your performance. Now, they don't profit because they are the elite bosses of the world. In fact, just the opposite - most have no real talent, brains, or entrepreneurial spirit to speak of. They are, by and large, simply rich dullards who lucked into a private club of other rich dullards. If you and your colleagues were replaced by the next 1,200 best performers in your industry the product would shrivel and die. If the bosses were replaced by the 30 best performers in their field, the product would likely improve greatly.

Oh, but also the dullard bosses get to artificially limit the income of any of the new members of your profession. They get to limit their income far, far below market value even though the very top performers, the very best in your field, fall within this income-limited age group. The bosses know they get the best talent for a relative pittance, especially compared to the income that talent generates. And what's more, the dullard bosses happen to employ some folks who aren't quite as dull as they are and those folks assure the bosses that by the time the income limitations go away, by and large, the performance of the workers diminishes because it's just a young man's industry, reflexes being what they are. So the bosses now artificially control the income of the very best workers and can exert significant market pressure through analytics to support the contention that workers not under the specter of an artificially low salary just shouldn't really get paid, either, because look at those diminishing performances!

Of course there's still more. The bosses have been raking in metric shit tons of cash because YOU are great at your job. And not only have they been raking in more and more, they have also been raking in a higher and higher relative percentage of the pot. You unionized (smart for you! before that, it was way way worse) so you have an agreement from five years ago. You expect the bosses will adhere to industry norms until you negotiate another agreement. Lo and behold - they definitely do not. They manipulate the time it takes to get out from under the artificial income restriction. The salaries for the workers actually go down despite the crazy profits! The bosses even pay powerful lobbies to try and renegotiate minimum wage laws to fuck over your lower level workers. You know the bosses are colluding dickheads - they've gotten caught colluding on multiple occasions. They sure seem like they're doing it once again but it's very hard to prove. The guy who now controls all 30 bosses was the one who had to negotiate and settle the last collusion case, after all. The bosses never earned the benefit of the bargain, are chronic bad actors and cheaters, and they're doing it again. Hell, the bosses have already run afoul of federal law in the past, forcing intervention of the federal government who made them stop their illegal labor practices and stop screwing the workers over. So, yeah. You go and ask for a raise. And your "boss" thinks you're nuts even when you ask for a lower raise.

[Bene Futuis]

Cash grab:

[ThatRogue]

I'm all for banning the shift. You can still position a middle infielder next to the second base bag and have three infielders covering a 91-foot area.

Nothing says "I'm not a good enough athlete" than having four infielders positioned on one side of the infield. You may as well let the infielders use 10-foot-long fishing nets to catch the ball with too.

Physics, not athletics is at play here. No matter how good an athlete one may be, said athlete cannot outrun a batted ball moving at an average ground ball velocity. Positioning mitigates this problem, reducing the distance a fielder has to move to get to these ground balls. Allowing for a certain number of shifts per game would introduce an interesting strategy while not significantly reducing the number of “action” plays in a game.

Baseball should also increase the number of stolen base attempts and hit-and-run plays. Yeah, I know the analytics suggest otherwise…but those plays increase the “fun” and excitement of the game. Maximizing efficiency may optimize the outcome…but it significantly reduces the action which is the fun of the game. This is where the analytics community has failed spectacularly…because they have attempted to fit the game into optimal outcomes as opposed to maximizing enjoyment. And games/entertainment are meant to be fun…that’s what makes them interesting and draws people to them.

Let’s bring balance back to baseball. MLB should keep some efficiency improvements…but not make them the entire focus of the game.

[revo]

Maybe revo, but it’s “anchoring” to assume the starting point was reasonable in the first place.

It was reasonable, the players themselves agreed to it 5 years ago.

[madducks]

Physics, not athletics is at play here. No matter how good an athlete one may be, said athlete cannot outrun a batted ball moving at an average ground ball velocity. Positioning mitigates this problem, reducing the distance a fielder has to move to get to these ground balls. Allowing for a certain number of shifts per game would introduce an interesting strategy while not significantly reducing the number of “action” plays in a game.

Baseball should also increase the number of stolen base attempts and hit-and-run plays. Yeah, I know the analytics suggest otherwise…but those plays increase the “fun” and excitement of the game. Maximizing efficiency may optimize the outcome…but it significantly reduces the action which is the fun of the game. This is where the analytics community has failed spectacularly…because they have attempted to fit the game into optimal outcomes as opposed to maximizing enjoyment. And games/entertainment are meant to be fun…that’s what makes them interesting and draws people to them.

Let’s bring balance back to baseball. MLB should keep some efficiency improvements…but not make them the entire focus of the game.

With four infielders on one side of the infield, that eliminates any strategy in my opinion because it is impossible for any of them to be out of position. I think it takes more strategy to position only two infielders correctly on one side of the infield than four. I agree with baseball needing more stolen bases and hit-and-run plays.

[revo]

This is actually a semi-decent analogy, although not for the reasons you think it is.

Yes, let's imagine that you go to your boss for a raise. You are one of the best in your profession in the entire world. You know because you operate at the absolute pinnacle of your industry and your measurable performance far exceeds anyone else in the entire world. And your elite performance is the single driving factor for your entire industry's income. Without you and your worker colleagues, the quality of the product put forth would be relative garbage. And your bosses profit from your performance. Now, they don't profit because they are the elite bosses of the world. In fact, just the opposite - most have no real talent, brains, or entrepreneurial spirit to speak of. They are, by and large, simply rich dullards who lucked into a private club of other rich dullards. If you and your colleagues were replaced by the next 1,200 best performers in your industry the product would shrivel and die. If the bosses were replaced by the 30 best performers in their field, the product would likely improve greatly.

Oh, but also the dullard bosses get to artificially limit the income of any of the new members of your profession. They get to limit their income far, far below market value even though the very top performers, the very best in your field, fall within this income-limited age group. The bosses know they get the best talent for a relative pittance, especially compared to the income that talent generates. And what's more, the dullard bosses happen to employ some folks who aren't quite as dull as they are and those folks assure the bosses that by the time the income limitations go away, by and large, the performance of the workers diminishes because it's just a young man's industry, reflexes being what they are. So the bosses now artificially control the income of the very best workers and can exert significant market pressure through analytics to support the contention that workers not under the specter of an artificially low salary just shouldn't really get paid, either, because look at those diminishing performances!

Of course there's still more. The bosses have been raking in metric shit tons of cash because YOU are great at your job. And not only have they been raking in more and more, they have also been raking in a higher and higher relative percentage of the pot. You unionized (smart for you! before that, it was way way worse) so you have an agreement from five years ago. You expect the bosses will adhere to industry norms until you negotiate another agreement. Lo and behold - they definitely do not. They manipulate the time it takes to get out from under the artificial income restriction. The salaries for the workers actually go down despite the crazy profits! The bosses even pay powerful lobbies to try and renegotiate minimum wage laws to fuck over your lower level workers. You know the bosses are colluding dickheads - they've gotten caught colluding on multiple occasions. They sure seem like they're doing it once again but it's very hard to prove. The guy who now controls all 30 bosses was the one who had to negotiate and settle the last collusion case, after all. The bosses never earned the benefit of the bargain, are chronic bad actors and cheaters, and they're doing it again. Hell, the bosses have already run afoul of federal law in the past, forcing intervention of the federal government who made them stop their illegal labor practices and stop screwing the workers over. So, yeah. You go and ask for a raise. And your "boss" thinks you're nuts even when you ask for a lower raise.

This is silly because your argument automatically assumes every MLB player is "the best in the world" because they're one of the 800 who've made it to this level and therefore should have a leg up in any contract discussion. Matt "6.63 ERA" Harvey is terrible when compared to other MLB pitchers, but since he's only one of 800 (and to go further, just one of 300 pitchers), he deserves whatever he's asking for.

I am not siding with the owners. But I am also not siding with the players. Both are equally at fault here.

[heyelander]

Baseball should also increase the number of stolen base attempts and hit-and-run plays. Yeah, I know the analytics suggest otherwise…but those plays increase the “fun” and excitement of the game.

More outs and less runs is fun?

[umjewman]

More outs and less runs is fun?

Stolen bases are fun. Whether or not they’re wise, they are entertaining. There’s a buzz in the crowd when a guy takes off for second and the bang-bang play at second.

[Davros]

More outs and less runs is fun?

As a whole, probably not. Still, I have recently been reflecting on the MLB games I attended in the past four years. I recall the win-loss outcomes of most of those games and some of the pre- and post-game happenings, but I remember very little about the actual events during the games anymore. The most recent play on the field that remember with any clarity was a Javy Baez steal of home in 2018 at Citi Field with deGrom on the mound. I find things like that much more entertaining than a launch angle induced HR these days, partially because they are inherently exciting but mainly because they happen so rarely in baseball today.

That said, the next highly memorable play was Schwarber's HR that went over Shea Bridge in 2017, but that was unique as well.

All I can say about hit-and-runs is that they were entertaining in 1989 when Don Zimmer was calling for them way too often. The Cubs team at the time seemed to be able to execute them well. Without that level of success, those plays are likely not that entertaining.

[revo]

Jon Heyman:
Both sides believe they’ve made many major concessions and the other side has made very few. Both sides believe the other is being unreasonable. The one thing both sides agree on now? That we may be in for quite a wait.

[Bene Futuis]

Jon Heyman:
Both sides believe they’ve made many major concessions and the other side has made very few. Both sides believe the other is being unreasonable. The one thing both sides agree on now? That we may be in for quite a wait.

Jon Heyman - because them boots ain't gonna lick themselves!


More #bothsides bullshit to ignore.

[Sour Masher]

Jon Heyman - because them boots ain't gonna lick themselves!


More #bothsides bullshit to ignore.

I agree on your take on Heyman in general (is there a better bootlicking example in baseball--I can't think of one) and I agree the players are more right to ask for more than the owners are to demand they take less, but this particular message reveals a sad truth. Heyman is right--it does seem both sides (and in this case, we are talking about perception, not reality, so it is a fair use of the term in this case, to me), really do believe they are being fair. When both sides think they are being fair, whether one side really is not doesn't matter so much. It still leads to deadlock. It still leads to no baseball games for us until that position changes or one side caves/folds. Neither side seems close to that right now. We can hope the owners come to some realization that they are not being fair, but I do not see that happening. All that will happen is one side will blink. I thought it would be the players for a long time, but their resolve seems strong. So does the resolve of the owners. I think we will have to wait until the TV money is being threatened for their position to change.