I first want to thank you for your continued support of the great game of baseball. This past season, we were reminded of how the national pastime can bring us together and restore our hope despite the difficult challenges of a global pandemic. As we began to emerge from one of the darkest periods in our history, our ballparks were filled with fans; the games were filled with excitement; and millions of families felt the joy of watching baseball together.
That is why I am so disappointed about the situation in which our game finds itself today. Despite the league’s best efforts to make a deal with the Players Association, we were unable to extend our 26 year-long history of labor peace and come to an agreement with the MLBPA before the current CBA expired. Therefore, we have been forced to commence a lockout of Major League players, effective at 12:01am ET on December 2.
I want to explain to you how we got here and why we have to take this action today. Simply put, we believe that an offseason lockout is the best mechanism to protect the 2022 season. We hope that the lockout will jumpstart the negotiations and get us to an agreement that will allow the season to start on time. This defensive lockout was necessary because the Players Association’s vision for Major League Baseball would threaten the ability of most teams to be competitive. It’s simply not a viable option. From the beginning, the MLBPA has been unwilling to move from their starting position, compromise, or collaborate on solutions.
When we began negotiations over a new agreement, the Players Association already had a contract that they wouldn’t trade for any other in sports. Baseball’s players have no salary cap and are not subjected to a maximum length or dollar amount on contracts. In fact, only MLB has guaranteed contracts that run 10 or more years, and in excess of $300 million. We have not proposed anything that would change these fundamentals. While we have heard repeatedly that free agency is “broken” – in the month of November $1.7 billion was committed to free agents, smashing the prior record by nearly 4x. By the end of the offseason, Clubs will have committed more money to players than in any offseason in MLB history.
We worked hard to find compromise while making the system even better for players, by addressing concerns raised by the Players Association. We offered to establish a minimum payroll for all clubs to meet for the first time in baseball history; to allow the majority of players to reach free agency earlier through an age-based system that would eliminate any claims of service time manipulation; and to increase compensation for all young players, including increases in the minimum salary. When negotiations lacked momentum, we tried to create some by offering to accept the universal Designated Hitter, to create a new draft system using a lottery similar to other leagues, and to increase the Competitive Balance Tax threshold that affects only a small number of teams.
We have had challenges before with respect to making labor agreements and have overcome those challenges every single time during my tenure. Regrettably, it appears the Players Association came to the bargaining table with a strategy of confrontation over compromise. They never wavered from collectively the most extreme set of proposals in their history, including significant cuts to the revenue-sharing system, a weakening of the competitive balance tax, and shortening the period of time that players play for their teams. All of these changes would make our game less competitive, not more.
To be clear: this hard but important step does not necessarily mean games will be cancelled. In fact, we are taking this step now because it accelerates the urgency for an agreement with as much runway as possible to avoid doing damage to the 2022 season. Delaying this process further would only put Spring Training, Opening Day, and the rest of the season further at risk – and we cannot allow an expired agreement to again cause an in-season strike and a missed World Series, like we experienced in 1994. We all owe you, our fans, better than that.
Today is a difficult day for baseball, but as I have said all year, there is a path to a fair agreement, and we will find it. I do not doubt the League and the Players share a fundamental appreciation for this game and a commitment to its fans. I remain optimistic that both sides will seize the opportunity to work together to grow, protect, and strengthen the game we love. MLB is ready to work around the clock to meet that goal. I urge the Players Association to join us at the table.
Manfred
I'm pretty sure about one thing, no matter what your thoughts are regarding this new CBA, we can all agree that Rob Manturd is by far the worst commissioner in sports. The mother fucker just constantly botches everything and is completely full of shit. [Reply]
Originally Posted by kstater:
Fuck the owners. That is all. Their last offer had no increases in CBT threshold
Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk
The CBT threshhold will have a nominal impact on the overwhelming majority of players.
This is a handful of superstars who want to play in big markets pushing around their partners in the MLBPA.
The players have a better CBA than any other players association in American sports. The only close argument is the NBA because the NBA rosters are so small that every change in the top number almost has to trickle down. And even STILL there's a cap in the NBA.
MLB is the only sport that doesn't have one and yet the owners are the shitheels here?
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
I'm pretty sure about one thing, no matter what your thoughts are regarding this new CBA, we can all agree that Rob Manturd is by far the worst commissioner in sports. The mother fucker just constantly botches everything and is completely full of shit.
Holy shit, dude.
You're aware Gary Bettman is still a thing, right?
I'm not huge fan of Manfred, but Bettman is the worst in pro sports history. And he's had the gig for 30 years. It's really remarkable. [Reply]
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
I'm pretty sure about one thing, no matter what your thoughts are regarding this new CBA, we can all agree that Rob Manturd is by far the worst commissioner in sports. The mother ****er just constantly botches everything and is completely full of shit.
No Adam Silver is the worst commissioner and its not even close. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
No it's Roger Goodell!!!
Shit - is it possible Rob Manfred is the BEST commissioner in American sports?
Goodell is the best by far. Silver is a complete jackass but the sports media suck his dick for non sports reasons. Of course they do that for the entire NBA.
David Stern was the GOAT of commissioners. [Reply]
Im usually for the players, but the MLBPA is focusing on making the elite players even more rich. They are supposed to be looking out for the well being of all of the players, but thats not what is happening.
What would be best for a vast majority of the players would be a salary cap and a salary floor. That way they can have revenue sharing and actually look at the books of the owners.
The owners would be smart to do what the NFL owners did and that is target the 99% of players that are not elite. [Reply]
Yeah, this was about as expected. The owners never seriously negotiated this week and last night's flurry on the minor issues was really only designed to get the union to take a PR hit today when they announced the inevitable.
Most of the owners ultimately have very little incentive to play games in April given that they can still get their playoff revenues as long as the season starts by the summer and can cut costs in the meantime. Maybe they'll start getting serious in a month or two. [Reply]
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
Im usually for the players, but the MLBPA is focusing on making the elite players even more rich. They are supposed to be looking out for the well being of all of the players, but thats not what is happening.
What would be best for a vast majority of the players would be a salary cap and a salary floor. That way they can have revenue sharing and actually look at the books of the owners.
The owners would be smart to do what the NFL owners did and that is target the 99% of players that are not elite.
All the player rep’s are the dudes making $30 million per year. Max Scherzer is a rep!
They could careless about the young players or middle class.
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
Yeah, this was about as expected. The owners never seriously negotiated this week and last night's flurry on the minor issues was really only designed to get the union to take a PR hit today when they announced the inevitable.
Most of the owners ultimately have very little incentive to play games in April given that they can still get their playoff revenues as long as the season starts by the summer and can cut costs in the meantime. Maybe they'll start getting serious in a month or two.
And the players refused to negotiate for 6 weeks prior. MLB has come further from any reasonable positions than MLB has. A 2,000% increase in the pre-arb pool (from $5 million to $100 million) and 100% eligibility for Super 2 status?
Yeah, real serious, good faith starting points from MLBPA there.
This is again the players trying to overreach after getting beat in the last round of negotiations and STILL having easily the most player friendly CBA in sports. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
And the players refused to negotiate for 6 weeks prior. MLB has come further from any reasonable positions than MLB has. A 2,000% increase in the pre-arb pool (from $5 million to $100 million) and 100% eligibility for Super 2 status?
Yeah, real serious, good faith starting points from MLBPA there.
This is again the players trying to overreach after getting beat in the last round of negotiations and STILL having easily the most player friendly CBA in sports.
Do you want to know why Nightengale got it so wrong again last night? Because an owner/management source was feeding him information to push the narrative in that direction. I had hoped that wasn't going to be the case today, but of course it was when the owners weren't willing to move meaningfully on any of the major issues.
For all the owners bitched and moaned publicly about the shortened 2020 season, most of them liked it. It meant they only had to pay the players/their staff half or less than half their salaries and they still got the massive postseason payout at the end from ESPN. This lockout was in the works even before then but that really clinched it. I'm no fan of the MLBPA but MLB never had any intention of starting the season on time. I'm quite certain we won't see games until at least June/July because that will be when we finally see some meaningful movement from the owners. It certainly won't be before then. [Reply]
