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
Originally Posted by jd1020:
So you are bitching about small markets getting ****ed over and its not at all related to their ability or willingness to sign the players that are actually doing the most damage? Ok...
I never said who was fucking over the small market clubs. I said they, they includes the owners and the players. The players want to do away with the QO, which fucks over small markets. Your reading shit that isn't there. [Reply]
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
I never said who was ****ing over the small market clubs. I said they, they includes the owners and the players. The players want to do away with the QO, which ****s over small markets. Your reading shit that isn't there.
Its the league proposing the elimination of the QO for a international draft, not the players. [Reply]
You know coverage of the MLB lockout is slanted toward the players when an agent is offering praise.
And not just any agent. We’re talking about super agent Scott Boras, who told The Washington Post that coverage of the lockout is “the most accurate coverage, factually, of any labor negotiation I’ve been involved in.’”
Boras has been a big pain in the backside for MLB team owners and executives for decades. He has played a major role in inflated salaries and player movement. He’s rich and comes across as incredibly slimy.
So if he’s happy, well, you can only guess how remarkably favorable coverage of the lockout has been for the players.
Of course, this isn’t just limited to baseball. Insiders in all sports have sold their souls to agents in their desperate quest for Twitter scoops.
Actually, a lot of national sports writers today are represented by the same agencies that represent the players. For instance, ESPN NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski is represented by CAA, which lists some of the league’s best and brightest among its clients.
So when an agent says, “jump,” national insiders often ask, “how high?”
As a result, sports writers are no longer actual writers with opinions. At least, not their own opinions. Instead, they walk on eggshells, treading lightly so as to not offend their “sources,” which are always “agents.”
This isn’t to say team owners are right and players are wrong. This isn’t taking any sort of side. But that’s what the sports media is supposed to do. Try to be fair, then form opinions on fairness.
That’s not what many of today’s so-called insiders are doing. They’re just playing a game of trying to one-up the other in kissing agents’ butts.
The result has been vanilla stories, written with no soul or personal opinions, and quite frankly, unreliable coverage. The agents have dived head first into the sportswriting world, and now your sports stories are brought to you almost entirely by them.
This is great. It's refreshing to hear someone, anyone come out against the gaslighting. [Reply]
They also completely rejected the idea of an international draft but still want everything else the clearly benefited the pay of the top players.
The MLBPA isn't even negotiating at this point. At this point I wouldn't blame the owners for straight up telling the players to go pound sand. [Reply]
Source: League offering 3 options: Sign the CBA, including eliminating draft pick compensation, and take some time to examine the international draft. If the union won’t implement within a couple years (by '24?), the league can re-open the CBA. 2/3
Second option: Do the entire package without the draft which means without draft pick compensation. Third option: Take the original deal. League gets the international draft and draft pick compensation is eliminated. 3/3
Originally Posted by jd1020:
They also completely rejected the idea of an international draft but still want everything else the clearly benefited the pay of the top players.
The MLBPA isn't even negotiating at this point. At this point I wouldn't blame the owners for straight up telling the players to go pound sand.
Yup.
I'd get up from the table if I'm the MLB at this point. And in fact, I'd start dialing my offers back. They've been EXTREMELY reasonable to the point of overly generous. In many ways I'm surprised they've even gotten the votes they need to submit these proposals - some of these owners cannot be happy with these terms.
Meanwhile the players have given nothing in these exchanges.
But they have willing accomplices for them in the sports media who are willing to continue to call MLB the villains here. MLB has made a more than fair offer of compromise to the point of going well past 'halfway' to meet the PA. And that's after ridiculous anchoring from the PA set halfway past where it should've been anyway.
If this is what the players are going to do, it's strike breaking time. If I'm MLB I just go home. I tell them that ALL offers are off the table and they can come knocking when they get serious about floors, caps and revenue splits. Fucking FIX it or we're just going to be back here in a few years. [Reply]
I'd get up from the table if I'm the MLB at this point. And in fact, I'd start dialing my offers back. They've been EXTREMELY reasonable to the point of overly generous. In many ways I'm surprised they've even gotten the votes they need to submit these proposals - some of these owners cannot be happy with these terms.
Meanwhile the players have given nothing in these exchanges.
But they have willing accomplices for them in the sports media who are willing to continue to call MLB the villains here. MLB has made a more than fair offer of compromise to the point of going well past 'halfway' to meet the PA. And that's after ridiculous anchoring from the PA set halfway past where it should've been anyway.
If this is what the players are going to do, it's strike breaking time. If I'm MLB I just go home. I tell them that ALL offers are off the table and they can come knocking when they get serious about floors, caps and revenue splits. ****ing FIX it or we're just going to be back here in a few years.
Scott Boras is a cunt. That is why all the bullshit is happening. [Reply]
On minimum salaries: MLBPA now starts at $710k and goes up to $780k. Players were recently starting at $725k, had dipped to $715k before this offer. MLB remains at $700k to start, finishing at $770k.
Players are being dumb shits. Gonna piss this generous offer away because they don't want an international draft for some reason. Owners aren't even trying to rush the draft and are willing to come up with the best way to run it.
I like the idea of an international draft. Its the most fair way of doing it. [Reply]
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
Players are being dumb shits. Gonna piss this generous offer away because they don't want an international draft for some reason. Owners aren't even trying to rush the draft and are willing to come up with the best way to run it.
I like the idea of an international draft. Its the most fair way of doing it.
Just more disingenuous horseshit from the MLBPA.
There are already international spending caps. So you take those caps, put in a mandatory floor for international draft spending, aggregate the caps as a spending pool for overall international draft spending and then stagger the amounts down the draft to create the same kind of slotting system that presently exists for the entry draft.
Like many other things being proposed by MLB now and in the past, this would take the very top off the international market while simultaneously taking that same amount of spending and re-allocating it throughout the international draft pool.
And now the MLBPA will come out with more populist horseshit when in reality THEY are the ones who continue to spit on proposals that will create benefits for a larger number of people, all in the name of protecting the big chunk benefits presently given to a select few.
Why? Because it's easier for the agents to make their nut that way and right now it's the agents driving this bullshit.
The players are absolutely fucking this up. But again, the sports media LIVES off leaks from agents so they'll continue to carry water for the MLBPA when it's been the MLBPA that has been wholly unreasonable throughout this process and going as far back as 1994.
But let's keep having the same tired 'populist' sportswriters weeping for the players that are cutting their own throats.
Let 'em sit out a year and break their !@#$ing backs. [Reply]
Let's say you're Scott Boras and you can get 5 big name clients that sign $600 million in extensions in an offseason and you get 3% (I think 3-5 is industry standard and the % falls as the raw dollars rise).
That's $18 million in fee and you had to cater to 5 !@#$ing guys to get it.
Now let's say a system is in place where those 5 guys are looking at $400 million between them. Meanwhile that other $200 million is now parsed among 10 other 'middle class' players.
You've gotta hustle your ass off to try to get those 10 guys signed to your agency and make that money back. And you have to increase your overhead substantially to do it. Now you've got 15 guys you have to accommodate and you'd better be providing them quality services or those 10 'cheap' players will go find some hungry up and comer who will gladly take them on to build that agency up. Even if it takes 10 different up and comers taking on all 10 of 'em. So you can't cut corners on those 10 or you just lose 'em. And once you start to lose them, you start to lose your grip on stuff like this.
So please PLEASE try to tell me that this isn't about established SuperAgents trying to maintain their paydays and their death grip on the industry. Absolutely everything about a more even playing field financially is BAD for them. Extremely bad for them, in fact.
And yet that's where the "MLBPA" is trying to push things? Bullshit. This is agent driven garbage and a pile of dumb fucking players that have bought into the 'us against them' rhetoric that professional gasbags like Scott Boras have sold them.
And guys like KCN have tried to paint the owners as operating in bad faith throughout this because some dickhead with an agent contact on Twitter said so.
Real reliable narrators you've chosen there, guys.
If you can't see what this is - what this has been from Day 1 - then you just haven't been paying attention at all. The players entered this process being unreasonable. They had extremely wealthy, established union reps come telling them that the owners locking them out was unreasonable so it is time to earn their pound of flesh.
And then they promptly set about proving EXACTLY why the owners had to lock them out. [Reply]
