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 DJ's left nut:
Moore was your average 4th line pest, no more, no less. He wasn’t even a Tom Wilson level goon. Just a fringe player who was going to bounce up amd down for a few years before vanishing. Leagues had 100s just like him.
Where in ‘the code’ is it okay to grab him from behind and give him a flying rabbit punch to the back of the dome and then drive him face first into the ice.
It was a bitch move by Bertuzzi. Criminal? No - but I couldn’t stand the guy before he did that because he loved toeing that line. But when he drove his forearm into the Moore’s neck into the ice, he very clearly crossed it.
I'll tell you exactly the moment Steve Moore went wrong when Todd challenged him to a fight. You gotta fight when that happens man. You cant run away. Moore tried to run away and the bloody aftermath ensued.
Originally Posted by Vladimir_Kyrilytch:
I'll tell you exactly the moment Steve Moore went wrong when Todd challenged him to a fight. You gotta fight when that happens man. You cant run away. Moore tried to run away and the bloody aftermath ensued.
It never needed to happen.
Pests don’t fight. That’s part of why guys like Tyson Nash and Mike Danton were so hated in the league. It’s why I hate faux tough guys like Steve Ott. But the league is full of em and always has been.
And yet, you don’t see shit like that happen ever. You catch a guy like that with his head down towards the end of a shift and you go ahead and take the interference penalty by smashing his ass into the boards. And then the whole team makes sure to finish every check he’s a part of.
But you don’t do what Bertuzzi did, turtling bitch or not. I’m not here to praise Steve Moore - I hate guys like him. But that’s not how it’s handled either. [Reply]
Baseball has killed their pipeline of fans by blacking out games to potential young fans. Screw them all, donate your money to local sports programs. Go to the kids games and cheer the athletes playing for sport. [Reply]
This article makes a bunch of great points about small market teams and a salary cap.
Originally Posted by :
10. More than half of all teams in the majors have, over the past decade, adopted an approach that most describe as "tanking." Meaning they allow their payrolls to plunge to low levels, rebuild their roster by moving veterans for prospects, then push to win again once those prospects are in the majors and cost little more than the big-league minimum wage over their first three years.
The Pirates are doing it right now. The Cubs, Astros and Braves have done it in recent years on their way to World Series championships.
11. Three years ago in Bradenton, Fla., I asked Clark why the union, which had just filed a grievance against the Pirates and three other teams, wouldn't just agree to a salary floor. His response: "If you agree to a floor, you agree to a cap." That's been the standard union line on that subject for decades. They see the floor as a slippery slope.
Originally Posted by :
12. That stance is held most vocally by super-agent Scott Boras, who currently has five clients on the MLBPA's eight-player executive board, one of whom is Gerrit Cole, who'd follow Boras off a cliff.
Boras last month derided the Braves' first championship since 1995 as "the Easter Bunny delivering rotten eggs," adding, "We have seen the championship in 60 days. The rules allow them to be a less-than-.500 team at Aug. 1 and add four or five players from teams that no longer wanted to compete and for very little cost change the entirety of their team and season. And we saw this unfold to the detriment of teams that create at vast expense, planning and intellect and won over 100 games."
That's how he sees this. The teams that pony up for his clients, like Max Scherzer just getting a $43 million annual salary from the Mets, are worthy winners. The rest are undeserving.
13. The Boras Corporation -- and that's what it's called -- employs an army of workers constantly staying in touch with reporters, most of them at non-local outlets, and feeding them information. Boras himself will even attempt to instruct reporters on what they should write. I'm speaking from firsthand experience.
Originally Posted by :
19. They also regularly cite this claptrap as evidence of parity:
Make it 21 years without a repeat champion �� pic.twitter.com/odNy904FCs
— MLB (@MLB) October 24, 2021
It's extrapolating the haphazard results of the final round of a playoff and nothing more.
The pertinent facts: The Yankees haven't had a losing season since 2000, averaging 94.1 wins per a full season, a span in which the Pirates, Reds, Brewers and Royals -- based in the four smallest actual markets -- don’t have 20 winning seasons combined. One out of that bottom four -- Royals in 2015 -- won the World Series. And only one team in that entire time — Marlins in 2003 — won a World Series without being in the upper half of the payroll rankings.
Here's what I think the master plan is. Expand the playoffs so everyone makes it. Now, why bother spending incremental money for a slight upgrade? Could be the 2 seed but we'll be fine with the 10 seed, or whatever.
But I gotta say Mr Suze. I question the credibility of your source when he casually throws in "Cole would follow Boras off a cliff". That's a bit rich. That's editorializing. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Vladimir_Kyrilytch:
Here's what I think the master plan is. Expand the playoffs so everyone makes it. Now, why bother spending incremental money for a slight upgrade? Could be the 2 seed but we'll be fine with the 10 seed, or whatever.
But I gotta say Mr Suze. I question the credibility of your source when he casually throws in "Cole would follow Boras off a cliff". That's a bit rich. That's editorializing.
No, the writer is right. He covers the Pirates. Cole does whatever Boras wants. He saw it firsthand. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Vladimir_Kyrilytch:
Here's what I think the master plan is. Expand the playoffs so everyone makes it. Now, why bother spending incremental money for a slight upgrade? Could be the 2 seed but we'll be fine with the 10 seed, or whatever.
But I gotta say Mr Suze. I question the credibility of your source when he casually throws in "Cole would follow Boras off a cliff". That's a bit rich. That's editorializing.
Why stop there? Let’s expand it to 20 teams. The Orioles and the Rangers sneak in with 60 wins and just have to sit back and wait until September to get hot! [Reply]
If the national baseball punditry would stick to a message like: "Look, we know baseball has a competitive imbalance. But it's just the nature of so much regional income disparity. There's really nothing more than can be done." - I'd respect their honesty and be a lot more likely to buy their premise.
But this sleight of hand crap with one or two cherry-picked numbers and pay no attention to the obvious fact that the Dodgers and Yankees can be competitive every year, while most teams have to tank for windows, and the odds of a small market team keeping a megastar is basically nil - really pisses me off.
I don't like being gaslighted. They went to sell all small market fans on this mass delusion groupthink that MLB is as competitive as the NFL. In reality I think they just feel that big market teams deserve to win more often and be competitive every year. But they won't say that out loud. Well Boras will, but that's it. [Reply]
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