Something's up. Some takeaways from Yahoo:
1. The free agent market is weirdly frozen. Barely a month before camps open, only 13 position players have signed, and some big names linger out there.
2. The owners blame agent Scott Boras, who has a history of brinkmanship. He reps the remaining Big Four: Eric Hosmer, JD Martinez, Jake Arrieta and Mike Moustakas - and it's the biggest group he's ever taken this deep into January.
3. Boras, in response, has a great quote: "I wouldn't blame the baker for the flour not showing up." This guy can write for us, if he ever wants to make real money.
4. Nobody claims players are underpaid, though they're not getting longer term offers. (And fans who see the Jacoby Ellsburys, David Prices, Joggy Canos, et al certainly know why, eh?)
5. But player contracts don't reflect the ungodly sums being banked by the owners. In the last five years, franchise values have exploded from $18.1 billion to $46.1 billion. Let that sink in. The value of MLB franchises has nearly tripled in the last five years. No other way to put it: Robber barons.
6. Despite bathing in money, for the owners, "contending" is now an option. They have found that, by shrinking payroll and "tanking," they'll win eventually and the fans will show up. The owners don't need to win anymore.
7. The media is complicit with the owners' side. Including us. We scream about Ellsbury, as Redsock fans do about Price, (and Rusney Castillo, and Hanley Ramirez, and the Panda, and Rick Porcello - yeesh, do they ever stop?) - but nobody whines when Shohei Ohtani - the greatest prospect in modern times - is forced to sign for pennies on the dollar, due to rules that negate free-market capitalism.
8. Another big lie is that owners are saving for next year's free agent class of Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, etc. The Yankee and Dodgers, yeah. The rest of baseball, ridiculous. The Padres won't touch a $30-$40 million auction. Bryce Machado is not the reason why owners are waiting this winter.
9. If they can beat the payroll threshold, the Yankees and Dodgers' tax savings next year are being vastly overstated. If the Dodgers get under the tax cap this winter, then next year splurge payroll up to $246 million, they'll save only about $12 million - spare change for a team with more than $500 million annual revenues. The Yankees and Dodgers make so much money, none of this austerity crapola holds water.
10. The killer quote: "There’s less interest in winning than I’ve ever witnessed before,” one union official said. “MLB has done a fantastic job of convincing the public that’s OK. I think fan bases are accepting of losing now. Sometimes they even want their team to lose.”
Think about that. Because it's true. In mid-2016, when the Yankees traded Andrew Miller, Carlos Beltran and El Chapo, who wasn't rooting for a complete tear-down? I remember being angry that they kept Brian McCann (until they traded him over the following winter.)
I don't know how to fix this. What's clear in the article is that nobody else does, either. And I suppose that if fans are happy, the owners are rich beyond imagination, and the players get four-star chefs in the clubhouse, there is no problem, right? Everything is fine, right?
Posts
13 comments:
Yes. Now, if only this piece would get more play, then...then what? The entire population seems to be drugged into deep torpor by the Internet. Everybody is outraged all the time over everything and nothing. You know who my UPS guy blames it on? "They players. They make so much money..." etc blah blah blah, ad infinitum.
I have no answers, either, but it's bigger than baseball, that much I know.
It's a good time to start a cult or a religion.
Unfortunately the most visible victims of the status quo in MLB, the free agents being lowballed this winter, are not the real injustice. It may be their misfortune that they didn't hit free agency ten years ago when massive contracts where being handed out left and right. But no one is going to be too heartbroken if JD Martinez has to settle for $100 million instead of $180 million. He may end up disappointed; he will definitely end up filthy rich.
More troubling are the lower-level free agents, who will struggle to find any contract at all. Or players who have a few good years making the major-league minimum but get injured or fall out of favour before making it to arbitration and free agency. The worst of all are the minor leaguers, most of whom will never make the majors, struggling away on less than minimum wage. While I wish the MLBPA would get their act together and stand up to the owners on payroll issues, I wish even more that they would start looking out for the interests of minor leaguers and draftees. All they do now is ignore their plight of current minor leaguers and bargain away the rights of future players.
Unsurprisingly the public gets it as wrong as can be, siding with the billionaires against the millionaires and completely ignoring the real have-nots.
Kaiser,
To your point: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/01/minor-league-baseball-pay-fair-labor-standards-act-minimum-wage-lawsuit-kyle-johnson
Doug K.
I could not agree more with Der Kaiser. Most minor league players give up important years chasing their baseball dream only to emerge broken with no higher education, no savings, and no work experience relevant to the market. Dreamers not protected. ring a bell?
MLB could require of owners that any minor league contract signed be accompanied by a $50,000 trust (composed of a diversified investment portfolio) which a player may access on his 40th birthday. (John M could set them up easy.) The entire program would probably cost less than one year of Joggy's contract. Yes, I know it will never happen. That would require owners to have a heart.
Great piece, Duque, and terrific comments from my Sterling brethren (and sistren, perhaps).
I keep waiting for pro sports to implode, but I guess there are still enough fans out there to cough up the dough.
I've gone from a lifetime of avidly following all Big Four sports, and shelling out for 20-25 Yankees games plus maybe 3-5 Mets games a year, to barely following anything non-baseball, and attending maybe 1-2 MLB games a season in person. But I guess most fans don't feel the same.
Tear-downs are inevitable, and they're sometimes a good idea. But what amazes me is how few GMs you see like Bill Veeck used to be, willing to scramble about and mix-and-match to put together a relatively low-payroll contender.
Considering that one-third of the teams now make the playoffs, this should be easier than ever.
Hey, I make fun of the Mets, and we should all make fun of the Mets. But if their arms bounce back, they have as good a shot as most teams. So what's stopping all these guys?
Meanwhile, my "this day in history" is telling me that on Jan. 18, 1958, Willie O'Ree, an African Canadian, first played for the Bruins, meaning that they integrated before the Red Sox did.
Of course, the Boston KKK also integrated before the Red Sox did.
Thank you, thank you! Don't forget your waitresses!
Oh, and in the ever-exciting realm of Soccer v. Yankees:
Huge Times piece today on Eric Wynalda's attempt to take over control of U.S. soccer. I mean, it's no "Can Morocco win the 2026 World Cup, but ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Anyway, that puts things at Soccer 10, Yankees 1.
We need a new league, the way the AFL came on to challenge the NFL. In the end, they just became part of the crushing establishment, but for a while, it was interesting.
The USFL doesn't really count.
Of course, it will take some brave billionaires to challenge the MLB monopoly, but what else do they have to do with their money? Only so many hookers and so much blow out there.
Inspired by the success of Hamilton, I’m writing a musical on baseball’s antitrust exemption called “Toolson!” Yes, the exclamation point is in the working title.
I have a 3-word answer that would fix the tanking aspect and also make free agents more of a coveted commodity: MINIMUM TEAM PAYROLL. That's it. These effing cheapskate owners have become like widget factory owners. Just make the widget as cheaply as possible with no concern about the quality of the product. Only these widget makers get a massive income stream from various pooled resources (not to mention their own local sources). And for the cherry on top, they get other owners like the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox and several others to subsidise their parsimony.
Carl Weitz, a floor as well as a ceiling on salaries is a great idea, one that would have been instituted long ago, if the owners were REALLY interested in things like competitive balance or, you know, "baseball."
But in an America where, long ago, oil companies really became about futures markets, it's just money.
Yes, I resent helping to subsidize these weasels.
On the other hand...maybe it isn't so horrible to have a major leagues where the Yankees seem to be one of the few teams actually interested in winning.
Bill White, I want opening night tickets!
Well said, Horace.
So here's a great idea: Since the owners really don't care about the competitive balance, have MLB keep the Bronx team the "New York Yankees" and make every other city with a team in the sport called "The Generals". The Boston Generals, "the Los Angeles Generals", "St Louis Generals"and so on. Very similar model used by the Harlem Globetrotters.And by the WWE.
I really want the world to know about this great man who brought back happiness into my life again after my husband left me and the kids 3 years ago for another women online when i contacted Dr Believe he cast a love spell for me within 48 hours my ex husband start calling me and begging for forgiveness for everything that have happened between us. I was so happy to have my family back together with love again here is the email of Dr Believe via believelovespelltemple@gmail.com a man with the great powers you can also call him or add him on Whats-app: +2348156148821
God bless you
I am very grateful for your help in my marriage.
Post a Comment