[ESPN] MLB suspends spring training, delays Opening Day at least two weeks

Of course the article goes on to say other teams have said similar things...you just gotta laugh

 

Good grief, how do ppl get away with publishing such mindless drivel in this day and age? Where has real journalism gone?

@buck, please post another couple golden oldies to help us cleanse our palettes from this **** pie.

 

Sorry to whoever "buck" is; I meant to tag the other Buck.

 

What do you mean "this day and age"? Its easier and more prolific now than ever. Real journalism left us some time back id say.

 

Spoiler

The negotiations still are not over.

When Major League Baseball exercised its right Tuesday to implement a 60-game season in the absence of a negotiated agreement with the Players Association, a number of issues regarding individual player contracts remained unresolved.

The parties spent the weekend discussing an agreement that would determine how vesting options, roster bonuses and other clauses would be calculated for the abbreviated 2020 season. The conversations might have been necessary even if the sides had reached a settlement last week, but now time is of the essence, with players starting to get tested for COVID-19 and reporting to training camps by Wednesday. A failure to reach agreement could spark additional material for grievances, but sources suggested Sunday night that a deal was within reach.

Cardinals reliever Andrew Miller, a member of the union’s eight-man executive sub-committee, is one of the players with a vesting option for 2021 that is in dispute. MLB, according to sources on the players side, originally wanted to pro-rate the amount of Miller’s option from $12 million to $4.44 million, using the same formula by which it will pay players this season. The league later indicated the vesting options for 2021 might retain their full values, but because of the shortened schedule, differences remain over the number of games in which Miller and others will need to appear to guarantee their ’21 salaries.

The issues that have arisen in recent days have surprised and upset some players, who according to some agents were not fully advised by the union of these open-ended questions in the March agreement between the parties. Once the league chose to implement a schedule, that agreement – and its stipulation that players will be paid on a prorated, per-game basis – became the framework for the 2020 season.

A subsequent agreement might have covered some of the outstanding issues, but none of those topics was addressed in any draft of the proposals exchanged between the parties, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions. The unprecedented nature of the sport’s shutdown also made it difficult for the parties to anticipate every situation that has emerged.

The March agreement contemplated a further good-faith discussion on a variety of individual contractual provisions, prompting an intense round of conversations and potential tradeoffs between the league and union over the weekend.

“All thresholds and amounts for bonuses, escalators, and other similar special covenants (e.g., performance point systems, vesting options) shall be reduced pursuant to the applicable (prorated) formula,” the agreement said. “The parties shall negotiate in good faith over the treatment of special covenants that are based on roster status as of a specific date; total days on roster; days on an Injured List; and for players who are currently injured.”

The above paragraph makes no mention of 2021, which is why the league might agree not to reduce the amounts of the vesting options for that season, one source said. If those options are simply prorated, Cubs left-hander Jon Lester would be the first player in major-league history with a buyout ($10 million) that exceeded his vesting option ($9.25 million, prorated from $25 million). The option would serve as a disincentive, rather than the incentive for which it is intended. And the league effectively would be changing previously negotiated contract language between a player and his club.

The value of the option, though, isn’t the only unresolved issue in such examples. Questions also remain unresolved about the number of games in which players would need to appear for their options to vest in a 60-game as opposed to 162-game season.

Miller’s contract states that his vesting option will become guaranteed if he pitches in 110 games in the 2019 and ’20 seasons combined. He appeared in 73 games last season, which would have left him 37 games short of the total, or 23 percent of a 162-game season. The league might argue that his new target should be 23 percent of 60: 14 games. Miller might counter with different math, noting the league will play 222 of a possible 324 games in 2019-20. The corresponding percentage of 110 games is 75, just two more than where Miller currently stands.

Further complicating the equation: The possibility that commissioner Rob Manfred might choose to further shorten or cancel the season because of issues stemming from COVID-19. The parties, then, need to decide how many games someone like Miller would need to pitch if the season ended up consisting of say, 40 games.

One possible solution would involve a tradeoff: The league agreeing that a player can vest the full amount of his option if he hits a pro-rated threshold in a shortened season, but the threshold reverting back to its original number if the season is shortened or canceled, making it all but impossible for the option to vest.

Another issue: Retention bonuses for major-league free agents with six years of service who sign minor-league contracts. In a normal season, a club must add such a player to its roster five days before Opening Day, grant him his unconditional release or pay him a bonus of $100,000 to keep him in its organization. Some players effectively will call a team’s bluff to ensure they receive the bonus, knowing their organization values them and wants depth.

A number of such players were negotiating new deals with their teams over the weekend, knowing they could not re-sign with those clubs if they were released after the 60-man player pools were set. But without their usual leverage, those players were unlikely to receive the $100,000 bonus.

Some if not all of these issues might have been resolved if the parties had reached a new deal superseding the March agreement. Instead, the mad scramble to begin the 2020 season not only includes COVID-19 testing and players racing to training camps, but also even more discussion between the league and union.

 

Surprised Whitley isn’t with the 38 at MMP

With Luhnow gone I suppose Click will just look at him and evaluate what he thinks Whitley is, Luhnow at least to some extent had to protect his own draft asset

 

Ian Desmond(Colorado), Joe Ross(Washington), Ryan Zimmerman(Washington) & Mike Leake(Arizona) to sit out the season.

...

 

Spitting not allowed? Really?

This is baseball. Players gotta spit.

 

I said it before and I'll say it again. I think people spit by habit now. So what happens if a player spits? Ejected, fine, suspended? If you spit, get punished and spit again, suspended for the season?

 

I would imagine that one is like the KBA, they put no spitting in there to get them to think about it, but it happens regularly still with no penalty

 

"The reality is," Manfred said, "we weren't going to play more than 60 games no matter how the negotiations with the players went."

This is a notable comment considering the possibility that the union files a grievance alleging Manfred and the owners did not operate in good faith when it came to playing as many games as possible. Different people will read/hear different things in Manfred's quote -- and he'd likely claim he was talking about the negotiations that occurred after a face-to-face meeting with union head Tony Clark -- but it shouldn't surprise anyone if the union makes sure they save this clip for later. If not for the above, then at least for what Manfred said to a follow-up question.

Patrick asked Manfred if he and the owners would have agreed to a longer season if the players had met the rest of the league's demands. Manfred responded with the following, per FOX Sports Radio:

We're playing sixty games in sixty-three days. I don't see, given the reality of the health situation over the past few weeks, how we were going to get going any faster than the calendar we're on right now. Look, we did get a sub-optimal result from the negotiations. The fans won't get an expanded postseason, which I think would have been good with the shortened season. The players left real money on the table. That's what happens when you have a negotiation that, instead of being collaborative, gets into a conflict situation.

To recap: Manfred pivoted from declaring that the league was never playing more than 60 games, no matter what, to saying that the negotiations produced suboptimal results because of a spirit of conflict rather than collaboration.

Perhaps it's no wonder why Miami Marlins CEO Derek Jeter said that there's "no trust" between the league and the union. And perhaps it's no wonder why so many are pessimistic about the chances of MLB avoiding a labor stoppage heading into the 2022 season -- the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires after the 2021 season.

 

Manfred gonna Manfred.

 

Takes a special kind of stupid to admit you weren’t ever going to honestly negotiate right before a grievance is going to be filed

 

Curious to really see how Jeter feels about this, since he's not that far removed from being on the players side.

If he's truly pissed off with Manfred's incompetence (as he should be), and Manfred gets relieved of being the lead negotiator, he could be a mediator/voice to help broker a better trust between both sides.

The owners are otherwise fractured and have no real connection to the players. Jeter is the exception.

 

Did anyone even read his quote? This isn't remotely what he said. That was an extremely poorly written article.