That is a great point. However teams still must be careful not to offer more than they are willing to pay in case they are accepted, but also must outbid other teams if they want a chance at the player. I still think it could work though. After all, it's only 2 tears. It might look weird a player getting 2 years of crazy high AAV at their peak before settling back to regular salary levels for FA , but that also makes sense - the 2 likely peak years of his career. It is still a big gain to players and owners get an additional year of potential control. The owners could leverage that. It's enough of a benefit to players that the owners could really get something
It is a big benefit to players as players get free agent offers 2 years earlier and at a higher AAV, even if it is shorter in years. There is zero chance teams like the Rays would go for it as it means they lose their stars two years earlier or get less when they trade them early.
Your point is partially correct. Teams who do not spend will not go for it. But teams losing players 2 years earlier is false. This system is 1 year difference, not 2. Players get FA now after 6 years of service. My suggestion makes them restricted FA after 5 years but not unrestricted until after 7 years. Players make more money in yr 6 but would actually not have a choice where they go, and true FA for 1 year longer than now.
https://theathletic.com/3028399/202...raining-delays-minor-league-players-and-more/ […] Without an agreement, in what week of January or February will spring training require a delay? And what might a delayed spring training look like? (i.e. all games still played, just at a later date? Or will they try to shorten the season? Or door No. 3?). — Noog N. You have to reverse engineer it and do a little guessing. In 2020, COVID-19 shut down regular spring training, and then the parties agreed to a shortened version, “summer camp,” that lasted about three weeks. It seems safe to assume that the players wouldn’t, two years later, allow for a spring training any shorter than three weeks. Now, whether they would even be comfortable doing just three weeks again isn’t known yet. But it’s safe to assume you can shorten spring training by some number of games and still be able to play the regular season on time. So be conservative and say that spring training 2022 would need to be, at minimum, four weeks long. Then your deadline is really about March 1, or the days leading up to it to allow for travel. Opening Day is scheduled for March 31, so if we’re in late February and a new deal hasn’t been agreed to, they’re on the brink of jeopardizing Opening Day. And if they can stomach a three-week camp again, then the deadline is about a week into March. What percentage would you give the season starting on time at this point? I feel like there’s less than a 50 percent chance of it happening because neither side seems to care about making a deal any time soon. — Kyle B. I’d say an 85 percent chance the season starts on time, but it’s really hard to gauge from where we sit today. The first pressure point is spring training, and the chance camps open on time is lower. How much lower? I was an English major, but put it this way: You shouldn’t be shocked if spring training is delayed. The sides, right now, are clearly very far apart, and haven’t talked core economics in a month — but a lot can happen quickly. If you start to see spring training delayed, then the chances of the regular season starting on time will steadily drop. As of now, though, it’s hard to see exactly how either party would sell a long work stoppage into the regular season. For one, there’s a massive amount of money on the line for both parties. It’s also not clear yet what issues either side will plant a flag on and declare, “this issue must be a certain way, or we will not play.” Time will tell, though. We know the players want changes. Which become the final battlegrounds? Just as an example: The players, hypothetically, could say, “We won’t agree to a new deal unless all players can get to arbitration after two years of service time.” If owners decided that to be untenable — and Manfred has publicly suggested as much already — then sure, some regular-season games could be on the line. So it’s really going to come down to the specific issues. If I had to guess, I’d bet the endgame includes something along the lines of that hypothetical — arbitration eligibility and the effort to get younger players paid more. Can minor-league camp start on time? — C. Trent Rosecrans Yes, even if major-league spring training is delayed, minor league spring training can still get underway on time. The major-league teams control the timing of minor-league spring training, so it would be up to them, and there’s no obvious reason they would delay minor-league camp. Most minor-league players are not members of the MLBPA, and minor-league players don’t have a separate union of their own (but there’s a growing effort to change that). What are teams allowed to do in terms of player development and talking to minor leaguers and how uniform is that policy league-wide? — Fabian Ardaya Indeed, most minor-league players are not in the union, but some are — think top prospects or some Triple-A types. The technical distinction is whether a player is on a 40-man roster. If you’re on the 40-man, you’re a member of the union. In-season, you can think of it as three groups of players: 1. 40-man, major leaguer. Everyone you see on a nightly basis at a major-league stadium. 2. 40-man, minor leaguer. Think the reliever who got demoted to Triple-A for no other reason than he just threw too many pitches, and will likely be called up again in two weeks. 3. Off 40-man, minor leaguer. The vast majority of minor leaguers. For lockout purposes, the third group is what we mean by “minor leaguer.” Those players are not directly restricted by a lockout, because they’re not part of the union. Their teams and staffs can communicate and interact with them as they would normally. And if the lockout were to drag on and the regular season were to be delayed, “strikes or lockouts cover all players on a Club’s 40-man roster, but 40-man roster players assigned to the minors prior to a strike or a lockout are free to continue to play in the minor leagues,” per the MLBPA’s agent guide. But what does that actually mean? Not much, because 40-man players at this point in the calendar aren’t actually assigned to minor league rosters, and can’t be put on one before spring training. So the end result is this: If a player is currently on a 40-man roster, he will not be eligible to play in minor-league games — regardless of what level he played at in 2021. If a player is entirely off a 40-man roster and signs a purely minor-league contract — which has happened for some players during the lockout — that player will be able to play in minor league games.
Major League Baseball is preparing new core economic proposals to deliver to the Players Association. When they’re presented, likely this month, core economic talks in the sport will have restarted for the first time since owners initiated a lockout on Dec. 2, marking a positive development. But the resumption of conversations won’t necessarily mean that pitchers and catchers will report on time to major league camp in the middle of February. On the contrary, the start of spring training is in peril until there is real movement. And real movement might not come until more is at stake than simply an on-time start to spring training. MLB hasn’t had any other lockouts in the last 30 years, but the NBA has had four in that stretch. The last two both cost regular-season games. “Nothing happens until the very last minute,” said a person involved in NBA labor negotiations. “It’s a very primitive mentality that people feel the other side is not going to give its best offer until they are looking down the barrel of what’s ahead. “The point of (a lockout) generally is to impose economic pressure. And it’s not going to happen in the beginning, because people aren’t feeling it. They’re not getting paid. The season hasn’t started. So if the point of it is to impose the economic pressure, then yeah, in theory, it’s not going to really be effective until you get to the end.” Players, for years, have indicated they want significant changes. MLB, knowing this, could have adopted a basic mentality: we can give up the least by waiting as long as possible. Why make major concessions at a time when players could say no without risking a paycheck? Meanwhile, it seems purposeful that the MLBPA is asking for a slew of significant changes without identifying one particular alteration, or a set of them, that players feel they absolutely must have. The union hasn’t drawn lines in the sand yet, aside from what has long been understood — that a salary cap is not tenable. “I think you want to leave all options open, and there’s a lot of interchangeable parts: that if I get this, then I could give on this,” the basketball source said. “You want to keep everything open, and then you can give a little here, get a little there. And so I don’t know that you’re going to necessarily plant your flag on any issue at this early point.” Both commissioner Rob Manfred and MLBPA executive director Tony Clark are ultimately operating on behalf of the people they represent. If Manfred, for example, has enough prominent owners on his labor policy committee or otherwise who are adamant that he not give, it’s going to make the process slower. “A lot of it depends on the constituency,” the basketball source said. “If there are more hawks, then maybe it can’t move that quickly.” In basketball, the deals have swung on something of a pendulum. The lockouts in basketball, including the last one in 2011, have been centered on management seeking major changes. Owners would effectively win those rounds of bargaining. “And then in the agreements that followed, they’ve always been very favorable to the players,” the source said. In baseball, both of the last two CBAs are considered by many in the industry to be wins for owners. Although in baseball today it is the players who are seeking major changes, the operating principles of the lockout shouldn’t be noticeably different. “It’s still the same,” the basketball source said. “It comes down to the issues, and what deal the sides really feel they can make and they should make. You have a sense I think going in: this is fair, this is what it should be, this is what we can do. “It is a heavy agenda on both sides. And so I really wouldn’t expect anything different than what we’ve seen, much as I, like every other fan, would like to make some spring training plans. … When people get motivated, they can definitely move it quickly.”
Players are giving awfully quickly on the age based free agency and service time thing. I thought they’d go to the mattresses over that. I like the draft for non playoff teams. That should get rid of most competitive reasons for tanking (economic ones still exist). 245 seems like a reasonable number for the luxury tax, as does $775k for a minimum salary. Hell- I’d be in favor, personally, of $1,000,000 along with a war based scale for arbitration if we aren’t going to give guys FA early. Youngsters are getting hosed too much in this current climate at the expense of FA and the owners. maybe figure out the dollar per war of FA and then give 1st year arb guys 40% of that - 2nd year 60% and 3rd year 80%. Combined with a million dollar minimum that would start to get guys much more reasonably paid for their prime and young years. An all star type (4 war player) would earn 3 million pre arb and then 70 or so in FA. That works out to something like a 6/75 deal for a young guy. Still team friendly but not onerous. I think correa, for example, made something like 33 million getting to FA.
The players have lost every negotiation since the late 90s and it looks like they'll lose this one too. But throwing in the towel in January? That's weak.
At this point what do the players even have to bargain with to make the owners even consider bringdown service time requirements. Player control is absurdly valuable. They already gave away pretty much everything in regard to foreign players and draftees.
The players overall have made a lot of money. Their percent of revenue is higher than that of NBA and NFL players despite getting a lower percentage each year in the years preceding the pandemic. The veteran players have made out great at the expense of young players. If younger players get paid more, I expect the owners will want the veterans players to get paid less. If younger players get more flexibility to who they play for, I expect the owners will want a mechanism that evens the playing field between teams. I'd like to see younger players get more money, but I, as a fan, don't want MLB to become more about which team spends the most. It is incredibly tough to buy a World Series, but it generally isn't that hard to buy a playoff birth which ups the odds of winning a World Series greatly over a team like the Pirates.
I don't think there's any scenario where either MLB or MLBPA agree to a salary structure based on what some 3rd party like Fangraphs generates as a player value formula. And no way MLB is going to come up with their own WAR formula and put a number to how they value specific metrics.
Have they? They have players getting 10+ yr $300MM guaranteed contracts on a routine basis. The NBA has no one getting that kind of money despite having many fewer players. NFL has non-guaranteed contracts and only Patrick Mahomes has gotten a number in that range - the 2nd highest is around $150MM guaranteed. In MLB, Corey Seager gets that. The tradeoff they make is that the players get relatively little their first several years. Each league is different (NBA has highest year-to-year salaries, MLB has the minors, etc). But MLB players are doing pretty well for themselves.
As long as it is done at the league office level (i.e., not with team proprietary metrics), I don't think MLB would have an issue with creating a WAR model with MLBPA's input. I'd see MLBPA having more issue with having their players being valued by an objective number than MLB.
They still play the most games of every sport and have the longest working year if you include the playoffs, with most players reporting to camp some time in February. Baseball players also still seem to be the “safest” long term investment of all the sports given the low contact nature and the ability for players to remain elite hitters/pitchers (barring injury) well into their 30’s (not the case with basketball).
Wasn't that long ago they tied FA draft pick compensation that way. I think age based FA should have been kept. Players that don't get to the majors by 25 are really hosed.
Well, that post didn't age well. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id...ible-players-labor-talks-continue-sources-say Major League Baseball indicated for the first time that it is open to a pre-arbitration bonus pool during a labor meeting Tuesday with the MLB Players Association, but the sides remain far apart on how much should be distributed, according to sources familiar with the talks. MLB is offering $10 million in the pool while the players want $105 million, according to sources. The money would be distributed to the top 30 pre-arbitration players based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and awards, such as the MVP and Cy Young Awards.
Anyone sensing momentum in baseball’s collective bargaining negotiations needs to take a deep breath. League and player representatives continue to hold much different views of the game’s economics. The scheduled start of spring training in mid-February is clearly in jeopardy. In another few weeks, Opening Day on March 31 would be a longshot, too. As the owners’ lockout drags into its third month, the essence of the problem is this: Major League Baseball contends it is proposing a better deal for players than the one they had under the most recent collective bargaining agreement. And the Players Association contends that the deal is worse. The acceleration of talks is hardly out of the question; in labor negotiations, it’s always darkest before the dawn. But Scott Boras, the game’s most prominent agent, said the players are dug in not only because their salaries are declining, but also because franchise values, even as profits have fallen during the COVID-19 pandemic, continue to soar. Since 2002, all four of the major U.S. sports leagues have performed better than the S&P 500 companies on the stock market, according to Pitchbook. The return on MLB franchises was 669 percent, above the NFL’s 558 percent and exceeded only by the NBA’s 1,057 percent. “History has told a story that the players now understand,” Boras said. “And the history is that, what you negotiate from is appreciation of franchise values and revenue increases . . . From the players’ perspective, it is about how successful this game is from those two perspectives. And they want fairness. Players want fairness in the success of the game.” The owners historically have pushed back on the relevance of franchise values in labor negotiations, saying they base payrolls on revenues and not the potential resale values of their clubs. But even putting franchise values aside, the players remain dissatisfied with their share of the revenues, and frustrated in their belief that the owners’ latest proposals will not do enough to improve their overall standing. A breakdown of the most contentious issues in the negotiations reveals just how far apart the two sides are: Minimum salary The minimum is no small matter in baseball, affecting a sizable number of players as the league skews younger. As Travis Sawchik wrote in November, 571 players (63.2 percent of all MLB players in 2019, the last season in which complete full-season data was available) had between zero and three years of service. All but the Super Twos — the 22 percent of two-plus players who qualified for arbitration — were essentially bound to salaries at the minimum or slightly above. The players have proposed increasing the minimum from $570,500 to $775,000. The owners have proposed that the players will earn $615,000 in their first year, $650,000 in their second and $700,000 in their third. The increase of $44,500 for first-year players would be the largest they have ever received, and $27,500 more than the amount the union negotiated for them in the 2016 CBA. But the union notes the boost is barely above a cost-of-living increase. One other thing about the minimums under the league’s proposal: Teams could not exceed the set amounts by using their own formulas to reward top performers the way they have in the past. The union views the capped figures, coupled with the increases, as an example of the league giving the players something with one hand and taking something else away with the other. The league believes the point is irrelevant, saying the increases in the minimums, combined with the additional money top performers could earn in the bonus pool, would leave every 0-to-3 player better off than he was under the previous CBA. Arbitration and pre-arb bonus pools The argument begins with arbitration eligibility, one of three core items the league said it would not negotiate. The players made moves on the other two elements last week, dropping their desire for earlier free agency and modifying their request on revenue sharing. The league, meanwhile, agreed to the union’s concept for a bonus pool for pre-arbitration players, with the size of the pool to be negotiated. That is where the progress ended. The players want arbitration eligibility to start at two years of service. The owners want to keep it at three. A potential compromise — increasing the number of second-year players eligible for arbitration — is out of the question from the league’s perspective. In November, the league proposed to eliminate arbitration, establish a predetermined pool for 3-to-6 year players and pay them according to performance, as calculated by fWAR. The union wanted no part of a set scale that would leave no room for negotiation, and the league relented on the idea last week, saying it was willing to keep arbitration intact. The players, unhappy with the status quo, hardly see that as a win. Which brings us to the pre-arb bonus pool. The difference in the amounts proposed for the pool — $10 million by the owners, $105 million by the players — actually is greater than those numbers suggest. The league would make its $10 million available to all 0-to-3 players except the Super Twos who are eligible for arbitration. The union, on the other hand, based its plan on players becoming eligible for arbitration after two years. Thus, the $105 million it requested would go only to 0-to-2 players, a much smaller group. The proposals, then, are not quite comparable. The league, though, says it is making a significant move merely by accepting the union’s idea for the pool, which would be a first for MLB, rewarding top young players whose earnings are otherwise restricted. Under the league’s plan, the salary of Corbin Burnes, a two-plus player in 2021, would have jumped from $608,000 to $2.34 million, based on his Cy Young Award and WAR. A number of other 0-to-3 stars — Vladimir Guerrero Jr., NL Rookie of the Year Jonathan India, AL Rookie of the Year Randy Arozarena — also would have received boosts. But the union wants much more money going to young players than the league is currently offering. The amount of money in the pool should be negotiable contingent on other elements in the deal. But for now, arbitration eligibility remains a point of contention. Perhaps a robust pre-arb pool would persuade the players to be more accepting of the status quo, and keep eligibility at three years. Luxury tax It’s telling that the league calls the luxury tax the competitive-balance tax. The owners position the thresholds and accompanying penalties as critical to limiting the disparity between big spenders and small. Revenue sharing is intended to help limit that disparity, strengthening lower-revenue clubs. But the union questions how some of those clubs use the money, which is why it has grievances pending against the Athletics, Rays, Marlins and Pirates. The owners, naturally, prefer to steer the conversation toward the teams at the top of the pay structure — the ones that would benefit if the league accepted the union’s proposal to raise the first threshold from $210 million to $245 million and to $273 million by 2026. The previous largest jump in the threshold was $11 million from 2013 to ’14, and the league is proposing less than that — an increase of $4 million to $214 million in year one, topping out at $220 million in the final year of a five-year deal. Teams that exceed the threshold would be subject to financial penalties that are more than double what they were previously, and draft-pick penalties that are also worse than before. The thresholds were flat from 2011 to ’13, when the U.S. was recovering from a recession. The league, coming off two seasons of lower revenues because of the pandemic, believes its current position is comparable. But as the sport recovers, the central question for the union will be whether the thresholds are growing at a comparable rate to revenues overall. Brighter days should be ahead for the industry, even with the decline of the regional sports network model presenting another potential hit for the owners. In these negotiations, the league is seeking to boost revenue in a number of other ways. Its requests include expanded playoffs, advertising patches on uniforms and an increase in the number of special events domestically and internationally. Legalized gambling offers meaningful potential. And eventually, the league also plans to expand by two clubs, and commissioner Rob Manfred has said the fees for each could be in the range of $2.2 billion. One reason baseball has greater payroll disparity than any other sport is that it operates without a salary cap and floor. The league says a dramatic increase in the thresholds will lead to less parity. Yet under the luxury-tax system, baseball has produced eight different champions the past eight seasons. Only one, the 2015 Royals, was a lower-revenue team. But go back further, and 15 different teams have won the World Series in the past 21 years. And the Rays, one of the lowest-revenue teams, have been the runner-up twice. The almighty NFL, which has less payroll disparity? Before the Bengals’ upset of the Chiefs on Sunday, four quarterbacks — Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger and Patrick Mahomes — had led the AFC entrant in 18 of the past 20 Super Bowls. Brady also had led an NFC team to a Super Bowl. In the NBA, another salary-cap league, five teams — the Lakers, Warriors, Cavaliers, Heat and Spurs — have won 18 of the last 23 titles. The threshold in baseball was intended to slow down the spending of teams like the Yankees and Dodgers, prevent them from signing all the biggest stars. Instead, it has served as a de facto cap for some clubs, helping limit salary growth. Therein lies the union’s concern.
Draft lottery The league, by acquiescing to a lottery, is acknowledging for the first time that tanking is a problem. The question is, what will fix it? Both sides would include all non-playoff teams in a lottery. The league wants only the top three picks in play. The union wants the top eight. And while that number probably is negotiable, the bigger fight might be over the union’s desire to reward additional picks to teams that reach certain levels of performance. The league wants no part of such a plan. Under the union proposal, smaller-market teams that make the postseason would receive a draft pick right before Competitive Balance Round A. Smaller-market teams that finish with at least a .500 record would receive a draft pick right before Competitive Balance Round B. The union, in an effort to further incentivize competition, also would remove from the lottery small-market teams that finish in the bottom four the previous two seasons and large-market teams that finish in the bottom eight. The league previously has awarded picks on the basis of market size. The competitive balance rounds, implemented in the 2012 CBA, exist to benefit the 10 lowest-revenue clubs and the 10 from the smallest markets (fewer than 20 teams are in the mix each year; some clubs qualify under both criteria). When it comes to the lottery, the league is not interested in awarding additional picks to such clubs. Prohibiting a team from participating three years in a row would provide a further deterrent to tanking, in the league’s view. Still, if the goal is to incentivize competition, why not do more? Under the league’s plan, the team with the worst record in the sport would be guaranteed no worse than the fourth pick in the next year’s draft. And small-market teams that compete successfully would go without reward. Service-time manipulation By keeping top young players in the minors longer, clubs can gain an extra year of control over them before they reach free agency. As with the pre-arb pool and the draft lottery, the league is at least willing for the first time to address a union concern that involves competitive integrity. But there is no simple way to address the issue, and the parties again are far apart in their respective proposals. The union plan would award a full year of service to rookies who finish in the top five in their league for Rookie of the Year, top three for reliever of the year and/or make first- or second-team All-MLB. Non-outfielders and non-pitchers who place top 10 at their positions in their respective leagues according to an average of bWAR and fWAR also would qualify, as would starting pitchers, relief pitchers and outfielders who place top 30. A player who performs well enough to achieve any of those distinctions, in the union’s estimation, is worthy of a year’s service. MLB, on the other hand, says the union proposal would reward far too broad a group of players, and also contains other flaws. The league’s plan is to motivate teams to promote top prospects through another method — the awarding of a draft pick. The incentive only would apply to a player who enters the season as a top 100 prospect according to a mutually agreed-upon definition, then achieves a full year of service and is a top-three finisher in the Rookie of the Year or top-five finisher in the Cy Young or MVP voting in any of his first three seasons. Under that plan, the league asserts the Blue Jays would have been incentivized to call up Guerrero on Opening Day of his rookie year instead of in late April. Guerrero was not dominant his first two seasons, but would have produced the draft pick by finishing second for AL MVP in his third. The selection would come after the first round in either the domestic or international draft, the latter being a presumption on the league’s part. The union is unlikely to agree to an international draft unless it is part of a significant tradeoff. In any case, the union does not think a draft pick would actually incentivize teams, believing clubs would put a greater dollar value on an extra year of control for a top player, such as Kris Bryant, than the value of the pick they’d receive if they promoted him, which could be no higher than 31st overall. Such is the state of the discussions. The players want significant change, and the owners largely want to maintain the status quo. The league suggests it is responding to the union on multiple fronts while also yielding on two elements the players have long desired, the universal DH and elimination of draft-pick compensation for free agents. The union sees the league’s proposal of a $10 million pre-arb pool as its only meaningful financial offer even as owners simultaneously ask for lucrative gains such as expanded playoffs and advertising patches on uniforms. A new CBA is not close.
NFL is having arguably one of the greatest postseasons of all time while the MLB is taking a dump on itself.
