MLB Hot Stove 2019-20

[MUBurrow]

Is being 27 an excuse for being inarticulate? Seems pretty old for that.

Maybe not an excuse, but its representative of the broader problem of judging labor disputes by how guys say things rather than the substance of what they say.  Snell, like a ton of MLBers, is a twenty-something that never went to college. When confronted with a pay cut on the heels of his first major pay day, he's not going to state his position as clearly as an owner or the league's PR machine will.  Or if he does, some of the other hundreds of guys just like him won't.  It doesn't undermine his or the players' position, or mean they are somehow more out of touch than the owners on the other side of the negotating table, its just a reality of trying to run PR for hundreds of young guys some of whom haven't had backgrounds that lend to giving great sound bites.  If we don't judge this stuff on a bit of a curve, the players will lose every time.

[wadesworld]

"At the end of the day?" LOL.

I've read what Snell said about "the 'rona" and "gettin' his".

Westwood's remarks were well reasoned, mature and thoughtful. Snell's were self centered and childish. Not the same at the end of any day.

Let me guess.  When the leader of our country comes out and says stupid garbage you're someone who says, "Don't worry about what he's saying.  He doesn't mean it literally."

[4everwarriors]

Is being 27 an excuse for being inarticulate? Seems pretty old for that.

Knot ann excuse, just factually speekin', da moron iz  simply an idiot, aina?

[Lennys Tap]

Let me guess.  When the leader of our country comes out and says stupid garbage you're someone who says, "Don't worry about what he's saying.  He doesn't mean it literally."

Wrong guess. When he says stupid garbage (which is pretty frequently) I call him out for saying stupid garbage. And when he says things sarcastically I take them as such. It's easy if you have an open mind and an ability to discern.

I don't even have to guess about you. The way you frame your post it's clear you take everything he says literally. That's unfortunate, but not surprising. Blind hatred eliminates any possibility for good judgement.

[wadesworld]

Wrong guess. When he says stupid garbage (which is pretty frequently) I call him out for saying stupid garbage. And when he says things sarcastically I take them as such. It's easy if you have an open mind and an ability to discern.

I don't even have to guess about you. The way you frame your post it's clear you take everything he says literally. That's unfortunate, but not surprising. Blind hatred eliminates any possibility for good judgement.

Let me guess. Him taking hydroxychloriquine is sarcasm?  Miracle disappearance of a deadly virus is sarcasm? 0 cases by April is sarcasm? Country opened up by Easter is sarcasm? All of this followed by him calling this a pandemic before it was labeled a pandemic...sarcasm too? Everyone who wants a test can have a test...sarcasm?

No blind hatred. Just calling a terrible "leader" what he is.

Snell's comments are so tone deaf that the rest of baseball really seems thrilled and anxious to jump all in on the proposal the owners put through.  Snell vs. the world.

[4everwarriors]

Ewe fourgot won, Fol. Oh, and you can keep your own doctor, aina?

[Lennys Tap]

Let me guess. Him taking hydroxychloriquine is sarcasm?  Miracle disappearance of a deadly virus is sarcasm? 0 cases by April is sarcasm? Country opened up by Easter is sarcasm? All of this followed by him calling this a pandemic before it was labeled a pandemic...sarcasm too? Everyone who wants a test can have a test...sarcasm?

You're a very bad guesser. I suggest you stay away from bookies and Vegas.

[MUBurrow]

Meant to post this over the weekend - long article from Passan about the status of the labor discussions: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29207203/the-clock-ticking-2020-mlb-season-talks-here-make-deal-work-fall-apart

[The Sultan]

If I'm a player I'm voting a hard no on this.

https://twitter.com/danwolken/status/1265444554200809479?s=21

If I'm a star player and this passes, I'm not playing.

[wadesworld]

If I'm a player I'm voting a hard no on this.

https://twitter.com/danwolken/status/1265444554200809479?s=21

If I'm a star player and this passes, I'm not playing.

Yeah no kidding. The original plan was bad enough. This just got worse.

[Dish]

The upcoming MLB draft has real potential to be a complete $hitshow. If you're on the fence if whether or not the team you root for is in financial trouble, just watch what they do at the draft. I firmly believe there will be multiple teams that have no intention of signing their picks. And this is only a five round draft.

[Spotcheck Billy]

If I'm a player I'm voting a hard no on this.

https://twitter.com/danwolken/status/1265444554200809479?s=21

If I'm a star player and this passes, I'm not playing.

What can the owners do?

Attanasio paints a grim financial picture in today's paper:

"The industry has approximately $9.4 billion in revenue, so for a round number let's say it's $10 billion," Attanasio said. "If we only play half a season, that revenue is only $5 billion. And 40% of that revenue is live-gate-related so if you play without fans, you take away $2 billion and now you're down to $3 billion. The exact number that's been calculated by the league office if we play 81 games without fans is $2.85 billion dollars.

"In a sport that has $10 billion in revenue, we have very little cash flow on an aggregate basis – $300 million or less. Of the $10 billion, half goes to the players and the other half goes to staging the games. Whether it's the folks who work for teams, the travel, anything that goes into running an organization or staging a game.

The players, who normally earn $5 billion a year in aggregate will earn half of that. So, if they get their normal rate of pay, that's $2.5 billion. But we just described that we'll earn just under $3 billion if we played this year with fans so that's almost 90% of revenues going to pay the players, who are only getting half of what their contract said they should have gotten."

[The Sultan]

I don't really weep for owners who have no problem pocketing all of the upside benefits of being an owner, but then are asking their employees to participate in the downside. 

They may just have to operate <gasp> at a loss!!! 

Or, in exchange for players taking a cut  this season, pay them back their pro-rata share over the next five seasons - with interest.

[buckchuckler]

The upcoming MLB draft has real potential to be a complete $hitshow. If you're on the fence if whether or not the team you root for is in financial trouble, just watch what they do at the draft. I firmly believe there will be multiple teams that have no intention of signing their picks. And this is only a five round draft.

Could be wrong on this, but I believe that I read that the bonuses for this years drafts will basically be deferred payments over the next 2 years.

[Jockey]

I don't really weep for owners who have no problem pocketing all of the upside benefits of being an owner, but then are asking their employees to participate in the downside. 

They may just have to operate <gasp> at a loss!!! 

Or, in exchange for players taking a cut  this season, pay them back their pro-rata share over the next five seasons - with interest.

Worst of all, they are asking big contract players to fund guys at the lower end of the spectrum. For example, their offer means Mike Trout would only make about $5.7 mil of his $34 million contract for half a season.

Add in the salary cap in their offer and the players are really getting screwed.

[BrewCity83]

If there's going to be a 2020 season, the owners are probably going to have to operate at a loss for this season and the players are probably going to have to agree to play for *gasp* less than half of their normal salaries.  There's a lot of posturing going on right now, but I suspect they'll get it hammered out within the next week or so.  There's too much money at stake.  Everybody's going to "lose money", but why would a guy like Trout not play for an amount like $7 million?  Would he rather sit home and get nothing?  I wouldn't.

[Jockey]

If there's going to be a 2020 season, the owners are probably going to have to operate at a loss for this season and the players are probably going to have to agree to play for *gasp* less than half of their normal salaries.  There's a lot of posturing going on right now, but I suspect they'll get it hammered out within the next week or so.  There's too much money at stake.  Everybody's going to "lose money", but why would a guy like Trout not play for an amount like $7 million?  Would he rather sit home and get nothing?  I wouldn't.

Owners refused to share a percentage of their massive profits over the last 20 years. Now they face one year of losing money and expect players to share the burden

On top of that, they are looking to use covid as a way to institute a salary cap.

[buckchuckler]

Owners refused to share a percentage of their massive profits over the last 20 years. Now they face one year of losing money and expect players to share the burden

This doesn't seem accurate to me.  Player salaries have continued to rise, there are a dozen guys that would have made over 30 million this season, 47 over 20 million and about 100 at 15 million.  They don't split revenue, but the players have never wanted that. 

The owners offers haven't seemed great, but if you're in a contract negotiation and the opposing side accepts your first offer, you did something terribly wrong.  As ManeCity said, both sides are going to have to take a hit here, just like the rest of the country.  The owners are probably going to lose some money, or at least not make much at all.  The players are going to have to give a little and see that the situation has changed since March.  If there isn't a season, because the sides couldn't get together on the money side, I think it could be catastrophic for the game.

[#UnleashSean]

In a world where people making 80k have had salaries cut by as much as 30%, it's pretty hard to have my heart bleed for a millionaire playing baseball.

[🏀]

In a world where people making 80k have had salaries cut by as much as 30%, it's pretty hard to have my heart bleed for a millionaire playing baseball.

And the billionaire owners trying to cut salaries further for more profit?

[#UnleashSean]

And the billionaire owners trying to cut salaries further for more profit?

In today's world, I have no sympathy for billionaires fighting with millionaires.

[MU82]

At this point, how many people even would miss baseball this year?

That's what both sides need to be worried about. Folks have a lot of other problems than "will there be baseball" right now. And if basketball and football start back up, baseball will only have been missed by its hard-core fans.

As UJ said, most Americans have very little sympathy for either side, nor should they.

[The Sultan]

I will miss having baseball games on in the summer evenings in the summer.  But I missed the NCAA tournament, the "normal" NHL and NBA playoffs, etc.  It would just be another on my list.

[wadesworld]

Scherzer tone deaf.

[The Sultan]

Maybe.  But I agree with him.