SO, now that an agreement has been reached and teams are preparing for a season, the thing a lot of us feared is happening. The owners did not negotiate in good faith. They finally got the players to break on greatly reduced salaries based on a full season of no fans. Now, Manfred and some owners (Hal Steinbrenner among them) are talking about their plans to have fans in the stands at somewhere between 20-30% capacity. No details on when they are thinking of proceeding, and it is not even definite. But, the owners prove once again in MLB they are not to be trusted and they still refuse to open their books.
I'm not a player, so this obviously doesn't impact me. I also am highly unlikely to attend any games this year, especially not at regular prices. This still bothers me, primarily because if this was their plan all along, negotiations would have been different and potentially more amenable to the players, meaning a longer season may have been possible.
Hell, Mike Trout came out earlier today & didn't seem like he was all that physed about playing this year.
This
@ZekeJMiller
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3m
NEW YORK (AP) — MLB has 38 positive COVID-19 tests as training resumes; 31 players and 7 staff among 19 teams.
Owners could fill the stands and players still getting fair deal.
Delete this thread.
Owners could fill the stands and players still getting fair deal.
Owners have no risk either unless baseball never restarts ever again. Their franchise value growth has far exceeded player salary growth over the years. One down year isn't going to change that. Hell, the Mets are being sold in the middle of a pandemic and attracting buyers.
Delete this thread.
Yup. This whole thing is really strange, no idea why the big bad owners are so evil in this and the players so innocent. Even some of the players think their end of the negotiations on behalf of the MLBPA were bullshit.
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Players getting 100% for number of games played. Owners aren’t which is a big loss of income. Owners have all the risk. Few folks in the stand doesn’t move the needle really at all.
Owners could fill the stands and players still getting fair deal.
Owners have no risk either unless baseball never restarts ever again. Their franchise value growth has far exceeded player salary growth over the years. One down year isn't going to change that. Hell, the Mets are being sold in the middle of a pandemic and attracting buyers.
Owners have plenty of risk. Thousands of their employees aren’t working and they are losing money. This isn’t a “down year”, billions are being lost.
I won't predict how that grievance will be resolved, but I would be very surprised if the Players do not pursue it.
I won't predict how that grievance will be resolved, but I would be very surprised if the Players do not pursue it.
the owners have the medical experts on there side in the amount of games so very likely anything comes of this except maybe the owners give the players something in the next cba
I feel like it will be up to the municipalities not the teams and the commissioner per se.
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For those two weeks either. Ya got nothing fellow.
Delete this thread.
Yup. This whole thing is really strange, no idea why the big bad owners are so evil in this and the players so innocent. Even some of the players think their end of the negotiations on behalf of the MLBPA were bullshit.
The MLB as structured can’t operate like other leagues and there’s no rule saying the salaries need to increase with profits.
Unless it’s public unions or the MTA.....
It’s a tough issue - if the owners rallying cry to the players was we can only do 60 games not 70 which was the players final offer because there aren’t fans and we’ll lose all this money ... then 10 days later even in the face of higher case totals than consensus thought (apparently we may be overstating cases based on changes in CDC guidelines I read yesterday but I haven’t fact checked this enough)... they are now planning fans ... that’s a dishonest slap in the face right?
And to those above who said the players didn’t take paycuts - they didn’t sign contracts for games paid. They paid for annual compensation - they are still playing and have all that ‘education’ to play at this level and all that training ... for annual compensation at 37 cents on the dollar.
Put yourself in their shoes - your worth is X.. you are working this year at 37 cents of that. I’m sure you’d be pleased.
Point is it’s a fair thread because the argument for 60 not 70 games we were led to believe was no fans and other crying about lack of revenue ... now that appears to be bull shit
The players wanted 70 games (their first offer was 110 games or so). Owners said 60 because of the news we all read and my understanding is - no fans. That still may be the case but if 10 days later on worse news than we thought on cases and hospitalizations....There may be more revenue On dishonest negotiations for owners now ... I get the problem.
Also don’t understand this 100% of pay point. Do you think of your job in terms of annual salary or are you hourly? I’ve never heard of gerrit coles contract in the past based on games started... it was a dollar amount For number of years service
@ZekeJMiller
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3m
NEW YORK (AP) — MLB has 38 positive COVID-19 tests as training resumes; 31 players and 7 staff among 19 teams.
Did you think because they are moving on with plans for a season, infections would cease?
Better yet, do you think MLB is naive enough to believe there would be no infections and have and have no plan to proceed if there are?
I don’t get the point of your post.
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Zeke Miller
@ZekeJMiller
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3m
NEW YORK (AP) — MLB has 38 positive COVID-19 tests as training resumes; 31 players and 7 staff among 19 teams.
Did you think because they are moving on with plans for a season, infections would cease?
Better yet, do you think MLB is naive enough to believe there would be no infections and have and have no plan to proceed if there are?
I don’t get the point of your post.
The point of his post was a tweet about current positive tests. Those positive tests mean they have to quarantine. And then hopefully join the team in 2 weeks. COVID is going to be major news for the foreseeable future, shrugging it off as nothing like you are doing doesn’t make much sense.
It’s fine if you don’t think anything bad is going to happen to the players but many others aren’t as dismissive about.
And everyone needs to understand that how we respond to COVID today is going to be different than 60 or even 30 days from now. I can easily see a test run with no fans for the first few weeks of games and then easing into a 25% capacity, etc. Meanwhile the players are getting their per game salary in full no matter what.
Seems pretty fair to me.
All this shows is how facile it was for the owners to cry poverty trying to make the players take significantly less than their already prorated salaries. They were trying to punt all of the risk while also retaining any possible upside.
And everyone needs to understand that how we respond to COVID today is going to be different than 60 or even 30 days from now. I can easily see a test run with no fans for the first few weeks of games and then easing into a 25% capacity, etc. Meanwhile the players are getting their per game salary in full no matter what.
Seems pretty fair to me.
Understood all that. The point is during negotiations owners told players we can only afford 60 games because there won’t be fans ... the player sign and then a week later the owners say they’ll have fans. You don’t think that is dishonest bad faith negotiation?
Keep in mind you are clearly more man of the people than me and I’m a numbers, somewhat callous individual which makes this debate a little more fascinating to me... haha
Happy 4th everyone by the way (serious)
If the players are taken aback by this then they don’t understand it’s all a business. My guess is, fans are making this a bigger deal than it is.
And like I said earlier the negotiations started when this was still a brand new pandemic. Things are going to change leading up to the new opening day date and will afterward as well.
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the prorated salary matters because it’s in full on a per game basis while the owners are losing out on ticket sales for every game with no fans which typically counts for over 30% of total revenue.
And everyone needs to understand that how we respond to COVID today is going to be different than 60 or even 30 days from now. I can easily see a test run with no fans for the first few weeks of games and then easing into a 25% capacity, etc. Meanwhile the players are getting their per game salary in full no matter what.
Seems pretty fair to me.
Understood all that. The point is during negotiations owners told players we can only afford 60 games because there won’t be fans ... the player sign and then a week later the owners say they’ll have fans. You don’t think that is dishonest bad faith negotiation?
Keep in mind you are clearly more man of the people than me and I’m a numbers, somewhat callous individual which makes this debate a little more fascinating to me... haha
Happy 4th everyone by the way (serious)
The farce in the discussions was the owners crying helpless poverty when there were 2 exceedingly public and obvious contradictions to that - rapidly increasing franchise valuations and that the larger chunk of revenue comes from TV/digital (not attendance). The owners trying to find ways to allow fans right now is completely understandable, it just highlights how ridiculous it was of them to ask the players to take pay cuts without upside (rev sharing).
This was an exercise in futility from the beginning. A distraction.
Just like doing a half ass job of quarantining the country and then reopening to early. We saw how that has worked out. Ooops, everybody go back inside... gotta re-quarantine everybody. Bob, Sue, Nigel, Karen and 84million others weren't wearing a mask.
Trout might not play.
Most teams are discovering a few players on each team are Covid positive. And then handfuls are starting to opt out. We're not even into any competitive summer training play yet.
Before we're out of that, you're going to see quite a few more opt out. Get infected. Talk of fans is just another distraction.
2020 is f'd. The ocean tried to wipe me off the land this weekend lol. High tide high surf full moon my ass. 2020 is the beginning of the end. Where's my sign board???
At this point, it doesn't even matter because I am becoming more and more pessimistic a season will even happen. And, with the infections we are seeing in MLB camps, I am becoming more pessimistic for an NFL season as well.
This was an exercise in futility from the beginning. A distraction.
Just like doing a half ass job of quarantining the country and then reopening to early. We saw how that has worked out. Ooops, everybody go back inside... gotta re-quarantine everybody. Bob, Sue, Nigel, Karen and 84million others weren't wearing a mask.
Trout might not play.
Most teams are discovering a few players on each team are Covid positive. And then handfuls are starting to opt out. We're not even into any competitive summer training play yet.
Before we're out of that, you're going to see quite a few more opt out. Get infected. Talk of fans is just another distraction.
2020 is f'd. The ocean tried to wipe me off the land this weekend lol. High tide high surf full moon my ass. 2020 is the beginning of the end. Where's my sign board???
Incompetent asshole. Seriously you are a dumb fuck.
This was an exercise in futility from the beginning. A distraction.
Just like doing a half ass job of quarantining the country and then reopening to early. We saw how that has worked out. Ooops, everybody go back inside... gotta re-quarantine everybody. Bob, Sue, Nigel, Karen and 84million others weren't wearing a mask.
Trout might not play.
Most teams are discovering a few players on each team are Covid positive. And then handfuls are starting to opt out. We're not even into any competitive summer training play yet.
Before we're out of that, you're going to see quite a few more opt out. Get infected. Talk of fans is just another distraction.
2020 is f'd. The ocean tried to wipe me off the land this weekend lol. High tide high surf full moon my ass. 2020 is the beginning of the end. Where's my sign board???
sunday is the deadline to opt out