Home Uncategorized CBA Madness, Phase II (The Owners Strike Back)

CBA Madness, Phase II (The Owners Strike Back)

By
Rice Cube
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72

OK, so the other day we saw MLBPA’s initial proposal, and today whilst I was toiling in the dungeon, MLB put forth their counter offer:

  • $171.2MM minimum payroll, though that includes the player benefits which seems kind of shady
  • $245.3MM hard cap, which is barely over the current first tier luxury tax threshold
  • 50-50 split of league revenues between owners and players

Those are the main details that have been released so far, and it’s good they did this six months before the expiration of the CBA so there will be plenty of time to haggle over stuff. As said before, the owners are really stumping for that salary cap, and the players are trying to avoid it at all costs. So we will see!

72 COMMENTS

  1. I am reminded that I dreamt this morning before reluctantly going to work that for whatever reason AC and I went to an Asian restaurant and ordered udon, only he got his udon and someone had absconded with mine while I was in the restroom. I don’t know why this was dreamt.

    Anyway, here’s hoping the owners don’t abscond with all the udon.

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  2. Relevant to continuing the discussion now that we have two bookends to work with

    BVS:
    So the union has realized that most of it’s members don’t make $30M/yr. Good for them. I like the approach that supports younger players.

    Raise the minimum salary to $1.5MM,Expand pre-arbitration bonus pool to $180MM
    Increase the Super Two pool from to 44%

    I guess all these will be negotiated down. $1.2/$100/30%

    $3MM minimum arbitration salary

    That will boost the price of relief pitching for sure. My guess is that the many more players will not be offered arb at this rate and will then be forced to sign smaller than $3M contracts right before spring training. Though I guess it isn’t that much more than the $1.5M minimum after 3 years.

    Drop the service time needed for free agency to five years for players who are 30+ years old, …

    This seems fair, considering how brief careers are after 30. If it stays, I bet it ends up at 31.

    Increase the competitive balance tax threshold from $244MM to $300MM

    With new salary minimum requests, they’ve added about $15M already to pre FA players. Small markets won’t go for this. I bet this is negotiated to about 260.

    I’d rather they exempt all players that came up thru a club’s minor league system (no more than 15 days at AAA elsewhere or something) from the Comp Bal tax and then lower the threshold to $120M. So your young guys don’t count against your tax, and your stars that you sign long term don’t either. That’s good for fans and players and teams, unless they suck at player development. You can still sign a couple big FAs and some midlevel guys before incurring the tax. Or 2 Ohtanis.

    Remove non-monetary penalties such as the forfeiture of draft picks

    I’m for this if no draft picks can be traded.

    Restructure draft lottery, reduce service time manipulation, competitive integrity tax, make sure small market teams revenue sharing use it on payroll.

    Yes yes yes

    I think this is a reasonable open by players.

    Owners should ask for some concessions on injured player salaries in the tax structure. Other than that, screw em, they make plenty. Owners will definitely ask for expanded playoffs to which I say No. No team that doesn’t win at least 82 games should be in the playoffs. What’s the point of a regular season if half the teams get into the playoffs? So no 4-team divisions after expansion.

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  6. To-day’s base ball squadron facing Adrian Pallante

    CF PCA
    2B Hoerner
    1B Busch
    3B Bregman
    LF Happ
    RF Suzuki
    DH Conforto
    C Kelly
    SS Swanson

    SP Imanaga

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  20. When a guy makes $45 mil a year to play baseball, it’s easy to think that’s crazy. And honestly, that is crazy. And when you have to pay $75 for a nosebleed seat it’s easy to yo channel that frustration into the publicly known parts of MLB economics, which is player salaries. But that’s where the owner’s have done an amazing job for themselves, because no one says, with today’s crowd of 30,000 people, the team has taken in $6,000,000 ($200 avg/person for tix, food, souvenirs seems reasonable) plus additional per game revenue from ads and broadcast of whatever ($10,000,000?). So in three games our revenue pays for MegaStar.

    If you had a job at a company that was making money hand over fist and they said, we’ll never pay our “team” more than $x, no matter how good you are, would you stay there?

    That said, $45M is pretty crazy. And as a fan I’m super annoyed that Dodgers can do this and only a few other teams can match it. So I’m in favor of some sort sort of upper limits that allow other teams to keep their stars. I like the idea that homegrown stars are exempt from salary cap, but teams signing other players have a cap for FA signings. So when Cade Horton breaks out instead of breaking down, we can sign him for $45M, with no cap hit. But if the Dodgers want him for $50M then that counts against their cap. Of course, no one listens to me. 😄

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  22. From Passan at RCs link above

    the union believes that a salary cap is not necessary for competitive balance. With potential bonanzas from national and local television contracts coming after the 2028 season, the league could receive a game-changing cash influx — particularly if owners are willing to equally split all TV money, as the NFL does. Although revenue sharing is collectively bargained and must be approved by the players, they argue that they don’t need to limit their ability to earn money for the owners to share revenue. They regard the two issues as independent, even if they do fall under the same collective bargaining agreement umbrella.

    Yup

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  28. I just noticed that Yohendrick Piñango, who we traded to Toronto for Nate Pearson, is in the bigs. 28 games, .277/.318/.716

    Iirc, he played 3B poorly at Myrtle Beach. He’s in the OF now. I’m surprised he’s in the bigs, but good for him.

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  34. BVS,

    The part about the Dodgers is especially egregious in my estimation because an uber-wealthy individual (Ohtani) is conspiring with the owners to create a loophole to circumvent the CBA. At that point, I no longer see it as pro-labor to support Ohtani’s stake in this. That dude is corporate and structured his contract on the strength of his wealth. It’s bullshit.

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  37. andcounting,

    I can listen to Pat and Ron on MLBtv but they are about 2 pitches ahead of the video.

    Which is good if I’m multitasking, so I know when to look up, but I’m just on the couch right now.

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  57. Hitting a homer into the specific section of fans that is taunting you is a deleted scene from The Natural.

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