Let's assume there will be < 60 game regular season

CrimsonCowboy said:
[TW]1273331814480912384[/TW]
Click to expand...

At this point you hate to complicate things further, but if you split the divisions up the right way, there's not a whole lot of reasons that couldn't be 70 games in 70 days if you're expanding the rosters. We're talking about 10 weeks with 6 games each. If you eliminate the coast-to-coast travel, why not have one doubleheader day each week?

A pretty interesting take on this whole mess has been the one that Ryan Spilborghs has been spouting off about the whole time. The owners only wanted to spend X number of dollars on salaries regardless of the length of season. The players didn't want to take less than full prorated salaries. If that's the case and what pushed this over the finish line turns out to be owners giving 10 extra regular season games at full salary, this is one of the stupidest things they've EVER argued over. He did the math on XM a few minutes ago and showed that the 10 extra games with full pay works out to be the same total as the 80 games at 80% that the owners proposed in the first place.

In essence, the players aren't getting a dime more salary-wise than they'd been offered to begin with. The owners will certainly be better off with the expanded playoffs though - assuming they're played.
 
clvclv said:
At this point you hate to complicate things further, but if you split the divisions up the right way, there's not a whole lot of reasons that couldn't be 70 games in 70 days if you're expanding the rosters. We're talking about 10 weeks with 6 games each. If you eliminate the coast-to-coast travel, why not have one doubleheader day each week?

A pretty interesting take on this whole mess has been the one that Ryan Spilborghs has been spouting off about the whole time. The owners only wanted to spend X number of dollars on salaries regardless of the length of season. The players didn't want to take less than full prorated salaries. If that's the case and what pushed this over the finish line turns out to be owners giving 10 extra regular season games at full salary, this is one of the stupidest things they've EVER argued over. He did the math on XM a few minutes ago and showed that the 10 extra games with full pay works out to be the same total as the 80 games at 80% that the owners proposed in the first place.
Click to expand...

That's not actually what the owners were offering, though—initially, or later.

clvclv said:
In essence, the players aren't getting a dime more salary-wise than they'd been offered to begin with. The owners will certainly be better off with the expanded playoffs though - assuming they're played.
Click to expand...

Just flatly untrue. Craig Edwards has broken this down at Fangraphs, with the following helpful table:

Salaries Under MLB Plans vs. 54-Game Pro-Rated Pay
[table="width: 500, class: grid, align: left"]

[tr]
[td]Playoff Scenario[/td]
[td]Sliding-Scale Salary Cut (82 G)[/td]
[td]50%/75% Pro-rated (76 G)[/td]
[td]70%/80% Pro-Rated (72 G)[/td]
[td]54-G Pro-Rated[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]No Playoffs[/td]
[td]$1.03 B[/td]
[td]$0.99 B[/td]
[td]$1.27 B[/td]
[td]$1.36 B[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]With Playoffs[/td]
[td]$1.23 B[/td]
[td]$1.44 B[/td]
[td]$1.50 B[/td]
[td]$1.36 B[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

As you can see, relative to MLB's official initial proposal, even 54 games at full pro rata is financially superior (playoffs or no playoffs); 60+ plus games at full pro rata would be, well, even more superior. Moreover, unlike the second and third proposals from MLB (which are only financially superior if the playoffs are staged, meaning the players absorb substantial downside risk in the event they cannot be staged), this "framework towards an accord" doesn't trade more games for the potential of a return, but just straight-up pays the players, per game, for playing more games ... which, coincidentally, is exactly what the players have maintained they want this whole time.

Ultimately, I think we may get slightly more than 60 games—maybe back up to the 72 that's been floated previously—because the real sledgehammer MLBPA has been wielding is the threat of a grievance, which could (and would) have been filed with a shorter, imposed season (like the 48- or 54-game option) or in the event of a cancellation. I think ownership believes both (a) there's a non-trivial chance the union would win that grievance, and (b) disclosure of financial documents from teams would've meant a win for the union (in light of the looming CBA renegotiation) even if they lost the grievance.
 
Given that it's been discussed as an inevitability for the past few years, I'm sort of glad they're finally ripping that band-aid off.

On the other hand, it would've been nice to have that knowledge incorporate into the offseason plan. Or maybe it was: that's one way to invent some logic for the Markakis re-signing.
 
CrimsonCowboy said:
[TW]1273397692560019464[/TW]
Click to expand...

This is what the owners actually negotiating looks like.

I'm guessing that the grievance-threat really was as heavy a cudgel as it looked like, and the owners realized the players were in a pretty good position to swing it.
 
jpx7 said:
That's not actually what the owners were offering, though—initially, or later.



Just flatly untrue. Craig Edwards has broken this down at Fangraphs, with the following helpful table:

Salaries Under MLB Plans vs. 54-Game Pro-Rated Pay
[table="width: 500, class: grid, align: left"]

[tr]
[td]Playoff Scenario[/td]
[td]Sliding-Scale Salary Cut (82 G)[/td]
[td]50%/75% Pro-rated (76 G)[/td]
[td]70%/80% Pro-Rated (72 G)[/td]
[td]54-G Pro-Rated[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]No Playoffs[/td]
[td]$1.03 B[/td]
[td]$0.99 B[/td]
[td]$1.27 B[/td]
[td]$1.36 B[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]With Playoffs[/td]
[td]$1.23 B[/td]
[td]$1.44 B[/td]
[td]$1.50 B[/td]
[td]$1.36 B[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

As you can see, relative to MLB's official initial proposal, even 54 games at full pro rata is financially superior (playoffs or no playoffs); 60+ plus games at full pro rata would be, well, even more superior. Moreover, unlike the second and third proposals from MLB (which are only financially superior if the playoffs are staged, meaning the players absorb substantial downside risk in the event they cannot be staged), this "framework towards an accord" doesn't trade more games for the potential of a return, but just straight-up pays the players, per game, for playing more games ... which, coincidentally, is exactly what the players have maintained they want this whole time.

Ultimately, I think we may get slightly more than 60 games—maybe back up to the 72 that's been floated previously—because the real sledgehammer MLBPA has been wielding is the threat of a grievance, which could (and would) have been filed with a shorter, imposed season (like the 48- or 54-game option) or in the event of a cancellation. I think ownership believes both (a) there's a non-trivial chance the union would win that grievance, and (b) disclosure of financial documents from teams would've meant a win for the union (in light of the looming CBA renegotiation) even if they lost the grievance.
Click to expand...

There's little doubt (for me anyway) that the big deal for the owners is eliminating the grievance. Overall though, I don't think the financial "gains" were worth the fight for the players. They've more or less given up having the DH involved in the CBA negotiations as well as (and maybe more importantly) having the expanded playoffs as something they could use as a "throw-in" to help get other things they want when those talks start - once fans get a taste of expanded playoffs, do you really think there's any going back?

The case may very well be that they were OK with those situations anyway, which is fine - but you'd think they'd have been sure to mention that if this is just a situational concession that would have been mentioned.
 
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