Official CBA Negotiation Thread

Enscheff said:
The average American sees an owner as some talented business person who earned everything they have, and players as guys getting paid to play a game.

Most people fail to realize the wealth generated by any organization isn’t split fairly amongst the leadership and the labor, which is mind boggling because the vast majority of people belong to that labor group. Yet somehow they have allowed themselves to be fooled into believing that some executive is truly worth millions upon millions of dollars because they’ve been tricked into believing the “market rate” for that position isn’t being defined by the people in those positions.
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I think I've asked you this before, but what do you think is a fair share for ownership? Not speaking specifically of baseball...just business in general.

In my industry, which is in no way as lucrative or otherwise similar to MLB, "labor" takes home about the same percentage of revenue as major league players (roughly 50%). Then you add taxes and insurance (about 18-20%), materials and equipment, facilities, automobiles and related expenses, and supervision costs, and we're looking at about 10%-15% profit if we keep these costs under control.

My only point in saying this is that many if not most look at that 50% number as if the players get half the money and the owners take the other half in profits, when that is not the case. They do have to pay all the other expenses of running a franchise, including management, facilities, scouting, and the minor leagues just to name a few.

This comes across as me being on the owners' side here when as I've said numerous times here, I'm not. Once ownership figured out the futility of paying aging free agents for the production they gave to their previous teams for essentially nothing, the system became grossly unfair to the labor side. But portraying owners (of most businesses) as money grabbers who add no value and take no risk is as unfair as calling the players who want a larger slice of the pie whiny babies who should be grateful they're paid to play a game for a living. Those who always take the side of labor are going to be wrong just about as often as those who always side with management.
 
The owners made what I consider to be fairly significant concessions that defined all the dials the players wanted defined, and it was then a matter of tuning those dials in a way to satisfy both sides. Nothing the players wanted other than reaching FA in less than 6 years was flatly denied.

As a result, the players dropped their central pool request from $105M to $100M. That was a waste of time to even make such a counter proposal.

This is not the fault of a single side. This is the result of rich people arguing over who gets to be richer, and by how much.
 
goldfly said:
Oddest mindset from people in America

Is that unions are bad lol
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Economics 101 states strong unions raise wages AND unemployment.

Here's a list of the latest unemployment rates by country:

USA- 4%
UK- 4.1%
Germany- 5.1%
Canada- 6.5%
France- 8.1%
Italy- 9%
Spain- 13.3%

I will let you guess which country is least unionized.

For a country as large and diverse as the US to have a 4% unemployment rate is bananas.

And the raw numbers are so large that the percentages are significant. 5% unemployment in the USA would mean 2 million fewer jobs.

So it's really not surprising that "unions are bad" is popular in the discourse.
 
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DirkPiggler said:
I think I've asked you this before, but what do you think is a fair share for ownership? Not speaking specifically of baseball...just business in general.

In my industry, which is in no way as lucrative or otherwise similar to MLB, "labor" takes home about the same percentage of revenue as major league players (roughly 50%). Then you add taxes and insurance (about 18-20%), materials and equipment, facilities, automobiles and related expenses, and supervision costs, and we're looking at about 10%-15% profit if we keep these costs under control.

My only point in saying this is that many if not most look at that 50% number as if the players get half the money and the owners take the other half in profits, when that is not the case. They do have to pay all the other expenses of running a franchise, including management, facilities, scouting, and the minor leagues just to name a few.

This comes across as me being on the owners' side here when as I've said numerous times here, I'm not. Once ownership figured out the futility of paying aging free agents for the production they gave to their previous teams for essentially nothing, the system became grossly unfair to the labor side. But portraying owners (of most businesses) as money grabbers who add no value and take no risk is as unfair as calling the players who want a larger slice of the pie whiny babies who should be grateful they're paid to play a game for a living. Those who always take the side of labor are going to be wrong just about as often as those who always side with management.
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I’m not claiming I have the answers, only that I can identify the problem. Some tech founder should not be so wealthy that he can fund his own NASA as a hobby. The executives of any company are not so valuable they should be pulling in millions upon millions because they sent jobs to areas with lower wages. Folks working in finance should not be earning fortunes while creating nothing of any real value other than digits on a screen.

The solutions are obviously going to be extremely complicated because the mechanics that got us to this point are extremely complicated. But the symptoms of the problem are easy to identify, which is why it’s so easy to blame the wrong person…as evidenced by a $40k per year laborer seeing the immigrant as the reason his wealth has stagnated.

I like to think about a thought experiment that simplifies the issue. It oversimplifies it, but I think it helps frame the problem. Suppose we started a self contained environment with 1000 people and it was ran as some sort of socialist utopia where each person consumed 1/1000 of the available resources while performing some job function that benefitted the group. Then, a really smart guy started created systems and processes to automate tasks. Suddenly, 10 people no longer had a job function. What happens then? Does the smart guy get 10x the “wealth” of the average person, while the other 10 scrape out a living consuming scraps in the waste disposal area? Do we call those 10 people lazy loser scumbags? Do we let those people become singers and writers and painters, and then complain when they still get 1/1000 of the resources?

That’s essentially what we’ve done now that 80% of labor is no longer used just to feed themselves. What do we do now that there’s no longer countless mindless jobs required to be done, but many many people who used to do them are still around? When a job that used to take 100 people now takes 10, what do the other 90 do now that the guy who obsoleted those 90 “deserves” all the additional wealth?
 
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Enscheff said:
I’m not claiming I have the answers, only that I can identify the problem. Some tech founder should not be so wealthy that he can fund his own NASA as a hobby. The executives of any company are not so valuable they should be pulling in millions upon millions because they sent jobs to areas with lower wages. Folks working in finance should not be earning fortunes while creating nothing of any real value other than digits on a screen.

The solutions are obviously going to be extremely complicated because the mechanics that got us to this point are extremely complicated. But the symptoms of the problem are easy to identify, which is why it’s so easy to blame the wrong person…as evidenced by a $40k per year laborer seeing the immigrant as the reason his wealth has stagnated.

I like to think about a thought experiment that simplifies the issue. It oversimplifies it, but I think it helps frame the problem. Suppose we started a self contained environment with 1000 people and it was ran as some sort of socialist utopia where each person consumed 1/1000 of the available resources while performing some job function that benefitted the group. Then, a really smart guy started created systems and processes to automate tasks. Suddenly, 10 people no longer had a job function. What happens then? Does the smart guy get 10x the “wealth” of the average person, while the other 10 scrape out a living consuming scraps in the waste disposal area? Do we call those 10 people lazy loser scumbags? Do we let those people become singers and writers and painters, and then complain when they still get 1/1000 of the resources?

That’s essentially what we’ve done now that 80% of labor is no longer used just to feed themselves. What do we do now that there’s no longer countless mindless jobs required to be done, but many many people who used to do them are still around? When a job that used to take 100 people now takes 10, what do the other 90 do now that the guy who obsoleted those 90 “deserves” all the additional wealth?
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Those people should just 'learn how to code'......
 
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clvclv said:
There is some "truth" in both of these statements - the problem is that society as a whole (including baseball fans) has become so polarized that they only read or see what they choose to, and this leads to discussions about whether you "side" with the players or owners turning into useless arguments. Picking a side makes it impossible to see the forest for the trees.

Goldfly's earlier statement that owners haven't made counterproposals is just factually wrong - they just haven't offered what the players are willing to accept. The owners have offered to...

1.) Raise the minimum salary.
2.) Create a pool to pay arbitration-eligible and pre-arb players substantially more money based on performance.
3.) Create a draft lottery in the hopes it will somehow limit tanking.
4.) Adopt the universal DH.
5.) Only expand the playoffs to 12 teams if that's as far as the players are willing to go.

As I mentioned some time back, that grouping of concessions is WORLDS better than what the players have received in the last two CBAs combined, yet apparently that's not enough. Even Enscheff admitted that that was a pretty good start and that while they probably needed to hash out just how much the minimum salary gets raised and just how big that performance pool becomes and how it's paid out, there should have been optimism because it looked like the owners weren't being completely unreasonable.

I could see a reply from the players saying that the pool for paying younger players that aren't eligible for free-agency shouldn't be finite - that's too much like a hard cap. I think that would be a legitimate point. Make it a sliding scale where those arb-eligible and pre-arb guys get rewarded a percentage more than their previous season's salary based on awards or a certain WAR production floor and you'd be onto something. Instead, the players simply said they weren't interested.

Am I "jealous" of someone who gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to play a game? *amn right I am, and anyone that says they're not is simply lying through their teeth - that's human nature. The statement I made about the owners being full of *hit was ignored because he wanted to paint me as "pro-ownership" - which I'm not. Reasonable people who haven't picked a side - mainly because it doesn't really affect them either way - are like me. Unfortunately today's political climate has made it almost impossible to attempt to be reasonable without being attacked by someone who has chosen a particular side.

The simple fact is that the only side that has been willing to negotiate thus far has been ownership - the players haven't budged one bit and looked for compromise at all. If they'd say - "You know what? If you're willing to raise the minimum salary to $700K, we'd be willing to reduce our demand for this or that." they'd be negotiating (giving up something to get something they want more for those who are confused about what negotiating means). They've just said "Nope - that won't work." and walked away from the table.
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1.) Raise the minimum salary.
Not by much

2.) Create a pool to pay arbitration-eligible and pre-arb players substantially more money based on performance.
5-10 million. Is that really a pool? Players are at 100.
Pool should be bigger than the allowance for their mistresses.

3.) Create a draft lottery in the hopes it will somehow limit tanking.
4.) Adopt the universal DH.
Both sides want this.

5.) Only expand the playoffs to 12 teams if that's as far as the players are willing to go.
More games without more money.

100 game season guys. Get ready for it.
 
Russ2dollas said:
1.) Raise the minimum salary.
Not by much

2.) Create a pool to pay arbitration-eligible and pre-arb players substantially more money based on performance.
5-10 million. Is that really a pool? Players are at 100.
Pool should be bigger than the allowance for their mistresses.

3.) Create a draft lottery in the hopes it will somehow limit tanking.
4.) Adopt the universal DH.
Both sides want this.

5.) Only expand the playoffs to 12 teams if that's as far as the players are willing to go.
More games without more money.

100 game season guys. Get ready for it.
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They have miles to go before anything will be agreed on - not sure who has said they're remotely close (or why you think I think they are).

The only "response" from the players' side is that they're willing to knock $5 million off of their previous demand of $110 million in that pool - otherwise, crickets. Only one side has made any sort of effort to negotiate so far, and unfortunately that's the owners - pretty tough to negotiate with empty chairs when the other side has gone home without offering counterproposals. You only need to look as far as the quotes from Scherzer, Harper, and Morton to realize the players aren't coming to the table with anything substantive until they think they have the extra leverage of camps being delayed and games being canceled. I'm personally not sure why that surprises anyone.

The players have complained for years that Spring Training is too long and that they only start so early because the teams like to bring prospects to camp to get a look at them against advanced competition. They'll continue dragging their feet into late February, and the quality of the product is going to suffer mightily when SPs can't go more than 3-4 innings when the season starts.
 
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Russ2dollas said:
1.) Raise the minimum salary.
Not by much

2.) Create a pool to pay arbitration-eligible and pre-arb players substantially more money based on performance.
5-10 million. Is that really a pool? Players are at 100.
Pool should be bigger than the allowance for their mistresses.

3.) Create a draft lottery in the hopes it will somehow limit tanking.
4.) Adopt the universal DH.
Both sides want this.

5.) Only expand the playoffs to 12 teams if that's as far as the players are willing to go.
More games without more money.

100 game season guys. Get ready for it.
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This is untrue. Players on playoff teams get a cut of playoff revenue.

I do agree with the rest...the concessions have been small. But at least they are willing to define the dials, so that's something I guess.
 
I just read that MLB would get like $100M extra for expanded playoffs. That doesn't seem like that big of a deal...

The Braves and Astros players split over $50M amongst the players for playoff pay, so $100M split over 30 teams doesn't seem like a huge amount.
 
The problem isn't someone coming up with a great idea to make most people's lives a little bit better, and therefore that person winds up earning more money than everyone else. The issue lies more with intelligent people taking advantage of government and free market corruption.
 
weso1 said:
The problem isn't someone coming up with a great idea to make most people's lives a little bit better, and therefore that person winds up earning more money than everyone else. The issue lies more with intelligent people taking advantage of government and free market corruption.
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Maybe we could make masks for those who are too beautiful, loud radios that disrupt thoughts inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic. We'd all be equal then.

I actually read a book. Are you guys impressed?
 
You know I never thought I would type these words 5-10 years ago but I literally don't care when baseball comes back. We won a championship and that's good enough for me. I am not on board with the rules changes, the worst being the cheapening of the regular season by adding teams to the playoffs. Maybe it's just me closing in on 50 years old, maybe not, but I know I won't live to see the next one should it take 25 years to get it.
 
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