That’s two minutes I’ll never get back.
I would not read that if you paid me.
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To be honest…I didn’t either.
For those of you smarter than I, which is most of you, what are the issues which may lead to a work stoppage?
My understanding is the players’ biggest gripes right now are 1) they want a larger slice of the revenue, 2) they want an end to teams tanking to rebuild, and 3) they want an end to clubs manipulating service time to delay free agency. The owners want a salary cap. I’m sure there are others too. Most talking heads believe a work stoppage is inevitable, meaning at a minimum the free agent process is delayed.
I wonder what would happen if you floated a proposal of a salary cap in exchange for much shorter club control. That would have the effect of getting more and better players on the market, and possibly distributing the salaries more evenly. The stars will hate it because it will limit their ability to command $30MM salaries, but the rank-and-file would probably go for it because it gets them more money. It might also reduce the incentives to tank.
MLB made a proposal to address those issues this summer. It was massively favorable to the owners but I think the structure is interesting. On service time manipulation they proposed ditching the 6-year rule and setting free agency at age 29.5. They also proposed a $100M salary floor but with a luxury tax threshold $30M lower than the current one. You can guess how that went over. But the thing is, if you make the numbers a little fairer it is not a bad system. Maybe a younger age for free agency, a lower salary floor, and a higher luxury tax threshold to start things off. Pair that with a raise to the league minimum and they might be able to strike a deal.
Fights over a universal DH, pitch clocks etc. are mostly a sideshow. No idea if they’ll happen but that’s not where the real fight will be.
My WAG: they kick the can down the road again, nothing really changes, and the world keeps on turning.
The owners have already proposed a salary floor to help with the tanking problem, but they want some sort of a cap too, so they proposed a reduction in the luxury tax threshold with much greater penalties. The players have poo-pooed that. The players say they want a shorter service time requirement, but they also know that one of the keys to keeping salaries high is long-term deals and limiting the labor pool at any given time (ok, that’s two keys). Frankly, the players are running out of leverage at this point. One thing they may give in to is an international draft, which they’ve resisted up to this point. But the power balance this time seems to favor the owners.
Is either side acknowledging that the RSNs are struggling and TV revenue will could plummet in many markets?
The owners will want a harder, lower salary tax/cap, because they are “losing money”. The fact that this is laughably false doesn’t matter. Their first offer was to pair this with a salary floor, but the two figures came in such that there would be a massive decrease in overall salaries.
The players will want a shorter road to free agency, more roster spots, etc.
MLB is supposedly ready to roll out an in-market streaming option next year.
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That sounds tricky considering the RSN contracts?
Buster Posey retires.
HOF?
The recent HOF catchers Carter. Piazza, Rodriguez all played a ton more games than him, so maybe that will keep him borderline.But no one else represents those three World Series teams more than him.
Yes.
Where have you seen/heard that?
This article says it’d be 2023.
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So a family member found this photo recently, We’ve got lots of stories about LBJ but nobody can remember anything about a baseball team (or even owning an auto garage at all), I now have a new research project
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Was Criders’ Garage in Johnson City? There was a Criders’ Cafe.
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