During these dark winter days baseball’ minds wander to far off places. We pick up gauntlets tossed down by lesser writers, debate what World Series teams were the best of all time, and try to look ahead to spring. That being said, spring seems more distant this January than it has in recent memory. The Lockout has come but not gone.
Dollars over Sense
Baseball is a Ten Billion dollar a year business. Run by greed not a love of the game. For example look no further than the “ Fenway sports Group “ Run by John Henry. Which now controls The Red Sox – Liverpool FC – Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing and the Pittsburg Penguins ( excuse me while i throw up ) along with a myriad of other enterprises I wont get into as I don’t get paid by the word. But you get the gist, you’re smart people. Last week MLB owners handed over their first proposal to the MLBPA sent it’s first proposal to distribute this ten billion annual dollars it included
Raising the minimum salaries of “ Super Two Players “ super twos are ballplayers who would be eligible for arbitration four times and not the usual three.
Draft Pick bonuses for teams not manipulating major league service time.
And a draft lottery that would supposedly prevent teams from tanking for a higher pick in June ( yea because that worked out so well in the NBA )
Also heard MLB owners offered a potential solution to service time manipulation in their proposal: •if a highly-ranked prospect (within top 150 on prospect lists) plays a full year and finishes top five for a major award like MVP, Cy, RoY his team would get a bonus draft pick — Ben Nicholson-Smith (@bnicholsonsmith) January 13, 2022
Back and Forth
We all know that a first proposal is never the one to end any labor disagreement. Much less one that has ten billion attached to it. Now we all wait for the players association to come up with a counter proposal. One that can’t come soon enough. Spring training is already in serious jeopardy. Teams and players have Arbitration and the rule five draft to get out of the way. Free agents still hang in limbo. not to mention the Visa hurdles and hoops that international players need to jump thorough and over.
This is very important to understand: Bargaining is not linear. Sometimes it's big proposals. Others it's incremental. The union will counter — likely sooner than later. This is a long process. Significant progress before March 1, when games are threatened, could be minimal. — Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 13, 2022
Don’t think for one moment that the owners and the players association care about spring. They make no money until opening day. We may all be waiting until March 31st when paychecks are missed and turnstiles go unturned. Until then the only people paying are you and I. The answer to who is the best World Series team of all time ? The 2004 Boston Red Sox
As always you can follow/give me grief on Twitter @Tmurph207