When Will Baseball Season Begin?

Still breathing here.

Thanks, we all need optimism this season, which might be cut in half at best.  

Owners & players discussing the start of the 2020 baseball season. Of course the owners can't pay the players all that guaranteed money. Some suggestions have been they split with the players 50/50. The players argue that's a salary cap. Also, half of what? A Pirates' share of half? Or a Dodgers' share of half? That's a big discrepancy.

Will there be crowds? Probably not. Everyone would have to be tested constantly. The first guy who spits would likely get an armed escort out of the stadium.

Where things stand on baseball resuming in 2020

Craig Calcaterra

May 27, 2020, 9:16 AM CDT

Yesterday’s news about Major League Baseball submitting an offer to the Major League Baseball Player’s Association has re-ignited the conversation about a 2020 baseball season. For those who haven’t been following closely, here’s where things stand at the moment.

On March 26, MLB and the MLBPA reached a general agreement about how to handle a 2020 baseball season. As far as money goes, there was an agreement that players would be paid their normal salaries on a prorated basis (i.e. if the season was 81 games long they’d receive 50% of their 2020 salary, etc), but a clause in the agreement stipulated that the sides would negotiate in good faith about the economic feasibility of playing a season without fans if that was necessary.

There is a lot of disagreement about what that clause really meant. Did it mean that the sides would decide if a season could be played at all with no fans? Did it mean that players would renegotiate salaries if there were no fans? I’ve personally spoken with two people who are privy to the agreement who say completely conflicting things about what they think that meant.

Which sort of matters, because it could dictate the MLBPA’s response to the offer Major League Baseball made yesterday.

First, that offer. We learned yesterday that it involved players being paid on a “sliding scale” in which the highest-paid players would receive larger pay cuts than lower-paid players. Yesterday evening ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported just how stark that financial divide would truly be:

Jeff Passan

@jeffpassan
·
May 26, 2020

Potential salary cuts in MLB plan, sources tell @jesserogersespn and me:

Full-year Proposal

$563.5K $262K
$1M $434K
$2M $736K
$5M $1.64M
$10M $2.95M
$15M $4.05M
$20M $5.15M
$25M $6.05M
$30M $6.95M
$35M $7.84M

Jeff Passan

@jeffpassan
Seen another way: 82-game prorated salaries vs. MLB's proposal

Full Proposal
prorated

$285K $262K
$506K $434K
$1.01M $736K
$2.53M $1.64M
$5.06M $2.95M
$7.59M $4.05M
$10.1M $5.15M
$12.7M $6.05M
$15.2M $6.95M
$17.7M $7.84M
6:18 PM · May 26, 2020

Those are pretty massive cuts for top earners (i.e. the players whose skills and star power help MLB make most of its money) which, as Bill noted last night, seem pretty calculated to drive a wedge into the MLBPA’s membership, pitting the highest-paid players against the lower-paid players. It may already be working. Hard to say this early. We do know that it’s a proposal that is not sitting well at all with union leadership. In the next day or so, as we hear from more players directly and indirectly, we’ll get a better idea about how it is playing more broadly.

So how does the MLBPA respond? At least one labor law expert is suggesting that they shouldn’t respond.

Eugene Freedman, a labor lawyer and a contributor to Baseball Prospectus, has argued for the past week or so that the March 26 agreement (which he refers to has the “MOU” or “Memo of Understanding”) has settled the matter of wages and that prorated salary has been agreed upon. That the owners have a choice of either playing the season or not playing the season but that, legally speaking, the matter of pay is closed and the players do not have a duty to negotiate it. If they counter yesterday’s offer, however, they have agreed to reopen the matter, he says.

It’s a compelling argument if the March 26 agreement is clear on that point. Which, again, I’m not sure that it is based on what people familiar with it have told me. It may not matter either way, though, because there have been at least some rumblings that the MLBPA will, in fact, make a counter offer. If they do, that part of the March agreement is over and we’re simply at the table negotiating over pay.

As for that negotiation, it troubles me for a lot of reasons that long time readers can pretty easily anticipate.

Baseball has seen nothing but skyrocketing revenues and profits for more than twenty straight years. At no time did Major League Baseball or its owners consider it a priority to share that prosperity with the players. Sure player salaries, generally, have risen, but they have not risen as much as revenues and, in the past few years they have flattened. The important point is that there has been an increasing detach between MLB’s prosperity and player compensation and vast swaths of increased revenue that the league and its clubs have realized has been fenced-off from the players.

Only now, when Major League Baseball faces the first prospect of losing some money — or, possibly, only losing some gains, as we don’t know how bad 2020 will be for the league — in decades are they considering the players full partners in the league’s financial picture. They’re treating it like they’re making a capital call on partners to help guard against losses after treating players like straight wage employees forever. It’s something that the players should, and many likely do, feel to be galling. A lot of businesses are facing losses in the COVID-19 landscape. How many of them are asking workers to take massive pay cuts? Not many. They’re either shutting down and firing workers if they can’t make a go of things or toughing it out, but they’re not premising the resumption of business on massive wage concessions.

In light of that. there is no doubt a contingent of the players who feel that MLB can decide if it wants to play or not in 2020 and, like any other business, make or lose money depending on how things go. There is nothing written in stone saying that every business has to be profitable every single year and Major League Baseball is no exception. Its owners got the benefits of the financial risks it has taken and they should be forced to accept some occasional losses. “Pay us or don’t play the season,” the players may counter. They may take a lot of heat from fans and from the media if they do it, but they shouldn’t be forced to negotiate with one hand tied behind their backs. The owners have upside and downside here too.

We’ll soon see what tack they take. If I had to guess, I’d guess that the players will make a counteroffer on money and that some sort of agreement is eventually hammered out. No matter how that goes, expect the players to be cast as greedy by the press and the public who will say that they are threatening the very viability of baseball. And, what’s more, that their doing so in the face of a global pandemic is appalling.

It’d be nothing new, of course. The players have been the bad guys when it comes to the business side of baseball since there was a business side of baseball. Nothing is going to change that.

Cody Bellinger

.305-47-115 / .406 / .629.

$605,000

No worries - think it was me that started off subject - bygones.

GO DODGERS!!!

Opinion: Despite the bitterness between MLB and the players' union, there will be a baseball season

Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY 8 hrs ago

PHOENIX — Everyone take a deep breath, exhale slowly and chill.

There will be a Major League Baseball season in 2020.

Forget all of the rhetoric, vitriol and nastiness between MLB and the Players Association during these first few days of negotiations.

A feud between these sides over economics has been going on for the past half-century.

Don’t believe that while every other major sport – including baseball leagues in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan – are figuring out ways to play games during the pandemic, MLB will sit this one out.

They will play.

The season may not start on July 4th weekend as hoped. It may instead start later in July.

But it is happening.

There’s too much money at stake, and everyone knows it.

Oh sure, players are seething at MLB’s proposal this week that would slash the biggest stars’ salaries by nearly 60% of their original salary playing an 82-game season.

And guess what?

The owners will be just as livid at the union’s counter-proposal by the end of this week that refuses to reduce their pro-rated salary, perhaps demanding that they play at least 100 games with the regular-season extending into October instead of ending Sept. 27.

Washington Nationals Cy You

ng pitcher Max Scherzer fired a shot late Wednesday night when he tipped off the union’s stance:

“After discussing the latest developments with the rest of the players there’s no need to engage with MLB in any further compensation reductions,” Scherzer said on Twitter. “We have previously negotiated a pay cut in the version of prorated salaries, and there’s no justification to accept a 2nd pay cut based upon the current information the union has received.

“I’m glad to hear other players voicing the same viewpoint. MLB’s economic strategy would completely change if all documentation were to become public information.”

And that came hours after Cincinnati Reds star pitcher Trevor Bauer ripped Scherzer’s agent, Scott Boras, on Twitter, accusing him of being a destructive influence in negotiations.

“Hearing a LOT of rumors about a certain player agent meddling in MLBPA affairs,’’ Bauer said. “If true – and at this point, these are only rumors – I have one thing to say... Scott Boras, rep your clients however you want to, but keep your damn personal agenda out of union business."

MLB and the union, who may not be able to stand the sight of one another at this moment, still are business partners and will resolve their economic issues.

MLB will remind the union that owners will lose about $2 billion if they play regular-season games without fans in attendance and concessions and parking revenue. It all translates into about a 40% loss of their projected revenue.

It will cost them nearly $700,000 to play regular-season games with no fans, the owners insist.

Now, they need to get the players to believe them.

The players are furious they are being asked to take another salary cut, after agreeing to a prorated salary on March 26, but the owners say that deal was based on having fans in attendance. The provision is right there in black-and-white with Commissioner Rob Manfred having the power to not start the season without fans in the stands. The players have a different interpretation.

Yet, what is overlooked in this dispute is the issue of service time.

The union fought for players’ service time in their original agreement, and the owners consented, assuring players would receive a full year of service no matter if a game is played in 2020.

How much was that worth?

Try $600 million, alone this year, and billions in future earnings.

Players who are first-time arbitration eligible players receive about $300 million in increased salaries.

And those who reach free agency for the first time earn about another $300 million in annual salary raises.

This is why the union surrendered their right for the players to be paid for a full season, no matter how many games were played, realizing the value of a full year of service time.

It means you’re a year closer to salary arbitration, when your salary can jump from less than $1 million to $10 million. There were 192 players a year ago who qualified for salary arbitration, which has resulted in an average of $754 million in spending the past three years. All-Star outfielder Mookie Betts set a record in January with his $27 million salary for an arbitration-eligible player.

It means you’re a year closer to free agency. There were 131 players who qualified for free agency last winter, which has resulted in $1.722 billion in contracts the past three years. All-Star pitcher Gerrit Cole received a record $324 million last December from the New York Yankees.

It was an issue that had owners splintered, with a few believing they were giving up far too much by letting players reach arbitration and free agency a year early, no matter how many games were played.

Now, is a different story.

The owners are unified in their belief that the players should take the same 40% reduction in revenue they are incurring playing games without fans. MLB lawyers came up with a sliding scale in pay reduction similar to the one teams are using to cut salaries, with their highest-paid employees taking the biggest cuts. The Washington Nationals just announced a plan in which employees earning $100,000 or less will receive a 10% pay cut, while those earning at least $300,000 will receive a 25% cut.

In this case, for players such as Mike Trout and Cole – who were scheduled to earn $36 million this year – they are taking a whopper of a pay cut. In MLB’s proposal, players who were originally scheduled to earn $35 million or more this year will now be paid $7,843,363, which includes a postseason bonus. Considering that the union already agreed to be paid on a prorated scale, that translates to a 55.7% pay cut from the $17.7 million prorated salary the players in the upper class are scheduled to earn based on an 82-game season.

But, the players who earn $1 million or less – which consists of 65% of all major league players – would receive a 14.2% pay cut.

The owners insist under this proposal that players would receive about 60% of the clubs’ projected 2020 revenue, compared to 47% of a year ago.

The union isn’t buying it and wants proof

No one is naive enough to believe any team will turn a profit this year, but as the players will remind you, clubs weren’t turning around and handing out Christmas bonuses on the profits they’ve turned every year, either. Forbes estimates that clubs earned about $5 billion over the past five years, which MLB strongly disputes.

It will be MLB’s turn to provide their counter-proposal next week, and this time they may come up with an overall pay reduction plan without differentiating between the highest-paid and lowest-paid players.

There’s no reason to offend the biggest stars of the game. They’re the highest-paid players for a reason. They’re the ones who are the biggest gate and TV attractions.

There’s no reason to offend the biggest stars of the game. They’re the highest-paid players for a reason. They’re the ones who are the biggest gate and TV attractions.

Maybe MLB will agree to let the players keep the $170 million in advance fees that ended May 24.

Maybe the union will figure out a way to share the risk if a second wave of COVID-19 hits this fall, cancelling the World Series and costing MLB about $1 billion in TV revenue.

Maybe they can figure out a deferred-payment plan.

Maybe they’ll agree to try to play 100 games, taking their chances they can safely play into mid-November.

But, rest assured, assuming municipalities are open for business, and the safety and health protocols are satisfactory for everyone, these two sides will find a way.

It just takes time. There’s no deadline in these negotiations.

So, sit back, relax and try not to be caught up in the war of words.

We are going to have a baseball season.

Major League Baseball has no choice.