Play Ball! After months of idiocy, schedule is in place & camps open July 1st

[StreetHawk]

Who can be on the owners' side? Who?

It's still a business at the end of the day. Empty stadiums means less revenue, but your player costs will be the same per game. If the owners decide that it is better to not play than play, then so be it. Baseball is a nice to have right now, but not a necessity.

There are restaurant owners right now who have to decide whether it is worth re-opening up their restaurant with the extra cleaning costs and reduction in capacity, while adding extra staff or whether it's best to just continue to do take-out. While risking their clientele go somewhere else and never return. These are the people I feel for, not baseball owners or players.

 

[Timeless Winter]

MLBPA is dying a slow death. Why is it the players are entitled to 100% prorated salary? I don't get it.
Owners are going to get their salary cap in 2021 with the way things are going.
This is catastrophic for baseball. The other sports figured it out, but they also had players that are willing to play.

 

[kanuck87]

MLBPA is dying a slow death. Why is it the players are entitled to 100% prorated salary? I don't get it.
Owners are going to get their salary cap in 2021 with the way things are going.
This is catastrophic for baseball. The other sports figured it out, but they also had players that are willing to play.

There's no need for a hard salary cap. There's already a defacto one in place with all the stiff penalties levied on offenders. That's why there hasn't been one mention of a hard cap, ever.

 

[Marc the Habs Fan]

 

[Unholy Diver]

MLBPA is dying a slow death. Why is it the players are entitled to 100% prorated salary? I don't get it.
Owners are going to get their salary cap in 2021 with the way things are going.
This is catastrophic for baseball. The other sports figured it out, but they also had players that are willing to play.

Those leagues have also played three quarters of their seasons and have been paid all season till the stoppage, why should the mlb players play 70 games and get paid for like 53? If my employer asked me to work 40 hours for 30 hours of pay I'd tell them to pound salt

 

[NJDevs26]

This is Manfred and the owners trying to scare the players. Nothing more.

It better be because Manfred's going to look like an ineffectual clown if there actually is no season, after he unequivocablly 100% said there was going to be a season. He already looks like a clown threatening no season a week after he made that statement.

 

[NJDevs26]

Those leagues have also played three quarters of their seasons and have been paid all season till the stoppage, why should the mlb players play 70 games and get paid for like 53? If my employer asked me to work 40 hours for 30 hours of pay I'd tell them to pound salt

If you're in one of the few industries that isn't losing money that's one thing but otherwise in this climate you'd probably get laid off and your employer would hire one of the 10% of the population who is currently unemployed that would gladly work for 80% over 0% during a pandemic.

MLB players have enough money they have the option of taking their gloves and sitting home in the short-term. Most other employees of corporations can't do that.

 

[Static]

MLBPA is dying a slow death. Why is it the players are entitled to 100% prorated salary? I don't get it.
Owners are going to get their salary cap in 2021 with the way things are going.
This is catastrophic for baseball. The other sports figured it out, but they also had players that are willing to play.

So, players are asked to inherit all the risk as well as play for less money than in their contracts at the same time. Meanwhile, the billionaire owners, who refuse (I wonder why?!) to show their books are able to pass their losses onto the players while claiming poverty.

Again, I do not understand how anyone could not be infuriated with baseball ownership.

 

[Unholy Diver]

If you're in one of the few industries that isn't losing money that's one thing but otherwise in this climate you'd probably get laid off and your employer would hire one of the 10% of the population who is currently unemployed that would gladly work for 80% over 0% during a pandemic.

MLB players have enough money they have the option of taking their gloves and sitting home in the short-term. Most other employees of corporations can't do that.

And the owners have a lot more money than the players, they can bite the bullet, they don't share extra profits with players when they make more than they expected, so the players shouldn't have to subsidize them when things are underwater

If they can't figure something out to have a season they risk alienating and driving away quite a few fans that may never come back

 

[Static]

It's still a business at the end of the day. Empty stadiums means less revenue, but your player costs will be the same per game. If the owners decide that it is better to not play than play, then so be it. Baseball is a nice to have right now, but not a necessity.

There are restaurant owners right now who have to decide whether it is worth re-opening up their restaurant with the extra cleaning costs and reduction in capacity, while adding extra staff or whether it's best to just continue to do take-out. While risking their clientele go somewhere else and never return. These are the people I feel for, not baseball owners or players.

Three things:

One, nobody is comparing baseball to everyday people. Nobody. It's possible to talk about baseball while at the same time understanding its place in society.

Two, the opinion that owners should just shut down the league if that is what they want is so incredibly shortsighted when it comes to the health of the sport. '94 was awful for the sport and this would be worse.

Three, the owners' decision to not play comes down to greed, short and simple. They have made billions of dollars off of the sport and the players but refuse to lose millions for one measly year, and not even a full year at that. Baseball just signed a billion dollar deal with Turner sports, these owners already have the losses made up for years to come. It's ridiculous.

 

[LeHab]

Those leagues have also played three quarters of their seasons and have been paid all season till the stoppage, why should the mlb players play 70 games and get paid for like 53? If my employer asked me to work 40 hours for 30 hours of pay I'd tell them to pound salt

In some industries employees were asked to take pay cuts or were laid off. Even in NHL, Habs management took a 20% pay cut while some employees were laid off.

As for MLB players, nature of contracts and how the game is played means you can't lay off players. If owners deem playing at 100% prorated salary is worst than not playing then we should not be surprised if there is no agreement.

Owners feel they have more leverage and can get MLBPA to bend. However how they go about it is disastrous.

 

[Static]

 

[Blitzkrug]

That's the heart of the issue here. Why should the players get paid for less than the amount they play?

Hell i had a job before the holidays that wanted me to work 10 hour days 5 days a week over the christmas season with no OT pay (i usually worked 8) and i walked right then and there.

f*** these cheap ass owners. Cheapskates like Nutting, Glass and Sternberg already save shitloads of money by not even bothering to field competitive teams (or in Stu's case, wait until the players are worth something and let them walk for usually nothing) so of course they're gonna try and undercut even more.

 

[NJDevs26]

The players have every right to want to play for 100% prorated. And fans are going to be jealous because most of them have to take paycuts and layoffs unlike MLB players, and have a bigger risk factor of getting the disease itself.

Where the players lost me from the get-go is when they complain they 'already' took a paycut just because they're playing for prorated as opposed to the entire year salary. Like come on now, get your heads out of your own rear ends here, it's not like the owners wanted to shut down for three months and bar fans from the park. The players are only willing to play for prorated because they knew they'd never win THAT PR battle of trying to justify pay for unplayed games during a pandemic.

 

[Static]

The players have every right to want to play for 100% prorated. And fans are going to be jealous because most of them have to take paycuts and layoffs unlike MLB players, and have a bigger risk factor of getting the disease itself.

Where the players lost me from the get-go is when they complain they 'already' took a paycut just because they're playing for prorated as opposed to the entire year salary. Like come on now, get your heads out of your own rear ends here, it's not like the owners wanted to shut down for three months and bar fans from the park. The players are only willing to play for prorated because they knew they'd never win THAT PR battle of trying to justify pay for unplayed games during a pandemic.

I'll never be mad at an employee trying to get his money from his richer employer, who, for the most part, does not give a shit about his employees.

These are the same owners slashing minor league salaries to save decimal point amounts in their bank account.

 

[kanuck87]

And that’s the issue here. If someone, for instance, is willing to pay $1 billion for an MLB team, you can be damn sure that the team easily makes $50 million per season and that’s being conservative. Franchise valuations are generally tied to annual profits.

 

[Marc the Habs Fan]

Meanwhile...

 

[John Price]

 

[NJDevs26]

Meanwhile...

The sad part is it's going to be too late for anyone to claim baseball has health concerns if they do wind up canceling the season, the price that gets paid for such publicly nasty negotiations. If the players' concern was health and safety they wouldn't be offering 110 games and trying to play into late November. If the owners' concern was health and safety they wouldn't be trying to negotiate the next CBA a year and a half in advance and just eat another 30 games of pro-rated salary to keep a fragile peace.

 

[LeHab]

Nothing surprising. A while ago MLB performed a seroprevalence survey among staff and found a few recovered cases:

Fewer than 1% of MLB employees test positive for COVID-19 antibodies

There has been and will be cases, MLB is not immune.

 

[Marc the Habs Fan]

Sources told The Athletic that the commissioner’s office is loathe to impose a season on players against their will when the Players Association likely would counter such a move by filing a claim for financial damages. The league’s goal, according to one source, remains unchanged: To negotiate a resolution that is satisfactory to both parties.

In a seven-page letter to the union on Monday, MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem listed a host of issues the league seeks the union’s approval on for a 2020 season, including on-field rules, scheduling details, start dates and the postseason player pool — issues laid out in the now-infamous March agreement between the parties. The letter noted that some unnamed 40-man roster players and staff have tested positive for COVID-19.

Much of the letter seemed designed to guard against a grievance.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

I don't find this all that surprising. It's always felt like the relationship between the owners and players in baseball was 'strictly business' and pretty brutal business at that. Not gonna get any 'for the good of the game' type initiatives there on either side.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

I get the owners are greedy mofos and all, but Rob Manfred comes off as an incompetent buffoon in all this.

 

[Elvis P]

• Source: MLB tells teams scouting can resume
• MLB players reject latest offer, want schedule set
• Report: MLB's letter to Yanks should be unsealed
• Former QB Hackenberg sets sights on baseball
• Source: MLB gets billion-dollar deal with Turner
• League heads to talk return of sports on ESPN

 

[John Price]