Major League Baseball, players union reach tentative agreement to salvage 2020 season

[MFS62]

Say "hello" to your uncle Sherm for me.

Later

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Good one.

[Frayed Knot]

So I'm wondering, now that they have a firm date and only Covid, over which no one has any control, can seemingly screw up the plans from here, how quickly the national sports media is going to retract all

their statements about how incompetent MLB is especially as compared to the wonderfully-run NBA who are starting a week After baseball although their carefully laid plans seem to be running into snags so

who knows if that date will even hold.

Actually that's a silly question because we know they're going to do no such thing.



And, look, a lot of the shit MLB took was deserved and I certainly dished out my share. But, as usual, most of the commentary started with the bias that Adam Silver and the NBA -- aka: the 'House League'

at the Four-Letter network to the extent that they're going to play out their season at what is essentially a TV studio on ESPN property -- are golden while MLB can't arrange a two-car parade. Not to mention

that none of the criticism even considered the possibility that starting a season from scratch where 2/3 of it is lost and the remainder that you do have is likely to ALL be played in empty stadiums presented

a lot more problems that needed solving than did the NBA & NHL where 85+% of their seasons were already in the bag (and, not coincidentally, so were 85 or so percent of the salaries and revenue) and all

that remained to do was concoct the logistics of staging your playoffs.

[Ceetar]

it's the disingenuous lies about profits and trying to play as much of possible not mattering because they couldn't make more money for 80 games than 50.

[Frayed Knot]

it's the disingenuous lies about profits and trying to play as much of possible not mattering because they couldn't make more money for 80 games than 50.

Bullshit!





oe: OK I should probably expand on that brief comment.

Again, I don't have any problem w/MLB being criticized (as mentioned I did enough of it myself) just with the ridiculous standards to which they hold baseball that they don't apply to any other sport.

First of all, do you think if the NBA was losing 2/3 of their season (and the gate and TV $$ that went with it) on top of being forced to play their remaining sked in front of empty seats that they

wouldn't be crying for a cost adjustment as well? And it wasn't the terms of the agreement that was being criticized but rather this whole thing was treated as if it was a contest to see who could get

the first plan in place. Well the NBA "won" that war but will actually start later and currently sound less certain to start at all.

[LWFS]

I mean, basketball gets different treatment because basketball's a different sport. It's a contact, indoor jobber; baseball-- tag plays aside-- is not, and is certainly not.

[Ceetar]

yeah, I don't give a crap about the NBA and I have probably about a low an opinion of the media's coverage of this stuff as anyone. I'm sure NBA would be crying about lost revenue too, but it's doesn't make it less disingenuous.



There was an agreement in March, it's the agreement that we're working under now. These players have contracts and a union, and there's no reason they should take a paycut. MLB could've restarted at any time, but they decided that ~ 33% of pay was the most they were willing to pay, so here we are.

[ashie62]

Yes, the NBA season was largely completed. Big, big difference



The NBA has been more in front of the sports industry for quite some time. The NFL and MLB not so much

[batmagadanleadoff]

Everybody has their own take on the 2020 baseball season.



MLB is back for a shortened season for one reason ... so owners can collect the TV cash

By Bob Raissman

New York Daily News |

Jun 27, 2020 at 8:00 AM

It's the October pot of TV gold that motivates the Lords of Larceny, and their arrogant commissioner, to put financial interests ahead of player safety. If MLB's TV bagmen, aka Fox, Turner Sports, ESPN, were not delivering billions of dollars for rights to air playoff games and the World Series, it would have been easy to do the right thing and shut baseball down this season. It would have been easy to protect players who now, if the joke-of-a-sixty-game-season ever starts, will be performing in dangerous conditions, on and off the field, with coronavirus running rampant and no end in sight for the pandemic. But there are billions of TV dollars available. The money is more important to the owners and MLB than keeping a player off a ventilator. Without the October cash windfall, there is no motivating force for the owners and Manfred. With no ticket revenue, and local TV/radio rights fees being severely slashed, the postseason TV money appears to be worth the risk of death itself. Manfred showed he is singularly motivated by large green when he once referred to the symbol of baseball greatness, the World Series Trophy, as a “piece of metal.” And to keep overall costs way down this season, most owners don't even want to get to the Fall Classic. They would rather just glom their share of the TV pie and watch the World Series on television. This is reality. Don't expect to hear much about it if the season does ever start. Whimsical columnists are already busy celebrating the return of the game and its positive influence on Their America. They will have no time to emphasize the multiple dangers of playing in the middle of a killer virus outbreak and who is responsible for putting players at risk. Inside the Valley of the Stupid, Gasbags are already busy feeding the machine with important stuff — like which team's pitching staff is better equipped to navigate a 60-game season. If the season does start, look for the voices to ignore why the games are really being played. They will be too busy hyping the virtues of a 60-game season being an “every game counts” scenario. Got to juice those ratings. Will the play-by-play mouths and analysts even extensively report on the next player to go on the IL with coronavirus? And who is really responsible for him being there? There has been some consternation from TV outlets over players not agreeing to wear a mike this season (if there is one). It's not a big deal. With networks using their usual field microphones and no noisy fans in either Yankee Stadium or Citi Field, sounds of players spontaneous yakking will still be picked up live. If team voices are allowed to broadcast on-site from their regular booth, it will be interesting to see if the radio broadcast seeps into the TV play-by-play. Think about it. John (Pa Pinstripe) Sterling and YES' Michael Kay being heard simultaneously. What a treat. One we're sure the players will be thrilled about if their able to hear the voices too.

https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/ny-mlb-rob-manfred-tv-money-20200627-ny42p5fbjbgrvdyrsqwuokezii-story.htmlhttps://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/ny-mlb-rob-manfred-tv-money-20200627-ny42p5fbjbgrvdyrsqwuokezii-story.html

[Frayed Knot]

[bLOCKQUOTE]If MLB's TV bagmen, aka Fox, Turner Sports, ESPN, were not delivering billions of dollars for rights to air playoff games and the World Series, it would have been easy to do the right thing and shut baseball down this season. It would have been easy to protect players who now ... will be performing in dangerous conditions, on and off the field, with coronavirus running rampant and no end in sight for the pandemic.[/bLOCKQUOTE]

This part of that piece implies that this stump of a season is one which the owners imposed on the players even though they had the power to do no such thing. The players, as we all know, actually wanted MLB to

conduct a longer version, in some cases nearly twice as long, with, presumably, twice the "danger" involved.



OF COURSE this partial season is being played in order to take in money, it's the reason that ALL seasons are played.

[Ceetar]

but the owner's didn't want to play the season. The stands are closed. They're making no money off the number of games, they only make money from TV.



The owners did impose it on the players. That's literally what happened. They're the ones that (under pressure) stopped the season, and then they're the ones that imposed it's length.

[Frayed Knot]

but the owner's didn't want to play the season -- Bullshit. There were ZERO proposals to not play at all. The whole negotiation was over the owners wanting considerations given to playing in empty

stadiums, something the players agreed to discuss in March but then refused to discuss. The player side wound up winning that standoff and the owners lost.

And only in Ceetar-logic World can he be saying that the owners forced the players into a season while you argue they didn't really want to play at all, and yet somehow you're agreeing with him.





The stands are closed. They're making no money off the number of games, they only make money from TV -- Your point being?





The owners did impose it on the players. That's literally what happened. -- They didn't impose the existence of a season only the length of it (a power the player side granted to Manfred) after

various proposals for different lengths failed to find agreement ... so that's literally THE OPPOSITE of what happened.





They're the ones that (under pressure) stopped the season -- They HAD TO stop the season (before it started); not doing so wasn't even an option. And then they MUTUALLY AGREED with the union on

the procedures for what needed to happen in order to restart.

And again, what's your point here? My objection was that Raissman implies that the owners somehow forced the players into playing a season at all [Not true, the players could have opted out entirely] and

by doing so forced them into a dangerous situation with their health as a pure money grab while ignoring the fact that EVERY proposal from the players was for a LONGER (and presumably more dangerous)

season so that they could -- wait for it -- grab more money.

[Ceetar]

that's just wrong.

[Edgy MD]

Well, that's not the strongest of arguments, but I can't argue with the brevity.

[Frayed Knot]

Diamondback Pitcher Mike Leake becomes the first announced player to opt out of the 2020 season



oe: And now add Ryan Zimmerman to the list

[Benjamin Grimm]

There are going to be quite a few more, I think. Just another facet to this unique (I hope!) season.

[LWFS]

Add Ian Desmond to the list.



Also, to the list of ballplayers I now follow

Instagram

WWW.INSTAGRAM.COM

on Instagram. (I'm not going to copy his post accompanying the word he won't be playing... but it's thoughtful, and it's well worth five minutes of your reading time.)