Collective Bargaining Agreement

[Guest Iubitul]

Edgy DC wrote: Agreed by whom? This is shocking. The rich getting richer? They're all rich. Richer than any of us can believe. And we're supposed to support protecting them from players wanting to negotiate a fair price for their skills?

I'm talking about baseball talent-wise, not money-wise.

[Guest Iubitul]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: The draft wasn't set up to assure an equitable distribution of talent, it was implemented by owners who couldn't trust themselves not to bankrupt one another chasing talent in an actual free market. It's ridiculously unfair to players and only stands to become more so by implementing rigid caps.

So the system that allowed teams like the Cardinals to stock up on talent through numerous minor league teams is more fair?

[Valadius]

Eliminating draft pick compensation when you lose a free agent?

Thank GOD we got David Wright before they did that!

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

iubit--

They don't have anything to do with one another.

[Guest Iubitul]

I always thought they went hand in hand - if the draft is eliminated, what's to stop the Yankees from hording most of the top amature talent?

[Guest Edgy DC]

The Rule V draft, liberating players stuck in the minor leagues, among other things.

The draft doesn't stop the Yankees from hording the most talent. The Yankees haven't been about hording minor-league talent since they fired George Weiss in 1960. Even in those pre-draft days, Weiss didn't outspend the other teams, but actually lowballed amateur prospects by telling them they'd get their due when they made the big-league club and collected post-seaosn money. Naturally few ever saw that money.

The Cardinals building a broad minor-league base was fair, because it they were rewarded for Branch Rickey's initiative, not for Annie-Busch having a bigger guaranteed revenue stream.

The real scandal of that era (besides, you know, institutional racism, another byproduct of anti-competitive behavior) was Rickey abusing prospects by taking advantage of their ignorance and signing hordes of them to conditional contracts and then sending the non-starters home without a penny for bus fare.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Let's rephrase the question then:

If the draft were to go away, what's to stop the Yankees from hoarding minor league talent over the next decade?

If a young kid just out of high school is being courted by the Brewers and the Yankees, who is he going to choose?

[duan]

well, because most of the "top amateur talent" would rather play in the majors then faff about at the columbus clippers; you could legitmately argue that someone may be able to get 26/27 man roster through constructive dl'ing, but baseball has a fairly aggressive set of roster rules to stop the hoarding of talent.

but go back to my central premise; who deserves to make money out of their talent; the players or the owners?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Among other things, a prospect may realize the Yankees are hording him into a talent pool where they are set and invested at his position for ten years. That's part of how it used to work.

This may be surprising, but sometimes, despite all their revenue, the Yankees make the wrong choices.

The real issue is the Yankees (and Mets) having protected access to all that revenue. And as long as that persists, nothing about the draft has stopped the Yankees. The problem being "solved" at the players' expense is so sad that it makes me want to holler. Talk about the rich getting richer, who the fuck are you --- be you the Yankees, Padres, or Hanshin Carp --- to draft exclusive rights to my services?

Look around, how well has the draft done so far in protecting teams from big-market dominance?

[Guest Edgy DC]

duan not only beat me to the punch, but he used the phrase "faff about."

[Frayed Knot]

]If the draft were to go away, what's to stop the Yankees from hoarding minor league talent over the next decade?

One answer would be to look at the present distribution of all this un-draftable int'l talent and see if it's concentrated onto a select few teams. I think it's clear that that's not at all the case.
Even the small handful of high-priced talent that came fully matured and ready-made from Japan or Cuba has have spotty track records at best and, as I said before, the smaller revenue clubs are quite willing to pass up those big budget items and would prefer to do without the "help" being offered them in the form of internationalizing the draft.

[nymr83]

]but go back to my central premise; who deserves to make money out of their talent; the players or the owners?

the owners deserve a large amount of that money, they set up and run a league without which the players "talent" is meaningless (except maybe to impress people at the school yard)

there are thousands of "talented" professional baseball players in united states, but what separates them (in terms of their earning power) from someone talented at archery or swimming? the demand that the owners through their marketing have created.
the 500th most talented baseball player in the country probably makes over $200,000. without the owners these "talented" players would be working in the same place where the 500th most talented archer works- the supermarket.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Players deserve to make exactly as much money as they are able to fairly negotiate in an open marketplace.

[nymr83]

Edgy DC wrote: Players deserve to make exactly as much money as they are able to fairly negotiate in an open marketplace.

not according to our elected representatives.

oh yeah you don't have one...

[Guest Edgy DC]

Your point is what?

Dickshot's correct. The draft system will come smashing down soon enough.

[MFS62]

Hasn't the NFL Draft been upheld in the courts, most recently from a challenge by that running back from Ohio State?
But I'm not sure if baseball's exemption from anti-trust laws would make a difference.

Later

[Guest Iubitul]

Am I the only one who thinks that eliminating the draft would be a bad thing?

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

No.

[Valadius]

Certainly not.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Obviously not, but the case that the Yankees would further dominate the market doesn't hold up.

Nor is it worth denying young men their rights.

The most amazing assertion in this thread is the notion that using anti-trust legislation to keep the industry from price-fixing is Communist. Sherman (the author of the original legislation) was freaking anti-Communitst firebrand.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

That's why I like my idea of letting players be drafted by more than one team. (Page 1 of this thread.)

[Guest Edgy DC]

The second most amazing assertion is the notion that owners are somehow denied leverage in negotiating with players from "Argentina or wherever," that owners aren't "free to bargain."

[nymr83]

Edgy DC wrote: The second most amazing assertion is the notion that owners are somehow denied leverage in negotiating with players from "Argentina or wherever," that owners aren't "free to bargain."

you're telling me there'd be nothing stopping an owner from paying a guy minimum wage to play major league baseball?

oh, and while we're at it, the minimum wage laws stifle the free market as well. so basically you only favor regulation when that regulation helps labor?

[Guest Edgy DC]

I haven't opined on minimum wage law so stop making things up. I'm telling you exactly what I'm telling you.

Last I checked, first year players made $850 a month. Do you really think the difference between that and minimum wage* is what's at issue here? Or are we just going back and forth on another red herring?

*MJ knows what that is.

[nymr83]

the guys making $850 a month are probably 18 year olds in short-season ball. i didnt make that when i had a summer job at 18, did you?

and do you really think abolishing the draft would change things for guys that low on the totem pole? i don't.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Nymr83 wrote: the guys making $850 a month are probably 18 year olds in short-season ball. i didnt make that when i had a summer job at 18, did you?

I don't really care. What are you on about?

Nymr83 wrote: and do you really think abolishing the draft would change things for guys that low on the totem pole? i don't.

It'd change bonuses, which currently are only large for the players in the first two rounds, and shrink rapidly.

Now please answer a few questions from earlier in the thread. Or drop it. This is really unpleasant with you making up facts and misdirecting the conversation.

[nymr83]

i don't think it would change anything for the guys you were just reffering to, the bottom of the ladder barely drafted guys. if the whole league passed on you for 30 rounds what makes you think they are chomping at the bit to offer you more than whatever their organization's "standard rate" is?

what question specifically would you like answered? i, like mostly everyone else, will choose to answer what i feel like answering when i see a ton of questions. pose (or copy+paste) one or two that you'd like answered

[Guest Edgy DC]

Questions un-answered:

• Why is the hostility with amateur prospects, a small percentage of whom will one day be milllionaires, but not with the billionaires who screw them? Who have a special right to conspire to set prices that other industries aren't allowed?



• Do you know that minor leaguers make less in real dollars than they did in the sixties?



• And what is so threatening the "GAME" about amateurs having an honest right to negotiate?



• Your point is what?



• What are you on about?

But really what should make me give up and walk away is your choosing to make things up ($5-million bonuses to foreign amateurs, calling the Sherman Antitrust Law Communist) to suit your predisposition. In addition to picking and choosing which questions are worth answering, you're picking and choosing facts, and I'm still not sure what your issue is.

[nymr83]

="Edgy DC"]Questions un-answered: Why is the hostility with amateur prospects, a small percentage of whom will one day be milllionaires, but not with the billionaires who screw them? Who have a special right to conspire to set prices that other industries aren't allowed? i'm somewhat 'hostile' to antitrust law in general, thats probably why i see exceptions to it as a good thing, but beyond that my hostility in the baseball context is to anything bad for the GAME, because i care about the GAME not the business Do you know that minor leaguers make less in real dollars than they did in the sixties? perhaps thats because the major leaguers make a ton more and the market had to adjust somewhere? And what is so threatening the "GAME" about amateurs having an honest right to negotiate? the teams with more revenue getting better players because of that revenue is anti-competittive (and i'm talking about competition in the game not competititon in business/labor) Your point is what? not sure what this was in regard too What are you on about? not sure what you mean by this or what its about But really what should make me give up and walk away is your choosing to make things up ($5-million bonuses to foreign amateurs, calling the Sherman Antitrust Law Communist) to suit your predisposition. In addition to picking and choosing which questions are worth answering, you're picking and choosing facts, and I'm still not sure what your issue is.

i'll go look for a large signing bonus to a foreign amateur, the $5 million figure was made up but i'm sure there have been huge ones. the communist comment was because antitrust laws inherently restrict the market, i wasnt being completely serious there

[Guest Edgy DC]

No, the cabals working in concert that the laws were aimed at restrict the market.

Every proposal you've made --- drafting foreigners, price fixing on salaries, government takeover a multi-billion dollar industry --- resticts the market.

Just... just forget it.