Uh oh...labor trouble brewing?

[stevejrogers]

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/labor-peace-lockout-collective-bargaining-agreement-owners-players-baseball-112216

Looks like an international draft is the biggest sticking point in this one.

[Edgy MD]

I think it's great that the union is standing against an international draft. The union has rarely stood for the rights of amateurs getting screwed when signing their first contract.

Keep punching back. Take out the bonus limits. Chip away that the domestic draft. GO-GO-GO!

[stevejrogers]

Edgy MD wrote: I think it's great that the union is standing against an international draft. The union has rarely stood for the rights of amateurs getting screwed when signing their first contract. Keep punching back. Take out the bonus limits. Chip away that the domestic draft. GO-GO-GO!

You do realize that the lack of said domestic draft is a massive reason for the MFYs being the MFYs?

[Edgy MD]

I covet nothing of the Yankees. The draft is anti-competitive and un-American, and it should offend anybody who thinks about it. Whether it blesses them or curses the Yankees in particular isn't really relevant.

[Centerfield]

Edgy MD wrote: I covet nothing of the Yankees. The draft is anti-competitive and un-American, and it should offend anybody who thinks about it. Whether it blesses them or curses the Yankees in particular isn't really relevant.

This might be an impetus for a split, but why do you think it is anti-competitive and unAmerican?

The draft is meant to create a competitive balance. I realize it's imperfect, but better than a free-for all where the richest teams sign up everyone no?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think a fair balance might be to let each player be drafted by three teams. That way the players have negotiating leverage, but one team can't hoard all of the best young players.

[Frayed Knot]

Centerfield wrote: The draft is meant to create a competitive balance.

The draft was created, first and foremost, to control costs.

[Edgy MD]

Whether creating a competitive balance or controlling costs (yup), both are anti-competitive behavior that, in any other industry, would lead to an indictment from the Federal Trade Commission.

Duan, I believe put it best: marketplace competition is the gospel the US preaches to the world, but we run our sports leagues as cartels, which has the rest of the world scratching their heads, preserving the marketplace for the haves, locking-out the have-nots.

[Centerfield]

Understood.

I don't doubt that the motivation of the owners in creating a draft was to control costs. But one of the stated, and actual effects, is to create a competitive balance between the teams. Sports are different than all other industries. A competitive balance between the teams is essential for the sport to remain compelling. I get that the draft prejudices the amateur signing his first contract. And maybe more can be done for that amateur to create leverage (a second draft 30 days later for all players who remain unsigned?) But if you allow all baseball players to become unrestricted free agents the moment they leave school, wouldn't that end up in the small market teams being turned into the Washington Generals?

Out of curiosity, do you also oppose clubs having player control for 6 years?

[Centerfield]

Expanding on my idea above, you could conceivably run the draft in 3 rounds.

Round 1: everyone is available. Teams pick according to reverse standings. You pick, you negotiate, you sign who you can for the next 30 days.

Round 2: Happens 30 days later. All unsigned players are returned to the pool. Teams draft again in the same order. A team is precluded from picking a they previously picked in Round 1. Another 30 day window.

Round 3: Same rules as round 2. A team cannot pick anyone that they picked in round 1 or round 2. Anyone left undrafted is SOL. Anyone who cannot reach a deal with a team during these 30 days goes to school or becomes a Long Island Duck.

Each amateur gets 3 teams, 90 days.

[Edgy MD]

Centerfield wrote: Out of curiosity, do you also oppose clubs having player control for 6 years?

Yes. If clubs want to control a player for six years, they should get six-year guaranteed contracts.

I would disagree that competitive balance is essential to make the sport compelling. Nothing is more compelling than little guys finding their game and taking out the big guys.

But a fair marketplace would take away the shackles of the anti-trust exemption. There would be no such thing as small market teams or large market teams because there would be no such thing as protected markets, which are also an offense to true competition. British football teams cluster around London, so the teams from the smaller markets ("Go, Sheffield Wednesday!") are at no disadvantage because the larger markets are fragmented. Same with Japanese baseball teams, clustered around Tokyo.

Truly competitive American baseball should have six teams in the New York area, and three in New England, making being the only team in Pittsburgh or Kansas City a pretty good deal.

[Frayed Knot]

One additional side benefit of the elimination of all drafts across the sports scene in this country would be the reduction of the amount of Chris Berman inflicted upon the American public.

[Centerfield]

It's a pretty radical idea. I'll have to think this through a bit. I'll admit I've never thought about sports running the way you propose. A couple of quick reactions though.

Edgy MD wrote: I would disagree that competitive balance is essential to make the sport compelling. Nothing is more compelling than little guys finding their game and taking out the big guys.

It would be compelling, perhaps, in that one year where lightning strikes and an underdog gets lucky. But I think it would be really boring the 9 other years where the Yankees and Red Sox trade championships. Baseball will die in those cities that field perennial losers, waiting for the stars to align once in a generation. Selfishly as a Mets fan, I have to believe that one day the owners will realize they live in NY and ultimately any money-related advantages will help me. But for me, compelling is when every team in the league has a legitimate shot to win a championship during any 10 year stretch.

Edgy MD wrote: Truly competitive American baseball should have six teams in the New York area, and three in New England, making being the only team in Pittsburgh or Kansas City a pretty good deal.

I think this would be terrible. Six teams in NY and three in New England means that five cities across the US lose their baseball team. I don't really know how to articulate this, but to me, that is not the way baseball should be structured.

[Edgy MD]

Well, limiting American baseball to 30 relevant baseball teams is also anti-competitive. We really should have hundreds, and back when America was named "the American past-time," we did.

[Centerfield]

Hundreds of teams? And you thought scheduling was difficult now!

I don't really see that as realistic. I think if there were hundreds of baseball teams people would lose interest and the sport would die.

[Frayed Knot]

Well of course there are hundreds of baseball teams now in this country, it's just that most of them are prevented from ever being [u:1b101hhx]major league[/u:1b101hhx] teams on account of the closed shop system as it exists.
I don't believe that anyone is advocating for a set-up with a hundred or more ML teams, just one where there's the possibility of a team earning its way in.

[Centerfield]

If you could somehow wave a magic wand and even the financial playing field for all 30 teams, I wonder what no artificial restrictions on player movement would look like.

I imagine guys like Fernando Martinez would be multi-millionaires, having signed a long-term deal early in attempt to keep him when he becomes ready, and we might be bending over backwards to get him into the lineup hoping he finds himself.

On the other hand, someone like Jose Bautista would see his market fall, having to compete with 20 somethings, some as talented, some with promise, who would project to match the 36 year old's production going forward.

For instance, if we were bidding on Conforto versus Bautista, I'd be inclined to offer more to Conforto, even with his struggles from last year.

[Centerfield]

Frayed Knot wrote: Well of course there are hundreds of baseball teams now in this country, it's just that most of them are prevented from ever being major league teams on account of the closed shop system as it exists. I don't believe that anyone is advocating for a set-up with a hundred or more ML teams, just one where there's the possibility of a team earning its way in.

Got it. That's the way soccer works in GB right?

I don't know. I don't understand how such a system works to be able to say I'd support it or not. The system certainly doesn't dampen interest over there, so who knows.

How do they handle the stadiums? Do they build major-league quality stadiums and hope to crack the top league?

[Frayed Knot]

There are enough differences between the conditions in two countries and sports to where the idea of replacing our system with theirs is certainly not as simple as some like to portray.
But it is worthwhile to remember that MLB doesn't have to be constructed as is for the remainder of time simply because that's the way it's always been; the introduction of FA-gency, for instance, was going to bring about the ruination of competitive balance if not of the entire sport according to many at the time.

[Edgy MD]

And it's really not constructed the way it's always been. It just seems to have been this way during our living memory. But even then, the changes over the last few decades have been dramatic. It's just that the men in charge insist that the changes have been progressive and benevolent and regulated for the best. For the common good.

I just don't think that most of them are, but rather are beneficial for a small club of billionaires. And I'm certainly going to bat against the idea of a plan that protects the money of this club by screwing poor but talented teenagers in foreign countries out of the leverage their talent can buy them and their families. That's not progressive, and it's not protecting competition. It's assaulting it.

[Centerfield]

Well, I think it's important to define "competition". An international draft fosters competitive balance between the teams, but reduces (effectively eliminates) competition for that player. Plus international players cannot then just elect to go to USC and bang California girls for a year. So the union is right to hold fast there.

I imagine some of the resistance I am feeling is just plain old man stodginess. But I am trying to be open minded. As I ask others to be on far more important issues than baseball.

But I think competitive balance is important. And so I think attempts to create a more free marketplace, especially for poor amateurs, many foreign are worthwhile and just, but one should keep balance between the teams in mind.

I realize you disagree and I think on that, we will just have to leave it at that, but a league that is even more top-heavy than it already is would be a move in the wrong direction in my mind.

[Centerfield]

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I think (and hope) that they will work things out.

Ultimately I think they will do away with direct draft pick compensation. Meaning, if you sign a FA away from another team, you don't lose your pick, but the losing team will get a supplemental. I don't know if they will keep the QO system, but there has to be a way to rank these FA's. Also, I think there might be something that you can't offer a QO two years in a row.

I think the international draft is a bad idea since the foreign guys really have no options. Maybe they try to clean up some of the corruption and work with the spending limits.

Not a lot of time left though. Can they vote to extend 1 year and kick the can down the road?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I don't pretend to understand all the particulars of the issues at hand but have covered enough labor-management dalliances in my real job to know that lockout threats and strike authorizations are a typical step in the dance and more often than not suggest a settlement is near, not far.

[Edgy MD]

I suspect as much too.

With regard to the above, I understand that going back to a free market is a pretty radical departure from the place we are now. But I'm hoping the game can turn in a more just direction, and I think saying "thus far and no further" on labor price controls is a terrific first step, and I think wealthy pros standing up for poor amateurs is great.

[Frayed Knot]

Since the late '90s the CBA negotiations have mainly been about tooling around on the edges of the agreement, tweaking different parts here and there while not really disagreeing on the structure of what they already had in place.
The thing(s) that could make this case different would be if the owners have gotten it into their heads that an international draft is something they can't live without, or if the desire to restructure the conditions of revenue sharing signals a growing rift between owners.

In the first case I doubt the owners will allow things to go down over the Int'l draft and I'm not even sure if the ones who do want it are united on how one would be implemented. I think it's a place they'd like to get to but that this round might be closer to a trial balloon for them to gauge the union's resistance to it.

Harder to get a read on the rev-sharing issue. I know some of the big teams are tired of the huge 'subsidies' they're forking over to the smaller ones each year but I don't think it's anywhere near the abyss that existed back in the late-'80s/early-'90s when differences between the large market owners and the small was at least as big a cause of the strikes and lockouts as were the owner vs player battles.

Edited November 23, 2016 by Guest

[A Boy Named Seo]

I love a lot of things about European football, but it's a long ways from perfect. The top leagues are dominated by only a handful of rich clubs (true in England, France, and especially Germany and Spain) and if you are not one of those top clubs (last year's Leicester City miracle in the PL aside), the goal then is to maybe, maybe get a spot in a second-tier European cup the next season, or just keep from being relegated. Sadly, most teams have zero chance to win when the season starts, and fighting to finish 11th instead of 13th is the reality season in and season out, which would suck.

There are no salary caps or anything like that. Only Financial Fair Play rules, which try to keep teams from spending more than they earn.

[Centerfield]

Still no deal. Not panicked yet, but a little concerned.

How about you guys?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Not concerned at all. Even a lockout/strike will have no impact that I really care about unless or until it interferes with games starting up again in the spring. Till then they do whatever they want.

[Frayed Knot]

The only bad thing to come from them straying past the deadline, at least in the short run, is that it delays a lot of player movement as teams want to know what the rules are going to be before they know how to proceed. Winter meetings are supposed to be next week.
The downside to not seeing an agreement by Wednesday night is that it means there is a significant enough rift on one or more issues to make them go past the deadline and once that sword is no longer over their heads it becomes easier to see one day turning into a week which can turn into a month ...

[Edgy MD]

Being an architect of labor peace was supposed to be the signature job skill that Manfred brought to the table, no?