worst ever!
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Manfred is as bad as BrandonComment -
Glad I stopped the auto renew on my mlb app subscription.Comment -
Representatives from the owners and the MLB Players Association met today for an extended series of talks, a day in advance of the league’s self-imposed deadline to avoid the cancellation of regular-season games. More negotiations are scheduled for tomorrow, following multiple sessions today that took place over almost a six-hour time period.
This marks the seventh consecutive days of negotiations between the two sides, as the clock continues to tick towards both the owners’ February 28 deadline and the start of the regular season on March 31. Some Spring Training games have already been canceled by the lockout, and if a new collective bargaining agreement was reached by tomorrow, teams would face a whirlwind of a month consisting of both an abbreviated Spring Training, and essentially three months of lost offseason business crammed into roughly a four-week window.
Given both the lack of progress and some open frustration emerging during yesterday’s talks, it seems like a longshot that a new CBA will actually be struck by tomorrow. As Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post notes, the unofficial nature of the owners’ February 28 deadline means that it could be pushed back if there is actual movement towards an agreement, and the players are likely to make such a case if some noteworthy progress is made tomorrow.
A league official told multiple reporters (including The Boston Globe’s Michael Silverman) that today’s talks were “productive,” as the two sides discussed both core economic issues and other CBA items not directly related to economics. However, the league and the MLBPA are still “far apart” on many of these issues, according to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (Twitter links), and today’s talks included “a lot of hypotheticals” under discussion and no actual proposals from either side.
One detail from the league’s side relates to the luxury tax threshold, as The Athletic’s Evan Drellich reports that the owners have “indicated willingness” to raise the levels of the Competitive Balance Tax thresholds beyond their past offers. It wouldn’t be a big raise, however, past the $214MM that the league submitted yesterday as the initial tax threshold.
Past reports indicated that the owners’ offers to eliminate the qualifying offer (and thus eliminating the draft-pick penalty for teams who signed a QO-rejecting free agent) was linked to the CBT negotiations, and Drellich reiterates this to still be the case. Presumably, owners see the elimination of the qualifying offer as a significant enough concession to counter the MLBPA’s demands for much higher luxury tax rates, though the union clearly doesn’t see the two matters as a worthwhile trade-off.
The topic of an expanded postseason has also been a key part of CBA talks, as MLBTR’s Anthony Franco explored back in December. With the owners eager for more teams (and thus more games and more TV revenue) in the playoffs, the MLBPA has been trying to leverage this desire into making gains on other economic issues. Most recently, the expanded playoffs also factored into the February 28th deadline, as the union has said that they won’t agree to a larger postseason field whatsoever if the owners withhold pay due to canceled regular-season games.
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (Twitter links) has some details on the MLBPA’s offer for a new playoff format, which includes an increase in the number of postseason teams from 10 to 12. The owners have been pushing for a 14-team postseason, though in both 12-team and 14-team scenarios, the union’s offer includes the concept of a “ghost win” in the first playoff round as a reward to teams who win their division. For example, a division-winning team would only have to win one of the first two games of a first-round series in order to advance, while the wild card opponent would have to win both contests.
In short, the idea would to incentivize winning a division title, which would theoretically entice teams to spend more on player salaries in order to be more competitive. The MLBPA has seen the concept of a larger playoff field as a possible drag on spending, as teams have less urgency or a bigger margin for error in reaching the postseason. The league’s 14-team offer did propose awarding a first-round bye to the teams with the best records in the AL and NL, and the other four division winners would have the benefits of both hosting the entire wild card series in their home ballpark, and also choosing which of the wild card teams they’d want to play.Comment -
Mets are +750. Could this be there year?Comment -
Feinsand said yesterday was productive, today is *crucial*
Owners backed down a lot on key issues.
This is squarely on the players and their union, and my personal opinion is I'm really starting to think this is a grandstand play on the MLBPA's part to remove Manfred.
There's zero love there, nothing but disdain and contempt, they really think Manfred is worthless.
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Enjoy the KBO this year fellas...
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Manfred is an idiot for sure.Comment -
Anybody else saw that Harper may look into playing with Japan since the lockout looks like it's not gonna resolve on time???Comment -
Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association are apparently in agreement on a 12-team playoff in the upcoming collective bargaining agreement, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today (Twitter link). As part of that deal, Nightengale adds that the league is likely to keep the penalties for exceeding the luxury tax in a similar level as they’d been under the previous collective bargaining agreement.
The league’s desire for an expanded postseason field has been evident throughout negotiations. MLB had pushed to expand from the previous 10-team field up to 14 clubs throughout discussions, but the union had resisted that possibility. It seems the league has agreed to settle for 12 during this round of negotiations, presumably via adding one more Wild Card team in each league.Comment -
You have to be a little encouraged that they extended the deadline to 5 pm Tuesday. It just sucks that they waited until the last minute to really get talks moving. I really think they get a deal done soon and at worst only lose a few regular season games. I'm trying to remain optimistic here but I think sometime in April might be when we have baseball after they have a 4 week Spring training first.Comment -
Yep.
It's over.
Read between the lines here.
It's over.
We get baseball back when Manfred is ousted, not before.
Bryce Harper, Joey Gallo, other MLB players pitch themselves to non-MLB teams as deadline hangs in balance (msn.com)Comment -
In the wake of today’s league-imposed deadline to reach agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement passing, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced this afternoon that the league is canceling the first two series of the regular season. As Max Molski of NBC Sports writes, that’d mean the loss of 91 total games. The league has stated on multiple occasions they have no plans to reschedule those contests — either via doubleheaders or the rearranging of previously-scheduled off days. In addition to the delayed start to the regular season, the league informed teams it is pushing back the start of Spring Training until at least March 12, as noted by Micheline Maynard of the Washington Post (Twitter link).
The commissioner’s announcement would seem to indicate that a 155-game schedule is the maximum number that’ll be played in 2022. Asked why the league was set on outright cancelations as opposed to postponements, Manfred pointed to the challenges of reworking interleague play in a suitable manner (via Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post). Reports last week indicated that the league intends to merely pick up where the schedule left off if/when an agreement is in place, so it seems each club’s first two series (to this point) will just be lopped off the league calendar.
Unsurprisingly, Manfred added that it was the league’s position that players would not be paid for any games that aren’t played (via JJ Cooper of Baseball America). That sets the stage for a second season in the past three years with possible debates regarding prorated salaries, as the union has maintained that they didn’t believe today should’ve represented a drop-dead date to avoid game cancelations.
MLB instituted the lockout unilaterally and could’ve lifted it at any time, electing to proceed under the terms of the 2016-21 CBA. There was never any possibility of the league taking that course of action, but the decision to set a hard deadline (first last night, later delayed until this evening) for an agreement was also made solely by MLB. The Players Association has never assented to that deadline, and Giants outfielder Austin Slater — the club’s player representative — argued that the union preferred continuing negotiations over today’s outcome.
“I don’t think it’s necessary,” Slater told Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle of game cancelations after the league deadline passed. “The PA has been setting up training camps and in 2020, we showed we could do it in three weeks. .. But that’s their prerogative and Rob’s bargaining strategy was to push up past this deadline and see if they could shove a deal down our throats.”
Others on the players’ side have taken a similar stance, arguing that the league deadline was a negotiating position of MLB’s to press the union into accepting an unfavorable deal. Slater’s teammate Alex Wood was among the players to take to Twitter this afternoon to accuse the league of exaggerating the progress made in negotiations last night, thereby allowing MLB to suggest the union was at fault for the lack of agreement today. Manfred made some references to that effect in his press conference this evening, noting the truism that finalizing a new CBA requires agreement from both parties.
After the past week and a half of daily negotiations didn’t result in an agreement, what’s the next step? Asked by Hannah Keyser of Yahoo! Sports whether the league’s “best and final” offer this afternoon meant that MLB had no plans to continue negotiations, Manfred pushed back. “We never used the phrase ‘last, best’ offer with the union,” the commissioner replied. While he conceded that the parties were “deadlocked,” he indicated that the league was open to continued negotiation. Manfred stated that today’s proposal was only the league’s final before canceling games, not of negotiations entirely. On the other hand, Bob Nightengale of USA Today hears from a source the league did use the “best and final offer” terminology.
That’s an important distinction. As Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times pointed out this afternoon, the possibility that the league had made its “best and final offer” could give way to MLB declaring a formal impasse in negotiations — a decision that could halt bargaining and involve the court system. Manfred declined to speculate on that possibility, but his stated amenability to continuing negotiations would seem to indicate that the league doesn’t plan to pursue that course of action at this point.
When negotiations will pick up isn’t clear, although the commissioner indicated they couldn’t resume talks until Thursday at the earliest. Manfred also made clear he considered the ball to be in the union’s court, stating that the league has made the most recent offer on issues “without exception,” and rhetorically told reporters to draw their own conclusions about which side should make the next move (via Scott Miller of Bleacher Report). That the league has made the most recent proposal may technically be true, although doing so an hour before the press conference with no willingness to continue negotiating today makes Manfred’s pointed barb a bit odd.
Manfred also made some ancillary statements about negotiations that are sure to draw some attention. He claimed that the past five years have been “difficult” for the industry financially, an assertion that immediately sparked backlash. As Erik Boland of Newsday points out (on Twitter), the league grossed a record $10.7 billion in 2019. The past two seasons have indeed seen pandemic-driven revenue losses — particularly in 2020, a year mostly without fan attendance — but Manfred’s claim that the entirety of the most recent CBA involved financial hardship is easy to dispute.
The commissioner also discussed the terms of the league’s most recent proposal. He highlighted what he felt to be player-friendly economic provisions (i.e. the creation of the bonus pool for pre-arbitration players) and added that the league was also seeking alterations to the on-field product. Manfred claimed MLB had proposed ways to implement a pitch clock and limits on defensive shifting during their last offer. The league’s desire for a pitch clock has been previously reported, but it hadn’t been apparent that MLB was trying to outlaw the shift this winter.
Of course, changes to the sport’s aesthetics take a back seat so long as core economics disputes continue to rage. The MLBPA released a statement in response to Manfred’s press conference (on Twitter). It reads in part:
“Rob Manfred and MLB’s owners have cancelled the start of the season. Players and fans around the world who love baseball are disgusted, but sadly not surprised. … What Rob Manfred characterized as a ’defensive lockout’ is, in fact, the culmination of a decades-long attempt by owners to break our Player fraternity. As in the past, this effort will fail.“Comment -
I never thought I would say this but I might not even miss baseball if they don't play this season. I thought I would but I'm fed up with them cancelling games. It should have never come to this but here we are and there's nothing we as fans can do about it except for maybe not even watch baseball when and if they come back.Comment -
Now the union is crying the owners are trying to break them.
It's now become a second-grade sandbox clusterfuck
Players are just trying to squeeze every penny they can get out of the owners.
The players don't realize how good they have it now, they're stupid.
And getting bad advice too.
Friday is my deadline, then I'm done.
Because after Friday, it's done.Comment -
Can’t believe anyone is still on the owners side at this point. Owners could care less if season starts on time. Playoff money much more important to them.Comment -
Owners have other business's .
All owners are billionaire's, with a 'B'.
Look it up.
In the NFL, (look it up) some have more than a couple of billion.
Back on topic.
You don't think the average .240 MLB hitter is over compensated?
Vet real, they're extremely over paid.
Owners take care of the players, and the players aren't happy.
I blame the players mostlyComment -
Please read Lance McCullers tweets. Players just want to play ball and be treated fairly.Comment -
Manfred is a clownComment -
Free agent outfielder Michael Conforto “is on [the Rockies’] list of possible free agents,” The Denver Post’s Patrick Saunders hears from sources inside the Rox organization. Conforto joins Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber as prominent outfield-capable names Colorado has been linked to since the start of the offseason, as the Rockies were known to be looking for some more pop in the lineup.
The 2015-20 version of Conforto would certainly fit that description, as the former All-Star hit .259/.358/.484 with 118 homers over that six-season run with the Mets. Last year, however, Conforto was far less effective at the plate, hitting a modest .232/.344/.384 with 14 homers over 479 PA while also missing about five weeks of action due to a strained hamstring.
Apart from a dropoff in barrels and barrel rate, there wasn’t much difference in Conforto’s 2021 season from his 2015-20 seasons, from a Statcast perspective. His .322 wOBA was much lower than his above-average .350 xwOBA, so Conforto might have simply had a hard-luck season at the worst possible time as he was about to enter the free agent market.
A move to a more hitter-friendly ballpark like Coors Field might spark a revival in Conforto’s numbers, though it remains to be seen exactly what his down year will cost him on the open market. Saunders suggests that the Rockies would be open to inking Conforto to three or four years, yet it isn’t clear whether or not Conforto would necessarily want that type of longer commitment (at what would surely be less than top dollar) if he views 2021 as an aberration. MLBTR projected that Conforto would take just a one-year pillow contract in order to re-establish himself and then test free agency again next winter, and Saunders writes that some executives around baseball feel the outfielder might indeed take this path.
The other wrinkle involved in this scenario is the draft pick compensation attached to Conforto, since he rejected the Mets’ qualifying offer. If Conforto is only looking for a one-year deal, some teams may not be willing to give up a pick just for one season of his services — especially since the 2022 season now may be shortened due to the lockout. While Conforto’s former teammate Noah Syndergaard landed a one-year deal from the Angels despite also rejecting a QO, it can argued that Syndergaard’s scenario was different in many respects.
Syndergaard is coming off essentially two lost seasons due to Tommy John surgery and wasn’t in great position for a longer-term deal, and an Angels team desperate for pitching felt giving up the pick was a risk worth taking if Syndergaard can help them finally end their playoff drought. While the Rockies seemingly always think they’re closer to contention than they actually are, the club still faces a lot of competition within the NL West alone, to say nothing of the rest of the National League (even if more postseason spots are available).
Signing Conforto to a one-year deal and surrendering a draft pick in order to make a push in 2022 alone doesn’t seem too realistic, though the Rox might also feel they have something of a bonus pick to work with since Trevor Story is also a QO free agent. Since the Rockies are a team that receives revenue-sharing funds, their compensatory pick for Story would fall just after the draft’s first round, assuming Story signed for more than $50MM. Signing a QO free agent would cost Colorado its third-highest pick of the draft, for comparison’s sake.
The Rockies have plenty of room for Conforto in their outfield, as he could slot into either corner spot and even play center field in a pinch (though not on a consistent basis). An already-inconsistent Colorado lineup will now be losing Story, and the outfield has been seen as a natural spot to add a big bat to the mix. Charlie Blackmon will continue to get some time in right field, but could also get some DH time to accommodate Conforto if he is moved between both corner spots.
Over a dozen teams had some initial interest in Conforto at the start of the offseason, though only the Marlins and now the Rockies are the only known teams linked to the 29-year-old. It isn’t clear whether or not Miami could still be in the running, as the Fish already signed Avisail Garcia, and recent reports (and the sudden departure of Derek Jeter from the organization) have hinted that the club might not be willing to spend much more in the wake of the lockout.Comment -
The way it is now, the owners can basically pay minimum type salaries to young players that are producing. At the same time, Jason Hayward makes $22 million per year. Players in their prime are not getting paid at market rates.Comment
