Please use this thread all week to discuss any Mets-specific topic you wish.
So, the players rejected the owners’ “last, best offer.” For posterity, here’s where the two sides are on some key issues:
MLB proposed raising the tax threshold from $210 million to $220 million in each of the next three seasons, $224 million in 2025 and $230 million in 2026. Players asked for $238 million this year, $244 million in 2023, $250 million in 2024, $256 million in 2025 and $263 million in 2026.
MLB offered $25 million annually for a new bonus pool for pre-arbitration players, and the union $85 million this year, with $5 million yearly increases.
MLB proposed raising the minimum salary from $570,500 to $700,000 this year, with increases of $10,000 annually, and the union asked for $725,000 this year, $745,000 in 2023, $765,000 in 2024 and increases for 2025 and 2026 based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners.
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If there was a simple compromise – like take the owners’ side in one proposal, the players’ side in another proposal and split the difference in the final issue – how do you think each side would go?
Either side would pick to have their tax rates in place, would be my guess.
The money issues aren’t close be being settled. The negotiations are tempestuous.
Maybe binding arbitration would be a good solution. That is when each side presents their case to an arbitrator. The arbitrator then researchs the facts to determine what a reasonable solution to be within the parameters presented by each side. The determination would then be binding. It is better solution than “splitting the baby” because it prevents outrageous and non-factually demands. The MBL would never agree to binding arbitration because of this reason.
Each side gives a little, and the games begin.
Neither the players nor the owners can expect to get everything they want. Give a little on less important issues and expect some give from the opposition where they can stretch… grow up.
As a commoner, I am frustrated that this squabble between wealthy sources- billionaire owners and 20-somethings making 565K as a base salary (and wanting 700K) are costing us the one thing we are all here for– baseball games!
I agree. This is not your typical billionaire owner sticking it to the poor working class argument that many in full fledged support of the players would have you think. We’re talking about fairly insignificant numbers on a relative scale for both sides. So just meet in the friggin middle so we can watch baseball again. Haven’t the fans been through as much as the owners and players over the past 2 years? Now we get less games? Less opportunities to see DeGrom pitch or Alonso in his prime? It’s 2 series cancelled now, what happens in a month? or two months? We finally get an owner willing to spend and they cancel games. Mets fans really are cursed.
But back to the original point – while i am generally pro-union and sympathetic to the “workers over the “owners” most workers aren’t paid an entry wage of $600k. Now they are squabbling over a $25k difference? And for the bonus pool the middle ground between 25 and 85 is 55 so put it there and call it a day. Everyone wins and everyone loses. Except the fans. We just lose.
I think the players demands are rather pathetic. Nothing they have asked for fundamentally changes any owner would operate and does nothing to address the competitive imbalance problem. The lack of creativity is just sad. They have a real chance to make some real changes but all they are asking for are modest monetary gains.
I wish we could cash out and tear down the current version of baseball business and build it from scratch.
I am a commoner as well, with decades in the workplace as a professional and yet lifetime earnings lower than a pre-arb player. Yes, both owners and players are wealthier than most everyone else, but there are still compensation issues relative to the revenues. The NHL minimum salary is $750k with a roster of 23. This alone should be a huge embarrassment to MLB owners. Worse than that, I hear the non-MLB roster spot players 27-40 make about $40k a year. If so, that is a disgrace. Yes, the stars are the game, but these stars don’t have a game without high caliber competition, and high caliber minor leaguers. A $10 billion business can’t afford to pay it’s on the field performers a living wage? I mean, they can’t afford to given the couple thousand or so AAA, AA, and A players $80k/year with medical benefits eligibility? These owner’s can’t appropriate the billion dollar TV deals properly to cover those costs equitably? Raising the pay floor appropriately, and going to a draft lottery for non-playoff teams would likely trend the game it the proper direction while dispensing a lot of bad will among the rank and file players. The Scherzers and Lindors will always be fine, whether they are raking in $28 million/year of $43 million/year.
TJ this an exceptional and excellent comment.
great points about the minor leaguers and non-roster types. now if they were striking I’d be on the picket line with em
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You can feel it today. The loss that comes with this strike. The faded enthusiasm for the season, for baseball talk in general. Why bother?
Manfred is an idiot and this is all happening by design.
A tough time to run a blog.
I’m a union guy, too… and old Bolshivek, far left of Bernie Sanders in nature… I’d like to see all rich people swinging from the rafters (hyperbole?). Actually I’d let them live if they just gave up their money to help raise the boats of the “least among us”.
So in this case, the baseball players making half a million dollars on up are part of that group, I guess. TJ points out that the real suckers are the minor leaguers, playing for bread alone. Wouldn’t it be amazing if the major leaguers gave ground in order to promote the cause of the players who toil in obscurity, work no less hard, and who will mostly never see the big dance?
And while we’re at it, let’s raise the peanut and beer guys compensation, and lower ticket prices so that a mom and dad can afford to bring their kids to an afternoon (I’m dreaming) game on a beautiful day.
The real problem is the super-wealthy mistakenly thinking the money in their bank accounts are really theirs to keep and hoard… hangings too good for them! ha ha (no, I mean it)
Old bolshevik, eh. You have something in common with Vladimir Putin.
Wobbit, I consider my comments rather neutral in terms of sides or socialist vs capitalist. I see a compensation system that works well for the majority as making good business sense. This is a $10 billion revenue business where the owners need each other and the players need other players not only in the big leagues but in the minors. The NHL is a $5 billion business with the same needs and pays a $750k minimum to its big leaguers. I don’t think it requires socialism to get MLB minimums to that point, get the AA and AAA players to $80k/year with medical benefits, allocate CBT funds to the lowest revenue teams in order to create a minimum payroll that discourages tanking, and employ a draft lottery to discourage tanking. Likely, it just takes an accountant with excel, some legit financial statements, and a little common sense. Happy employees promotes growth, which works very well in capitalism, by many people have forgotten this little nugget.
I don’t want to get into politics here, except to say that MLB is not really an example of capitalism because of the 1922 antitrust exemption, which allows it to “function” — in quotes! — as a legalized monopoly.
It is the golden goose for the owners & it permits them to fumblingly continue on regardless of skill or wisdom.
My goal was to throw my weight to the other end of the teeter totter and express some frustration with the way the pursuit of money has tarnished the simplicity of the sport we all appreciate so much… the sport we learned as children: hitting the ball, running the bases, catching the ball, coming home dirty.
I was feeling the ambivalence of favoring either side of the debate. The owners are oligarchs and hard to defend. The players deserve to try and get their share, but even they are fighting for riches on top of their riches. I realize they (and in turn we as fans) are all caught up in a train that left the station a long time ago, but mostly the fans are victimized by this lockout. Frustration abounds.
I am not smart enough to figure this out, but I would *love* to see a thoughtful, informed article about what would happen to the game of baseball if Congress repealed the antitrust exemption.
And again, my concern is “baseball” not “MLB.”
Multiple leagues. Chaos. A glorious mess.
It might be good for the health of the game.
The negotiations are being controlled by the owners and now the publicity is being controlled by the owners. The MLBPA should insist that they want to play and get season started. Their message should be and the owners are greedy and stubborn and the owner’s are denying the fans their season of watching baseball. For the sake of the fans, the players still wanted to negotiate and play except the owners locked them out. The MLBPA never said that were they going to strike. They wanted to negotiate and play on the same terms until a new contract was settled. The MLBPA should hiring a promotion firm to call the MLB out.
Today the MLBPA and the AFL-CIO started a relief fund for the workers that are affected by the lockout that was initiated MLB. The MLBPA stepped in and are trying to cleanup the mess and hardships made by the Owners.