The 2020 Cleveland Indians

It’s not gonna happen this year. I was wrong, thought for sure they’d get it going, but everyone is being greedy.
I see it from both sides, I really do, but they don’t care. Baseball may be in a world of hurt real soon.

JDailey23 said:

It’s not gonna happen this year. I was wrong, thought for sure they’d get it going, but everyone is being greedy.
I see it from both sides, I really do, but they don’t care. Baseball may be in a world of hurt real soon.

Click to expand...

The owners have to know that.

The player's proposal would have to look really bad financially to the owners for them to be willing to take the hit from having no season at all.

MLS has an agreement in place and they only have played two games per team this season. So what’s the issue?

JDailey23 said:

It’s not gonna happen this year. I was wrong, thought for sure they’d get it going, but everyone is being greedy.
I see it from both sides, I really do, but they don’t care. Baseball may be in a world of hurt real soon.

Click to expand...

Baseball was already on the decline as is. IMHO, they had the distinct advantage in terms of when they could come back as baseball pretty much has the least direct contact of any of the major sports but have completely blown it. People have been begging for live sports, and they would have been the first sport having anything close to a full season.

Instead, during a time when there's record unemployment and race riots going on, they're going to sink their season down the tub because both sides are trying to get every dollar they can. Nice.

If I understand this correctly, the players will split $170 million if there is no season. I read that the combined payroll for this season with no reductions would have been $4 billion. So the players would get 4.25% if they don't play at all.

The proposal by the owners is for a total payroll of $1.2 billion, or 30%. So basically the players are turning down about $1 billion. They would rather give up the billion dollars than have to play 82 games.

Instead of playing 50% of the games for 30% of their normal salary the players would rather sit out the season and get 4.25%. I don't see how that is a win for them or for the game.

What the players want is to receive their full salaries prorated for the number of games played, despite that fact that teams will get no revenue from ticket sales, concessions, or parking. I don't see how they expect the fans to be on their side with a demand like that.

Wham with the Right Hand said:

If I understand this correctly, the players will split $170 million if there is no season. I read that the combined payroll for this season with no reductions would have been $4 billion. So the players would get 4.25% if they don't play at all.

The proposal by the owners is for a total payroll of $1.2 billion, or 30%. So basically the players are turning down about $1 billion. They would rather give up the billion dollars than have to play 82 games.

Instead of playing 50% of the games for 30% of their normal salary the players would rather sit out the season and get 4.25%. I don't see how that is a win for them or for the game.

What the players want is to receive their full salaries prorated for the number of games played, despite that fact that teams will get no revenue from ticket sales, concessions, or parking. I don't see how they expect the fans to be on their side with a demand like that.

Click to expand...

Honestly, I don't see how anybody can be on the side of the owners at this point.

Whatever money you feel they are quibbling over, why would you prefer that money to be in the pockets of the owners?

We all want the most baseball possible, right? Well, the players are the ones who proposed a 114 game schedule while the owners countered with 48.

Derek said:

Honestly, I don't see how anybody can be on the side of the owners at this point.Whatever money you feel they are quibbling over, why would you prefer that money to be in the pockets of the owners?

Click to expand...

All else being equal, I have no preference between the owners and players. I don't really care personally which of them makes the most money. But I want baseball, so I am looking for which side is being the most reasonable. And by "reasonable", I mean a proposal that makes sense for both sides, because I believe it is unreasonable to make a demand in which you win, and the other side is worse off. Since none of us know the exact numbers, there are three possibilities under the players' proposal:

Scenario 1:

The players and owners both make money. Players make full per-game wages, and owners make a profit. If the owners cancel the season just because they want to make bigger profits, then I'd side with the players. Because it would be irrational for the owners to cancel a season in which they'd have made a profit.

Scenario 2:

The players make money, and the owners lose money. Player's make full-game wages, but the owners will lose less money than they would if there was no season at all. Under this scenario, I'd probably side with the players again, because it would be irrational for the owners to cancel a season and lose even more money as a result.

Scenario 3:

The players make full per-game wages, and the owners lose even more money than if there was no season at all. Under this scenario, I'd side with the owners, because it is unreasonable for the players to demand full per game wages, while expecting that the owners lose even more money than if there was no season at all.

We may disagree as to which of these scenarios is the most likely. But, do you at least agree with how which side would be in the right/wrong under each of those scenarios?

We all want the most baseball possible, right? Well, the players are the ones who proposed a 114 game schedule while the owners countered with 48.

Click to expand...

If the number of games proposed to be played is your criteria, then you'd back the owners if they proposed a 120 game season, but with players only making 50% of their per game wages?

I’m on my phone so I can’t give your post the extended response it deserves, but my comment about the number of games played was simply trying to look at it from numerous perspectives.

I’ll be honest with you, there isn’t a scenario that currently exists where I would think the players are being unreasonable to fight for their prorated salaries. I really don’t care how much the owners are losing or making because that’s never been part of their CBA.

Derek said:

I’ll be honest with you, there isn’t a scenario that currently exists where I would think the players are being unreasonable to fight for their prorated salaries. I really don’t care how much the owners are losing or making because that’s never been part of their CBA.

Click to expand...

Right. But if it is all about rights under the CBA, the CBA doesn't obligate the owners to play games or pay players at all under these conditions.

The Human Q-Tip said:

Right. But if it is all about rights under the CBA, the CBA doesn't obligate the owners to play games or pay players at all under these conditions.

Click to expand...

I believe I’ve said before that I would understand if they didn’t play any games for this exact reason.

It would suck, but I would understand. Despite my love for it, pro baseball is not an essential business.

What bothers me is the fact that the owners didn't even try to counter the players union proposal at all since it was easy enough to do. My proposal would have been.

82 games, with expanded type of playoffs. Three division winners plus the next 5 teams record wise. First two round are 5 games, then the CS is 7 games then a world series of 7 games like normal.

Players then get like 70-80% type of thing of their pay per game. Lets say a player makes 10 mil, that would be 11k area per game, without fans. If there is paid fans, then the % would go up based on the percent of tickets sold.

I feel something like this, would give the players the games they wished for, plus give the ownership some flexibility on their pay. Since if fans come back players should get better pay. If there is no to limit fans, the owners shouldn't have to pay as much cause of cost expenses. Something like this is a middle ground in my mind.

Derek said:

I believe I’ve said before that I would understand if they didn’t play any games for this exact reason.

It would suck, but I would understand. Despite my love for it, pro baseball is not an essential business.

Click to expand...

Though i think having so pro sports back like baseball would just help get peoples mind away from things. I miss not having baseball since its something I watch to relax in the evenings.

The Human Q-Tip said:

I believe it is unreasonable to make a demand in which you win, and the other side is worse off.

Click to expand...

Cool, so once we get past this COVID crisis, how do we stop the owners from profiting at the expense of the labor?

Out of the Rafters at the Q said:

Cool, so once we get past this COVID crisis, how do we stop the owners from profiting at the expense of the labor?

Click to expand...

That's a generic questioning of the capitalist system, and there is a forum for that.

It's not this one.

sportscoach said:

What bothers me is the fact that the owners didn't even try to counter the players union proposal at all since it was easy enough to do. My proposal would have been.

82 games, with expanded type of playoffs. Three division winners plus the next 5 teams record wise. First two round are 5 games, then the CS is 7 games then a world series of 7 games like normal.

Click to expand...

That's basically what the players already rejected back in May.

Players then get like 70-80% type of thing of their pay per game.

Click to expand...

The sticking point seems to be that the union is unwilling to move on the issue of full pro-rated salaries for whatever games are played. So anything asking them to take only 7-80% of that is something they've already said they'd reject.

On the bright side:

While it seems the two sides are completely on opposite ends, an ending to the struggle of starting a season sounds like it might finally be coming to a close, and that a season will indeed happen.

That report comes from SNY.tv’s Andy Martino, who Friday stated that even if it’s 50 games, players are going to report to spring training and games are going to commence at some point in July.

Martino says that he’s spoken to sources that say that the owners may make another fiscal offer to the players to try and get them on the field, and that players “really do appear ready to stand on principle on receiving full prorated salaries.”

Report: Even If It's Just 50 Games, MLB Players Will Report and Play a Shortened Slate in 2020

While the owners and players union continue to debate about how long the already shortened 2020 season would be in Major League Baseball, a report Friday stated that no matter the length, there will be a season even if only 50 games, and players will stay unified in the fight to try and get a...

www.si.com