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2020 Off-Season Rumors/News

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Give me another covid stimulus and throw in a couple Coors lights and I might consider it.
 

Well it seems like this could be a start of the pro teams getting deals done and starting up again.

Honestly I so want baseball back even if the fans are limited honestly. I think it will bring back a peace to the nation about this corona thing since pro sports are peoples escape from everyday life in a way
 
Washington Nationals star Max Scherzer became the latest major athlete in the sport to dismiss Major League Baseball’s reported economic plan of a sliding scale salary to start the coronavirus-shortened 2020 season.

The World Series champion pitcher, a member of the MLB Players Association’s executive subcommittee, tweeted Wednesday that players are not going to take a pay cut beyond the prorated salaries they already agreed to when the league shut down during spring training.
 
While this may not be the most popular position.. Scott Boras, like Hyman Roth, always makes money for his clients. Without input from Boras, the owners and the MLBPA have agreed to a $ 170 MM fund to pay the players during the Covid-19 hiatus. While that seems like a lot of money for the average person ( a little under $ 2,000/day per 40 man rostered player over a 90 day period).. that's one one hundredth of what a guy like Mike Trout typically earns. The owners have proposed payment of just over 40 % of the players salary under the auspicies the owners revenues are significantly cut by not having fans in the stands. Given the average ticket price across MLB of $ 33 and an average attendance of 28,000 for an entire season games, the total revenue stream for MLB is around $ 180 MM for an industry that typically approaches $ 10 BILLION dollars in total revenue. Assume for a microsecond that the revenues for parking and concessions and other are two times ticket revenue (it's not) and cut that in half for a half season, then the revenue stream should support at least more than 80 % of the players salaries. Being offered half of that.. is disrespectful.. and why a guy like Boras.. who preaches fiscal respect for his clients, says this can't be done..

Boras is right.. Scherzer is right (btw... Bauer is wrong..) The MLBPA desperately needs to have strong representation into their right to a fair and acceptable compromise. The MLBPA must also understand that over playing their hand... ie. having the season concelled, could be the outcome.

A difficult case... to be sure..

Thoughts?..
 
Bring on the Pioneer Leaguers and play ball. The players can get their way and not make a dime while replacements go for the asterisk title.
 
Given the average ticket price across MLB of $ 33 and an average attendance of 28,000 for an entire season games, the total revenue stream for MLB is around $ 180 MM for an industry that typically approaches $ 10 BILLION dollars in total revenue. Thoughts?..

My first thought is that I'd really like to see your calculations for that total of $180M in lost gate revenue. Because using your own numbers of average ticket price and average attendance, I came up with $2.25B. But the actual number for total gate revenue in 2019 was even larger -- $2.86B.


And if concessions, etc., were even half that, you're talking a full-season loss of $4.3B. For a half season, that means owners would have to pay players their full per-game salaries, while having somewhere around $2.15B less in revenue. It's not quite that high because you'd still get playoff revenues, but we're still talking perhaps 10 times your estimate of $180M. I think the owners would have to be nuts to hold a season in which they are guaranteed to lose that much money. Guys like Dolan would go belly-up.

The players' apparent insistence on full pro-rated salaries is simply asinine. The owners won't be making anything close to the same pro-rated revenue for each game because there won't be any fans, so paying the same pro-rated salaries on substantially less revenue is a non-starter. If the players truly insist on that...there won't be a season at all.
 
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Scott Boras should not be involved at all. He represents a select number of players, not them all. The MLBPA can represent themselves just fine. Boras should go pound salt.

Also, unless I missed it, Scherzer hasn't commented on Boras. Everything beyond Boras that Bauer has spoken on, Scherzer echoed.
I want to add to this conversation before I step into some meetings (ie interviews) this afternoon. Below is a post I made on another chat board last night. I think there is relevance here for this conversation.
-------------------------------------
The last CBA negotiation did not go well for the players. There are some who think that was because agents were kept out of it. IMHO it was because the union leadership was over-matched (possibly misguided) at the time. To their credit, the MLBPA took steps to correct that by adjusting the legal team in June 2017 (with Ian Penny & Matt Nussbaum) & then hiring Bruce Meyer (around August 2018). Meyer is This MLBPA is better equipped & more experienced for the next CBA round. I would encourage you to review the attached item from Fangraphs at the time of Meyer joining the MLBPA. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-mlbpa-has-a-new-chief-negotiator/

Sadly, some people (especially outsiders) are unwilling to trust the process to work since it didn't go well last time. Bauer can at least recognize that this time around the MLBPA has professionals ready to handle the negotiating table & outsiders (like agents with agendas) need to stay out of the way..
 
Scott Boras should not be involved at all. He represents a select number of players, not them all. The MLBPA can represent themselves just fine. Boras should go pound salt.

Also, unless I missed it, Scherzer hasn't commented on Boras. Everything beyond Boras that Bauer has spoken on, Scherzer echoed.

Talk about a conflict of interest.
 
My first thought is that I'd really like to see your calculations for that total of $180M in lost gate revenue. Because using your own numbers of average ticket price and average attendance, I came up with $2.25B. But the actual number for total gate revenue in 2019 was even larger -- $2.86B.


And if concessions, etc., were even half that, you're talking a full-season loss of $4.3B. For a half season, that means owners would have to pay players their full per-game salaries, while having somewhere around $2.15B less in revenue. It's not quite that high because you'd still get playoff revenues, but we're still talking perhaps 10 times your estimate of $180M. I think the owners would have to be nuts to hold a season in which they are guaranteed to lose that much money. Guys like Dolan would go belly-up.

The players' apparent insistence on full pro-rated salaries is simply asinine. The owners won't be making anything close to the same pro-rated revenue for each game because there won't be any fans, so paying the same pro-rated salaries on substantially less revenue is a non-starter. If the players truly insist on that...there won't be a season at all.
aside from the math..

insisting on full pro-rata dovetails into the sacrifice already befalling the MLBPA membership. The players have already lost half a season for which they have received what amounts to a pittance compared to their own bargained for salaries. The dollar value being proposed (allegedly) by the owners is a continuation of sacrifice.

Looking at this from another direction.. the decision to NOT allow fans, technically, has nothing to do with the players playing the games.. The players are still subject to injury, replacement etc.. all the risks and less than 1/2 the remuneration.. won't fly..
 
aside from the math..

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

:chuckle:

insisting on full pro-rata dovetails into the sacrifice already befalling the MLBPA membership. The players have already lost half a season f

You do realize that the owners also have already lost half a season of their revenues. Right? The reduced number of games hits both sides already, and so both sides are sacrificing before we even get to the issue of no fans in the stands. What the players are saying is that the additional reduction due to no fans should be born solely by the owners, even though the owners have already taken it in the shorts themselves.

Looking at this from another direction.. the decision to NOT allow fans, technically, has nothing to do with the players playing the games.. The players are still subject to injury, replacement etc.. all the risks and less than 1/2 the remuneration.. won't fly..

Then truly, the most logical solution for both sides is for the season to be cancelled. The owners won't have to take a massive bath that comes with paying full per-game salaries despite there being no fan-based revenue, and the players won't have to take the risk of "injury, replacement etc..." for less per-game money.

If you think it is unreasonable from the players perspective for players to play for smaller salaries, then surely you can understand that from the owners perspective, it is unreasonable to play a half season that guarantees they will lose more money than if there was no season at all.

Sometimes, there just isn't a deal that is acceptable to both sides, so you just walk away.
 
While this may not be the most popular position.. Scott Boras, like Hyman Roth, always makes money for his clients. Without input from Boras, the owners and the MLBPA have agreed to a $ 170 MM fund to pay the players during the Covid-19 hiatus. While that seems like a lot of money for the average person ( a little under $ 2,000/day per 40 man rostered player over a 90 day period).. that's one one hundredth of what a guy like Mike Trout typically earns. The owners have proposed payment of just over 40 % of the players salary under the auspicies the owners revenues are significantly cut by not having fans in the stands. Given the average ticket price across MLB of $ 33 and an average attendance of 28,000 for an entire season games, the total revenue stream for MLB is around $ 180 MM for an industry that typically approaches $ 10 BILLION dollars in total revenue. Assume for a microsecond that the revenues for parking and concessions and other are two times ticket revenue (it's not) and cut that in half for a half season, then the revenue stream should support at least more than 80 % of the players salaries. Being offered half of that.. is disrespectful.. and why a guy like Boras.. who preaches fiscal respect for his clients, says this can't be done..

Boras is right.. Scherzer is right (btw... Bauer is wrong..) The MLBPA desperately needs to have strong representation into their right to a fair and acceptable compromise. The MLBPA must also understand that over playing their hand... ie. having the season concelled, could be the outcome.

A difficult case... to be sure..

Thoughts?..

basically all sports teams (players, owners, management) are out of work right now. Unfortunately for them the world has changed dramatically over the last 5 months. In this current world there is no direct revenue from the fans and without that the profits just simply arent what they used to be. Now will the revenue come back, no doubt. But for now things are different. Quite frankly my opinion is let everyone fight it out, and if individual players dont think its worth the risk, then fine. They can sit things out and not get paid. But there are a lot more players in MLB that need to be playing, than those that have a build up of millions of dollars.
 
Talk about a conflict of interest.

It's the same conflict of interest -- self-inflicted -- that we see in the NBA Players Association when the superstars represent the entire league. Their interests are not the same as the players they represent.
 
....and if individual players dont think its worth the risk, then fine. They can sit things out and not get paid. But there are a lot more players in MLB that need to be playing, than those that have a build up of millions of dollars.

I really like that idea. If an individual player doesn't want to play for less money...then he doesn't have to play. But let the rest play if they wish. I would offer that as owners, plus contingent revenue sharing because owners won't have to pay for the more expensive players who sit out. Otherwise, it would be possible for owners to make a windfall if expensive players sat out disproportionately.
 

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