2021 Collective Bargaining Agreement Discussion Thread

[TheHurl]

I like the tone of your first paragraph. Let me rephrase it to the problems I perceive to be the worst problems would magically disappear. I'm fine with what you say in the second paragraph. A hard no to the third. I think you underestimate the value of a 9 inning game to TV deals. What you're suggesting is to take away four commercial breaks. 20% less ad time is not going to be a selling point.

It's a very interesting case study that someone smarter than me should do. I don't know what a standard ad contract looks like but I have had a conversation with one of the top guys at Sportsnet. There are a bunch of rates based on time, day of the week, but after a certain time they are "poker" rate. So if shortened to 7 inning games can generate more viewers (long term hope of doing it) and they can make more revenue in the shorter time it would still work. I do think the 7 inning game is many years away but will be experimented with somewhere soon.

[TheHurl]

I have a feeling we are very close to the same age. Way younger than Hurl though, thankfully.

Way is subjective. Plus I have a young heart

It is sitting in a child in a third world country waiting for when I need it.

[glory]

Baseball's issues will never "magically disappear" IMO. I mean 10 pitchers will mean more walks, more hits, and length of games will not be reduced but it's a better product. The other side is that the PA will never agree to this.

For me the biggest thing is that there has to be smarter people at the tables. People who are able to think, if you change this...the smartest front offices will respond by doing ___" Now lets establish how this effects baseball. In the end none of this matters because it's all about maximizing dollars.

The first change that should happen which improves the product (to non diehard fans), without effecting $$$ is reduce the game to 7 innings. And the traditional baseball fan shits all over everything. There is no magical solution but current baseball fans, should be removed from consideration. There is not a thing that baseball can do which stops me from watching...so why would I be a thought.

Agreed. I'm not sure what the solution is, or if there even is one, but baseball fans are definitely last to accept change. Maybe it's because the fanbase tends to lean on the older side as a whole, but it's remarkable that a league like the NBA practically makes changes to their league every year (on and off court) and it's never seen as a big deal, but MLB wants to implement putting up 4 fingers to signify an intentional walk to speed the game up a tiny bit and fans lose their minds. I agree, for baseball to truly improve, they can't worry about offending the diehard fan. Most of this board hated the runner on 2nd rule, but it didn't stop them from watching. That's going to be the case for all existing fans. If you're a diehard, then you'll either grow to like or grow to accept any change made.

I would be fine with 7 innings being the new norm (those doubleheaders tended to fly by and less time for games would make a huge difference), but I'd like to see them exhaust all options for improving the pace of a 9 inning game. Maybe that's not possible, but implementing a pitch clock and limiting P's on the roster could shave enough dead time to a more manageable level where people aren't complaining about how long the games are. Most of the time I don't think it's the game length that bothers people but rather the pace of it. Since baseball doesn't have a clock, games could last 4 hours even if it had a lightning pace to it, but those 4 hours might breeze by in that scenario, at least compared to what we see now.

[John_Havok]

Way is subjective. Plus I have a young heart

It is sitting in a child in a third world country waiting for when I need it.

I nearly spit my tea all over my monitor with that one. That is gold sir.

[John_Havok]

It's a very interesting case study that someone smarter than me should do. I don't know what a standard ad contract looks like but I have had a conversation with one of the top guys at Sportsnet. There are a bunch of rates based on time, day of the week, but after a certain time they are "poker" rate. So if shortened to 7 inning games can generate more viewers (long term hope of doing it) and they can make more revenue in the shorter time it would still work. I do think the 7 inning game is many years away but will be experimented with somewhere soon.

I don't know the exact stuff either, but I do know they have different rates for times of day, days of the week and even the types of commercial breaks. Like, in a 9 inning they game, they know 100% there will be X amount of breaks during the pregame, and between each half inning. Those will all have varying rates depending on the time of the night they happen. Like a commerical in the 1st inning might cost more or less, because its's at 7:15 eastern, vs a commerical in the 7th that might be at 9:15 eastern. The rolling TV viewership numbers is what dictates the rates. Since those commerical blocks are guarantted to happen and they have a very solid idea of the time they will occur, those rates will be pretty much set in stone.

The varying rates will the extra breaks for possible injuries, in game delays, pitching changes, extra innings... those will have variable rates because they won't know exactly when they happen, nor exactly how many of them there will be. They'll have a pretty good idea with averages from previous years... so they will generally have a bunch of companies that sign up for the variable spots, and then they pay X amount for X # of commercials. When they run over their alotted number, they either stop running that companies ads, or get them to re-up.

[Abomination]

I do think the 7 inning game is many years away but will be experimented with somewhere soon.

I could see it making sense in the minors. After the 7 innings were official and the game was over, they could have an inning or two of AFL style work.

[Dick_Pole]

Agreed. I'm not sure what the solution is, or if there even is one, but baseball fans are definitely last to accept change. Maybe it's because the fanbase tends to lean on the older side as a whole, but it's remarkable that a league like the NBA practically makes changes to their league every year (on and off court) and it's never seen as a big deal, but MLB wants to implement putting up 4 fingers to signify an intentional walk to speed the game up a tiny bit and fans lose their minds.

Really? The NBA? Silver outlined a few gimmicks last year that were all wildly scorned and were not adopted except that asinine play-in tournament to see who has the honour of getting trounced 4-0 or 4-1 by the top seed. The game has changed but that's due to smarter front offices/coaches, not rule changes itself. IIRC the last really major change was the addition of the three point line. NFL...same. Game has transitioned to a passing league but not thanks to any rule changes, other than the ones passed for obvious safety reasons. The only league which has really changed itself drastically has been the NHL - major divisional realignment, the shootout, the participation point at the end of regulation for ties, elimination of center ice offside, tinkering with what is and isn't a penalty both officially in the rule book and unofficially by telling the refs to back off or start calling something more.

I suppose all leagues adopted some form instant replay and coach challenges but that should be an obvious move facilitated by technology.

[glory]

Really? The NBA? Silver outlined a few gimmicks last year that were all wildly scorned and were not adopted except that asinine play-in tournament to see who has the honour of getting trounced 4-0 or 4-1 by the top seed. The game has changed but that's due to smarter front offices/coaches, not rule changes itself. IIRC the last really major change was the addition of the three point line. NFL...same. Game has transitioned to a passing league but not thanks to any rule changes, other than the ones passed for obvious safety reasons. The only league which has really changed itself drastically has been the NHL - major divisional realignment, the shootout, the participation point at the end of regulation for ties, elimination of center ice offside, tinkering with what is and isn't a penalty both officially in the rule book and unofficially by telling the refs to back off or start calling something more.

I suppose all leagues adopted some form instant replay and coach challenges but that should be an obvious move facilitated by technology.

The NBA seems to add incremental changes every so often. They added the play-in tournament. They changed the AS game format a number of times, from having the top vote getters get to draft their team and recently to implementing the Elam Ending for the actual game. They have also made some incremental changes with defenses, hand checking, flopping, etc, every so often. The game today is much different than it was 10-20 years ago. A lot of that is due to Curry and analytics, but it wasn't just front offices changing the game, the league had a hand in it as well. Yet the only real complaints about the NBA are from older fans who grew up on Jordan era. The younger demographic loves it. I'm not the biggest Adam Silver fan, but he's not afraid of making changes, whether big or small, and I think a large part of that is owed to a younger fanbase that isn't going to complain about something "ruining the sport". The play-in tournament is absolutely ridiculous, but I didn't see anywhere near as much hatred for it as I thought I would.

I can't speak on the NFL or NHL, as I don't follow either sport, but I think if Manfred takes a page out of Silver's book and starts experimenting with certain things, he won't get the type of leeway from baseball fans that Silver gets from basketball fans. The NBA has an old versus young problem. The "old heads" miss the game the way it was, while the younger kids love it. Baseball is in a weird spot where old and young don't particuarly care for the way the game is played now. At some point the league is going to have to make significant change, and if they are smart, they'll focus on trying to appease the younger fans rather than trying to appease the older ones that are probably going to stick around regardless.

[Jimcanuck]

I'm old enough to remember when games were just under 2 1/2 hours in length. Jays games started at 7:30, ended at 10 am. The timing was great. Nothing was better than watching Stieb and Morris battle for 7 or 8 innings before watching the Jays bullpen blow it.

Now the games just fucking drag on.

[Abomination]

I'm old enough to remember when games were just under 2 1/2 hours in length. Jays games started at 7:30, ended at 10 am. The timing was great. Nothing was better than watching Stieb and Morris battle for 7 or 8 innings before watching the Jays bullpen blow it.

Now the games just fucking drag on.

Halladay and Buehrle starts made for some pretty short games too.

[TheHurl]

Halladay and Buehrle starts made for some pretty short games too.

Now MLB just has to figure out how to get 200 or so players like that starting for each team.

[Spanky99]

Way is subjective. Plus I have a young heart

It is sitting in a child in a third world country waiting for when I need it.

Hah... mint!

[Ehjays]

Britton, Giolito And Semien Discuss Lockout
By Anthony Franco | December 27, 2021 at 7:04pm CDT

The MLB lockout has been ongoing for nearly a month, with the accompanying transactions freeze halting essentially all major league activity. The league and the MLB Players Association aren’t expected to discuss the game’s core economics issues — the most contentious in collective bargaining — until sometime after the New Year.

A few prominent players — each of whom assumes an active role within the MLBPA — recently appeared on the Chris Rose Rotation (YouTube link via Jomboy Media) to discuss the current state of talks (or lack thereof). Yankees reliever Zack Britton, Rangers middle infielder Marcus Semien and White Sox starter Lucas Giolito all expressed some frustration with the lack of progress to date.

Not surprisingly, the players argued MLB has yet to seriously engage in negotiations. “We feel like we’ve offered some good proposals,” Britton said. “And really we didn’t get anything from their end in Dallas (in negotiations during the final few days of November).”

Semien and Giolito largely echoed that sentiment. The former pointed out that MLB could’ve continued to negotiate rather than locking the players out upon the expiration of the previous collective bargaining agreement. The latter plainly stated that the MLBPA was hoping to return to the table as soon as possible. “We’re here, we’re ready to negotiate,” Giolito told Rose. “We’re pretty much waiting on MLB. We’ve made our proposals, we’ve made multiple proposals right before they decided to lock us out. They said no, they weren’t interested at the time. … We’re not going to negotiate against ourselves. It takes two to tango.”

Of course, there’s been similar rhetoric on the part of MLB. At the time the league locked the players out, commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters that MLB “candidly … didn’t feel that sense of pressure on the other side” and added it was the league’s desire to “get back to the table as quickly as we can.” Very little has happened in the nearly four weeks since, although it’s not clear whether continued discussions on core economics would’ve done much regardless. Evan Drellich of the Athletic wrote a few weeks ago that December negotiations would have likely entailed the parties “saying the same things to each other over and over.”

The most pressing issues in talks — the competitive balance tax, the service time structure, salaries for early-career players, etc. — have been discussed ad nauseam in recent weeks. While speaking with Rose, each of Britton, Semien and Giolito argued that the union was more concerned than the league is with competitive balance. “We want every team to be trying to win year-in and year-out,” Britton said. “We think that’s fair to the fanbases and that’s what we want. We’re going to continue to send that message.” Giolito took a similar tack, alluding to clubs that have slashed their MLB payrolls during rebuilds. “We want thirty teams competing, trying to field the best possible players so that the game is more competitive. That’s kind of what we are stressing with our proposals: let’s make the game better for everybody, number one being the fans.”

Some lower-payroll clubs have of course managed to consistently remain successful in spite of budgetary limitations. Yet it’s clear that the players took issue with clubs that have largely chosen to sit out free agency while orchestrating massive organizational overhauls. Britton pointed to his former team, the Orioles, as one such club of concern, although he cautioned that the Baltimore franchise was merely one of a few examples of what the players feel to be a widespread problem.

Given the lack of movement to date, is it still possible for a new deal to be reached without games being interrupted? Semien expressed optimism on the union’s behalf about avoiding interruptions to Spring Training, although he unsurprisingly noted that “January is a huge month.” That said, all three players reiterated they didn’t feel any time pressure to meaningfully move off their current goals.

Britton and Giolito each pointed to last year’s pandemic freeze as a potential strengthening factor for the union. That wasn’t technically a work stoppage, as the game was paused due to national emergency. Yet the return-to-play discussions proved contentious, with the MLBPA eventually filing a grievance alleging that MLB didn’t negotiate in good faith to play as many games as possible last year during a season with essentially zero gate revenue.

“(Waiting it out) is part of the process right now,” Giolito said. “ Going through the pandemic year, kind of fighting for what we wanted as players, really coming together, communicating well, that puts us in a good position now. … Even if things are delayed a little bit, we’re here, we’re ready to negotiate. We’re going to keep pushing for getting a season going as soon as possible.“

[Abomination]

"all three players reiterated they didn’t feel any time pressure to meaningfully move off their current goals."
“(Waiting it out) is part of the process right now,”
"we’re here, we’re ready to negotiate."

Yep. This thing is going to be loooonnnggg.

So the players also want all 30 teams to be competitive, but they don't want a salary cap structure that would make that happen.

[John_Havok]

Yep. This thing is going to be loooonnnggg.

So the players also want all 30 teams to be competitive, but they don't want a salary cap structure that would make that happen.

It’s all posturing. A salary cap without 50/50 revenue split and a salary floor doesn’t make sense, they know that, the owners know that….it’s all about who blinks first

[Eat My Shatkins]

Stupid bunch of greedy fucking cunts.

All of them.