New CBA negotiations

[Derwood]

People don't go to a baseball game because it might lead their team to the world series, they go to a baseball game to see a baseball game. Adding new layers of "meaning" to them isn't going to do a damn thing.

 

Correct. Baseball constantly trying to appeal to people who don't like baseball rather than make the experience better for people who do.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

People don't go to a baseball game because it might lead their team to the world series, they go to a baseball game to see a baseball game. Adding new layers of "meaning" to them isn't going to do a damn thing.

 

Correct. Baseball constantly trying to appeal to people who don't like baseball rather than make the experience better for people who do.

 

'Attendance is better for sporting events with competitive stakes' is not a fact I expected to have to argue, because is obviously and objectively true.

[Derwood]

People don't go to a baseball game because it might lead their team to the world series, they go to a baseball game to see a baseball game. Adding new layers of "meaning" to them isn't going to do a damn thing.

 

Correct. Baseball constantly trying to appeal to people who don't like baseball rather than make the experience better for people who do.

 

'Attendance is better for sporting events with competitive stakes' is not a fact I expected to have to argue, because is obviously and objectively true.

 

This is more true for sports with short seasons where every game could tilt the outcome of the season. A 162 game season means that the stakes are relatively low on a per-game basis, and there isn't much the commissioner can do to juice ticket sales for a random Reds v Pirates game.

[Rex Buckingham]

People don't go to a baseball game because it might lead their team to the world series, they go to a baseball game to see a baseball game. Adding new layers of "meaning" to them isn't going to do a damn thing.

 

Correct. Baseball constantly trying to appeal to people who don't like baseball rather than make the experience better for people who do.

 

'Attendance is better for sporting events with competitive stakes' is not a fact I expected to have to argue, because is obviously and objectively true.

 

But how much would fans of those teams consider those competitive stakes in your proposal?

[CubinNY]

Having a minor-major league is objectively bad on its face. It's not NCAA football. It really doesn't matter what the stakes are.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

 

Correct. Baseball constantly trying to appeal to people who don't like baseball rather than make the experience better for people who do.

 

'Attendance is better for sporting events with competitive stakes' is not a fact I expected to have to argue, because is obviously and objectively true.

 

This is more true for sports with short seasons where every game could tilt the outcome of the season. A 162 game season means that the stakes are relatively low on a per-game basis, and there isn't much the commissioner can do to juice ticket sales for a random Reds v Pirates game.

 

I'm genuinely confused, is this a bit? If the Reds and Pirates are in 1st/2nd place in September their attendance will be very different than if they're playing out the string in the cellar. The Pirates drew a million more fans per year during their playoff runs than they did in their 4th/5th place finishes a couple years later.

 

 

But how much would fans of those teams consider those competitive stakes in your proposal?

 

That's a fair question, I don't know. It'd definitely be a change in those specifics, and while I think fans are used to thinking in multi-year timelines already(given how many of them understand and/or approve of teams optimizing draft position and years of team control) and would acclimate to a new norm pretty quickly, it's possible they wouldn't. In other sports the idea of division/conference record mattering separately from other games outside that group doesn't seem to be too alienating, at least.

[Bertz]

I figured they wouldn’t really make any real progress through the Holiday’s/New Year. Let’s see what happens in the coming weeks now that we’re past that and they get a sense of a deadline with ST/season approaching. I still would lean they hammer something out and don’t miss any part of the season, maybe they lose a week or two of ST.

They will not start the season on time. This isn't something that can be hammered out in a week due to both sides being so far apart unless one side capitulates.

 

Honestly I think it absolutely can be hammered out in a week. Both sides have made all their asks, it's a matter of the owners beginning to actually negotiate. The owners want three things, the players want like a dozen. The owners are going to get all/most of their asks, so both sides just need to figure out which combo of player asks make that a "fair" trade.

 

But right now the owners are doing essentially this move, hoping the players negotiate against themselves

 

 

The question is when will one or both sides hit a sufficient level of urgency. We always knew that right now there'd be a lot of obstinacy. So where have the groups in private drawn their lines for where they'll cave? There are a couple of milestones that IMO mark the likely dates around where something will happen.

 

- If the sides hammer out a deal by Feb 1, the 2022 season is like 99% normal. The second half of the offseason is crunched into two weeks, and some international players get to ST late, but it's a status quo season in terms of revenue. Despite the acrimony, this plus or minus a week is still probably the smart money. The owners are full of bluster but IMO won't stand for a third straight year or down revenue

 

- If they don't reach a deal until closer to March 1st, we're looking at a borked ST, but the regular season is largely untouched. That ST revenue is material, but I don't believe it's huge. Up until this point I believe would only hurt the owners, players don't get paid for ST. But ehen you get past roughly March 1st you impact the regular season, and once that happens players are staring at lost paychecks. I tend to think if it gets here players will cave

 

- April 1st is likely the date for things going nuclear. Most of the TV contracts stipulate that teams need to provide ~140+ games. Fall short of that and you start getting into catastrophic revenue issues for the owners, and players are staring at ~1/5th of their salary vanishing. I don't see why it would get here, but if it gets past here I imagine we're in it for the really long haul, and at best getting another weird bastardized 2020ish style season

[UMFan83]

I think given the loss of income in the 2020 season, no one wants to lose more money on the season losing games. It's likely the players that will be feeling that pressure as their careers and timeline where they can earn money is finite. If the owners lose money they will just cry poor while they freeze out FAs and drive down payrolls. I have a feeling that the owners are going to end up with a great deal.

 

Just an uneducated opinion, I could be way off base.

[soccer10k]

Multiple competitions is a great way to make more games matter, but they cant just be a random sideshow, they have to connect together, and the best way to do that is to connect them over multiple seasons. Here’s a hypothetical I put some thought into, but don’t get hung up on the specific numbers. Imagine a 32 team MLB with 4 divisions of 8. The regular season is ~100 games only against your division(limiting travel, helping weeknight attendance, deepening rivalries), where the top 4 in each division qualify for next year’s ‘senior circuit’ and the bottom 4 qualify for the ‘junior circuit’(call them what you want). Those 2 ‘tournaments’ are ~50 games (everyone plays one series against everyone) with a 4-8 team playoff at the end. The senior circuit playoff is the world series, and the junior circuit playoff is a play in to next year’s senior circuit(and draft position/rev sharing if you want). I’d prefer that competition be intertwined through the regular season too, but you could do it all at the end if you prefer. The upshot is that there’s way fewer meaningless games, even bad teams will have only a week or so in each competition where they’re truly out of it, and a team could be bad in one competition and good in another. It also disincentivizes tanking in multiple ways. There’s probably unintended consequences and it’ll almost certainly never happen, but it’s the best way I can think of to balance the tension baseball has where its biggest asset as an entertainment property is volume of games, but way too many of them are meaningless(even in a world without tanking).

 

Unless I’m missing something, wouldn’t you have an issue if your junior circuit playoff champion didn’t automatically qualify for the senior circuit through the league?

[squally1313]

Multiple competitions is a great way to make more games matter, but they cant just be a random sideshow, they have to connect together, and the best way to do that is to connect them over multiple seasons. Here’s a hypothetical I put some thought into, but don’t get hung up on the specific numbers. Imagine a 32 team MLB with 4 divisions of 8. The regular season is ~100 games only against your division(limiting travel, helping weeknight attendance, deepening rivalries), where the top 4 in each division qualify for next year’s ‘senior circuit’ and the bottom 4 qualify for the ‘junior circuit’(call them what you want). Those 2 ‘tournaments’ are ~50 games (everyone plays one series against everyone) with a 4-8 team playoff at the end. The senior circuit playoff is the world series, and the junior circuit playoff is a play in to next year’s senior circuit(and draft position/rev sharing if you want). I’d prefer that competition be intertwined through the regular season too, but you could do it all at the end if you prefer. The upshot is that there’s way fewer meaningless games, even bad teams will have only a week or so in each competition where they’re truly out of it, and a team could be bad in one competition and good in another. It also disincentivizes tanking in multiple ways. There’s probably unintended consequences and it’ll almost certainly never happen, but it’s the best way I can think of to balance the tension baseball has where its biggest asset as an entertainment property is volume of games, but way too many of them are meaningless(even in a world without tanking).

 

Unless I’m missing something, wouldn’t you have an issue if your junior circuit playoff champion didn’t automatically qualify for the senior circuit through the league?

I think it would have to be like the top 3 of each division automatically qualify for the next senior circuit, and then the top four from the junior circuit playoff fills out the spots? Still think there's some serious timing issues there, though his idea of idea of spreading the senior circuit playoff throughout the year would help a little?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Unless I’m missing something, wouldn’t you have an issue if your junior circuit playoff champion didn’t automatically qualify for the senior circuit through the league?

I think it would have to be like the top 3 of each division automatically qualify for the next senior circuit, and then the top four from the junior circuit playoff fills out the spots? Still think there's some serious timing issues there, though his idea of idea of spreading the senior circuit playoff throughout the year would help a little?

 

I hand waved the specific numbers a little bit because reasonable people can disagree on the specific qualification line, but Squally has the right idea. The missing piece is when. This year's division play and Junior Circuit playoffs determine the composition of *next year's* Senior Circuit, which is why you don't have to wait for the Junior Circuit playoffs to finish to start the Senior Circuit. That "multi-year championship" change would definitely be the biggest adjustment.

 

To move away from my hypothetical that will never happen, BN has been evangelizing the "Gold Plan" that has circulated in a couple different sports as an anti-tanking measure: https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2022/01/04/i-think-im-in-love-with-the-the-anti-tanking-gold-plan/

 

The tl;dr is draft order is determined by who has the most wins after the point where they are eliminated from the playoffs. So the worst teams still have the most opportunity to get a high pick, but they're still incentivized to try and it's harder to intentionally be a bottom 5 team for the draft+pool benefits

[Andy]

I think given the loss of income in the 2020 season, no one wants to lose more money on the season losing games. It's likely the players that will be feeling that pressure as their careers and timeline where they can earn money is finite. If the owners lose money they will just cry poor while they freeze out FAs and drive down payrolls. I have a feeling that the owners are going to end up with a great deal.

 

Just an uneducated opinion, I could be way off base.

By many accounts the players are pretty zeroed in on making sure they don't get railroaded, although your look at things makes sense. The push for a 14-team playoffs is the big thing; I hold basically no illusions that that won't happen, even though it shouldn't, but I am optimistic the players will make the owners pay up a bit for it.

[squally1313]

 

To move away from my hypothetical that will never happen, BN has been evangelizing the "Gold Plan" that has circulated in a couple different sports as an anti-tanking measure: https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2022/01/04/i-think-im-in-love-with-the-the-anti-tanking-gold-plan/

 

The tl;dr is draft order is determined by who has the most wins after the point where they are eliminated from the playoffs. So the worst teams still have the most opportunity to get a high pick, but they're still incentivized to try and it's harder to intentionally be a bottom 5 team for the draft+pool benefits

 

I had a response to your original plan that said it was pretty similar to this one. The obvious issue is that the major league teams and their fans just don't care nearly enough about the MLB draft.

 

Speaking of plans that would never happen, if I were commissioner/dictator, I'd move the ASB back to the middle of August, but if you weren't within, let's say, 10 games of a playoff spot, your season was over. Schedule for the rest of the season is determined over the break, all games would be between teams fighting for the same playoff spots. Few better threats against tanking than shutting down the last 40 games of your schedule.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

 

To move away from my hypothetical that will never happen, BN has been evangelizing the "Gold Plan" that has circulated in a couple different sports as an anti-tanking measure: https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2022/01/04/i-think-im-in-love-with-the-the-anti-tanking-gold-plan/

 

The tl;dr is draft order is determined by who has the most wins after the point where they are eliminated from the playoffs. So the worst teams still have the most opportunity to get a high pick, but they're still incentivized to try and it's harder to intentionally be a bottom 5 team for the draft+pool benefits

 

I had a response to your original plan that said it was pretty similar to this one. The obvious issue is that the major league teams and their fans just don't care nearly enough about the MLB draft.

 

Fans especially don't care, but teams increasingly do, or at least they care about the spending pools associated with them. Right now even if you set aside payroll, it's a viable strategy to target a future 2-4 years away and not care about anything but making the team good on that date, since the team being worse in the meantime is a feature. If you can't reliably count on that benefit, then teams are more incentivized to try to at least be watchable even if they're waiting for a wave of prospects. For example, last year the Orioles and D-Backs had 2 of the 7 worst records since the turn of the century, but here's some envelope math(I'm really eyeballing this so don't quote me) on 2021 post-elimination wins:

 

Texas 13

Baltimore 12

Pittsburgh 11

Minnesota 9

Arizona 8

Kansas City 8

Washington 5

Miami 5

Cubs 4

 

 

Given the difference in leagues you might need to normalize this to choose 'elimination' as when you can no longer get a Top 10(or 14) record in MLB, and I'm not gonna re-do the envelope math for that, but if Arizona can lose 110 games and barely get a Top 5 pick/pool, that's gonna change some behaviors.

[Tim]

If playoffs are going to be expanded, which seems inevitable, I think I prefer the plan that simply reverses the order of finish for non-playoff teams. It will kill a *lot* of the fun of the trading deadline, but it should pretty well eliminate all-out tanking.

 

Yes, it does make it harder for teams that are on the bottom to get better. But they can use FA to do that in this structure. They're incented to spend money. Might you have a scenario where there's a generational pick at #1 and a team misses the playoffs on purpose to get that pick? It's possible, but I think even that would be a fun thing to see play out.

[Rob]

If playoffs are going to be expanded, which seems inevitable, I think I prefer the plan that simply reverses the order of finish for non-playoff teams. It will kill a *lot* of the fun of the trading deadline, but it should pretty well eliminate all-out tanking.

 

Yes, it does make it harder for teams that are on the bottom to get better. But they can use FA to do that in this structure. They're incented to spend money. Might you have a scenario where there's a generational pick at #1 and a team misses the playoffs on purpose to get that pick? It's possible, but I think even that would be a fun thing to see play out.

 

That only further incentivizes the owners to put up a team that's shooting for the low end of the playoffs. Squeak into the playoffs and maybe you get lucky and rattle off a few wins to rack up that sweet playoff cash. Barely miss the playoffs and you end up with a top draft pick.

 

We'd see the Cubs aiming for 81-85 wins every single year, and never trying to put together a top-tier team. It would depress salaries across the league even more than the expanded playoff structure would do on its own. Hard pass.

[SouthSideRyan]

 

'Attendance is better for sporting events with competitive stakes' is not a fact I expected to have to argue, because is obviously and objectively true.

 

This is more true for sports with short seasons where every game could tilt the outcome of the season. A 162 game season means that the stakes are relatively low on a per-game basis, and there isn't much the commissioner can do to juice ticket sales for a random Reds v Pirates game.

 

I'm genuinely confused, is this a bit? If the Reds and Pirates are in 1st/2nd place in September their attendance will be very different than if they're playing out the string in the cellar. The Pirates drew a million more fans per year during their playoff runs than they did in their 4th/5th place finishes a couple years later.

 

 

But how much would fans of those teams consider those competitive stakes in your proposal?

 

That's a fair question, I don't know. It'd definitely be a change in those specifics, and while I think fans are used to thinking in multi-year timelines already(given how many of them understand and/or approve of teams optimizing draft position and years of team control) and would acclimate to a new norm pretty quickly, it's possible they wouldn't. In other sports the idea of division/conference record mattering separately from other games outside that group doesn't seem to be too alienating, at least.

 

You're ascribing the beliefs of the online obsessive fan to your average dumbass.

[Rob]

 

You're ascribing the beliefs of the online obsessive fan to your average dumbass.

 

On that note, a lot of people aren't going to care remotely about things like the #1 pick. This isn't the NBA or NFL where that person might be your star player within a year or two. MLB prospects spend forever in the minors, and have a high attrition rate of washing out before ever making it to the big show.

 

The generational can't-miss #1 draft picks like Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, and Bryce Harper are the exception as far as coming up and contributing quickly. Even most #1 draft picks need 2-3 years of seasoning in the minors and a couple seasons to adjust at the big league level -- if they ever do manage the task.

[Cubswin11]

 

Major League Baseball is preparing new core economic proposals to deliver to the Players Association. When they're presented, likely this month, core economic talks in the sport will have restarted for the first time since owners initiated a lockout on Dec. 2, marking a positive development.

[Bertz]

 

Curious how bad the owners' proposal was. If it's merely bad I think it's just negotiating, if it's awful they're clearly dug in.

[Bertz]

 

 

 

[Bertz]

[Andy]

Dunno the specifics of this proposal, but MLB owners could very easily continue manipulating service time and just dispense bonus draft picks when those guys place highly in the Rookie of the Year voting, which many of those prospects would obviously do

[Bertz]

Dunno the specifics of this proposal, but MLB owners could very easily continue manipulating service time and just dispense bonus draft picks when those guys place highly in the Rookie of the Year voting, which many of those prospects would obviously do

 

The tweet says they have to play a full year AND place highly in awards voting. If that's accurate, I think this is uncharacteristically helpful solution from the owners. Tying it to awards voting is dumb but using the carrot instead of the stick for service time is smart. Maybe instead use counting stat milestones (e.g. 20 Home runs)?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

An extra year of control of a player you think is good enough to win MVP/CY/ROY in their rookie year, but they play 25-30 fewer games

 

or

 

An extra supplemental draft pick if a rookie wins MVP/CY/ROY and they play 25-30 more games

 

 

yes this will clearly solve the incentive problem