The MLB lockout is lifted!

[poppysox]

22 minutes ago, Tnetennba said:

This isn’t an object lesson in how you think these guys should manage their money.  These guys get well paid after their arb years but it would take them a lifetime to amass the same wealth as the billionaire owners.  Painting it as millionaires vs billionaires is an over-simplification.  If you want to see the players as spoiled millionaires that’s your choice, but most guys toil in the minors and in pre-arb w/o hefty signing bonuses to fall back on.   

The minors are not part of this discussion...we are discussing Major League players.  You obviously want to cast ownership in the same negative light as you accuse me of painting the players.  No matter how you try to spin it...You are simply wrong with the 25% guesstimate you used in the original post.  

[Quin]

9 minutes ago, poppysox said:

Yep..it's a hobby for them.

Maybe for Cohen and Rogers, but the others should cut down on the expensive food and high-priced women if financial demands from a labor union are making the owners so concerned about their income.

[Chimpton]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

The basic and fundamental problem is shown on this page in the tweet SSHM shared. Over the past 20 years, baseball’s revenue has tripled. However, the earnings of the players have not tripled (Mike Trout’s deal compared to ARod - would have been $750 million, for an easy example). The owners, through a variety of means, have limited salary growth - the luxury tax limits high spending teams, revenue sharing means the Pirates and Marlins make a hefty profit if they spend nothing, and teams like the Astros and White Sox clear a fortune while they are rebuilding.

The end result is a broken free agent market. When only 1 or 2 teams are trying to get better, Machado and Harper don’t get contract offers in December at all, and we wind up with these 3 month free agent sagas that are bad for fans but which push costs down. That is a symptom of the problem.

Ownership will change a lot of things, but this is a HUGE win for them, the equivalent of hundreds of millions of extra dollars among the 30 owners per year. Under no circumstance will they give this up and allow things to rebalance without a fight. That is the fundamental issue and it’s why I mostly come down on the side of the players. It also negatively impacts the game, because it’s no fun watching a team win 55 games with a payroll lower than what Max Scherzer is making and it’s no fun watching a 3 month free agent sagas compared to the big signing surges we see in the NBA and NFL.

However, the NBA and NFL run differently, and that shows why some blame goes to the players too. They have a defined share of the money going to the players, with a salary cap and floor set by the revenue coming in, and with an independent audit to verify it. The MLB players have specifically rejected this format, in part because it does limit the upper salaries, in part because 2 decades ago their share of revenue was growing and they didn’t want to shut down that gold mine, and in part because these 2 sides trust each other so little that they don’t believe the owners wouldn’t find a way to “Joel Osteen” some of their money into the wall of a bathroom to avoid an audit, which frankly some of them might. Had the players agreed to a true revenue split, the game would look very different, some of these problems wouldn’t exist, and this lockout might never have happened, so there is blame for the players as well.

Thank you for such a thorough reply.

[Tnetennba]

13 minutes ago, poppysox said:

The minors are not part of this discussion...we are discussing Major League players.  You obviously want to cast ownership in the same negative light as you accuse me of painting the players.  No matter how you try to spin it...You are simply wrong with the 25% guesstimate you used in the original post.  

My 75% guesstimate might have been an exaggeration, but on par with your supposition that every player is a spoiled millionaire.  Your fast food and expensive women quip tells me enough and I won’t waste my time debating you on the matter any further. 

[South Side Hit Men]

Joe West has always hated the players, especially White Sox players.

 

13 minutes ago, Tnetennba said:

My 75% guesstimate might have been an exaggeration, but on par with your supposition that every player is a spoiled millionaire.  Your fast food and expensive women quip tells me enough and I won’t waste my time debating you on the matter any further. 

Not to mention the fact that players are taxed between 40-60% depending on where they play, whereas the billionaires pay little, and in some cases a net negative tax rate when you factor in the differed capital gains rates (0% on appreciation) and welfare subsidies in the form of taxpayer funded stadiums. Even the lowest valued teams have grown by nearly a billion, the top teams by billions (average growth $1.5 billion of tax free growth), despite "suffering biblical losses".

 

[tray]

"The basic and fundamental problem is shown on this page in the tweet SSHM shared. Over the past 20 years, baseball’s revenue has tripled. However, the earnings of the players have not tripled "

That is not a problem, and that from someone who is not a capitalistic political ideologue. There is no sound reason for 1:1 revenue sharing between players and owners, an arrangement which would mirror the dreaded "socialism" which RW media use as a meme against opposing political factions.

Ownership has a vested interest in the continued success of the franchise, responsibilities to current and former players, organization staffing, marketing, security, taxes, insurance etc..

Major league players do pretty well for themselves for men in their 20's and 30's. They are entitled to be paid fairly and paid well, but team profit should not be the measuring stick to determine their level of compensation.

Edited December 3, 2021 by tray

[South Side Hit Men]

One side has been serious trying to negotiate a new CBA. Worth clicking to read his five tweets.

The 30% revenue gain, 2-5% player salary gain is what Jerry referred to during the playoffs as "a very fair offer", while simultaneously claiming the players "don't want to get serious until the end."

Also, the owners are refusing to discuss any changes to the game with the union, beyond their desire to cheapen the sport and expand playoffs.

Jayson Stark's article lays out the issue at hand, and Eugene lays out the legalistic points in his series of tweets.

 

[turnin' two]

1 hour ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

If you were to count to a million it would take you a little over 12 days.  If you were to count to a billion it would take you over 30 years.  A little perspective on how fucking stupid the millionaire vs billionaire argument is.  

Well, that;;s just because it takes so much longer to say one hundred four million eight hundred and sixty three than it does to say four.   

[turnin' two]

I just really hope that the league and the players don't do anything to mess up the game I love.

[Sambuca]

So what’s the end game here?  Are the owners just hoping to lock the players out until they stop asking for stuff, or is any substantial progress expected to be made? 

[Tnetennba]

4 minutes ago, turnin' two said:

I just really hope that the league and the players don't do anything to mess up the game I love.

At the end of the day, this is my hope as well.  I want to see the Minors and pre-arb guys get paid better, fewer stupid Manfred-ball “innovations, and if expanded playoffs are inevitable a system adopted that isn’t gimmicky and doesn’t cheapen the regular season. 

[Tnetennba]

6 minutes ago, Sambuca said:

So what’s the end game here?  Are the owners just hoping to lock the players out until they stop asking for stuff, or is any substantial progress expected to be made? 

Locking the players out is a hardball tactic, essentially trying to bully the players into caving early.  Definitely not a good faith negotiating move IMO. I fear we are at a stalemate for a while. 

[CentralChamps21]

If the players want to get anything substantial in this, they're going to have to be willing to give up a significant portion of the season. The owners won't start making any concessions until April. They can afford to wait and see if the players blink first.

[Sambuca]

11 minutes ago, Tnetennba said:

Locking the players out is a hardball tactic, essentially trying to bully the players into caving early.  Definitely not a good faith negotiating move IMO. I fear we are at a stalemate for a while. 

Judging by their bullshit “meetings” they were only having days before CBA expired, it appears the owners were only willing to “negotiate” after the players were locked out.

[Balta1701]

31 minutes ago, Sambuca said:

So what’s the end game here?  Are the owners just hoping to lock the players out until they stop asking for stuff, or is any substantial progress expected to be made? 

JMO - the endgame is for one side to break, for the season to be completely lost, or for a court to step in, as in 1994.

Let's do some quick, somewhat painless math. The last time there was an NFL lockout we can roughly assume league revenues were $10 billion a year - about $500 million a week counting playoffs. The players said "Revenues are going up a ton, we think we should get a larger share, and a 3% boost would be fine" - that was the equivalent of $300 million a year. The owners responded "absolutely not here's a lockout for thee entire offseason!!!"

Then, when the season got close, they said "wait, we're fighting over $300 million a year, but we're going to lose $500 million a week if we lose any games, this might not be smart", so they offered the players something like a 1% boost/$100 million a year, and it took about 15 minutes for that lockout to end.

 

Got that? Ok, baseball's revenue in 2019 was about $10 billion a year, so let's use that number as a round number to make the math easy. If the players were getting 55% of the total revenue, that's $5.5 billion a year. They're at 40% the last few years, and dropping - which is $4 billion. The difference between the players revenue in 2000 and the players revenue right now is larger than $1.5 billion a year. If you take a more conservative 50/50 split, that's $1 billion a year.

If the next CBA lasted 5 years again, the difference between a 50/50 split and a 40/60 split is $5 billion dollars total. That is more than an entire seasons' worth of earnings for the players. So here's the problem: getting back to a 50/50 split is worth more to the players than the entire 2022 season. Keeping a 60/40 split and having it get bigger is worth more to the owners than the entire 2022 season. Compared to the difference in the NFL, these numbers are enormous.

There may be some goodwill and willingness to negotiate that happens in February and they find an amicable solution. But more likely IMO - the players will want to see if these new owners will hold out. The owners will have to pay rent and upkeep on facilities, minor league salaries and bonuses, and staff salaries even if there is no income coming in. The owners in 1994 would have endured that for years, Reinsdorf had apparently personally made sure of it. Will these? We don't know.

Similarly, we saw notes yesterday saying that the players union has been saving up fees since 2016 knowing this fight was going to happen, meaning that the union has a war chest to keep their players from losing their homes. If the players get no revenue for the entire year, do they break and accept the current revenue breakdown? The owners may well test that.

Finally, there are legal issues that come to the forefront when you are dealing with publicly financed stadiums and labor disputes. In 1994, Judge Sotomayor ruled that the owners were not negotiating in good faith under the requirements of the law and ordered the game to resume under a continuation of the previous agreement. Something like that is possible again this year. Congress also gets very angry when taxpayer funded stadiums sit idle, and Congress does have some powerful leverage also, but we won't be really figuring that out until next summer (which by the way happens to be an election year! So I'm sure Congresspeople will be totally reasonable about this!)

[pcq]

1 hour ago, Tnetennba said:

My 75% guesstimate might have been an exaggeration, but on par with your supposition that every player is a spoiled millionaire.  Your fast food and expensive women quip tells me enough and I won’t waste my time debating you on the matter any further. 

Yes some people resent rich owners and some blame the players. It appears there is plenty of money to go around which is all that matters. The service time proposal is a reasonable and should be accepted. We need more changes to address the cheap teams and tankers and the owners need to share some more money. This can get done whenever the time is right for resolution.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

5 hours ago, poppysox said:

I find it impractical to explore all rosters in baseball when responding to a forum statement.  The use of the current WS roster was to refute Tnetennba's point of 75% of players are not millionaires...is just not accurate.  These employees vs employer debates are useless since people have preconceived opinions of who is right or wrong.  We all have our biases even though many claims to be impartial.  

How weird do you have to be to side with billionaires who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire over the players who are the entire reason you watch the game?

Jerry Reinsdorf is undoubtedly leading the charge and trying to break the union, just like in 1994, during the middle of a White Sox contention window... despite having made billions of dollars as an owner in professional sports while the players are simply trying to play baseball and be compensated fairly in relation to the revenue they generate... There's no bias here. The game is not the game without the players. The entertainment does not exist. Even a 50/50 split has always felt absurd, given the importance of the actual product and the rarity of the assets, yet in baseball the split has moved closer to 44/56... 

People who side with big corporate employers over employees are just brainwashed sheep, frankly.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Look at Ray Ray Run

[NWINFan]

8 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

How weird do you have to be to side with billionaires who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire over the players who are the entire reason you watch the game?

Jerry Reinsdorf is undoubtedly leading the charge and trying to break the union, just like in 1994, during the middle of a White Sox contention window... despite having made billions of dollars as an owner in professional sports while the players are simply trying to play baseball and be compensated fairly in relation to the revenue they generate...

I don't know if Reinsdorf is this stupid or if he really has any influence at this point. I do know there won't be much left of his franchise if the Sox rebuild is hampered by another work stoppage. Fans didn't go through this tank job to experience another 1994. One division title and a playoff spot in a shortened season won't cut it.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

26 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

JMO - the endgame is for one side to break, for the season to be completely lost, or for a court to step in, as in 1994.

Let's do some quick, somewhat painless math. The last time there was an NFL lockout we can roughly assume league revenues were $10 billion a year - about $500 million a week counting playoffs. The players said "Revenues are going up a ton, we think we should get a larger share, and a 3% boost would be fine" - that was the equivalent of $300 million a year. The owners responded "absolutely not here's a lockout for thee entire offseason!!!"

Then, when the season got close, they said "wait, we're fighting over $300 million a year, but we're going to lose $500 million a week if we lose any games, this might not be smart", so they offered the players something like a 1% boost/$100 million a year, and it took about 15 minutes for that lockout to end.

 

Got that? Ok, baseball's revenue in 2019 was about $10 billion a year, so let's use that number as a round number to make the math easy. If the players were getting 55% of the total revenue, that's $5.5 billion a year. They're at 40% the last few years, and dropping - which is $4 billion. The difference between the players revenue in 2000 and the players revenue right now is larger than $1.5 billion a year. If you take a more conservative 50/50 split, that's $1 billion a year.

If the next CBA lasted 5 years again, the difference between a 50/50 split and a 40/60 split is $5 billion dollars total. That is more than an entire seasons' worth of earnings for the players. So here's the problem: getting back to a 50/50 split is worth more to the players than the entire 2022 season. Keeping a 60/40 split and having it get bigger is worth more to the owners than the entire 2022 season. Compared to the difference in the NFL, these numbers are enormous.

There may be some goodwill and willingness to negotiate that happens in February and they find an amicable solution. But more likely IMO - the players will want to see if these new owners will hold out. The owners will have to pay rent and upkeep on facilities, minor league salaries and bonuses, and staff salaries even if there is no income coming in. The owners in 1994 would have endured that for years, Reinsdorf had apparently personally made sure of it. Will these? We don't know.

Similarly, we saw notes yesterday saying that the players union has been saving up fees since 2016 knowing this fight was going to happen, meaning that the union has a war chest to keep their players from losing their homes. If the players get no revenue for the entire year, do they break and accept the current revenue breakdown? The owners may well test that.

Finally, there are legal issues that come to the forefront when you are dealing with publicly financed stadiums and labor disputes. In 1994, Judge Sotomayor ruled that the owners were not negotiating in good faith under the requirements of the law and ordered the game to resume under a continuation of the previous agreement. Something like that is possible again this year. Congress also gets very angry when taxpayer funded stadiums sit idle, and Congress does have some powerful leverage also, but we won't be really figuring that out until next summer (which by the way happens to be an election year! So I'm sure Congresspeople will be totally reasonable about this!)

Politicians have more leverage over baseball than other sports because of the anti-trust exemption. A threat to remove that exemption could certainly expedite the process. 

Who knows if they would go that way.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Look at Ray Ray Run

[Balta1701]

Just now, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

Politicians have more leverage over baseball than other sports because of the anti-trust exemption. A threat to remove that exemption could certainly expedite the process. 

Yeah, but we will worry about that like next June. The fact that it's an election year will get some people involved, whether it will be enough to make something happen I have no good guesses about.

[Green Line]

What a disgrace.  Baseball players are ridiculously over paid as it is.  I can't believe they would be so selfish as to force a work shutdown.

[raBBit]

 

1 hour ago, South Side Hit Men said:

Joe West has always hated the players, especially White Sox players.

Not to mention the fact that players are taxed between 40-60% depending on where they play, whereas the billionaires pay little, and in some cases a net negative tax rate when you factor in the differed capital gains rates (0% on appreciation) and welfare subsidies in the form of taxpayer funded stadiums. Even the lowest valued teams have grown by nearly a billion, the top teams by billions (average growth $1.5 billion of tax free growth), despite "suffering biblical losses".

 

You ignored my response to your post last time so I am not expecting much here, but you really do not understand any of this in a way where you should be speaking about it so assuredly. 

The players and owners are subject to the same tax code. They have all the same deductions and exemptions available to them just like you or I. 

For instance, can you explain or source how you came to the conclusion that some billionaires have a "net negative tax rate?"

How about "differed capital gains rates"? Are you under the assumption that only the owners are allowed to use 1031 exchanges? Or do you just not understand what capital gains are in general?

Welfare subsidies in the form of taxpayer funded stadiums is more of a representation issue than it is an owner issue. You can actually help fix that issue by voting out the politicians that use taxpayer funds for these types of private projects with little-to-no social benefit. 

How do you determine that the appreciation of sports franchise is tax free growth? If your parents had a house for 40 years and it appreciated 200% in value would that also be tax free? How do you think the franchise owner are skirting their tax bill??

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by raBBit

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

31 minutes ago, raBBit said:

 

You ignored my response to your post last time so I am not expecting much here, but you really do not understand any of this in a way where you should be speaking about it so assuredly. 

The players and owners are subject to the same tax code. They have all the same deductions and exemptions available to them just like you or I. 

For instance, can you explain or source how you came to the conclusion that some billionaires have a "net negative tax rate?"

How about "differed capital gains rates"? Are you under the assumption that only the owners are allowed to use 1031 exchanges? Or do you just not understand what capital gains are in general?

Welfare subsidies in the form of taxpayer funded stadiums is more of a representation issue than it is an owner issue. You can actually help fix that issue by voting out the politicians that use taxpayer funds for these types of private projects with little-to-no social benefit. 

How do you determine that the appreciation of sports franchise is tax free growth? If your parents had a house for 40 years and it appreciated 200% in value would that also be tax free? How do you think the franchise owner are skirting their tax bill??

 

They're not paying a net negative tax rate really, that may have been a slight exaggeration unless we're talking about people who started industries and businesses which were heavily subsidized by government dollars and then also had the government subsidize the sale of said product by covering a base of the cost with government dollars promoting sales and growth; this could be argued to be a negative tax rate because effectively they're receiving more in government subsidies in one way or another than they're giving back in tax dollars. I'm not going to pretend that I know the business backgrounds of every MLB owner or that they fit that bill but it is possible if you reach with the definition.

That said, there have been plenty of studies done that show what you're saying is misrepresenting the reality of the situation. 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/09/23/what-is-the-average-federal-individual-income-tax-rate-on-the-wealthiest-americans/

"New OMB-CEA Report: Billionaires Pay an Average Federal Individual Income Tax Rate of Just 8.2%"

Now you can argue that those loopholes are available to everyone, but that would be an incorrect proclamation when you actually account for this thing called reality. Players can't skirt the idea that their earnings are revenue; for example, they can't be paid in stock holdings.

Effective tax rates are really the conversation here, and frankly it's all that matters. The proclamation that they're merely following the tax code is incredibly misleading, as they're actually using their wealth to exploit the tax code to levels of which we've never experience. As an example, from the chart above, in the 40's and 50's, following the mass labor movements, effective tax rates for the elite in the country reached as high as 90%+ in the highest bracket.

I'm not going to derail the conversation much further, and while SSH is exaggerating slightly your proclamation that the tax code is somehow based in fairness and equality available to all American's isn't actually true or honest in execution.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Look at Ray Ray Run

[Big Hurtin]

1 hour ago, turnin' two said:

I just really hope that the league and the players don't do anything to mess up the game I love.

Fat chance, that's the one thing I'm thinking is a certainty.

[Sambuca]

This thread is really making me depressed.