The MLB Opening Day has officially been pushed back after the MLB and MLBPA fail to reach an agreement by the March first deadline. This comes to no surprise to us baseball fans who are used to the way this league has been run since The Steroid Era. The owners have consistently agreed to changes the players did not want, and the players are done having little to no say. Anyone who knows what a baseball is and has an IQ higher of a baby squirrel would tell you Rob Manfred has been the worst commissioner in all of the Major Sports history.
The longer the MLB is in lockout the more money all parties involved will lose. More importantly, younger people are going to stop watching! After the cancelation of Opening Day, Rob Manfred got up on an ESPN Live to hold a press conference, yet the players were not allowed to hold a press conference on MLB.TV. When the lockout began, the players wanted to start having meetings immediately, but the league and owners wanted to wait. It felt like they were me working on a paper in high school. I know the due date is March First, but its only December Second – I got time. Than a couple months later “Oh shit. It is due in two weeks. I gotta read this book, figure out what the paper is supposed to be on and write it.”
So what exactly is the hold up? There is a debate from within the owners where they want the luxury tax situation fixed so teams can’t blow past so easily. Basically the owners are going to come together to make Steve Cohens job as hard as they can, which they have been doing since before the sale was final. This is what seems to be the biggest hold up in the negotiating.
Another thing that appears to be holding this up, is the players want organizations to have less years of control over a player. Currently after getting called up, you are controlled for 6 years with an organization. You can still demand a trade or hold out for a contract. But 6 years is an insane amount of time considering the average age of rookies in the MLB from 2021 is just over 23 years old. Compare that to the NBA and NFL where the average age is just over 21. Players want the ability to negotiate a new contract sooner. What you will notice is the players who get the mega-contracts are the special players who had the MLB talent at the age of 20 and signed that big deal at 26; or the players who are in their 30s and still top level talent. The players who fall into the category of the very good players who were called up at 24 and had a 10 year career never really get that negotiating power. The best current example I can think of for this is Aaron Judge. Judge is going into his 6th year in the league with a total career earning of just over 21 million. Had he had more levarage to negotiate a contract 3 years ago, he would have made 4x that amount easily. Now he is going to be a 31 year old free agent who has had a down couple years and may be out of the league in a few years.
Beyond that, the owners are trying to extend the playoffs. The playoffs currently hold 10 teams – 3 Division Champions with 2 Wildcard Teams in each League. The Owners purposed expanding to 14! After long negotiating the players agreed to a 12 team playoff, which makes sense to me considering there’s only 30 teams.
At the end of the day, the league an Owners are being greedy and are trying to ruin baseball and they are doing a great job.
A Fan With A Mic 