A few words about this consarned MLB lockout and its ruination of what should have been a happy week of baseball’s-back chatter from Lakeland, Florida, and other sunny venues where spring training was supposed to begin:
Deal with it. Truly, deal with it. Patiently. Because two realities were brewing heading into 2022.
1. This new CBA, this new contract, owners and players are trying to sort out was always going to be complicated, messy, hostile — and necessary. Lots of issues are stacked high. Blood was donated by players in the past two deals that has caused them to dig in deeper as this (probably) five-year new pact is finally bolted together. Owners coming off a pair of COVID years also have a few thoughts (ahem) on how business should proceed.
2. There will be a delay, for sure, as there was always going to be a delay. The only question is length. The feeling here, to repeat thoughts from even two months ago, is that the regular season will not begin until later in April. That might change, and Opening Day plans for 30 teams could yet be salvaged. But I’ve always doubted it and still doubt it. Spring training even now is being crunched, with a personal guess, long held, that Grapefruit League and Cactus League games would not get rolling until deep into March. Again, maybe that forecast is a bit dark, but it has always appeared here to be a reasonable estimate, given the extreme nature of these negotiations.
So, is it time for fans to snort and stew and swear off baseball, all because the players have denied them eight months of on-time pleasure?
No. Not unless you’re big into hypocrisy. Because if you were an owner, or a player, you would see this 2022 showdown as being every bit about business principle. And, if you have had your own showdowns over money — either by way of contract haggling, threats to work elsewhere, or more often by taking another job — then understand that collective bargaining is the system at work here. And it isn’t always tidy or timely.
We prefer to resent players and owners who are “millionaires and billionaires” — even when nearly 70% of big-leaguers in 2021 made less than $1 million, according to research by the Associated Press and by USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. We feel victimized by men who obviously don’t care about poor fans who are struggling to balance their own books, let alone buy a ticket and get squeezed at a concession stand, all so owners and players can make even more money.
It’s a tougher sell for MLB clubs, this plea for forgiveness, when revenues from 2017-2019 jumped from $8.2 billion to $10.7 billion. It’s also a credibility problem compounded when they refuse to open their books for inspection and verification. And it definitely affects these talks, given that the average MLB salary decreased 6.4% from where it stood in 2017.
MLB players also make, by far, the lowest minimum salary ($570,500) of any league among the big four pro sports (NBA, $925,000; NHL, $750,000; NFL, $660,000).
Still, it’s not all that sinister, the owners’ stance. They made money enough to become owners, for the most part, by being sensible business people whose enterprises needed to run efficiently, with a particular dislike for red ink. Players who (mostly) have only a short window to maximize income, likewise are set on making the best possible deal that will give them — and their kids and even grandkids — a shot at tackling this thing called life with the greatest possible financial foundation.
Those pursuits, not mutually exclusive, are at the heart of this back-and-forth between owners and players that isn’t moving quickly nor gaining the compromises needed.
Any change in disposition will, as we’ve always known, come only when it gets late and money is being lost — by both sides. That’s not a matter of owners and players being stubborn. That’s a matter of being human.
And because neither side will be inclined to cede sufficient ground until the calendar pinches them into submission, we always — always — were looking at a mess of a spring camp, and probably a first month of the regular season, in 2022.
So, events to date, not all of them ominous, tell us this:
► They’re not pitching shutouts on agreements: Notice that both sides already have nodded yes to something that never should have been disputed the past 49 years: use of the designated hitter in both leagues. The DH will now be universal, a new item commissioner Rob Manfred affirmed last week when he wasn’t getting sidetracked with nonsensical asides that MLB owners would have made more money in the stock market had they invested there. Not a blanket truth, that stock-market sidebar, and irrelevant anyway. What’s good about a two-league DH is obvious: More jobs for hitters. More offense for games. Fewer inept at-bats by guys who are playing because they can throw, not hit, a baseball.
► Playoffs will expand: Another good sign that there is general accord here. The two sides are jawing about how many teams to incorporate into the October tournament, but the players, who are offering a 12-team format, can and should concede to the owners’ wishes for 14 teams. That 14-club arrangement worked great in 2020 and will be the best path forward, as long as players get a few revenue bones thrown their way. Fourteen teams is the easy call — for all.
► Looks as if a draft lottery for ugly teams will fly: Rather than September turning into a race to see which awful team can be the most awful — and win next year’s first-overall draft pick — both sides seem to agree it will be smarter to go with a NBA-style lottery system for those first seven or so draft picks. That nasty word “tanking” isn’t always a correct label for crummy teams at the bottom of a rebuild, but some disincentives to win definitely are in place. Both sides seem agreeable to thoughts that it’s better to play to win than to compete for a draft-turn. The lottery will help, as will a minimum payroll that owners seem resigned to accept.
► Decent advances on the service-time flap: This is big, and it perhaps affects no team in 2022 more than the Tigers. Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson are all-but-ready for Opening Day jobs. Greene has an edge there, but it’s conceivable that Torkelson could slam his way into manager AJ Hinch’s wishes and create problems for a more pragmatic front office that doesn’t care to have the free-agent clock tick for two premier players beginning in April. Under the current set-up, financially — and even competitively — Torkelson, no matter how hard he hits the ball in spring camp, should be held back a couple of months rather than lose an entire year of team control. MLB has decided to help out with its 2022 offer. It wants to award draft picks (an extra July amateur selection), as well as an International Draft pick (should an International Draft be part of the new CBA) to teams that don’t play the service-time hiding game and use premier talent immediately. A lot of stuff to surmount, but at least MLB concedes the textbook case of the Cubs playing accounting games in 2015 with Kris Bryant should not be among a team’s tactics.
► Problem areas remain … big problems: Here’s but one reason why these talks will likely extend into March: The Competitive Balance Tax, more commonly known as the luxury tax. The owners have agreed to raise the ceiling a tad — on average, less than a couple of million dollars per year — before teams are fined for blowing past their payroll allotments (now $214 million per club, annually). The parallel hitch, players say, is that MLB wants to raise the tariff from existing percentages on teams that exceed the ceiling in any new deal. Also, while teams would have a bit more freedom to spend past the ceiling without losing a draft pick, draft-pick forfeitures would still apply for teams that shoot past $234 million. Players aren’t wild about meager raises in the salary cap (in essence, that’s what the luxury-tax figure is) when they think the ceiling should be closer to $290 million. And especially when it comes with fines that can be stiffer than in the past.
► Pre-arbitration pool is an ocean from accord: Rookies and young players who make minimum salary, and are in line for relatively small raises awarded until they hit the three-year arbitration threshold, are heavy on the players’ agenda in this new CBA. And they should be. Think of players like Carlos Correa, Bryant, Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor — all the way back to Albert Pujols when he was pulling in salaries of less than $1 million for three MVP-grade seasons in St. Louis.
Players want $100 million in bonus pools for the top 30 non-arbitration performers to be distributed by a six-member panel (owners and players) based on performance tied to WAR (wins above replacement). The owners have said $15 million is their limit. Arithmetic might not be your specialty, but a gap this wide in two sides’ numbers isn’t being bridged in one bargaining session.
Fans who simply “want them to come to an agreement” will, in fact, get an agreement, certainly in the next 30 days. That’s fairly close to the time, at least in this view, that it will take to cover the gaps and dry ink on a new CBA.
Remember, also: There are scads of players who are unsigned for 2022. Once any new deal is done, you’ll see the equivalent of Black Friday shopping on the MLB front. They’ll need to hire register-help to keep up with the transactions, which will tack more time onto delayed starts to spring camp and to the regular season.
That group of buyers, by the way, will include the Tigers, who will instantly hunt for more pitching — rotation and bullpen help.
So, let this play out, aggravating as it is and will continue to be. Lots of valid bargaining tussles were waiting to be adjusted and resolved in 2022. Neither side can impose its will on the other, which is what’s right about collective bargaining. It’s ultimately an agreement. And for the pleasure of a new baseball season, with a new contract in place for probably the next five years, we can wait a few extra weeks for business and handshakes to meld.
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and former Detroit News sports reporter.