moonslav59

Fair points, but once the rules are agreed upon and established, and you kind of have a feel for what your team's budget is, it's all part of the speculation games some of us fans take part in.

Yup. There is absolutely no way the owners make significant concessions, like the players already have, in the next few hours or days. It's going to be at least 2 series lost- maybe 2 months or more. Sad, but I hope the players stand strong.

The union’s player leaders voted unanimously to decline the league’s offer, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN (Twitter link). A person associated with the MLBPA told Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press, “We are done. This was always (the league’s) plan.” That’s in line with other allegations by those on the players’ side who believe the league exaggerated the extent of the progress made last night in order to frame today’s lack of agreement as the fault of the union. -MLBTR

The players would jump at making 45%. 50% would be heaven. The problem is the hidden nature of baseball profits.

Need/Deserve... six of one-half dozen... If you look at the entertainment industry, and this is what baseball is, people pay big money to watch top talent. The middle men have always tried to gouge out as big of a chunk as possible, and many an entertainer has been left broke by cheating agents and "handlers." Many have gone broke by their own undoings- drugs, women, cars, rampant unchecked spending, and many managers, venue owners and business owners have made big money off the best talent around. Baseball should not be viewed in much of a different view, even though it is different in many ways. I get the "risk" owners take, but when's the last time even a half-witted owner lost money in baseball? It's hard to track all the money they make, because much is secret, but we do see what the pay for the team and what they get when they sell it, and nobody can convince me these guys aren't making way more than the players are making, and people come to see the players not the owners. I pay to see the Rolling Stones in concert. I know the middle men gobble up much of the ticket costs. Hell, the damn "service fees," alone are a joke, but the Stones make a ton of money, and they DESERVE it! So do MLB baseball players. Nobody will pay big money and cable bills to watch Paw Sox level talent... at least not at the level we see in the bigs.

The players made some pretty high demands, no doubt, but they've seen their pay go down for years- not even counting inflation adjustments. They've backed off many of their demands by quite a bit. The owners' idea of making a counter offer is to raise the lux tax by $1M for one year. They have tried to say the players have been antagonistic and are the reason for this standoff. It's typical management negotiation ploys, but it seems like the propaganda is working on some fans.

So? Even the poorest owners are filthy rich. That, also, means nothing.

I understand your opinion, but disagree. Players should not make less and less money as owners make more and more. The owners called their offer their "best." That is basically calling an end to negotiations, unless the players agree in full. Not even a token raise of $1M to the luxury tax limt. A token raise to their last min salary offer and peanuts in other areas. It's your right to blame whomever you want, but to me, this is 100% on the owners. The locked the doors and took over 40 days to give their first offer. They've moved very little from a position where they had screwed the players over on the last deal, and I'm not even talking about player service time manipulations. We'll just have to agree to disagree... again, but in all honesty, do you think the players should except this final and "best offer?".

I do blame the owners 100% and am not surprised everyone doesn't. The players will not even keep up with inflation under this "best offer" put forward by the owners.

Money fazes even multi-billionaires. Yes, the players may "need it more," but they will stick together and have been planning for this for years.

Yup, but let's not let them off the hook by siding with them.

I hope the players dig in. I'd hate to miss watching the game I love, but these owners irk the crap out of me!

Even an agreement to split the differences in half would be a bad deal for the players. The owners are forcing missed games. It's 100% on them.

MLBTR reports: MLB’s offer to the union, per Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post (Twitter link), includes a $30MM pre-arbitration bonus pool with no yearly increases, a $700K minimum salary with $10K annual increases, and no changes to prior luxury-tax thresholds ($220MM from 2022-24, $224MM in 2025, $230MM in 2026). That leaves a $55MM gap between the league’s proposed bonus pool (which also includes yearly $5MM increases) and a $25K gap in minimum salary. As for the luxury-tax thresholds, the two sides still face an $18MM gap in 2022 proposals, which grows to a $33MM gap by their proposed 2026 terms.

Anybody that thinks MLB survives without the top 200-400 players playing is kidding themselves.

Context. I’m talking about min salary and arb guys, mostly. Plus the average salary has declined.

I didn’t say he didn’t have a reason to quit, but he quit. He was not let go.

The owners are barely allowing the players to keep up with inflation. They make way more money than they pretend to make, and then when they sell the team, they reap huge rewards. I'm fine with figuring out a way to keep a few teams from spending way more than others, or a few players to make a large percent of all the player salary, but the lower paid players deserve better- MUCH better!

Hogwash. Jeter quit.

Updated scouting reports... #41 Jacob Wallace: https://soxprospects.com/players/wallace-jacob.htm Potential middle reliever. Ceiling of a late-inning reliever. True relief profile with the potential for a standout fastball/slider combination. Has potential for two plus pitches, and his unique delivery gives hitters a very different look on the mound. Command and control need refinement in order to reach his potential. Very intense on the mound, always competes. #42 Cameron Cannon: https://soxprospects.com/players/cannon-cameron.htm Potential minor league depth player. Ceiling of an emergency up-and-down player. Bat will have to carry him; does not project to add significant value defensively. Needs to improve defensively and refine plate approach. Has not shown the potential at the plate the Red Sox envisioned when they drafted him. If he can show the upside offensively he did coming out of college, projection could change. May add other positions as he moves up the ladder, but currently looks best suited for second base. #43 Niko Kavadas: https://soxprospects.com/players/kavadas-niko.htm Intriguing hitter with a power-over-hit profile right now. Value is solely tied up in bat. Will have to hit at all levels to overcome defense and speed deficiencies. #44 Eduardo Vaughn: https://soxprospects.com/players/vaughan-eduardo.htm High-ceiling, low-floor profile. Wide variance between what he is and what he could be. Shows loud tools already and has the size, athleticism and projection teams look for in a prospect. #45 Luis Perales: https://soxprospects.com/players/perales-luis.htm High-ceiling, low-floor arm. Wide-range of potential outcomes, but has shown among the best raw stuff of any teenage arm in the system. Needs to get on the mound after having lost 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic and 2021 to injury. If he gets healthy and shows the type of stuff he has in workouts, could fly up the system’s prospect rankings. #46 Fraymi de Leon: https://soxprospects.com/players/deleon-fraymi.htm High baseball IQ with solid athleticism. The organization loves his potential to stick at shortstop. Offensive upside will depend on ability to add strength. Wide range of possible outcomes.

Once a cry baby- always a crybaby.

It's not looking good for even a 5 month season, IMO. They are miles apart.

The best passage in the article.

Good read. This paragraph is pretty telling... Player pay has decreased for four consecutive years, even as industry revenues grew and franchise values soared and the would-be stewards of the game pleaded to anyone who would listen that owning a baseball team isn't a particularly profitable venture. Players' service time has been manipulated to keep them from free agency and salary arbitration. The luxury tax, instituted to discourage runaway spending, has morphed into a de facto salary cap, and too many teams are nowhere near it anyway, instead gutting their rosters and slashing their payrolls because the game's rules incentivize losing. The commissioner has called the World Series trophy a "piece of metal," and the league has awarded the team that did the best job curtailing arbitration salaries a replica championship belt. More... On Dec. 2, when the league instituted what commissioner Rob Manfred, in a letter to fans, called a "defensive lockout," MLB acted first -- ostensibly in the name of proactivity. "We hope that the lockout will jump-start the negotiations," Manfred wrote. The league then waited 43 days to present the union its next offer. ...the CBT threshold rose about 18% while industry revenues grew by at least 40%. They saw that in 2018, long before COVID existed, their average salaries went down -- as they did again in 2019 and 2020 and 2021, even as the biggest deals in the sport were growing and $300 million-plus guaranteed contracts were no longer outliers. They saw franchise values exploding to the point that in 2021, Forbes estimated, the 30 MLB teams were worth a combined $55.28 billion. Ten years ago, only two collective-bargaining agreements earlier, their combined valuations were $15.68 billion.

YES! I've been a Sox fan for 50 years! (Actually, starting 10/10/71)