Major League Baseball's labor-management war is only beginning
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred speaks at the National Press Club July 16, 2018 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty Images/Win McNamee
Rob Manfred guaranteed this week that baseball will be played this summer. And virus willing, the commissioner should be able to deliver on that promise, even without the union’s approval.
So enjoy the sport while it lasts. Just don’t get too attached. You’ll receive no such guarantees for the 2022 season, and a work stoppage in the not-too-distant-future has never felt more real than during this pandemic-wrecked year.
Consider the vitriol being spat now, among owners and players, as merely a dress rehearsal for the looming labor war in the months leading up to the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement on Dec. 1, 2021.
Before this year, I scoffed at those who sounded the alarm. The sport was on a remarkable run of prosperity — 25 uninterrupted years — and everyone was making too much money to slay the golden goose.
Major League Baseball made a record $10.7 billion in 2019, according to Forbes, and toppled the record $10.3 billion from the previous season.
Two years ago, Mike Trout signed an extension with the Angels worth $430 million over 12 years. This past winter, Gerrit Cole landed a nine-year, $324 million contract with the Yankees. Life seemed good, for both players and owners.
The canary in the coal mine, however, was the average salary for players, which dropped in consecutive seasons for the first time in more than 50 years. Last year, the average was $4.051 million, a slide from $4.095 million in 2018 and $4.097 million in 2017. With MLB’s unrelenting surge in revenues, the Players Association already was growing wary of such trends.
Turns out, it took this novel coronavirus, a once-a-century pandemic, to create the pressure that pushed the sport’s deep-rooted problems bubbling to the surface.
We already knew MLB and the Players Association operated with a broken relationship, eroded by decades of distrust, legal wrangling and public sniping.
But we didn’t realize how truly shattered it was, not until the two sides failed so spectacularly in their clumsy efforts to salvage merely half a season — at a time when the country is struggling to deal with the ravages of COVID-19 and the civil unrest over racial injustice. The irony of it all is how the pandemic itself was reduced to a secondary role in sabotaging these efforts.
The true pathogen responsible for derailing these negotiations was a familiar one: money. And by fighting over salary percentages, involving a March agreement that the two sides believe says different things, the battle has exposed not only the anger toward each other but the owners’ desire for a system overhaul for player compensation.
It’s hardly a secret that MLB covets what the other sports have, a revenue-sharing model that provides teams with cost certainty from year to year. But payroll limits and salary caps are dirty words to baseball’s union, which exploded at the mere suggestion of revenue-sharing at the onset of these return-to-play negotiations (the owners never put it in any of the proposals).
This conversation isn’t going away, however. Typically, owners tend to discuss such things among themselves, behind closed doors. But the gloves are off now, with teams taking historic losses from the pandemic and the union demanding to be paid the 100% prorated salaries agreed upon in March.
Given the radioactive nature of the subject, it was surprising to see two MLB owners speak so glowingly of revenue-sharing during the past week amid the current labor feud. That was very telling and provided some insight into where all this is headed in 2021.
“Why is it that we are the only sport that doesn’t have revenue-sharing? All of the other major sports have revenue-sharing,” Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick told 98.7 Arizona Sports. “What would be happening right now — think about it — if this situation would have evolved and we had been in a revenue-sharing model? We would be acting as partners to get back together and get back on the field.
“The very lack of a revenue-sharing model puts us in an adversarial position when we really ought to be partners and advancing the game and building the revenues because all would win in those circumstances . . . It’s sad.”
Cubs owner Tom Ricketts recently sounded jealous of the revenue-sharing employed by the other sports.
“They create a sense of partnership with the players because a rising tide lifts all the boats,” he told ESPN. “It’s always been considered something the MLBPA doesn’t want to go for because they see it as a salary cap. They’re clear on that. I don’t agree. If it’s done right, it can give incentives for the players and the owners to grow the game. It could be part of the next CBA if people are willing to discuss it.”
Discuss? MLB and the Players Association barely even talk anymore, conducting the bulk of these negotiations through nasty email exchanges, and you can bet pretty much all communication will be shut off after this is over — other than ripping each other through the media.
MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem reportedly wrote to the union Friday that its negotiating tactics were doing “enormous damage to the sport.” Truth is, the damage from this escalating conflict is only beginning.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
