*** OFFICIAL *** 2022 MLB LOCKOUT DISCUSSION THREAD

Bronek

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I got a feeling the lockout wont be resolved any time soon. While back, I have read somewhere the owners are looking to implement spending cap similar to NFL format. If this is true, it will be long time before we enjoy MLB action. The players have a lot to loose.
 

Chicagosports89

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Yeah I think this gets ugly..... really ugly....

But I'm just a casual baseball fan these days so what do I know.
Baseballs been heading down a bad path for a while. The only thing that has kept them playing is a weak players union that caved on issues
 

SilenceS

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I think some of this over dramatic. Owner are going to play the Covid broke ga,e but these contracts nefore the lockout have been great for MLB players. There will be a middle ground. I think DH is def coming NL and I think more teams in playoffs for owners.
 

Chief Walking Stick

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I think some of this over dramatic. Owner are going to play the Covid broke ga,e but these contracts nefore the lockout have been great for MLB players. There will be a middle ground. I think DH is def coming NL and I think more teams in playoffs for owners.

Universal DH is fine, I totally support it. What about the extensive and ridiculous overhaul of the playoffs?
 

Chicagosports89

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I think some of this over dramatic. Owner are going to play the Covid broke ga,e but these contracts nefore the lockout have been great for MLB players. There will be a middle ground. I think DH is def coming NL and I think more teams in playoffs for owners.
If they are going to water down the playoffs, they need to shorten the regular season. Also enough of the 1 game wild card matchup, that's stupid
 

BaBaBlacksheep

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They need a cap. And these decade long guaranteed deals are insane.
 

Castor76

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If they are going to water down the playoffs, they need to shorten the regular season. Also enough of the 1 game wild card matchup, that's stupid

I have to disagree with you on this. I think there's something to rewarding a team for winning it's division. I know Wild Card teams can have better records that some division winners, but "dems tha brakes" as they say. I also wouldn't add any playoff teams. And then it would depend on what format they went to. Would a 6 team playoff be a 1 game between seeds 3V6 and 4V5 or 5V6 then 4Vwinner? With MLB loathe to have playoff games at the same time they would risk having games in mid November.
 

Castor76

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They need a cap. And these decade long guaranteed deals are insane.

I don't think they'll ever get a hard cap. The truly big spenders won't be held back like that. I do think owners will try to cap contract length, but the question is what will they give up to get it.

I think the #1 or #2 thing the players want is for them to get to FA sooner. That's going to mean they fix the service time loophole and just shave a couple of years off when players become eligible for FA. Right now it's 6 years of service time. Players should probably want that down to 4.5-4.7. This would give teams a little less than 3 seasons at the really low price with 2 arbitration years. This could get a guy to FA on average about his year 28 season. The much better players who are up at 21 could be FA by their age 26 year.

Then we get to limiting contract lengths and this will be more an owners fight than with the players. IMO, the solution is allow players to re-sign longer contracts with their existing team versus what they could sign as a FA. IMO, a re-signing player could sign for up 6 years while new teams would be held to 4 year deals. If a player is traded during the year then it's 4 years regardless. This gives teams who develop a player the advantage of being able to offer the most years and theoretically the most guaranteed money. This would also remove the 10/5 rule so it probably becomes the 10/3 rule.

Players should try to get rosters expanded to 27 or 28 with the NL getting the DH. Another thing the owners will have to agree on is a minimum payroll. I'm thinking an escalating scale 75M to over 100M in the next 6 years.
 

beckdawg

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I honestly think this stoppage is gonna be long term good for fans. Obviously one of the central issues is service time but that's both a negative for teams and players as is. Teams aren't going to call up prospects in the current environment until they are ready because fa will kill them later. But then that hurts the teams too often because players like Bryant can help teams.

Another thing likely to be changed is apparently drat pick trading is coming and potentially a international draft of some sort. This is great on a number of levels. Baseball trades in general are more interesting than most other sports but one area that really lacks is draft trades. The ability to trade picks will both make july more interesting for losing teams and will make the draft more interesting because teams that really want a specific guy can go out and get him rather than just hoping he falls. I think it'll be like the NFL draft on steroids because MLB teams can trade both current players and prospects to move up in drafts ideally.

As for a cap... I'm in favor of it if and only if it comes with a salary floor which i think the players want anyways. I feel like if you put a 100-200 mil range for the cap and increase it with inflation that gives enough room for teams to spend big but also for smaller market teams to not get crushed while still having to fork over money.
 

Chicagosports89

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I honestly think this stoppage is gonna be long term good for fans. Obviously one of the central issues is service time but that's both a negative for teams and players as is. Teams aren't going to call up prospects in the current environment until they are ready because fa will kill them later. But then that hurts the teams too often because players like Bryant can help teams.

Another thing likely to be changed is apparently drat pick trading is coming and potentially a international draft of some sort. This is great on a number of levels. Baseball trades in general are more interesting than most other sports but one area that really lacks is draft trades. The ability to trade picks will both make july more interesting for losing teams and will make the draft more interesting because teams that really want a specific guy can go out and get him rather than just hoping he falls. I think it'll be like the NFL draft on steroids because MLB teams can trade both current players and prospects to move up in drafts ideally.

As for a cap... I'm in favor of it if and only if it comes with a salary floor which i think the players want anyways. I feel like if you put a 100-200 mil range for the cap and increase it with inflation that gives enough room for teams to spend big but also for smaller market teams to not get crushed while still having to fork over money.
Why have draft picks not been tradeable already? I assume baseball will somehow screw that up, like putting restrictions on trading picks. But I agree, that I think the things that should have been fixed long ago are finally going to get addressed in this lockout. But the question is will it be in time to get a season this year? It'll be interesting to see if they do anything with contracts that could affect a player like Correa who didn't sign before the lockout as well
 

Probie2429

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Only way you can have draft pick trades would be if there are far fewer rounds. Unless you only allow trades other than at the draft say as part of the TDL or winter meetings. That could work.
 

Chicagosports89

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Only way you can have draft pick trades would be if there are far fewer rounds. Unless you only allow trades other than at the draft say as part of the TDL or winter meetings. That could work.
If picks are allowed to be traded I would I assume it obviously has to be all year, right?
 

beckdawg

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Why have draft picks not been tradeable already? I assume baseball will somehow screw that up, like putting restrictions on trading picks. But I agree, that I think the things that should have been fixed long ago are finally going to get addressed in this lockout. But the question is will it be in time to get a season this year? It'll be interesting to see if they do anything with contracts that could affect a player like Correa who didn't sign before the lockout as well
I believe the reasoning for them not being traded in the past was that teams were worried about small market teams just selling away their future for money. In the 90s this might have been a realistic belief but obviously in the current environment of baseball draft picks are worth their weight in gold.
 

beckdawg

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Only way you can have draft pick trades would be if there are far fewer rounds. Unless you only allow trades other than at the draft say as part of the TDL or winter meetings. That could work.
I mean I don't think teams would be particularly focused on trading them at any time but say winter meetings, right before the draft and at the trade deadline though I could see them replacing PTBNL in trades.
 

CSF77

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Collective Bargaining Issues: Expanded Playoffs

By Anthony Franco | December 6, 2021 at 4:43pm CDT

Last week, we covered what figures to be one of the top priorities for the MLB Players Association during collective bargaining discussions — alterations to the service time structure. Today, we’ll look at what should be one of the most important issues for Major League Baseball: potential postseason expansion.
An expanded playoff has looked to be a key issue for the league for quite some time, as MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes discussed in January with labor advisor Eugene Freedman. More playoff teams simply means more games for MLB to offer television partners — deals which have proven extremely profitable for the league in recent years. Under past collective bargaining agreements, playoff TV revenue has gone exclusively to the league. The creation of additional rounds to sell to FOX, Turner or any other broadcast partner would figure to provide the league and its owners another windfall.
The league and Players Association already agreed to one playoff expansion, bumping to 16 teams during the 2020 truncated season. That was a one-off agreement, but commissioner Rob Manfred publicly voiced support for a permanent playoff expansion last year. Manfred has previously floated 14 teams as the league’s ideal number, and Jesse Rogers of ESPN reported last week that MLB has had a 14-team playoff format on the table during its early collective bargaining proposals.
According to Rogers, MLB’s proposal would contain seven postseason teams from each of the American and National Leagues. In addition to the three division winners, each league would feature four Wild Card clubs. The team with the best record in each league would receive a first-round bye, while the remaining six teams in each league would participate in a three-game Wild Card series.
Under MLB’s vision, the two division winners in each league that don’t receive the bye would choose their Wild Card series opponents. The division winner with the second-best record would choose its opponent from the bottom three Wild Card clubs; the remaining division winner would have its pick of the bottom two Wild Card teams still available; the remaining Wild Card winners would face one another. The higher-seeded team in each league would host all three games of the opening series.
While potential postseason expansion looks to be an obvious positive for MLB, its effects on the players could be more mixed. The introduction of a playoff round would have a direct financial benefit for some players. Under the terms of previous CBAs, players on postseason teams received varying shares (dependent on team finish) of gate revenues in October. More playoff games would mean more gate revenues, which would stand to benefit some players each year.
That alone doesn’t seem enough to convince the players to wholeheartedly embrace postseason expansion. For one, the league’s interest in larger playoffs is greater than that of the MLBPA, giving the union a powerful bargaining chip to possibly extract concessions on other issues (i.e. service time structure, luxury tax thresholds) of more import to the players. And the MLBPA no doubt has concerns about playoff expansion’s potential indirect effects on team spending habits.
A bigger playoff field inherently means a greater possibility for every team to make the postseason. With increased odds could come complacency. A club with an already-strong roster may not be as motivated to improve under a 14-team field as they’d be under the current system, reasoning that they’re already comfortable with their current odds. Removing the Wild Card game reduces the incentive for teams to win their divisions, since division winners and Wild Card clubs alike would find themselves in an opening round three-game series (although the potential bye for the top seed would increase the incentive for clubs to pursue the league’s best record).
That’s particularly true in MLB, a league with a comparatively high level of variance in small samples. Playoff series in MLB are less predictable than they are in leagues like the NBA and NFL, a trend reinforced in 2021 when the playoff team with the worst regular season record (the Braves) won the World Series. Based on that high level of playoff volatility, many teams could be content to make the postseason — even as one of the lower seeds — and simply hope for a hot stretch once there. Lowering the bar to entry could make it easier for organizations with already strong big league rosters to be less active in free agency, an obvious concern for the players union.
MLB could counter that possibility would be offset by higher desire to improve among mid-tier clubs. After all, that small sample volatility gives teams with even average or marginally above-average rosters an opportunity to go on a lengthy playoff run. Improving from, say, a 76-win roster to an 84-win roster would be significantly more impactful under this vision than it is under the current system.
Still, the MLBPA has seemingly had reservations about the competitive incentives that come with potential playoff expansion. That’s reflected in their counterproposal, as Rogers reported that the union’s most recent offer involves a 12-team postseason, not MLB’s desired 14 clubs. Details on the MLBPA’s offer aren’t clear, although Rogers noted that proposal involved a significant restructuring that would see each league modified from the current three division setup to two divisions apiece (one containing eight clubs, one with seven).
With the MLBPA already showing openness to a 12-team playoff, it’d be a surprise if the next CBA didn’t involve some form of expansion. Keeping the 10-team status quo seems unlikely, since MLB would presumably prefer a 12-team setup to the current system even if the MLBPA doesn’t go for a 14-team tournament. Union amenability to playoff expansion could go a long way towards landing more favorable outcomes in some other areas the MLBPA finds more pressing.
As for fans, playoff expansion seems largely to be a matter of aesthetic preference. Some will naturally recoil at the idea, which would likely eventually result in a new mark for worst regular season record for a World Series champion (currently held by the 83-78 Cardinals of 2006). MLB has traditionally had a smaller postseason field than other major leagues, a point of great appeal for some fans. On the other hand, some viewers are likely to relish a bigger field. Greater opportunity to reach the postseason means more teams remaining in contention. That’s likely to keep more fanbases invested in August and September each season, which will be a feature for many observers.
 

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