MLB Offseason 2018-19: SIGN KIMBREL AND KEUCHEL YOU FUCKS

The issue is that ever since the dawn of free agency since the Seitz decision, that's been the gentleman's agreement: Teams get to horrifically underpay players for their first six years of service time, and then those players get their payday.

What part of "the players are earning a historically low percentage of revenues when MLB makes more and more money every passing year" passes you by?

I mean, imagine if this was happening in the NBA, where most players are signing their supermax deals within a week or two of the offseason beginning. If generational-level talents were still sitting on the sideline two weeks before training camp opened, the NBPA would be shitting bricks, and justifiably so.

 

That was a so-called "offer" almost certainly leaked by the Nationals, who have a pretty good level of control over the local beat writers. They don't own the papers like the Red Sox do with the Boston Globe, but it's not far from it.

Any time you hear about a team offering a certain amount of money and a player turning it down, it's the front office trying to negotiate through the media to drive down the player's market. It's been that way since the '80s.

I'm not an economist, I work in marketing, but even I can tell you that without stars, there are no butts in seats, there's no beer being sold for fifteen bucks a cup, there's no jerseys and shirtseys and hats being sold ... and all that goes straight to ownership.

Without labor, there's no baseball. And for labor to be making a ridiculously low percentage of revenues is like a restaurant owner robbing a bartender of his tips, saying, "Well, you just worked, but *I* made the real money."

 

He never said it, the Washington Post reported it (which generally means the team leaked it). Boras only said that the Nationals' offer was an "olive branch."

 

Hey, his job is to get his clients the most money humanly possible; that's the job of any representative.

I mean, beyond two generational, HOF-type players in Harper and Machado who hit free agency at 26--which never fucking happens--the best starting pitcher and the best reliever are still sitting out there unsigned.

Corbin and Donaldson are the only players to get over $20MM AAV, and Donaldson's was a one-year deal. Eovaldi is the second-largest contract at 4 / 68. Anyone who doesn't think there's collusion happening has their head in the sand.

Edit: Shit, Joey Votto and Robinson Cano are both five years into 10-year deals and both have produced so much value in those five years that it is highly likely their deals will be "worth it" overall. Like, Cano need only be worth ~6-8 WAR total over the next 5 years--which is a near-certainty--to make that deal a good one by the simplistic $/WAR shorthand.

 

Okay, let me put it this way, and I think I've said this before. I make mid-five figures in my current job. Given my company's revenue and the value I provide, my compensation is pretty fair.

Without labor, there literally is no baseball, and superstars provide a ridiculous amount of value. MLB teams are making more money than they ever have in history.

There are so many other sources of income that people like to forget, and not just the television, concession, advertising, and merchandise sales which, in addition to the ticket sales, are all subject to revenue sharing.

Let's take the Cubs, for example. The Ricketts family owns practically all of Wrigleyville now, which includes bars, restaurants, retail stores, apartments, rooftop views of Cubs games, and a massive luxury hotel, all of which are packed to the gills during every home game, and every cent of that money they get to keep for themselves, because they're not technically associated with the Cubs and are therefore not subject to revenue sharing. The amount of cash they rake in because of the team is so absurdly high that giving Bryce Harper a 10 / 350 million deal would be a drop in the bucket. But they (and every other MLB team owner) have the public believing that the players are being unreasonable and asking for too much money because most of us working class shlubs would die to have a $3 million per year job, not comprehending just how much more than that their bosses are making.

 

The owners will let that happen over their dead bodies.