Mar 11, 2022
New labour deal a win-win for players, MLB
The owners gave more than they took in this round of negotiations but that doesn’t mean it was a loss, Steve Phillips writes.
Major League Baseball owners and the MLB Players Association finally have a deal!
There will now be labour peace for at least the next five years after the league and union came to terms on a new five-year collective bargaining agreement Thursday, ending a 99-day lockout.
A full 162-game regular season will begin on April 7, with spring training set to get underway on Sunday.
This is a deal that has major economic impact for the players, especially younger players, as the new CBA provides for an increase in minimum salaries. The economics of the game, however, aren’t interesting to most fans, other than how the changes will increase the cost of a beer and a hot dog at ballparks.
But there are changes coming to the game that will improve the product on the field, with the most significant one being the expanded playoffs.
There will now be a 12-team postseason, with six teams in each league headed to the playoffs from the current five, creating an entire extra round of games. The increased number of playoff teams will keep more fan bases engaged deeper in the season. Plus, it will make teams spend more money on players, both in the off-season and in player capital at the trade deadline.
Baseball gets criticized for not marketing its stars. It is a challenge because the game is consumed by fans on a regional basis. We all love our own stars and don’t relate well to stars on other clubs. But playoff baseball allows fans from across the game to connect with players on every team. The game needs more stars playing in the biggest events. We will get that now with more teams in postseason baseball.
The designated hitter is now the standard in each league as the National League will now adopt the AL rule so we will no longer see pitchers having to hit in NL ballparks. This move should add more offence around the game.
You will notice advertising patches on the uniforms this year. This was a new income stream that the players union agreed to early in the negotiation process. It will be interesting to see how much these patches stand out.
Another big change coming to the majors, but not until the 2023 season, is having all teams play at least one series against every team from both leagues.
Currently, the Toronto Blue Jays play their AL East division rivals 19 times each. That will remain the case in 2022, but starting next season there will be fewer divisional games and every team will play every other team at least once. That will allow Jays fans to see more of the game’s stars on a more regular basis.
If you have grown accustomed to seven-inning double headers and runners starting on second base in extra innings, I am sorry to disappoint you – those are gone. We will return to regular baseball rules in 2022.
Speaking of rules, the owners and players have agreed on a 45-day window at the end of the season when rule changes for the following year can be announced. In 2023, we will see some interesting changes in the game.
First, there will be a pitch clock in stadiums, which will hold pitchers accountable for delivering a pitch in 14 seconds with no one on base and in 19 seconds with runners on base. This is meant to increase the pace of play while reducing the amount of time between the action that happens on the field. If on average, four seconds can be cut from the time between pitches, it will save 20 minutes in a 300-pitch contest. That is significant.
Second, infield defensive shifts will be banned. There will be limitations where infielders can be stationed before a pitch. It will most likely entail only two infielders being positioned on either side of second base. Plus, they will have to start with their feet on the infield dirt. Teams will no longer be able to move their third baseman to shallow right field with a left-handed pull hitter at the plate. This should allow for more balls falling in for hits.
Third, the bases will be enlarged by three inches. This will reduce the number of collisions at first base. Most importantly, it places the runner on first base who will stand 4.5 inches closer to second base. Think about how many close plays occur during the season as base stealers get thrown out by mere inches. Well, now those runners will be safe. It will add the stolen base element back to the game, increasing the offence and overall excitement.
Those changes are a good start to improving the product on the field. And there will be more to come, most likely including automated ball/strike zones.
In sports we are focused on winning and losing. When two parties compete, one will be declared the winner and one ends up the loser. A negotiation is certainly competitive, but it is not a competition. The best negotiations have a win-win result. It is a compromise where there is give and take. In this recent negotiation, the owners gave more than they took. But it doesn’t mean that it was a loss for them.
The past few CBA negotiations were a win for the owners and a loss for the players. Player compensation decreased in real dollars as well as the percentage of revenues. The unintended consequences of the deal cost the players money. They hadn’t pushed for significant increases in the CBT. Clubs had started to evaluate players differently with analytics that changes the way they valued players. The focus for teams shifted to younger players and away from older veterans. Teams were no longer making the same mistake they used to with older players.
This time around the players had big demands and were looking to make up for lost ground. They negotiated aggressively and tried to grind out every last dollar from the owners.
They set out to get increases in income for younger players, a huge jump in the minimum salary, and a newly formed player pool to reward the most impactful non-arbitration eligible players. They accomplished that.
The MLBPA wanted to increase the competitive balance tax thresholds to keep growing the spending for the game’s big market franchises. They got what they wanted.
They wanted to eliminate tanking in baseball where teams divest themselves of all their big-money players and start over by building with prospects for years at a time. The addition of a draft lottery will motivate teams to speed the process along as it limits the reward for losing.
The players union wanted to eliminate service-time manipulation; a practice by which front offices extend their control over their best young players by almost a full year by delaying the players promotion to the majors. They came up with a creative reward system for clubs and players alike: if young players excel at the highest level, they would be awarded a full year of service time even if the player was not in the major leagues all season long. Clubs would earn additional draft picks as a reward.
The MLBPA had an interesting negotiating strategy as they never indicated what their priorities were, so they got the owners to address the broad number of areas where the players wanted to see progress. Union negotiators said no to many of the owner proposals, getting them to keep putting more money in the pot. As much as I believed the MLBPA was playing with fire by not agreeing to a deal 10 days ago, it proved to be the correct strategy. Sure, it alienated some of the fans, but they were able to get significant increases in both the CBT and non-arbitration player pools, not to mention the minimum salary.
This deal is a win for the players, but it is not a loss for the owners. The owners saved the 162-game season and the revenues that come with it. They added revenue streams with the increased playoff format and the advertising patches on uniforms, not to mention the new streaming deal with Apple. They probably went further than they wanted to with the money they put in the deal, but they kept free agency at six years of service time and were able to avoid any changes to the arbitration process. That is significant.
Overall, this is the best kind of deal – a win-win situation.