04/24/24
May 27, 2020
Baseball Struggles to Reach a Deal to Return: If we can't enjoy the great game, we can at least enjoy another tradition -- strife between players and owners. Major League Baseball's plan to pay players a lot less for a shorter season isn't going over well. It proposes a scale that would cut salary 80% from the highest-paid players and 17.5% from the lowest. Players believe the owners promised in March to pay salaries in full prorated by games played. "Interesting strategy of making the best most marketable players potentially look like the bad guys," responded Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Brett Anderson.
Life, as we all know, is never about "fair" especially in our dollar-driven capitalist society. The owners will end up having to pay enough that the players agree to show up but surely this is just an opening for negotiation and not what the owners ever expected to pay.
posted by billsaysthis at 11:06 AM on May 27, 2020
unless pro athletes are also coming up with cures for cancer, they're all overpaid.
The NBC Sports Boston app "My Teams" has an article by John Tomase in which he says that "he hates all of them". I don't know how to link to the article, but the app is available in the usual places. You could also try NBC Sports Boston's web site.
Life, as we all know, is never about "fair"
One of my former supervisors once told me during our annual salary negotiations that you are not paid what you deserve, not paid what you earn, nor paid what you are worth. You are paid what you negotiate. It rings true. By the way, I received a mid-level increase that year despite the fact that I had not had a terribly productive year. Anything is possible, I now live across the street from him, and we are still on speaking terms.
posted by Howard_T at 06:37 PM on May 27, 2020
Found the link to the John Tomase article previously mentioned.
posted by Howard_T at 08:23 PM on May 27, 2020
If I was a player I'd raise hell about any scheme pitting players against each other, which is what the sliding scale does. Let the owners pull that now to their benefit and they'll keep playing that card in the future.
posted by rcade at 12:10 PM on May 28, 2020
That proposal was obviously designed to drive a wedge between the players, but it seems unlikely to work given the money already paid out under the March agreement.
It's interesting seeing which franchises appear to care somewhat about the game and their employees and which would rather burn it all down than see year-over-year profits decline. The Nationals, whose owning family is worth roughly $5 billion, just cut 30 minor leaguers and reduced June weekly pay to the rest from $400 to $300. That extra $100 was just a step too far, which is maybe even more amazing than the A's stopping pay altogether.
posted by Mookieproof at 10:14 PM on May 31, 2020
As sports agent Bob Woolf once said, unless pro athletes are also coming up with cures for cancer, they're all overpaid.
(He could afford to be candid. He had already played a big role in setting and developing the salary market at that point.)
So my version of what constitutes fair pay for 2020 is no doubt different from the players' version.