MLB is trying to shrink the minors again

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We hadn’t heard a peep about the nature of the minor-league collective bargaining between Major League Baseball and the Players Association despite it going on for months now, but we finally got a tiny morsel to reflect on. Tony Clark spoke on various matters around the league, which Evan Drellich published at The Athletic, and it’s all worth looking at. The newest info in there, though, pertains to the ongoing bargaining, and an ask MLB is making that the union isn’t about to budge on:

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Round-up: Carlos Correa, bargaining, stadiums

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Happy New Year, it’s time for some scattered thoughts I had while I was trying to relax in between holidays.

Carlos Correa’s whole deal

Carlos Correa nearly signed a 13-year, $350 million deal with the Giants, until it was scuttled when they didn’t like what they saw in his physical. The Mets went out and snatched him to play third base for 12 years and $315 million, but that deal also hasn’t become official yet thanks to the physical he took with them. All indications are that a deal will be completed and Correa will play third base for the Mets rather than shortstop since Francisco Lindor is already around, but it just hasn’t happened yet.

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Mailbag: Under the radar minor-league CBA issues

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Mailbag! If you have a mailbag question you’d like to see answered, either respond to this newsletter email, or hit me up on @Marc_Normandin on Twitter. Here goes.

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Minor League collective bargaining has begun

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Well, it’s actually happening. There is a minor-league sub-unit of the Major League Baseball Players Association, and they’ve officially entered into the collective bargaining process with the league, according to The Athletic’s Evan Drellich. The two sides — the players once again represented by Bruce Meyer, the league by deputy commissioner Dan Halem — “made presentations for their respective sides,” which is how these things open, especially when there is no existing CBA to work off of.

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Mailbag: Changing minor-league team control

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It’s time for a mailbag. If you have a mailbag question you’d like to see answered, either respond to this newsletter email, or hit me up on @Marc_Normandin on Twitter. Here goes.

Payment and living conditions are likely big items, as well as getting spring training pay formalized, but what are the issues MiLB might try and address that might have drastic impact on team/player control for minor league players? -@ERolfPleiss

That… is a great question. Realistically, this first time out, I’m not sure if it will be a priority to change how long minor leaguers are under the control of one club. It becomes very hard to change things that have already been agreed upon in a prior collective bargaining agreement, and while this will be the first between minor-league players and MLB, there are already rules and regulations in place in the existing CBA between MLB’s players and the league.

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Mailbag: Separate bargaining units, salary floor

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Mailbag time. If you have a mailbag question you’d like to see answered, either respond to this newsletter email, or hit me up on @Marc_Normandin on Twitter. Let’s get to it.

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A call for MiLB questions

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With no collective bargaining agreement news on the horizon at the MLB level, it’ll be a little quieter in that regard than it has been the past few years once the postseason and offseason hit. Not silent, no, but it’s not the story of the winter, as it was of late. Instead, there will be focus on what goes into the first-ever CBA for MLB’s minor-league players, now that they’re unionized and the league has voluntarily recognized them as such: how long that process will be is unknown, how much of a fight will be put up by MLB or even by the players themselves is a mystery, too. But that’ll be the topic du jour until it isn’t, considering its historic and ongoing nature.

I’ve got coverage plans, of course, both reactive and proactive, but I wanted to send out a note requesting mailbag questions from y’all, on the very subject of this minor-league bargaining unit of the Players Association, the CBA they’ll be negotiating, and whatever else comes to mind on the topic. Given how long I’ve been covering minor-league unions in other sports and the potential for one in MLB, the chances are good I’ll either have an answer to your question, or know who to ask to get one. So let’s sift through all of this together.

You can reply to this newsletter with a question if you’re reading it in your inbox, or you can reach me on Twitter at @Marc_Normandin. And if you have non-MiLB unionization questions, feel free to ask those, too, but, as with lockout-related questions last offseason, there’s a reason to ask for these targeted questions. Depending on the question and the answer, they could be featured as part of a mailbag featuring multiple questions, or as an article unto itself.

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Who bargains over the international draft now?

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Last week at Baseball Prospectus, I wrote about how the new minor-league bargaining unit within the Major League Baseball Players Association is going to be bargaining for more than just money. Some of that, as described in the article in question, is in relation to how MLB will no longer be able to just unilaterally change rules in the minors, but instead would have to bargain over rule changes just like they have with the MLBPA in the past. There are other areas where change is coming too, though, also related to the way the PA has bargained in the past.

I’ve said this before, but it’s just weird that… well, let’s just quote me from this past July, shall we? This is from a piece celebrating the fact that the PA and MLB couldn’t come to an agreement on instituting an international draft to replace the current international free agent signing period:

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MLB will voluntarily recognize minor-league union

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It’s kind of wild to be typing this out even after having the weekend to process it, but Major League Baseball won’t be fighting the formation of a minor-league bargaining unit within the MLB Players Association. Instead, they’ll voluntarily recognize it, assuming the card check on Wednesday shows that there is, in fact, the support the PA says there is for this.

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Why the MLBPA hadn’t already organized minor leaguers

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You aren’t about to hear me say that the Major League Baseball Players Association has always had the needs of minor-league players in mind during their negotiations, but there is at least one persistent criticism of the union’s handling of minor leaguers that doesn’t carry much weight, and that’s the fact that they weren’t already part of the MLBPA. There have been reasons for things being split the way they are for decades — for the entire history of the Players Association as we know it today — and it’s only just recently that the environment has changed in a way where the PA could more formally lend assistance to the organization of minor-league players.

Back in 2012, Slate spoke to the PA’s first executive director, Marvin Miller, as well as Gene Orza, who spent 26 years working with the PA after being brought on as an associate general counsel, about the decision to not include minor-league players in the organizing of the MLBPA:

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