MLB’s owners want to put a cap on contract length

There’s little chance such a cap would exist, but we can still explore why the league would want it.

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Late last month at Global Sport Matters, I wrote about how the Padres and Mets were “paving the way for the next era of MLB labor relations.” The idea was that the union was able to keep MLB from accomplishing all of its lockout-related goals in the new collective bargaining agreement, and now, on top of the league’s failure to squash the union and its power, they had this terrifying new era where minor leaguers were unionized, the regional sports network model was faltering, and clubs like the Padres and Mets were not following the unwritten rules of spending like they’re supposed to.

I concluded the piece with these thoughts:

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The A’s are moving to Las Vegas, probably

Nothing is official, except for that Oakland told the A’s to get out and never come back.

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The A’s and Oakland have been at odds over a taxpayer-funded stadium and whether the team would stay or go for… Jesus, the entire time I’ve been writing professionally? I’ve been at this for longer than I haven’t been at this point, you know, this is like the Big Dig of stadium talks. And all of it for naught, too, as the A’s have decided to take their ball and go to a new home, this one in Las Vegas. Or, well, it was sort of decided for them, in a way. The A’s agreed to purchase land in Las Vegas with the intent of building a stadium on it, and the city of Oakland found out nearly the same way everyone else did: when they were told it was happening.

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PNC employees avert strike before Tuesday’s Pirates’ game

The deal hasn’t been ratified, and it has its issues, but a strike was at least temporarily averted.

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A strike was authorized in Major League Baseball, but you might have missed that news, since it wasn’t one that involved the players. Employees at PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, authorized a strike and planned to picket outside of Tuesday’s game between the Pirates and Reds, but the strike ended up being averted due to a tentative deal reached with the club before any action beyond authorization could be taken. Strikes don’t have to happen to be effective, they just have to be a credible threat to be taken seriously.

And there wasn’t much the Pirates were going to be able to do on short notice when the ushers, ticket takers, and ticket sellers were showing up to picket outside of the stadium and explain to anyone trying to come to the game why they weren’t in their usual stations, ready to sell tickets or help visitors to their seats. So, a tentative agreement was reached, the strike was averted, and these employees will now vote on a deal that would go through 2025 and include retroactive pay for the 2022 season.

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Opt-out clauses aren’t ‘problematic’

Are you really going to let Jim Bowden tell you how things should work?

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Former MLB general manager and professional interference runner for the league’s owners Jim Bowden had an article published at The Athletic on Thursday, decrying the rise of player opt-outs in extensions and free agent contracts. It’s a lengthy one, and while it does take opposing viewpoints into account to a degree — for example, there’s an executive in there saying if an opt-out is what it takes to sign a player, then the player will get an opt-out as the cost of doing business — it can essentially be boiled down to “players having options is bad.”

From Bowden:

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On MiLB’s new, bargained housing policy

A lack of player input into the housing policy helped spur on minor-league unionization, so it should be no surprise that the end result of a bargained housing policy is looking good.

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Thanks to reporting by Evan Drellich at The Athletic, we now have more details on just what the improvements to the housing plan for minor leaguers is, courtesy of their now-ratified collective bargaining agreement. Some notes we’ve seen before, but they were more vague at the time — like the idea that all but the most well-paid minor-league players would have their housing paid for, for instance. What was that threshold, what percentage of minor leaguers would be considered “well-paid,” etc., those details were lacking when news was first announced.

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Notes: Minor League CBA, ratification, the future of MLB labor

Notes on the MiLB CBA ratification, as well as some work from me from around the internet.

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Last Wednesday evening, it was reported that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association — the representatives of the unionized minor-league baseball players — had come to a preliminary agreement for the first-ever collective bargaining agreement for MiLB. All that was needed was for the rest of the players and for MLB’s owners to vote on the agreed-upon deal in order to ratify it. We’re still waiting as of Monday morning for the owners to share their voted-upon feelings on the matter, but the players came through with 99 percent in favor, per a report from The Athletic’s Evan Drellich.

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The first MiLB CBA could be ratified by Friday

If the players and MLB’s owners agree that this is the deal, the first-ever MiLB CBA will be ratified before their Opening Day.

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By midnight entering Friday, the first-ever Minor League Baseball collective bargaining agreement could be ratified. It’s already been initially agreed to by the negotiating parties: now, the larger minor-league player base and MLB’s owners have to vote and agree to what’s been bargained. It’s a historic moment, and one that might take a little time to see some of the effects of —both because these things don’t come to light all at once and because there are some larger, structural changes that are going to take time to see the full effects of — though there are also immediate changes that are far more obvious.

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Mailbag: Kids with jobs

Celebrating kids celebrating a high school graduation is good, yes, but consider why it’s a notable story, too.

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Mailbag time! This one on international signings and how weird MLB’s behavior with literal children gets to be. 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.

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The annual Forbes’ MLB valuations are out; don’t forget about context

Forbes’ annual report is a tool, not the finished product you’d build with them.

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Forbes’ annual look at the most valuable teams in MLB posted on Thursday, and it’s, as always, worth opening up and perusing. Seeing that there are increases in team valuations and the like is always fascinating — even if they’re just estimates — especially when they’re balanced against this idea that teams just aren’t making all that much money: an idea perpetuated by Forbes’ own report, even.

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From the highs of the WBC to the lows of the Angels

The Angels might be good in 2023. They also might just be the Angels, and then lose Shohei Ohtani forever.

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Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout, the two best players on the Angels, faced off on Tuesday night in the World Baseball Classic final. Ohtani came in to close out a one-run game in the ninth, and he blew his teammate — one of the greatest hitters to ever take the field, whose only issue these days is actually being on the field — away with a couple of fastballs that gave away how much Ohtani wanted this match-up, and then a slider that not even Trout was going to be dialed in for. It’s going to be a lasting memory of the incredible 2023 WBC, and Angels fans are going to want to hold onto it, because they very well might need it.

The 2023 Angels might be pretty good! They usually aren’t, of course, but this year might be different. Ohtani has been teammates with Trout since 2018, and in that stretch, the Angels are 328-380. They haven’t posted a .500 record in those five years, never mind a winning one, and have lost 90 games in the season in which Ohtani didn’t take the mound, but could still show up to hit. Even with Trout batting .283/.369/.630 with a 178 OPS+ and Ohtani following up his MVP-winning 2021 with a .273/.356/.519 line and 2.33 ERA over 166 innings, powered by an AL-leading 11.9 strikeouts per nine, the 2022 Angels lost 89 games.

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