Tag: MLBPA grievance

The A’s have to spend now, or else

The A’s have to spend, due to increased revenue-sharing, and oh, they also aren’t projected to spend more than they did in 2024, so maybe relax the “dawn of a new era” reactions.

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The A’s publicly said, quite awhile ago, that they planned on increasing their payroll in the future. They also stated that the expectation was that this would begin in the 2024-2025 offseason — it was clear that signing players might be difficult for them, given convincing anyone to intentionally play for them in a minor-league stadium in Sacramento for a few years was going to be a tough sell, but trades were always an option, too.

They’ve recently added a couple of expensive — for them — players onto the roster, which of course implies that it truly was Oakland holding them back, or that their ways have changed, or whatever positive interpretation they hope you take away from this for their benefit; MLB’s own website is of course happy to promote a “new direction” for the franchise. The truth of the matter is much simpler, however: the A’s have to spend, or else a grievance will be filed against them.

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The MLBPA finally filed a grievance over 2020 season length

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For about a year now, the threat of a significant grievance has loomed over Major League Baseball. The Players Association first brought up a potential grievance against MLB back when the league was clearly failing to negotiate the 2020 season in good faith, delaying and delaying until there was no choice but to host an even shorter pandemic-impacted campaign. Then, in late-October, The Athletic’s Evan Drellich pointed out that the grievance against MLB for not scheduling as many games as they could have was still a real possibility, that it wasn’t just a tool used to get MLB to finally come to the table with serious offers prior to the 2020 season.

And now, we have word that the grievance has indeed been filed by the Players Association, thanks to the New York Post. The union is reportedly seeking around $500 million in damages from MLB, who, as you can imagine, is countering this grievance. As Joel Sherman points out, it’s an estimate of $500 million, in part because the PA didn’t specify how many games should have been scheduled: the math works out in a way where “around $500 million” means there should have been 20-25 more on the schedule, though.

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