The 30 MLB franchises combined are worth somewhere around $66 billion dollars collectively. Each one is worth between $1 billion – $6+ billion (the New York Yankees are at the top on the value scale). Apparently, the commissioner has decided it is OK to hit snooze on his work duties for this industry that generates hundreds of billions of dollars in product and jobs. Marketing and strategy for this industry should be a perpetual 12 months of the year process. In theory, you should want to energize your fan base during the ‘off’ season, not urinate on one of the most anticipated parts of the baseball year: The Hot Stove League. Fans in ALL markets get excited for the months between the World Series and the start of Spring Training. Hope springs eternal in the minds and hearts of those who enjoy baseball regardless of TV market size. If your commissioner has lost sight of that, then he should be acknowledged as a disgrace to his post and step down accordingly, regardless of his dedication to his bank account.
Rob Manfred has repeatedly shown how much he is out of touch with his consumer. Yes, the dynamics of the market for your product are constantly changing, but the answer isn’t frivolous rule changes. All he is focusing on are the collective bottom lines and how he can keep creating that bell curve cash flow for his bosses without actually pushing forward the proper evolutions to make baseball top of mind for good reasons. Baseball has been around since the 1870’s, which is about 85-90 years since before Mr. Manfred came onto the scene. And as far as I can tell, the game was able to get along just fine without all his gimmicky, goofy innovations. How about he just leave the game alone and focus on getting the business owners to understand their product is nothing without their players and they should be valued as such?
I’ll admit I’m not a lawyer like Rob Manfred, but maybe that would make me the perfect candidate to become the 11th commissioner. I would step into the role with a bevvy of ideas and the wherewithal to comprehend that you cannot make everyone happy. Manfred was well aware of the tensions and points of contention between the owners and their employees for many long months stretching back to the 2020 offseason, but he chose to let it ride and now the fans are catching the brunt of his inactions.
Just like in running for political office, you have to make some promises, offer plans and have a direction. So here are mine:
Item #1: Labor contract provisions. The labor agreement should be set up to be reviewed, renegotiated every 3-4 years. In the 90 day window before the agreement is set to expire (which should be January 31st) , both sides should be required to engage each other a minimum of no less than 6 times. The opening offer should be made by the players association and accepted or answered by the owners within 10 business days. There should be a maximum of six (6) points of revision or addition to address. These should be ranked highest to lowest in priority. This list will be made public, just like the new contract signings for players being announced. Kind of like a managerial Hot Stove.
Item #2: Make the new maximum length of contract for a free agent player to be three (3) guaranteed years with one (1) player/team/mutual option. This allows for greater marquee player movement within the franchises and if the player is satisfied with his current club, he can negotiate a deal of fair market value for his services within the last year of his current deal. This also helps teams alleviate the albatross contracts of those marquee or ‘hot right now’ talents that sign long term deals only to sustain devaluing injuries or drop off of production.
Item #3: Revamping the Hall of Fame selection process. Explain to me how a player is voted into the Hall of Fame in his fourth or fifth year of ballot eligibility, but not the years prior? Either a player is a Hall of Famer or he isn’t. After a player is done playing, he cannot garner any new stats or awards so why does it matter who he’s on the ballot with for validation? Have the sports writers get their say for the eligible players they vote in. Have the Veterans Committee for their selections. ^ (still a tinkering idea) Then also have the current year’s tenured players (at least 6+ years of service time) and employed managers (as of opening day) get a vote on any all-time player not already inducted into the Hall of Fame who appears as an all-time statistical leader in at least two of these Top 10 categories:
Hitters: Hits, RBIs, Home Runs, Stolen Bases, Silver Sluggers, 200 hit seasons
Pitchers: Strikeouts, Wins, Saves, Innings Pitched and ERA (minimum innings threshold)
Fielders: Number of Gold/Platinum Gloves Won
Managers: Championships Won, World Series Appearances
Can we stop this middle school charade of playing the popular/likeable card or that these players were accused of using performance enhancing drugs? If their accomplishments were saved into the record books or lauded by MLB itself (read profited from), let’s stop having a double standard. This is for the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, not ratification into the Boys Scouts of America. There are plenty of HOF’ers who are not saints that are enshrined in Cooperstown. Let’s just acknowledge their accomplishments and move baseball forward (The Bygones Provision – for a Big Bank Theory flavor). And finally, one additional add-on caveat for the HOF selections: The sitting Commissioner has two (2) yearly HOF candidates that he/she may vote into the Hall who are no longer eligible (but previously were eligible) via the previously outlined processes. These enshrinees are so denoted within the HOF walls to distinguish from those who arrived via the old-school means. Maybe call that wing: the video game era?
Item #4: Since there is no salary cap in baseball, nor is there a salary floor, let’s address the youth movement and how the major league teams are very much taking advantage of the younger players. If the MLB teams want to continue to manipulate the players service time and team control (I’m not going to debate that here), then I say raise the minimum league salary to $1,000,000. This does a few things. One it compensates players promoted to the major league team at a fair and reasonable measure for contributing to these billion-dollar franchises. Two, if the teams do continue to manipulate service time (and we know they will), the outcry from the players association will be less. Three, this will make the lower spending tier franchises more accountable to invest in players on the field. Also, as a side benefit, longer tenured players may get another look based on track record if the price tag is the same for a 7-8 year veteran as opposed to a player that may benefit from an extra 3-6 months of minors action.
^ For those who are going to balk at the minimum salary for players at $1,000,000 – let’s remember the New York Mets agreed to give 37-year-old Max Sherzer $130,000,000 over the next three seasons ($43.3M per season average) and the Texas Rangers decided Corey Seager was worth locking up until he will be 38 years old (he’ll be 28 in April) for $325,000,000. The current minimum player salary is around $570K per year with the player’s association asking for a bump to $775K. So this proposed change would be something to go over and beyond to maybe buy a tiny bit of goodwill between the sides. If a franchise has 12 minimum salary players – this would result in $5 million in added salary to the bottom line or 12% of a Max Scherzer.
Item #5: Optional DH. Each team would have the option of using a DH regardless of the game being played in an American League park or not. (Potential incentive to not use DH: if a team chooses to use the DH, they must designate a player to be inactive for the game. Haven’t worked out how to have this work if a team pinch hits for their DH, etc. So maybe not ready for primetime on this point so you can effectively disregard).
Item #6: Postseason day games – all rounds of the playoffs. Day games tend to be warmer and more family friendly to attend in October/November. The last World Series day game was 35 years ago (1987).
Item #7: Teams to have monthly featured national games/events: i.e. Jackie Robinson Day, Breast Cancer Awareness, a game honoring the AAA and/or AA affiliates at the MLB franchise’s park, community/charity organizations recognition days, first responder day, diversity appreciation, etc.
These are just some of the ideas to shift the focus to generating buzz with the end customer and stop messing with a product that has been enjoyed by billions of fans over the generations. Baseball as a game is good if not great. You want to add robotic umps? OK I guess. You feel the need to limit time between innings? That’s OK too. But let’s not try to make the product something its not and hasn’t been up to now.
Instead of half-thought-out-alterations, how about we remove those from baseball who are only looking at it like the geniuses who thought Pepsi Clear was a good idea? You don’t overhaul a superior product in search for some short-term gains that could very well turn out to be fool’s gold. Baseball starts with families. Mothers and fathers have taught their sons and daughters to play baseball and softball for eons. All those little league games full of learning, aspiring and trying to copy their favorite players. The thrill of getting that first base hit. The feeling of exaltedness with that first legit home run. Learning to pitch or catch a ball. There are a million things about this game that make it fun, enjoyable and cherished. So how about we put somebody in charge of it who actually cares and gives a Ratatouille for the long haul?
Obviously, some of the things I proposed above will not fly or be accepted by one side or both sides. But instead of each side (players, owners) kicking each other in the shins every handful of years and leaving their fans (their consumers) in the dark uneasily wondering; how about we work on these issues with more frequency (and purpose) to make both sides successful and limit the unneeded friction that wears out the vital cogs of this machine?
MLB and the MLBPA will ask forgiveness of their fans who planned family vacations around spring training trips to Arizona and Florida without reimbursing them for the thousands of dollars spent with the MLB product in mind. Mr. Manfred, would you like to refund these thousands of fans out of your personal bank account? I’ll assume that’s going to come back as a ‘no comment’.
Some experts will say I’m oversimplifying the nature of the issues and tri-yearly clash of the wealthy athletes and ultra-wealthy owners. I’m sure their opinions would probably be deemed correct. But I think there’s also more than a sliver of validity in the issues and overviews I provided. Baseball is a game of strategy and plotting…much like this repeated clash of businessmen and businesswomen trying to fill everyone’s pockets enough to get back onto the competitive field of play.
I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and hopefully we’ll see America’s favorite pastime back in action very soon. Peace. — #33 – The Freak
P.S. How about MLB’s elephant in the room with Trevor Bauer? He basically has become the Colin Kaepernick of MLB. Some would say Kaepernick never committed a crime…technically, at this time, the same holds true for Trevor Bauer. Colin Kaepernick (who is 34 years old) played in the NFL from 2011-2016. His teams’ record when he started was 37-31-1 (.544 win percentage). Kaepernick has become a pariah within football circles and cannot seem to land a football gig despite the thin layer of quarterback talent in the league over recent seasons. Trevor Bauer (who is 31 years old) has pitched in MLB from 2012-2021. His record on the mound is 86-69 (.546 win percentage). Bauer, much like Kaepernick, is also currently in pariah status. How does MLB and it franchises handle Bauer’s situation in light of concerns in today’s society and MLB’s stance of doing everything possible of staying within the good graces of their sponsors? Stay tuned…
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