Monthly Archives: May 2022

Say My Name in Vain

It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to. W.C. Fields

May 30, 2022 [Memorial Day]

Recently, Josh Donaldson, the white third baseman for the New York Yankees, caused a minor ruckus by calling Tim Anderson, the black second baseman of the Chicago White Sox, “Jackie” after getting into a scuffle with him. Jackie, of course, was a reference to Jackie Robinson, who broke the ‘Color Line’ in 1947 and was the first African-American player in the white Major Leagues during the 20th Century. Donaldson tried to play off his ‘nickname’ for Anderson as a simple inside joke between the two men. In a 2019 Sports Illustrated article, Tim Anderson had referred to himself as a modern-day “Jackie Robinson” who was carrying on Jackie’s legacy in the Major Leagues. After that article came out, Donaldson claimed that he had called Anderson “Jackie” several times as a friendly gesture between the two men. Anderson, who was not friends with Donaldson, stated that he considered it a pretty obvious racial insult. Which, of course, it was. Donaldson, forced to choose between being an insensitive ignoramus or a racist, wisely chose to be an imbecile. Major League Baseball, properly embarrassed by the entire incident, suspended Josh Donaldson one entire game for basically being a moron without any knowledge of, or respect for, Baseball’s past.

In the name of Jack Robinson

If Baseball was a religion,* the two greatest Gods in its large Pantheon would be Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth (not necessarily in that order). These two men represent the ego and the id of Baseball. Josh Donaldson was certainly guilty of racial insensitivity for using Jackie Robinson’s name as a slur. But he was more guilty of the crime of ignorance of the game’s history. For this, he should have been suspended for much longer than one game. The story of Jackie Robinson is almost unquestionably the most important chapter in the book of Baseball. Donaldson, who the game has given much to, should have known better than to take the name of Jackie Robinson in vain. But, even if he had studied Baseball’s past, it is very unlikely that Donaldson would have realized that, if Jackie Robinson played today, everybody would probably be calling him Jack, not Jackie. Jackie Robinson’s widow Rachel Robinson is still alive today (he will have passed away exactly 50 years ago this October 24th of 2022). She has given many interviews (if one wishes to hear her speak, Ken Burn’s “Baseball” documentaries for PBS are a good place to start). If you pay attention, you will notice that Rachel Robinson always calls her late husband Jack, his actual first name, not Jackie [see Note 1].

* If Baseball was a religion, Leo Durocher’s quote: “Baseball is like Church, many attend but few understand” would be scripture.

In 2014, Rachel Robinson also co-wrote a book about her late husband: Jackie Robinson, an Intimate Portrait. In this book, she consistently refers to him as Jack too. So why did he go down in history as Jackie, and not Jack, Robinson? Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia, on January 31, 1919. He certainly may have been called “Jackie” by his family while he was growing up. Of course, Jackie is a diminutive of the name Jack, and diminutives are usually used for children. John becomes Johnny, Robert becomes Bobby, and so on. But infantilizing names also has serious racial connotations. During the “Jim Crow” era before Civil Rights, African-American men were called “boy” even if they were a grandfather. To refer to an adult as boy is obviously disrespectful. To call any adult by the diminutive of their name without their consent would also be contemptuous. In the 1960s and 1970s, Richard Allen, one of the best African American players in Baseball, was constantly referred as “Richie” Allen by sportswriters despite constantly stating that he wanted to be called “Dick.” For some reason, the sportswriters would not comply with this request. Allen literally spelled out the disrespect by telling the sportswriters that: “Richie is a little boy’s name.” This casual racism did not led to a comfortable relationship between Dick Allen and the press.*

*Dick Allen should have long ago been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame but these same sportswriters seem to have held onto their grudges.

The Origins of Jackie

Of course, there is absolutely no record of Jack Robinson objecting to having his first name turned into its diminutive. There is plenty of evidence that his immediate family all called him Jack as an adult. Robinson was actually pretty famous long before he became legendary as the man who erased the Major League Baseball ban on African American players. In college, Jackie Robinson was an athletic superstar, reportedly the first man to “letter”* in four different sports (baseball, basketball, football and track) at UCLA. Even before he went to UCLA, Robinson’s name had appeared regularly in the press. A young man at this time, he was regularly referred to as “Jackie” Robinson by sportswriters. Did Robinson not object to being nicknamed “Jackie” later in life just because it was the name by which he was best known? Did he even care? He may not have. Considering all the prejudice and discrimination that he faced later on, Robinson may have regarded his name as a minor issue, not worth making a fuss about. Or perhaps Robinson did not mind be called “Jackie” rather than his true name Jack at all. If Jack Robinson never insisted on not being called Jackie, who else would have the right? Of course, the theory that, if he played today, he would be known as Jack Robinson is just conjecture. Nonetheless, there is still a slight aroma of racism to the fact that he went down in history as Jackie Robinson.

* Lettering in a college sport used to mean literally what that says. When an athlete was successful in any college sport, he would wear large letter on his school jacket, like a big “H” for Harvard. There was no standard used by all colleges and universities to decide who got one of these letters.

Modern Baseball Nomenclature

Interestingly, there has been a movement in the last few years to “fix” names that would now be considered disrespectful. Before the December 2021 vote by the Baseball Hall of Fame Committee overseeing eligible players from the 19th Century, articles encouraging the election of Bill Hoy were written. My first response on seeing one of these articles was: “Who the hell is Bill Hoy?” Then I realized that they were advocating for William “Dummy” Hoy, probably the best deaf Baseball player of all-time. The Baseball Reference [BR] website now refers to “Dummy” Hoy as Billy Hoy. The BR website has also changed the commonly used names of various other players. “Chief” Bender is now Charles. “Chief” Meyers has become Jack Meyers. For reasons unknown, Jim Thorpe and Louis Sockalexis, probably the two most famous American Indian players, were not tagged with the nickname “Chief” while they were living. So they did not need to be stripped of it once they were dead (though Sockalexis was evidently nicknamed “Deerfoot”). “Dummy” Taylor has been renamed as Luther Taylor. “Three Finger” Brown has been rechristened Mordecai Brown. “Fatty” (or “Fats”) Fothergill has now been rebranded as Bob Fothergill. All of these men are long dead at the present time. It is unlikely that anyone will be objecting to the changes in how they are listed in Baseball Reference books or on Baseball websites.

Where do modern baseball historians draw the line in making changes to the less sensitive mores of the past? One cannot really disagree with the current expunging of the racial epithet that was formerly listed as the common first name of both George Cuppy and Jay Kirke. Bob Fothergill would also surely not mind his corpulent nicknames being erased from the record books if he was still here. The nicknames Dummy, Chief, and possibly Three Finger were probably not appreciated by their bearers. The late Richie Allen is now pretty much universally referred to by his preferred Dick Allen. What about Chino Smith, the great 1920s African American outfielder? The nickname Chino was often used in Blackball to denote Chinese looking eyes or skin. Should he be rebranded with the much more common and totally boring name of Charlie (or Charley) Smith? Of course, the fact that Smith was almost always called Charlie or Charley rather than Chino during his career doesn’t help with the argument that he should go down in history as Chino Smith. Unfortunately, there is probably no good argument for changing the name of Charley Jones (one of baseball’s first great sluggers) back into his birth name of Benjamin Rippay, other than the fact that Ben Rippay is a fantastic name for a Baseball player.* He was always known as Charlie Jones while he played.

*Roll the headline “Ben Rippay has been ripping the ball” around your tongue.

The Future of Baseball Names?

The light one-game suspension of Josh Donaldson by Major League Baseball for his racial and historical ignorance was clearly meant to put this minor but repugnant incident in the rear view mirror. No one wanted the slight aroma of racism and contempt to linger. Someone even made sure that Donaldson put out a statement that apologized to Rachel Robinson and her family. This should have been the end of it. However, Donaldson, claiming that he meant no harm, improbably appealed this extremely minor punishment. Of course, this is just a sign of the current troubled times. No famous (or public) figure ever accepts responsibility for anything anymore. In the old eye-for-an-eye world, Josh Donaldson would have been ridiculed for this. Perhaps he would have been handed a suitable nickname, such as “Douchie” (or something), to memorialize his contempt and ignorance of Baseball’s history. But, of course, that would be just as infantile as using a child’s name to denigrate any adult. And, it would go against what is sorely needed in these current trying times: Moderation (regardless of that, I will probably call him Douchie Donaldson in my head from now on). However, moderation seems to have gone totally out of style. Perhaps future generations will learn of Jack Robinson and George Ruth rather than Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth. After all, who wants to be called a nickname that has the slight stench of racism or is based on the fact that someone called you a big baby?

Note #1

One of the most important people involved in Jackie Robinson’s integration of the Major Leagues was Wendell Smith. He was a reporter for the African American newspaper The Pittsburgh Courier. Early in 1945, Smith recruited Robinson and two other Black players for an infamous and ultimately fruitless tryout with the Boston Red Sox. After that failed attempt at breaking down the walls of baseball integration, Smith was sought out by Branch Rickey, who asked him if any of those players were Major League caliber. Smith quickly responded: “Robinson” to Rickey. Of course, Branch Rickey would be the man who eventually hired Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers and demolish the ‘Color Line.’ While Robinson integrated Baseball, Rickey hired Wendell Smith to accompany and look out for Robinson off the field. For all this, Robinson agreed to let Wendell Smith write his first biography. In this life story, Smith wrote that Jackie Robinson’s full name was: John Roosevelt Robinson. Evidently, Smith just assumed that Robinson’s first name was John. This was not unreasonable as “Jack” is often a nickname for John. Evidently Jackie Robinson did not, or was never given an opportunity to, proofread his own biography. If he ever even became aware of this mistake is lost in the ebb and flow of history. If he did, I wonder how he reacted.

Holier than Thou

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. Josh Billings

May 23, 2022

Today, Dodger pitcher Trevor Bauer will begin the appeal of his 324-game (two-year) suspension under the Major League Baseball Domestic Violence Policy.  Of course, this appeal is totally within his rights under the Collective Bargaining Agreement [CBA] between the Players Union and Major League Baseball.  Not since Philadelphia Phillies’ first baseman Eddie Waitkus* had a very unfortunate 1949 encounter with his admirer Ruth Steinhagen has there been quite a baseball player and female fanatic scandal to match this current controversy.  The obvious questions are: 1) Will the long suspension of Trevor Bauer be upheld; 2) Will the entire suspension be enforced if it is upheld, 3) Will Bauer ever pitch in the Major Leagues again; 4) Should Bauer be allowed to pitch in the Majors again; and 5) Is just the suspension itself punishment enough for Bauer’s sins?  To try to answer these questions, first we should outline the case against Mister Bauer.

* Waitkus, who was shot by Ms. Steinhagen when he arrived at her hotel room for their first meeting, later reportedly sardonically commented: “Only one girl ever fell in love with me and she was nuts.”

What reportedly happened

Early in 2021, Trevor Bauer and his female devotee came in contact through social media [Instagram apparently].  They agreed over the internet to meet for the very first time and have ‘consensual rough sex’ that included Bauer slapping and choking the woman.  Apparently a nice first date to simply get to know each was not an option.  On April 21, 2021, the woman drove from her residence in San Diego to Mister Bauer’s home in Pasadena, California.  According to the woman’s account, they had some ‘consensual rough sex’ that escalated until Bauer, without consent, stuck his fingers down her throat, choked her unconscious with her own hair, and then sodomized her while she was unconscious.  The woman then left Bauer’s home the next morning on April 22nd of 2021.  Bauer would later deny that he did anything but have ‘consensual rough sex’ during their April 21/22 meeting.  Despite what can only seem to be described, if the woman’s version is correct, as a pretty lousy first date, they continued their internet flirtation.

Despite the bad first date, the woman drove to Pasadena again for a second meeting and another round of ‘consensual rough sex’ on May 15th of 2021. According to the woman, the two of them had agreed on a ‘safe word’ which would stop Bauer from doing anything without her consent.  But, despite this precaution, the woman claimed that Bauer once again choked or strangled her unconscious.  While she was passed out, Bauer proceeded to scratch or punch her in the head, face, buttocks, and private parts.  She was left with two black eyes, a bloody swollen lip, and bruises all over her buttocks and private parts.  Although her identity has not been revealed by the press, the woman would later release photos of her beaten face, allegedly from the incident.  It is unclear from the reporting of the second incident, but it also appears that she accused Bauer of anally raping her again.  Apparently, it did not occur to her that a ‘safe word’ is useless if you are out cold.

* In a case of poor reporting, the actual ‘safe word’ has never been disclosed.

Once again, Bauer denied that he did anything other than have ‘consensual rough sex’ during their May 15/16 meeting.  After waking up and leaving the house the next morning on May 16, 2022, the woman went to the Pasadena Police and reported that she had been sexually assaulted.  The very least that can be said about this woman would be that she must be incredibly immature and reckless to put herself under the control of basically a complete stranger and then trust that person to treat her with dignity.  Although her age has not been disclosed, the picture apparently shows a very young woman. The very least that can be said about Trevor Bauer would be that he also must be both incredibly immature and reckless.  Considering what he had to lose, you must wonder if Bauer is anywhere near as intelligent as he likes to portray himself.  If not an actual idiot, he certainly acted like a total moron, if not the unhinged sexual deviant that the woman has accused him of being.

The Aftermath

With the reporting of the incident in the press, Major League Baseball began investigating Bauer for a violation of their ‘domestic violence’ policy.  On June 28th of 2021, with the Police investigation still on-going, Bauer was placed on ‘administrative leave’ by Major League Baseball.  He could no longer play, but he was still getting paid.  On the very next day, June 29th of 2021, the alleged victim filed for a restraining order against Bauer.  She filed the complaint ‘ex-parte’ (meaning Bauer was neither informed of or present for the initial Court hearing).  Considering that her residence in San Diego is approximately 130 miles away from Bauer’s home and that she had driven to his house for both encounters, the reason for this requested restraining order was somewhat ambiguous.  You had to assume that Bauer had threatened to hunt her down for a third encounter.  If not, the alleged victim would have been better off not going to court at all.

Apparently, she could not produce any evidence of the necessary threat.  In a second hearing to extend the restraining order, Trevor Bauer and his lawyers were present to contest it.  They were able to point out that she had driven to him, and she lived far far away.  Almost predictably, Bauer accused the woman of attempting to financially extort him. You must wonder exactly what type of legal advice the woman was getting at this point.  The entire attempt to get and then maintain this restraining order seemed more like legal maneuvering to gain leverage over Trevor Bauer than a result of actual fear.  If those were her intentions, it would absolutely be an abuse of the court system.  In a “he said/she said” scenario such as this, any action that calls the credibility of one side into doubt is cause for their entire version of the story to be called into question and discounted.

The Criminal Outcome

On February 8, 2022, the Los Angeles county District Attorney’s Office [DA] announced that it would not be filing criminal charges against Trevor Bauer for the alleged incidents.  The LA DA’s Office said that they did not believe that they could prove the case against him under the: ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ standard that is used in criminal cases.  In their announcement, the DA’s Office specifically noted problems stemming from the woman’s filing of the restraining order.  With the LA DA’S Office declining to prosecute, Bauer happily skated away from any criminal consequences.  Predictably, Bauer then acted as if he had been proven completely innocent.  But he still had to deal with the consequences from Major League Baseball itself.  And Major League Baseball’s case would be decided under the much looser: ‘preponderance of the evidence’ standard used in civil, not criminal, cases.

The Baseball Outcome

On April 28, 2022, even though he had not been criminally charged, Major League Baseball handed Trevor Bauer a unpaid 324-game suspension [exactly two seasons] for his role in the incident.  This was on top of his already served 99 game paid vacation from the game while he was on administrative leave.*  The suspension, if its upheld, will last from the 19^th game of the 2022 season until the 18^th game of the 2024 season.  If this suspension is not tossed out or reduced, it will wipe out the rest of Bauer’s contract (ending in 2023) with the Los Angeles Dodgers.  And, in 2024, the now completely unemployed Bauer will be eligible to sign a contract only after teams have: 1) signed their players, and 2) set their rosters and payrolls for the 2024 season. Realistically, Bauer would probably not have a chance to sign another free agent contract until 2025 (assuming that he is able to snare a make-good contract in 2024 and he pitches well). Unsurprisingly, the unrepentant Bauer immediately announced that he would appeal the 324-game suspension.

* Oddly, his paid leave lasted 99 games and the 2022 Lockout lasted 99 days.

Under the CBA, Trevor Bauer’s Appeal will be held in front of a three-man Arbitration Panel.  This panel will consist of a representative from the Player’s Union (presumptively on Bauer’s side), a representative from Major League Baseball (surely on the side of Rob Manfred, the Baseball Commissioner who imposed the suspension), and an Independent Arbitrator (who will actually decide the appeal).  Martin Scheinman, the current Independent Arbitrator, is not truly all that Independent. He was appointed by agreement of the Union and the Commissioner’s office and he can be fired by either side if he makes a decision that they do not like. All 3 of the previous Independent Arbitrators were fired by either the Union or MLB because they did not like a ruling.  This makes it much more likely that the supposedly Independent Arbitrator will act more like a Mediator than an Arbitrator.  In other words, he will try to find a middle ground that is acceptable to both sides rather than completely rule for either side. So what will this middle ground be?

Incidental Analysis

1) Will Bauer’s suspension be upheld?  Like most ‘He said/She said’ situations, Trevor Bauer and his accuser have offered pretty much diametrically opposed accounts of what actually happened.  By her account, Mister Bauer has to be a mentally ill sexual deviant who enjoys hitting and mistreating women.  Bauer lured her into his lair where he savagely beat her.  He is basically some type of monster.  By his own account, Bauer never did anything without the women’s consent.  This was all supposed to just be some harmless and innocent role-playing.  But he was naïve and reckless and is now the victim of an extortion attempt gone bad.  Of course, the truth is surely somewhere in the middle of these two accounts.  But this does not mean that the truth is exactly halfway between one version and the other.  So is there any evidence to believe one version is much closer to the truth than the other?  Whose version should be believed?

In the court of Public Opinion, Trevor Bauer’s version is pretty much already a lost cause.  Despite reportedly being bullied when he was young, Bauer has spent his entire adult life acting like a bully.  Self-reflection is apparently not his strong suit.  Two other women have come forward and accused Bauer of treating them in exactly the same way as the alleged victim.  One of them was evidently in a long-term abusive relationship with Bauer.  The other accuser filed or attempted to file a similar restraining order against Bauer in 2020.*  She only withdrew it under the threat from Bauer of expensive litigation.  It has so far been completely uncontradicted that Bauer sent her a message that he did not want to see her again because he would then have to go to jail for killing her and she wasn’t worth it.  Does any of this mean that Bauer actually did what his current accuser claims? No, but usually, where there is a giant cloud of smoke, there is also a raging fire.

* Incredibly, the second accuser was supposedly arrested for underage drinking while reporting the crime. Unless this victim only reported the assault in an odd attempt not to be arrested for underage drinking, it makes you wonder exactly how much empathy the police have for sexual assault victims.

In addition to all this and without any regard for the public relations optics, Trevor Bauer’s response to his accusers, the accusations themselves, and even the reporting of the story, has been to threaten to file or actually file lawsuits against basically everyone and anyone.  Of course, Bauer’s strategy of ‘suing to intimidate’ simply reinforces the narrative that he is a bully.  His use of his superior financial resources to attack everyone and anyone actually makes all the accusations against him much more believable. Of course, this does not actually mean that they are true, just more likely to be true. Combined with the other two woman’s accusations, it is almost a foregone conclusion that the Arbitrator will uphold Major League Baseball’s suspension of Bauer.  The Arbitrator will then have to decide whether to uphold the entire 324-game suspension or only part of it.

2) Will the entire suspension be enforced if it is upheld?  This would be the worst-case scenario for Trevor Bauer.  If the entire suspension is upheld, there is a chance that Bauer’s career may be over.  In 2024, Bauer would come back to Major League Baseball with his hat in his hand, begging for a contract.  It is entirely possible that no team would decide to eat the bad publicity of hiring him.  Like Colin Kaepernick in football, Bauer could become an untouchable or persona non grata (though for ignoble acts rather than noble reasons like Kaepernick). However, this result is very unlikely.  If he upholds the entire 324-game suspension, the Independent Arbitrator will almost surely be promptly fired by the Players Union. The decision will stand but the Arbitrator will be gone. It is much more likely that the Arbitrator will simply reduce the 324-game suspension. What will the Arbitrator consider while he deliberates on reducing the suspension?

Trevor Bauer will surely bring up in the Arbitration hearing that Rob Manfred, the Baseball Commissioner, has a massive conflict of interest in imposing the suspension.  Manfred, of course, represents the Major League Owners (and in particular the Los Angeles Dodgers, Bauer’s current employer).  The Dodgers are paying Bauer a phenomenal amount of money (a total of 102 million from 2021 to 2023 if Bauer was able to collect it all).  By suspending Bauer, Manfred is helping his own employer, the Dodgers, get out from under what has now become a nightmarish contract.  Trevor Bauer will obviously not bring up the fact that his own actions are mainly responsible for his contact becoming an albatross. But, to be fair, all the evidence that Bauer would, at some point in his tenure, completely embarrass the Dodgers was already circulating before they ever signed him. Will the Arbitrator take any of these considerations into making his final judgment?

The Arbitrator will have to weight the evidence that Trevor Bauer is a pretty despicable person against Major League Baseball’s desire to bury his career in an unmarked grave. As Trevor Bauer seems to be almost universally disliked, the most likely result will be a minor reduction of the suspension. Enough so that the Player’s Union can walk away from the entire mess, but not so great a reduction that the Commissioner’s Office looks emasculated. The case of Alex Rodriguez seems on point.  A-Rod was suspended for 211 games for multiple steroid violations.  Like Bauer, A-Rod was, at that point, a generally completely unlikable person.*  On the other hand, Bauer is actually much more unlikeable but the case against him may actually be weaker (A-Rod was unambiguously guilty while Bauer can hide behind the uncertainty of the “he said/she said” conundrum).  With a reduction of the suspension being the likely result, the question becomes how large will the reduction be?

* Strangely enough, A-Rod has rehabilitated his image and is now employed as a broadcaster. Rehabilitation for Bauer seems unlikely.

3) Will Trevor Bauer ever pitch in the Major Leagues again?  In many ways, the likelihood of Bauer pitching in the Majors again probably depends on exactly how much of his suspension is reduced.  If Bauer’s suspension was completely overturned, he would surely pitch in the Major Leagues again.  It is extremely unlikely that the Los Angeles Dodgers would simply bite the bullet and give Bauer the remaining $60 million dollars on his contract to go away.* The very lawsuit-happy Bauer would almost surely sue the Dodgers to let him pitch. In all probability, the Dodgers would let him pitch again, take the publicity hit, and hope that time heals some of Bauer’s self-inflicted wounds.  On the other hand, if the suspension is barely reduced from the 324-games handed down by Rob Manfred, Bauer is in considerable danger of simply being released by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

* Trevor Bauer was paid $4 million of his $32 million due in 2021 before he was suspended without pay.

If the suspension is reduced severely (to say 75 games), the same logic would probably compel the Dodgers to still let Bauer pitch.  However, the closer the reduction comes to the actual 324-game sentence given out by Manfred, the more and more likely it becomes that Bauer would simply be released by the Dodgers.  If the suspension is 200 games or more, Bauer is in serious danger of watching his career die with a whimper. An interesting question would be: How much would the Dodgers will be willing to throw away as a ‘sunk cost’* to simply walk away from Trevor Bauer and all his unattractive baggage.  The amount is probably as soon as the cost gets lower than 8 figures [$10 million dollars].  In other words, if the reduction of Bauer’s suspension is around 50 or 60 games, it is much more likely that the Dodgers will walk away from him. It will be fascinating to see what happens. The question of whether Bauer will ever pitch in the Major Leagues again is an open one.

* Sunk Cost: A cost that has been incurred, cannot be recovered, and will only get larger if one tries to recover it.

4) Should Trevor Bauer be allowed to pitch in the Major Leagues again?  It seems like the answer to this question should be: “Yes, of course, after his suspension is over.” However, as soon as the suspension was announced, multiple media megaphones immediately advocated that Bauer should never be allowed to return to the Major Leagues.  They put forth the proposition that no punishment for Bauer was adequate for what he has done.  The only punishment that would be acceptable was his banishment from polite society and the destruction of his lucrative Baseball career. In a sense, this feeling is understandable. It seems like Bauer escaped the consequences of his actions. If he was not very wealthy, Bauer would probably be in jail for assault. On the other hand, Bauer will spend the rest of his life dealing with public knowledge of his transgressions. Because he is a public figure, Bauer will never be able to truly leave this behind. His obituary will probably begin: “Trevor Bauer, former Major League pitcher, who was accused of beating an unconscious woman, died today.” Because he is famous, Bauer has lost the protection of anonymity.

It is also true that, given Bauer’s personality and past actions, there is little likelihood that: 1) Bauer will ever express remorse for his actions; 2) Bauer will learn a single thing because of what happened, 3) Bauer will change his toxic personality one bit. In all likelihood, Bauer will blame the woman, the courts, the press, and whoever else is available. He will claim that he himself is the victim. Bauer will probably never realize or accept that he is quite lucky to have not faced more serious consequences from his reckless, immature and malignant actions (a description that fits even if you only give credit to his side of the story). But is the fact that Trevor Bauer is unlikely to change or grow as a human being an adequate reason to end his Baseball career? To cast him into the outer darkness forever? The people advocating this type of vengeance should perhaps look at themselves first. Are they perfect? Who wants to be permanently judged by their very worst day? In modern society, when did forgiveness become unacceptable?

This desire to see Bauer’s career as a Major League pitcher end is really based on simple envy.  Why should Bauer get to enjoy the extraordinary fruits of his talent when he is so reprehensible? But does this possible injustice justify that he be denied the right to pursue his chosen vocation?  If, for instance, an auto mechanic commits manslaughter but escapes criminal prosecution, do courts ban him from being an auto mechanic?  Of course not. This type of thinking also assumes that Bauer’s punishment may not come from other avenues.  At the least, it is likely that Trevor Bauer will lose more, possibly much more, than 30 million dollars in salary.  Is that enough punishment?  In the future, many personal and financial opportunities will be denied to him because of these actions and their baggage.  Is that enough punishment?  Even if he never ever accepts any responsibility or modifies his behavior one iota, Bauer will still be punished.  He will have to live with virtually everyone knowing what type of person he is deep inside. Once his suspension is over, Bauer should certainly be allowed to pitch again. Staying famous will be its own punishment.

5) Is just the suspension itself punishment enough for Trevor Bauer’s sins? Who really knows? But the greatest punishment may actually be the total destruction of his baseball legacy itself.  It has been regularly reported that Bauer’s obsession with Baseball started when he was just a child.  Any chance that he ever enters the Baseball Hall of Fame without a ticket has pretty much evaporated.  Although a Hall of Fame honor is never guaranteed, Bauer was actually making good progress towards it.  In 2021, Bauer was the reigning Cy Young Award winner.  He was playing for the Dodgers, a club that is currently, and for the foreseeable future, a super-team. As long as he was with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Bauer would have surely won many games even if he just pitched averagely (not to mention that Dodger Stadium, a renowned pitcher’s park, would have made all his statistics look better than they actually were). If he could have maintained his statistics for the next four or five years, Trevor Bauer probably would have had a very good shot at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Instead, the heart of his career has now been wiped out by this suspension and the tatters of his good name have been buried under the outhouse.

Of course, the counter argument would be that Trevor Bauer’s best couple of years were probably the result of cheating by applying extra adhesive to the ball when he pitched. With the current crackdown on this type of tampering, Bauer was very unlikely to still be quite as good as he was during the 2018, 2020, and 2021 seasons. Could Bauer have maintained his pitching results without spider-tack or some other adhesive? We will probably never know now (unless Bauer eventually comes back and pitches as well as he once did). Interestingly, he played exactly half a season, 81 games, after the crackdown on applying substances to the ball began in 2021; and his doubled statistics are really good [16-10, a 2.57 ERA, with 142 hits allowed, 74 bases on balls, and 274 strikeouts]. If he could have maintained this production in 2022 and 2023, Bauer would have the heart of a Baseball Hall of Fame career. But that is all moot now. Perhaps one day, Trevor Bauer will come to realize what he threw away without a second thought. If he ever really does, I believe that would be punishment enough.

Addendum

Trevor Bauer’s three-year 2021-2023 contract has been reported in the press as $102 million over the three years.  In 2021, Bauer was scheduled to receive $28 million in straight salary with a $10 million dollar signing bonus that was to paid to him in installments over the 2021 season.  He could have opted out of the contract after the 2021 season and received a $2 million dollar buy-out. If he opted out after the season, his 2021 compensation would have been $40 million dollars.  Bauer, who was suspended before the 2021 season finished, wisely did not exercise this opt-out.  In 2022, his actual salary increased from $28 million to $32 million dollars.  He also had yet another buy-out option for $15 million dollars after the 2022 season. Reportedly, this $15 million buyout would have been heavily deferred (paid out over time). So it’s unknown what the actual present day value of this buyout is. But multiple sources have listed his 2022 salary as $47 million dollars anyways. By the contract, if he declined to opt out after the 2022 season, Bauer’s 2023 salary remained at $32 million.

A couple of questions about this salary structure:

1. Could Trevor Bauer have opted out after the 2021 season while he was on paid administrative leave?  Or was Bauer’s option to opt-out blocked by the administrative suspension?  Of course, Bauer wisely did not opt-out for two million dollars and void the potential $64 million dollars left on the contract. So it was a moot point. But whether it was even possible is unknown; and

2. Would his 2021 bonus payments have been affected by the suspension if it was without pay?  Does an unpaid suspension cover just the player’s salary or his entire contract?  Again, as Trevor Bauer was on paid administrative leave during the 2021 season and it would have been stupid as all hell for him to opt-out at that point, this is also a moot point; but

3. Can Trevor Bauer opt out of his contract after the 2022 season?  This would trigger the $15 million dollar buy-out provision in his contract.  Of course, his suspension is unpaid now.  But does this suspension also void Bauer’s ability to collect the $15 million dollar buy-out option? If his 324-game suspension is upheld by the Arbitrator (meaning Trevor Bauer will not return until early in the 2024 season) and the suspension does not void the 2022 buy-out option, Bauer should definitely opt out. Even if the suspension is just reduced but still wipes out most of the 2023 season, it will still be in Trevor Bauer’s interest to opt out and take the 15 million dollar buy-out. Of course, whether Bauer can actually do any of this has never been addressed in the press.

Business as Usual

When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say less. Paul Brown (Founder of the Cleveland Browns football team)

April 30th, 2022 [Started typing 3/15/22. Good thing there is no deadline.]

The 2021-22 Major League Baseball Lockout lasted 99 days from December 1st, 2021, to March 10th, 2022. Before the dust had even settled, Baseball was back to business as usual. The labor strife already seems like a faded memory. Now, with a little time and perspective, several relevant questions can be asked. Was it worth it? Who won? Should the losing side have done anything differently?

On March 10th of 2022, Major League Baseball Owners and the Players Union came to an agreement on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement [CBA] that will govern the game from 2022 to 2026. This new CBA ended the Lockout of the Baseball Players, 99 days after it began on December 1, 2021. Previously, I predicted that, if the Lockout ended during Spring Training, the Owners would have surely won an overwhelming victory. That prediction hardly qualifies as some sort of clairvoyance, but let’s check the results now that all the dust has settled. Because it ended early in Spring Training, the Lockout certainly never seriously touched the Baseball Owner’s pocketbooks Basically, the entire first month of the season would have had to been lost for that to happen. If the first month had been canceled, the Owners would have had to refund some of their television rights payments. Because there was no real financial pressure applied, the Baseball Owner’s experienced negotiating team would have had to fail epically if they actually lost this round of bargaining with the Players Union. The obvious question here is not: Did the Baseball Owners win? The obvious question is really: How Big was the Owners victory?

The Owner’s strategy was quite simple: 1) impose a pre-emptive Lockout as soon as possible [they locked the Players out the same day that the previous CBA expired] ; 2) immediately take three of the four main negotiating issues totally off of the table; 3) completely stonewall the only issue remaining, and 4) negotiate on the peripheral issues that did not really touch their four core issues. This strategy was completely successful. Their pre-emptive Lockout was settled before the Owners lost any serious money at all. The new CBA negotiations never even touched on the three core issues that Owners had taken off the table: a) the Players’ threshold for reaching arbitration, b) the Players’ threshold for reaching free agency, and also c) the Owners’ Shared Revenue system. The Owners’ decision to stonewall the one remaining issue, the Competitive Balance Tax (i.e. the Luxury tax with penalties applied to any team that spends more than a certain amount on payroll) was also settled in their favor. On this issue, the Owners, whose revenues have soared, gave up some ground. But nowhere near as much as they should have. After basically winning on all four of their core issues, the Owners were then able to horse trade on some of the peripheral issues, giving a little and getting even more back. Everything they got back was just icing on the cake.

In one of the stranger footnotes to the CBA settlement, the Representatives of the Players Union voted 26-12 to accept it. The Player Reps consisted of two groups: 1) the Players Executive Committee consisting of eight veteran players who accompanied Union Director Tony Clark (and other Union officials) to the actual negotiating sessions for the new CBA; and 2) the thirty Player Reps for each individual Major League team who were not present at the negotiations, but communicated what was going on to their individual team members. The 30 team Player Reps voted 26-4 for the new CBA. However, all 8 players on the Union’s Executive Committee voted against it, making the final tally a still lopsided 26-12. Of course, the eight Executive Committee members were all intimately involved in negotiating the new CBA. Was their 8-0 vote against it simply symbolic? Did it represent their personal feelings about the Owners’ hardball negotiating tactics? Fascinatingly, the eight Players on the Executive Committee had very little to lose by agreeing to this new CBA. All eight had already reached free agency status. The rules and regulations that limit any Player from receiving their fair market value until they become free agents no longer applied to them. So why the solid bloc vote against the new CBA? It is my belief that the eight Players on the Executive Committee voted en masse against it because they truly understood exactly how bad a deal the Players Union had just made with this new CBA.

DETAILS OF THE SETTLEMENT:

Owner’s Core Issue #1: Owners Revenue Sharing

The 1994 through 1995 Baseball Strike between the Players and the Owners wiped out the end of the 1994 season, the 1994 World Series, and the start of the 1995 season. The simplistic view of that disastrous Labor Dispute would be that it was a culmination of the Player/Owner salary fight that had began back in 1976 when the Players won the right to free Agency. Of course, this is true. More importantly, it was also the culmination of the battle between the Large Market and Small Market Owners. Led by Bud Selig, the Small Market Owners were the true winners of the 1994-1995 Baseball War. As a result of this struggle, the Owners instituted Revenue Sharing between themselves. It ensured that the Small Market Owners could not lose money no matter how poorly they ran their teams. Because of Revenue Sharing, any Small Market Owner could simply reduce his Player Payroll to the bottom of the barrel and immediately become profitable. In fact, this strategy was so easily lucrative that certain teams [currently the Baltimore Orioles and the Pittsburgh Pirates] were content to stop competing at all and happy to just rake in the effortless profits from Revenue Sharing.

Other Small Market teams adopted a boom and bust strategy. They would load up with the high draft picks from finishing last and then try to compete. If that did not work, they would strip their roster of any expensive players and begin the cycle again. This strategy of ‘Tanking’ by losing games on purpose so that the team would receive high draft picks and possibly get better in the future was reportedly an anathema to the Players Union. It was reported that two major goals of the Players Union were: 1) to punish any teams deciding to purposely lose; and 2) to limit or abolish the Tanking strategy in the new CBA. Did they achieve their goals? The answer is most definitely no. As soon as the new CBA was signed, two teams [the Cincinnati Reds and the Oakland As] promptly stripped their rosters of a bunch of players with large contracts and began new cycles of ‘Tanking’ that should keep their squads finishing last or close to last for the foreseeable future. By not including the Owners’ Revenue Sharing system in the negotiations, the Players Union clearly guaranteed that ‘Tanking’ would still be a viable strategy.

Owner’s Core Issue #2: Players Arbitration Threshold

The Players’ Arbitration Threshold remains at three years of service time [with 172 days on a Major League roster constituting one year of service time]. The “Super Two” Arbitration category [the top 22 percent of Players between two and three years of service time are also eligible for Arbitration] also remained unchanged. In other words, the Arbitration Threshold for Players to have their Salaries set by an independent Arbiter is still about 2.78 years of service time in the Major Leagues. This Arbitration Threshold was reportedly one of the biggest issues for the Players Union going into negotiations for a new CBA. For years, the Owners have manipulated this threshold by keeping deserving Players down in the Minor Leagues until they lose a year of eligibility. These manipulations are far reaching because they delay not only the Threshold for salary Arbitration, but also eventually Free Agency. The most famous example was probably Kris Bryant, formerly a star player for the Chicago Cubs. Despite the obviousness of the Cubs’ tactics in manipulating his service time, Bryant’s appeal to an independent arbiter was denied for the simple reason that a deal is a deal despite the Owner’s bad faith.

Bizarrely, the Baseball Owners’ assertion that the Arbitration Threshold was a non-negotiable topic for the new CBA was just accepted by the Players Union. Early in the negotiations, the Owners oddly even claimed that the Arbitration Threshold was set in stone and could never be changed. In fact, the original 1976 Arbitration Threshold was exactly two years. In 1985, the Players Union gave back an extra year with the ‘Super Two’ qualifiers. By that time, Marvin Miller, the Player Union’s original and most capable Director, had retired. The Owners were finally getting some traction in their efforts to roll back the gains made by the Players Union. Perhaps what the Owners really meant by ‘set in stone’ was: They couldn’t go back to just two years because it would destroy the historical occasion of when the tide finally shifted their way? In any event, the Players Union completely whiffed on this issue too. Despite all the talk about the Owners’ bad faith with service time manipulations, the Player’s Union, in the end, did nothing at all about it. The Owners still get to set the salaries for any and all Baseball Players for their first three years in the Major Leagues.

Owner’s Core Issue #3: Free Agency Threshold

The Threshold for Free Agency remains at six years. This is the second half of the Arbitration Threshold. In the beginning, before the Lockout, the Players Union floated the idea that the Free Agency Threshold should be reduced to five years. They also floated the idea that it should be age based (i.e. a Player becomes a Free Agent, regardless of service time, at age 28 or 29 or 30. The Owners refused to budge and the Players caved. It will still be possible for an Owner to sign a college player at 22 years of age, keep him in the Minors until he is 24 or 25, fiddle with his service time so that he doesn’t reach Arbitration until he is 27 or 28, thus delaying the Player reaching free agency until he is in his early 30s. The normal career path for a Baseball Player is reportedly to: 1) Improve in his early 20s; 2) Peak around 26 years of age, 3) Plateau but slowly decline until 29 or 30, and then 3) rapidly lose value in the Player’s 30s until he is forced to retire. In other words, most college players were finally getting their shot at free agency when they are already in their decline phase. The Players Union briefly tried to address this… but then simply gave up on it.

Incredibly, the Baseball Owners took the issues of their Revenue Sharing, the Arbitration Threshold, and the Free Agency Threshold off the table before the negotiations even started. The Players Union, for reasons that are completely unclear, just accepted this without objection. The Small Market Owners’ very profitable strategy of ‘Tanking’ works because the Revenue Sharing system is paired with the Arbitration and Free Agency Thresholds. As long as the Small Market Owners can pay Players who have not reached Free Agency far below their open market value, they can simply field terrible teams and practice the art of ‘Tanking’ over and over again. By not addressing or insisting that any of these three issues be subject to negotiation, the Players Union had lost before they even began negotiating for a new CBA. Basically, the Players Union just surrendered before the War actually started. The only real question left would be: How badly was the Union whipped on the other issues? If this had been an actual Baseball game, the Owners would be up 27-0 in the seventh inning at this point. The only question is whether the final score would be 32-0 or 27-3 or maybe 28-7. But the game was over.

Owners’ Core Issue #4: Competitive Balance Tax [CBT] Threshold

After beginning their 2022 CBA negotiations by declaring that three of their four main negotiating issues were out of bounds, the Owners left just one big topic on the chopping block for discussion with the Players Union. This was the Competitive Balance Tax [CBT]. The CBT is probably better known as the “Luxury Tax.” It works as a soft Salary Cap [a hard Salary Cap is a set amount that cannot be exceeded]. If a Major League team exceeds the Threshold set for the ‘Luxury Tax,’ they have to pay exorbitant penalties for: 1) how far they exceed it; and 2) how often they exceed it. Despite the oxymoron epithet of ‘Competitive Balance Tax,’ the threshold for this ‘Luxury Tax’ functions mainly to suppress Player Salaries, not to foster competition. To say that it worked well would be somewhat of an understatement. From 2009 to 2019, Major League Revenues reportedly increased about 75% while Player Salaries rose around 25%. This disparity transferred enormous amounts of money from the Players’ pockets to the Owners’ bank vaults. But perhaps it is unfair to go all the way back to 2009. The Players Union’s current leadership negotiated the 2017 CBA and now the 2022 CBA. How did they do this time around?

In 2017, the Threshold for the Luxury Tax was set at $195 million dollars [i.e. any team with an annual payroll over the 195 maximum would be penalized]; and Owner’s Revenues were reported as $9.46 billion dollars. The Luxury Tax then rose each year until the 2017 CBA expired [ in 2018 it was $197 million; 2019 it was $206 million; in 2020 it was $208 million; and then in 2021 it was $210 million]. By 2019, the Owner’s Revenues had reportedly risen to $10.37 billion [per Statista.com] or $10.70 billion [per Forbes.com]. But the Co-vid pandemic wiped out most of the 2020 season, and no one has estimated the 2021 Revenues yet. If we assume that 2022 Baseball Revenues exactly match the $10.70 billion dollars that Forbes.com estimated for the 2019 season, what should the Luxury Tax be? If the 2017 Luxury Tax threshold was $195 million and 2017 Baseball revenues were $9.46 billion, then the Luxury Tax Threshold should be approximately $220 million in 2022 with revenues of $10.70 billion. For the new 2022 CBA, the Luxury Tax was set at $230 million. It is scheduled to rise each year until the new CBA expires [it was set at $233 million for 2023; $237 million for 2024; $241 million for 2025; and finally $244 million in 2026, the last year of the new CBA]. This seems like an actual victory, although not a major one for the Players Union.

On closer examination though, it does not look like much of a win at all. It is based on the assumption that the 2022 Major League Baseball revenues will match the 2019 revenues. But this is very unlikely. Far more likely is that 2022 Baseball revenues will be quite a bit greater than they were in 2019. Recently, the Major Leagues re-negotiated their major television contracts to the tune of an additional $300 million dollars. The Major Leagues have also reportedly added an extra $700 million dollars in endorsement contracts since getting past the Co-vid pandemic shortened season of 2020. In the new CBA, there are multiple new opportunities for the Owners to expand their revenues even further. It is far more likely that Baseball’s 2022 Revenues will far surpass the supposed $10.7 billion peak set in 2019. There is a good possibility that they were already surpassed in 2021. There is a much greater chance that Major League Baseball will have Revenues of around $12.0 billion in 2022 than just $10.7 billion dollars. If the Luxury Tax threshold was $195 million in 2017 with revenues of $9.46 billion, then the Luxury Tax threshold should be about $247 million in 2022 with the Revenues at $12.0 billion or so. Basically, the Players Union and Owners agreement on a $230 million dollar Luxury Tax threshold was bargained blind by the Union. For just that reason, you have to assume that the Owners stole the Union’s wallet here.

And it is even worse than just that. To get the CBA threshold raised to $230 million, the Players Union had to agree to another level of onerous penalties for a team exceeding $290 million in payroll. This has been jokingly dubbed the “Cohen Tax” after the new and free-spending owner of the New York Mets franchise. But it should hardly be a joking matter for the Players Union. There is a good chance that, by the end of the current CBA, the initial threshold for the Luxury Tax will be getting close to $290 million if it just rises at the usual rate that Major League Baseball Revenues have risen for the last 20 years. On top of all this, the percentage increases in the new Luxury Tax Thresholds from 2022 to 2026 are basically minimal. If Major League Baseball revenues rise at their normal rates, the percentage disparity between the Luxury Tax threshold and actual Baseball revenues will only increase. Considered closely, this is yet another clear win for the Baseball Owners as long as their Revenues continue to grow at their customary rate. Strangely enough, it is the Owners who seem have faith in the continued popularity of the game and expanding revenues, not the players themselves. I wouldn’t bet against their confidence.

So the Players Union almost surely lost every major issue that they negotiated for the 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement. Did they make up any ground on the Peripheral Issues?

Peripheral Issue #1 Player Minimum Salaries

The Player Minimum Salaries should also rise with overall Baseball Revenues. For instance, the minimum Major League salary in 2011 was $414 thousand dollars. The new 2012 CBA Agreement kicked that up to $480 as it had fallen far behind the growth in Baseball Revenues. In 2012, the reported revenue for Major League Baseball was $6.81 billion dollars. By 2019, revenue had grown to at least $10.37 billion. If the Players’ minimum salary (2012 to 2019) had kept up with reported Baseball Revenues, it should have been approximately $730 thousand dollars by 2019. However, the current Players Union’s labor negotiating team started with the 2017 CBA. For the year 2017, the Players minimum salary was set at $535 thousand dollars, and total Baseball Revenues were reportedly $9.46 billion. If the 2022 revenues equal about $10.7 billion, the minimum salary should have been around $605 thousand dollars to keep up with this rise in revenues. But, once again, it is far more likely that total 2022 Baseball Revenues will be around $12.0 billion dollars. In that case, the 2022 minimum salary should be about $680 thousand dollars. But the 2022 CBA reset the Minimum Salary at $700 thousand dollars. This seems like a pretty clear, if relatively minor, victory for the Players Union.

But, once again, the devil is in the details. If the past is prologue to the future, Baseball Revenues will rise at a far greater rate than this minimum salary does. After 2022, the Players Minimum Salary will go up just 20 thousand dollars for each year during the CBA [2022: 700k, 2023: 720k, 2024: 740k, 2025: 760k, and 2026: 780k]. These minimum salary increases are actually retrogressive [the % increase from 2022 to 2023 is 2.86%; but then the percentage actually shrinks each year; and, by 2025 to 2026, it is just 2.63%]. Why the Players Union has agreed to this type of retrogressive increase in each and every new CBA is an enduring mystery [the minimum salary always increases by a set amount with yearly decreasing percentage increases]. By 2026, if Major League Revenues rise annually by just 2.86% or more, the Baseball Owners will win this bet. If revenues continue to rise by the normal historical percentages, the Owners will have once again totally fleeced the Players Union. By 2026, the increase of the Players’ Minimum Salaries will once again have lagged far behind the rise in Baseball Revenues. Although only time will tell, it is unlikely that the Players Union have negotiated a good deal here. Once again, the Baseball Owners seem to be the party who has faith in the future of the game, not the Players Union.

For reasons also unknown, the Players Union has never tied the minumum salary to the Luxury Tax. In other words, the Luxury Tax, designed to inhibit top-end salaries, should be tightly related to the Players’ Minimum Salary by the Union. For instance, the Union has constantly complained about Major League teams ‘tanking’ their seasons. However, a higher Minimum Salary would automatically put a floor on this strategy. With the current 26 man roster, a Major League team could theoretically field a team of nothing but rookie players in 2022. That team’s payroll would be $18.2 million dollars [with each Player being paid $700k]. But, if the Minimum Salary was just $1 million, that payroll would be $26 million. If the Minimum Salary goes up to $1.5 million, the payroll rises to $39 million. If it is $2 million, the payroll goes way up to $52 million. This would be a very easy and simple way to: 1) put a salary floor on all tanking teams [who would probably not field 26 rookies], and 2) also compensate the Players who are being underpaid and cheated out of their actual value the most. Why the Players Union did not advocate some type of extreme raise to the Minimum Salary as a way to combat the tanking strategy is yet another mystery. Just the publicity from assuming this position would probably be advantageous to the Union. The Union just punted here and this will ultimately be a huge win for the Owners.

Peripheral Issue #2 Amateur Draft/Draft Lottery

Major League Baseball, with the help of the Player’s Union, has built a system that completely exploits younger Players. Until a Player reaches free agency, every financial step of his career is a denial of the Player’s rights to his actual free market value. The Amateur Draft allows the Player to only negotiate with one Major League team, not all thirty [30]. The Player’s signing bonus is then assigned by his position in the Draft. For the first three years of his career, the Player must accept a Minimum Salary. From years three to six, the Player has his value determined in Arbitration which, once again, limits his right to just one team. The Player only gets to exercise his free market rights (that other American citizens enjoy all the time) after six years of Major League service time. If he starts his career with several years in the Minor Leagues, a Player can be denied his rights under this system until they are well past thirty years of age and out of their prime. As long as Major League Baseball continues to enjoy its bizarre exemption from Federal Anti-Trust and Monopoly laws, this exploitation will probably always be built into the Baseball system.

The most extreme examples of how this system works are so beyond unfair that they appear ludicrous. For instance, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had a fantastic third season in the Major Leagues during 2021, hitting 48 HRs with 111 RBIs while also batting .311. His 2021 salary was reportedly $605,400. His value to his team, the Toronto Blue Jays, has been estimated as $50 million dollars. In other words, Vlad Junior would have been a steal at even half that amount. In 2022, Vlad, who had finally reached Arbitration, got a raise to the amount of $7.90 million dollars. It is basically indisputable that, if Baby Vlad had been on the free market, his 2022 salary would be, at a minimum, $35 million dollars a year. Going into the 2022 CBA negotiations, the Players Union declared it was determined to address this type of injustice. For this reason, the Union took a principled stand against Major League teams purposely losing to better their position in the Amateur Draft (and get the next Vlad Junior to exploit). Did the Union accomplish this goal?

In the new CBA, the Baseball Owners and Players established a new Amateur Draft Lottery system to replace the old method of having teams draft Players in reverse order of their won-loss record. In the new Lottery system, the worst six teams each year get to participate in a lottery for the six top picks in next year’s Amateur Draft. These six worst teams now have to enter a Lottery to determine their draft position. Small Market teams cannot be in the Lottery three years in a row and the Large Market teams cannot be in the Lottery two years in a row. These changes could potentially put a crimp in some Baseball teams attempts to rebuild if that team gets unlucky in the Lottery. But it does not address why a team would tear down (“tank”) in the first place or attempt to rebuild around young cheap players. Basically, the new Draft Lottery is just the same as rearranging the deck chairs on the Lusitania. Totally meaningless. This is a clear win for the Owners. They did not change the rules of the game, they simply made the rules more complicated. The strategy of intentionally losing [or “Tanking”] was not even touched. The cycle of tearing down teams, purposely losing games, and then building them back up with cheap young talent will continue.

[5/12/2022 Note: By this new Draft Lottery formula, a “tanking” team (we will just call them the Orioles) will get into the draft lottery in the 1st and 2nd years of the new CBA. Then the Orioles will have to sit out the Lottery for one whole year; but will still get a high draft pick, maybe seventh or eighth, if they stink bad enough. Then the Orioles are right back into the Lottery for the 4th and 5th years of the CBA. Of course, at the point, the CBA expires and the Orioles have spent four of the five years in the Lottery. Not much of a penalty.]

Peripheral Issue #2 Designated Hitter in National League

The adoption of the Designated Hitter by the National League may seem like a win for the Players Union, but it is a slight one (if even that). The Union can claim that they created 15 new jobs (one for each formerly non-DH National League team). But this is not really correct. There was no addition of an extra roster spot for these new 15 DH slots. The real change is that some hitters will now get Major League at bats that used to be wasted on pitchers (I say wasted because no pitcher really got paid for his batting prowess in modern times until perhaps Shohei Ohtani). Realistically, National League clubs still retain all the discretion in this situation. They get to pick who gets to take all those ABs that used to be soaked up by pitchers. They do not have to hire a full time DH at all. Of course, the American League teams (or perhaps more accurately that half of the Major Leagues that used to be called the American League) has had the DH since 1972. The National League did not follow suit until 2020, the year of the pandemic. To demonstrate how ruthless they are in negotiations, the Baseball Owners basically took the National League DH off the table for 2021 just so they could have an extra bargaining chip in 2022. Never give an inch seems to be their motto. Can you call it a victory for the Players Union when they get something everyone knew was going to just be given to them?

Peripheral Issue #3 Pre-Arbitration Bonus Pool

Rather than simply raise the Minimum Salary for all Players being denied their Fair Market Value [FMV], the Baseball Owners and the Players Union came up with this odd answer. The Owners will contribute $50 million dollars to a pool that will be split up among the very best of the exploited young Players. The Owners get a set cost that is still far below the exploited Player’s actual value. The Players get a strange system which transfers some money to the Baseball underpaid. This entire arrangement goes against the usual advice to keep it simple. It will be interesting to see how the system, once it is up and running, can be exploited by the unscrupulous. Sooner or later, some player or team is going to try to game the system. Again, this is a clear win for the Owners. As pointed out above, there are individual players such as Vlad Guerrero Jr. who are underpaid by close to $50 million dollars all by themselves. The value to the Owners of their monopoly-induced powers to restrict the free market for young players is worth billions over the life of the CBA. To pay a set cost of only $50 million dollars for this privilege is golden. Despite this, there are probably Owners who actually believe that it is they who are being taken advantage of by the Players here.

Peripheral Issue #4 Pension Benefits

The Baseball Owners increased their yearly contributions to the Player’s Union Pension Plan from 201.9 million per year to 207.0 million annually. This is an increase of about 2.5 percent. The Union also apparently got a minimum 3.5 million per year from the CBA [Competitive Balance Tax] to spend on Pension Benefits. Some of this money is earmarked for Players who played from 1947 to 1979 but did not play the required four years to vest in the Pension. There was evidently a rules change that will allow any Players to buy eyeglasses and contacts in the same year.* Once again, all this is almost surely a clear win for the Baseball Owners. Their contribution to the Pension Plan will stay constant at $207 million plus the $3.5 million for the next five years. In the meantime, Baseball Revenues, if the past is any sort of prologue to the future, will keep rising. Why couldn’t the Players get even a minimum yearly increase for their Pension Plan? The Players only win this if Revenues stay flat [or win big if the Revenues collapse]. It is certainly strange that the Major League Owners, who always claim financial catastrophe is right around the corner like Chicken Little with a megaphone, are obviously betting that their Revenues will continue to rise up like a bunch of unruly peasants revolting against a king.

* It seems odd that, in all the coverage of the new CBA, this minor detail was reported.

Peripheral Issue #5 Sports Betting

It should be obvious to everyone that the legalization of sports betting has the potential to become a huge money maker for the Baseball Owners. The Major Leagues have already teamed up with the company Draft Kings, a on-line Sports Betting platform. Of course, gambling has been a total anathema to Baseball ever since the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. The Players Union and the Owners negotiated some rules and regulation for this brand-new world of legalized sports wagers. They announced their negotiated gains: 1) Baseball teams will have to institute more security; 2) Baseball teams are not allowed to sell Player’s personal info to anyone; and 3) the guidelines and restrictions under which Players themselves could enter into commercial contracts with Sports Betting companies were formalized. These negotiations also included the investigatory due process for violations. The Union publicized all this as a victory. The Baseball Owners, on the other hand, won the right to go ahead with their own joint ventures with Sports Betting companies. They did not put out any press releases about the fact that the Major Leagues will once again be swimming with the gambling sharks. But this is actually a gigantic victory for the Owners. They set up the future structure under which they will be able to maximize their profits from gambling ventures.

Peripheral Issue #6 Expanded Post Season

There will now be 12 (rather than 10 teams) reaching the post-season. Money will flow into the Owners’ pockets with expanded play-off contests. The extra two teams will be able to bank their profits. On the other hand, the 162 game regular season has been devalued once again. The players make their salaries during the regular season. Interestingly, the Owners actually have just gained an edge for future negotiations. In this negotiation, the Owners strategy was to lock the Players out way before the season even started. In other words, as far away from the lucrative post-season where the Baseball Owners make all their money as possible. By expanding the post-season, the Owners just grow this part of their pie. It is a sure thing that, during the next CBA negotiations, the Owners will follow the same exact strategy. This, all by itself, makes any expansion of the playoffs a victory for the Owners.

Peripheral Issue #7 International Draft

One of the stranger aspects of the recent CBA negotiations was the Baseball Owners suddenly bringing up an International Draft right at the end. With the CBA all but worked out, the Owners insisted that they would not settle unless an International Draft was addressed. The Baseball Owners also insisted that this International Draft be tied to any negotiations about “Qualifying Offers.” A “Qualifying Offer” refers to a Major League Baseball team’s ability to make an offer to their Free Agent Players and, if that Player later receives a contract from another team, the team making the “Qualifying Offer” gets an additional draft pick. Of course, this offering system was designed to put a drag on the free agent salaries while also rewarding any team shedding free agents. More rewards for tanking. In reality, this “Qualifying Offer” system hasn’t been all that great a brake on Player salaries. Usually it is just good for a laugh when some unfortunate player (poor Michael Conforto this year)* gets completely screwed over by it. In the end of the negotiations, the International Draft and the Qualifying Offer were not even settled. The negotiation provided that the Owners and the Union would appoint a joint Committee to study this issue. On July 25th of 2022, the Committee would make its recommendation. If the International Drafts is implemented, the Qualifying Offer system ends.

* Conforto has no one to blame but himself. He should have immediately taken the New York Mets Qualifying Offer.

You should take a minute to fully appreciate the beauty of what the Baseball Owners did here. In reality, the Union should have simply said that the end of this Qualifying Offer system was a pre-requisite for negotiations. They should have just taken it off the table like the Owners did for so many subjects (such as Arbitration Threshold and Free Agency Threshold). Instead, the Union just left it on the table. The Owners then tied negotiations for the Qualifying Offer system to something totally unrelated, the International Draft. Of course, an International Draft is a huge deal to the Owners. They want to, as always, cut down the negotiating leverage that any non-Union Baseball Players have. An International Draft will easily save the Baseball Owners millions and eventually billions of dollars. The Baseball Owners have tied the negotiations of a minor issue (the Qualifying Offer) that directly affects the Players to a major issue for the Owners (the International Draft) that doesn’t directly affects the Players. It is brilliant strategy. On July 25th of 2022, the Players Union will give away the store because they don’t own it for some trinkets and yarn.

Peripheral Issue #8 Uniform Advertising

Yet another win for the Owners. The Owners now get to sell advertising space on their players uniforms. This is cash that will go straight into their pockets. It seems like every player I see in 2022 now has a Nike swoosh logo on their jerseys. A quick internet search reveals that the Owners sold Nike the rights to put the swoosh logo on every uniform in December of 2019. The deal was for a cool one billion dollars over 10 years (so apparently from 2020 to 2029). This is $100 million dollars a year or $3.33 million yearly for each team. I can’t believe that I just noticed it. The Owners continue to line their pockets. Will the Players soon look as ridiculous as NASCAR drivers with commercial logos all over their uniforms like some crackpot banana republic dictator’s ludicrous military jacket covered with medals?

Peripheral Issue #9 International Games

The Owners got commitments from the Players Union to schedule baseball games in distant and strange venues. Despite years of such traveling teams reporting that these long distance trips throw off their rhythm, it seems like the Players Union got no concessions for it. This has to go in the Baseball Owners’ win column also.

Peripheral Issue #10 Scheduling

The Owners gave the Players Union assurances that their schedule makers would try to streamline the travel. This is a win for the Owners because they are only giving the Players Union something that the Owners should be doing anyways. Streamlining travel will most likely save the Owners travel-related costs. Of course, this is a theme of these negotiations. The Owners give up something that is actually in their best interest while the Players give up the things they should fight for without a whimper or a whisper.

Peripheral Issue #11 Player Roster Limits

For many years, the Major League Baseball Roster was 25 Baseball Players on the active roster with a 40 Man Roster under contract. For reasons that were never made clear, the active Baseball Roster could be expanded to all 40 men during the month of September each season. This lead to the odd result that teams were played by different rules as they roared down the pennant race at the end of the year. In 2019, this problem was taken care of by expanding the active Roster to 26 men during the regular season and just 28 in September. This was something that the Owners wanted and they got to formalize it in the new CBA agreement.

Peripheral Issue #12 Player Options

In a very minor victory for the Players Union, the Major League Owners did agree to limit Player Options [i.e. how many times a Player can be bounced around from the Minor Leagues to the Major Leagues] to just 5 each season. In recent years, with Roster Management being controlled by the new type of MBA style baseball executives, some players with options had been bounced between the Minors and Majors like human yo-yos. Players had to absorb the cost of being uprooted in mid-season [apartment rents, travel, etc.] One could argue that this new limitation was hardly a victory because the Players Union did not get the Owners to agree to compensate the Players for each Option. Rather than just limiting the Options to just five a year, the Union should have negotiated a price for each option. If the Union made it expensive to option a Player like a yo-yo, that would impose a natural limitation. And it would also reimburse the Player for being uprooted. Yet another missed opportunity for the Players Union.

Peripheral Issue #13 On-Field Rule Changes

The Players Union agreed to let Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred impose on-field rule changes with just 45 days notice. This is yet another odd, if not downright bizarre, decision by the Union. During these negotiations, Manfred proved himself to be exactly what he is: a lawyer with little to no love for the game of Baseball. Manfred had strangely already denigrated the World Series Baseball trophy. During press conferences during the Lockout, he acted as if the loss of Baseball for an unknown amount of time was no really big thing. Manfred smirked and smiled in those press conferences like it was all a joke. To be fair, the Baseball Owners hiring a labor lawyer who could not give two craps about the game of Baseball itself is good strategy. Prior Commissioners who were actually fans (Bowie Kuhn, Bart Giamatti, Fay Vincent) acted against the interests of their employers at times. But why, by all that’s holy, would the Union cede control to a non-fan like Rob Manfred the right to make unilateral changes to the game’s rules and regulations in just 45 days? Obviously, Rob Manfred is only going to rubber stamp changes that line the Owner’s pockets even if these changes come at the complete expense of the Players. As usual, the Players Union’s strategy, and complete lack of backbone, are beyond odd.

Conclusion

In December of 2013, Tony Clark, a former Baseball Player, was hired as the head [Executive Director] of the Players Union. He has now headed the Union during the negotiations for the last two CBAs, 2017 and 2022. The 2017 CBA is generally conceded to have been a complete disaster for the Players Union. In my opinion, the 2022 CBA is the second straight CBA in which the Players Union has been whipped by the Owners like a borrowed dog. There is a good possibility that this new CBA will actually be much worse than the 2017 CBA for the Players. Tony Clark’s main qualifications for being the head of the Players Union seem to be that: 1) he is a former Major League Player and 2) he was deeply involved in the Players Union during his career. He is not a lawyer. He did not serve a long apprenticeship learning the ins and outs of a labor negotiation. The 2017 CBA was so bad that the Players Union had to bring in a professional labor lawyer, Bruce Meyer, to help Clark negotiate. It doesn’t seem to have helped much at all. Will Tony Clark improve at his job before the next CBA is negotiated with the Baseball Owners in 2027? There were absolutely no indications during this negotiation that he will.

On the other hand, the Owners are led by their own representative, Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred. His qualifications are that: 1) he actually was a labor lawyer and 2) he has been involved in Baseball’s Labor disputes since the 1990s, long before he became the Commissioner. So far, it has been like watching Tony Clark’s David go up against Ron Manfred’s Goliath. However, this time, David doesn’t have his slingshot or any type of protective clothing. Meanwhile, Goliath is in full armor, including a helmut covering his temple, and is armed with a machine gun. It hasn’t been pretty. Will the third time be a charm? How many times can the Players Union let Clark hopefully learn on the job? Or should the players get some professional representation? Marvin Miller, the greatest Baseball Players Union Rep of All-Time, was a labor lawyer. He spent years representing Unions fighting the American Auto industry. The Players Union needs to find their next Marvin Miller. Tony Clark seems to be a nice guy. A nice guy is not what is needed here. To misquote Leo Durocher just one more time: “Nice guys finish dead last.”

In the final analysis, the new CBA can only be construed as a major victory for the Owners. They took three of their four core issues completely off the table. They bargained over peripheral issues and still got a pretty good return for it. In a grander sense, this is really not a big deal. The Players and Owners once again decided how to cut up their financial pie. The Baseball Owners got the larger piece. No matter how the pie is cut up, the fans still get to watch their sport. Does it make a real difference if the Owners get 90% of the profits (like they supposedly did before free agency) or just 47% (like they reportedly got in the 1990s) or their current alleged share of 53%? It would be a major upset if this CBA does not drive the Baseball Owners share of the game’s revenues much higher. But who wants to root for a bunch of Billionaires? Especially a group of Billionaires as scummy and scuzzy as the current lot of Owners? It should be noted that the Owners took quite a licking in the publicity battle. Even the lickspittle sportswriters who usually carry the Owners lunches were criticizing them. This could just be a sign of the times. But it hardly matters, the Players and their Union did not capitalize on the publicity advantage.

Postscript

Once the Lockout ended and the new CBA was signed, Baseball Owners and Players quickly returned to the usual business of the former National Pastime. The bitter taste of labor strife swiftly receded into forgetfulness. However, in strange postscript to the short but bitter negotiations, Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred tried to patch up a few fences and maybe rehabilitate his image. During the Lockout itself, Manfred had come off as a tone-deaf executive who could really care less about the game of Baseball. Smirking through his press conferences and smiling at the wrong times, Manfred made an extremely bad impression. Now with victory achieved, Manfred (or his handlers) made what must have seemed like a gracious gesture. The Commissioners Office, in Rob Manfred’s name, sent each and every Major League Player some expensive ear buds as a token of their appreciation. All things considered, this would be like someone breaking into your house, taking all your stuff, eating all your food, and then leaving a coupon for a McDonalds’ cheeseburger with a note that says: Enjoy!