Manfred backing away from guarantee is proof unified players will win this MLB fight
The initial reaction to the about-face delivered Monday by Rob Manfred, on behalf of the 30 MLB team owners, ranged from shock to anger to even some laughter.
There was some uncertainty in there, too, but it subsided along with the rest of the emotions once heads cooled and logical thinking prevailed.
In telling ESPN that he can no longer guarantee a 2020 MLB season, just days after he had guaranteed it, Manfred revealed this truth: The owners are wobbling, and the players are going to win this fight.
Perhaps it was through their own avarice, after pummeling the players in the last round of collective bargaining for the basic agreement in 2016, that the owners thought they could just bully the players around.
All the silly demands the MLB Players Association made four years ago came at a cost — opening the door for owners to reduce their expenses and, eventually, cut the players’ average salary the past two years.
This while seeing revenue soar in the sport to $10.7 billion in 2019 and while seeing franchise values surge into the billions.
And the kicker is the owners didn’t have to share any of it with the players.
But the owners are about to get their comeuppance.
They have badly misjudged how unified the union has become over the past four years and a year before bargaining begins on a new basic agreement.
The players haven’t buckled.
They have stayed true to their belief that they are owed their full pro-rated salaries, which they agreed to in March when the season was initially delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
They have resoundingly rejected the owners’ proposals and called them out for what they are — similarly, strikingly lousy and designed to create union disharmony and turn public opinion against the players.
But when MLBPA executive director Tony Clark on Saturday said the players were done negotiating and on their behalf told the owners to set the schedule, even if just 48 games, it was a uppercut that connected squarely on the owners’ chins.
Manfred backing away from his guarantee was the owners’ way of buying time to find their legs again. They fear the players filing a grievance for failing to schedule as many games as possible, and going in front of an arbitrator who might ask the owners for information they have been unwilling to provide the players.
The grievance, as has been pointed out by many national pundits, could cost the owners another $1 billion in a year in which they say their “losses” will be at least $4 billion. Losses is in quotes because the players think the $4 billion is fiction.
So, the owners threatened to force the players to waive away all legal recourse in order for there to be a season.
Besides, a season implemented by Manfred, rather than one negotiated with the players, will likely lead to the players refusing an expanded playoffs. That would cost players on postseason teams their bonuses, but it would cost owners perhaps another $250 million in national TV money.
But, wait, there’s more.
Public sentiment, at least among the public that hasn’t already fled the sport, has suddenly shifted toward the players. If the owners are the bad guys, or the badder bad guys, that could cut further into their bottom line — franchise value and the amount of money they will pocket when they sell off their toys.
Now, the word from the national writers is that the owners want to jump-start negotiations. They want to get the union back to the table and find a way to play ball.
The owners’ last offer was 72 games while guaranteeing the players 70% of their salaries, or the same amount of money of a shortened season at full pro rata. That number could grow to 83% if an expanded postseason is completed without a second wave of coronavirus ending the season.
That appears to be a possibility, based on the rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations across the country in wake of states reopening their economies and protesters exercising their First Amendment rights in mass gatherings following the unnecessary death of George Floyd.
Here’s where the owners need to start: Give the players the only thing they really want, full pro rata. Take the L, collect as much money as possible, and take on the risk of the season not reaching its end if playing baseball becomes unsafe while the players risk their and their families’ health.
Recognize that without the players, happy players, there is no baseball. Try to keep the fans baseball still has from heading elsewhere.
And try to create some element of labor harmony only 18 months before the due date for a new collective bargaining agreement.
For as much damage as has been done to the sport through owners’ shortsightedness, something the players have also been accused of, a strike or lockout in 2022 might serve as a knockout blow.
