Major League Baseball faces a possible lockout two weeks from today, December 2, 2021, unless the owners and players reach a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
If the owners impose a lockout, postseason player moves will be put on hold indefinitely (until there is a new labor agreement). Information on progress toward a new deal is sparse. In an article in The Athletic by Lindsey Adler and Evan Drellich, the authors report that the owners are meeting this week in Chicago with labor relations a hot topic on the agenda.
The owners have a labor policy committee, staffed by Hal Steinbrenner of the Yankees, Mark Attanasio of the Brewers, Ray Davis of the Rangers, Ron Fowler of the Padres, John Henry of the Red Sox, Dick Monfort of the Rockies and Jim Pohlad of the Twins. The composition of this committee is interesting, in that five of seven are from smaller-market teams.
That may explain the most recent the proposal the owners made to the players, which seemed to attempt to somewhat even the field in spending power between the larger and smaller-market clubs. Key tenets from the proposal were a lowering of the threshold for the Competitive Balance Tax, increasing the tax rate, and implementing a $100 million salary floor for all teams.
Hal Steinbrenner, who interestingly supported a proposal that would target the Yankees (among other traditional high spenders) on the process of crafting the proposal:
“Every owner on the committee, there are certainly things in the proposal that we didn’t like. I mean, every owner. But we wanted to put together a proposal that addressed their concerns and come together as a group. And we did. But I mean, specific things — nothing’s ever going to be perfect, in any deal. Any deal.”
Though the players are not at all interested in the most recent owners’ proposal, the salary floor represents an innovation to try to make more teams competitive, addressing an issue that is growing in baseball. In addition, the owners have proposed eliminating arbitration, and starting free agency at 29 1/2 years of age. Once again, the players are taking a hard pass on those offers.
The game can ill-afford a work stoppage. The offseason is just starting to heat up, with the recent signings of Noah Syndergaard, Justin Verlander, and Eduardo Rodriguez. Further, the popularity of baseball is waning in the younger demographic, those who will have spending power in the years to come. Here is glance at television ratings from the most recent World Series and NBA Championship, from Sports Media Watch.
Both Games 4 and 5 of the World Series) outdrew the corresponding games of July’s NBA Finals (Game 4: 5.3, 10.25M; Game 5: 4.8, 9.62M). In the key young adult demos, Game 4 was no match for the corresponding NBA Finals game in 18-49 (3.5 to 2.3), 25-54 (3.6 to 2.9) and 18-34 (3.2 to 1.5). Game 5 outdrew its NBA equivalent in 18-49 (3.1 to 3.0) and 25-54 (4.0 to 3.4), but trailed in 18-34 (2.4 to 2.1).
For the Mets, they can finally begin their planning for 2022 with a new general manager soon to be in the fold, as reported here on MMO. Will Javier Báez be back? How about Marcus Stroman? Should they sign Starling Marte, Kris Bryant, and/or Nick Castellanos? These are some of the intriguing questions, that now can begin to be answered.
But alas, unless there’s a late-inning rally in the next two weeks, we may have to wait a while to find out what the Mets will do. If history best predicts the future in the area of baseball labor disputes, it could be quite a while.
