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Trade Rumors Front Office Chat With Anthony Franco
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Anthony Franco
2:00
Hey everyone, hope you had a good week!
Hits Like Rays
2:01
It's really hard for me to support the owners during a labor conflict when the owners refuse to disclose their profits and rely on our tax money to build their stadiums. The players make a lot of money, but the owners are writing the checks – so they clearly have even more money. What do you think?
Anthony Franco
2:03
I think this is generally true, although I'm personally agnostic on the revenue split. Given the owners' refusal to disclose their financials and the huge-revenue TV deals the league keeps signing, though, I think it's understandable why players and the union (who should obviously be very concerned with the revenue split) are looking askance at everything
Dave Mc
2:03
In last week’s chat you said “I'm not big on the salary floor, since I think we'll just get terrible teams taking on underwater contracts in trade (i.e. Hosmer or Heyward) to buy prospects as opposed to a more active free agent market for mid-tier veteran”
Anthony Franco
2:04
I don't see anything else related to this in the queue, so if you asked a follow-up about this Dave, you have to resend it
Nyy99
2:05
Who are some veterans that are going to get squeezed into one year deals because of the short period between the lockout ending and spring training?
Anthony Franco
2:05
My guess is the guys who end up getting squeezed by a shorter offseason will be the types teams aren't enamored with anyways
2:06
Mid-tier free agents in the Josh Harrison mold who might've gotten two years in a normal winter
Maybe some guys who got non-tendered like two days before the lockout sign for less than they would've in a typical year, although those players basically never get multi-year deals anyways
2:07
So that would be more like, "Player X would normally get $6M after being non-tendered, but he had to settle for 4 this year"
GBS42
2:07
Anthony, I really wonder about this pre-arb bonus pool idea.  The owners are offering $10M, which is a joke ($333k per team), while the $105M from the players is not going to be accepted by teams.  Let's say they land around $50M.  Awarding that to the top 30 players would be an average of $1.7M per player.  Alternatively, if there are about 650 pre-arb players, that's an average of $75k per player.  Why not just increase the minimum salary by that amount for everyone?  I understand wanting to reward the best young performers, but this would be similar to free agency, where a few players get a huge amount more than most others.  These top-30 young guys are likely to get big money in FA or via extension anyway, so how about taking better care of the majority of the players?
Anthony Franco
2:08
I agree that making a significant bump to the league minimum would be preferable to rewarding certain high performers. I just think the owners are opposed enough to doing so that the PA adapted and made it merit-based
2:09
It's probably easier to sell to to owners that "hey, you're paying a bit more for early-career players, but that's concentrated in your best performers anyways. Jonathan India making $1.5MM -- $2MM, absolutely worth it"
2:10
I also think, from a team perspective, that raising the minimum could have some trickle-down effects they don't want to deal with. Part of the reason I think raising the minimum would be so significant for the union is that it should also help the market for the Harrison-type free agent I referenced earlier
2:11
Teams have moved away from paying those guys of late, reasoning that rather than spending $8MM for a 1-WAR player, they'll spend $600K for a 0.5-WAR player they should be able to develop
2:12
If the minimum were raised to $1MM+ (more so than MLB would ever be willing to go, at least in this CBA), that calculus might change and now that half-win you didn't want to pay for becomes worth it
2:14
In the same sort of way that teams might exercise a club option with a high buyout even if they don't love the actual option price. You have to pay a fairly decent amount anyways, so the additional money you're deciding on committing is lower
RG
2:14
I have been a baseball fan since 1973, but the old guys like me are dwindling! Any thoughts on attracting younger fans, what the game needs to do for the future of the sport?
Anthony Franco
2:15
I wish I had a better answer, but I think the truth is that MLB's just going to take a back seat to the NFL and NBA now and that's life
2:16
That's not to say you can't make gains. Implementing a pitch clock to get the ball moving more is low-hanging fruit. I hope it happens in the next couple years (and believe it will)
2:17
But a lot of the three true outcomes stuff isn't going away. Strikeouts have been going up basically since MLB started, and that's particularly accelerated over the past decade or so as teams have gotten really good about teaching velocity and implementing data into game-planning
2:18
Hitting, by nature, is reactive and tougher to teach -- similarly, I think, to the way that defense in the NFL and NBA becomes harder and harder successfully implement year after year
2:19
So if there's a trend for more action and more scoring, I just think baseball as a sport is in a bind that football and basketball are not because the defensive team in baseball controls the action
2:21
That's not to say it's dying or anything. Plenty of people still love baseball, and obviously the money's still flowing. But I think the gradually declining popularity relative to other sports is more fate than something that can be entirely fixed by the talking points like "improve pace of play," "market your stars" kind of tropes you hear a lot
Hits Like Rays
2:21
Do you think the new CBA will have some big changes or more specific rules in how revenue sharing money is spent?
Anthony Franco
2:22
I don't think the PA's getting the revenue sharing changes they want, no. Seems like MLB's really dug in their heels there
That's one of those issues that'll divide owners themselves, since the smaller-market franchises obviously want to preserve revenue sharing and the larger-market ones would happily embrace cuts that keep the money in their pockets
2:23
But that feels, speaking entirely speculatively here, like something the commissioner doesn't want to back down on for fear of alienating the smaller-market owners
2:25
Manfred has couched his resistance to revenue sharing cuts publicly by pointing to competitive balance -- which I'm sure is a small part of his concern. But I think the much bigger thing he's facing there is a need to keep the smaller-market owners happy and more broadly, to keep the owners on a unified front during negotiations. The commissioner's office is largely in charge of smoothing out the collective action problems that could arise amongst the owners themselves.
Will in Westport
2:25
Recent reports have Suzuki focusing on "teams that play spring baseball in Arizona."  Is that what you are hearing?  If so, are the Mariners the only team in the AL that he might be considering?  Thanks, Anthony
Anthony Franco
2:27
We haven't heard anything on Suzuki's market personally. I think the reported geographical Spring Training advantage is moderately noteworthy but not to the point that I'd write off teams with Florida complexes entirely, no
Question Asker
2:27
Hypothetically, assuming no salary caps/floors and a similar CBT structure, if players went straight to free agency after just a year or two (instead of six), would that automatically lead to more money going to the players as a whole?  The owners would still have the same revenue, that revenue would largely dictate budgets for player salaries, and nothing would force them to exceed their budgets.  Sure the top young players would earn more, but the clubs would just adjust by allocating less money to the middle/lower-tier players, right?  I know my hypothetical is never happening, but it seems to me that whatever changes are likely to be made to the CBA will just redistribute the existing salary pie without really increasing the players' collective piece.
Anthony Franco
2:29
I think you're right that it wouldn't really help the overall player pool, yeah. It's been a couple years since I read Lords of the Realm, but I believe it was mentioned in there that Marvin Miller -- the most important leader in MLBPA history -- was vehemently opposed to universal free agency after one year
2:31
For that reason, fear of flooding the market and reducing the demand for all players involved. The details on this may be a bit off -- as I said, it's been awhile -- but I think it was former A's owner Charlie Finley who tried to push for free agency after one year (once it became clear that preserving the reserve clause wasn't possible) and the union said no
sgrossman
2:31
I am fascinated by the unprecedented frenzy of deals that will need to be completed soon after the CBA is approved. If a team could use Suzuki, or Schwarber, or Castellanos, but only one of them….what negotiating strategy should the team use? What would be the players’ best negotiating strategy given that there will be little or no time to shop bids to other teams and, if they don't say "yes" quickly, the team might turn to other alternatives?
Anthony Franco
2:32
Yeah, I figure this happens quite often in a regular offseason but it'll be more prevalent than ever this year
I don't even know that it needs to be a "negotiating strategy" so much as a statement of fact about the situation teams will find themselves in
2:34
"Hey we've got a week to figure out who our starting right fielder's gonna be. Here's the offer but you basically have to let us know ASAP because we have offers to two other players and they could sign at any minute." I think that's fair; everyone understands the situation's not going to be ideal
Nyy99
2:34
How much longer do you think the lockout lasts? I’m going crazy thinking of all these possible trades and signings that could of happened by now
Anthony Franco
2:34
I'm still hopeful something gets done by the end of February but getting increasingly pessimistic by the week
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