Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Contextualizing the Lockout

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode break down the players' and owners' side of the current MLB lockout, how Mariners players feel about it and when baseball will finally return.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. Hello and welcome to Locked on Mariners. And thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. Today is Wednesday, February 9th, 2022. I am your host, Taday Gonzalez. Join, as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode. Follow us on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners.

so you can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. That's D-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z, and Colby at C-P-E-P-A-T-1-1. Be sure to also check out our Patreon where we talk about the Mariners even more and also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. Visit patreon.com forward slash control zone for more information on that.

If you are interested, now on today's episode of Locked-on Mariners, we're talking all about the lockout. What do the players want? What do the owners want? and what are Mariners players saying about it? We're talking all that and more over the next 30 or so minutes. We haven't really talked about the lockout here on this show.

We talked a lot about it on our Patreon show at Control the Zone, but figured we would take a little break from a lot of the Mariners stuff that we've been doing. We've been kind of in a routine here during the lockout, doing our mailbag shows and our fan fiction Fridays to just talk about generally what's going on around the league and when we could possibly see the Mariners get back out on the field. And if this is your first time joining us, welcome to the show. If you like what you hear, give us a follow or subscribe wherever you listen to this.

We greatly appreciate it. So Colby, I'll just start by asking you this. What do the players want? Where did they start and where are they at now in the negotiations? Yeah, so the players are negotiating for basically what amounts to three. towards three key objectives. Number one, they want to raise the minimum salary for, you know, major leaguers. It's pretty simple.

Right now it's at about $55,000. The players have $575,000. The players, I think, are asking for $780,000. So that's number one is to, you know, pay the players more, the average run of the mill players. Pay them more. number two is they want to they want to get players like elite players who are pre-arbitration eligible

they want to get them more money sooner basically the zero to threes your first three years in the majors you're going to make the league minimum or slightly above there are some raises that you can earn but they're very minimal so basically your first three years in the league you're not going to make even $2 million total for those three years.

And those are often three of the most productive years of a player's career. So they want to find a way to put more money into the elite performers of that group, put more money into their pocket. Number three is it appears to be that they really want to try and curb tanking or teams purposely not trying to win. They really want to try and discourage that. So that's kind of where they, they've been focused on. There are some other minor things here and there that they're,

that they're fighting for. But those are the three big, uh, talking points for, for the players right now. Um, so the minimum salary, they have been pretty steady at asking for $780,000. Um, and that's, again, that's been a part of their proposal. Uh, all their proposals has been, have been that. in terms of getting more

money into the zero to three players, they have proposed a, basically a bonus pool, similar to the bonus pool that a team has in the draft. They want 100 and, I think it was 105 million was their initial offer, 110 million, to be divvied up,

or to be paid in, to by the 30 teams, so about $3,300,000 each to put into this pot. And the top 30 players by war who are not arbitration eligible would get a certain percentage of that pie, of that pool, basically. We haven't heard if it's, if it plans to be staggered, like if the number one guy gets $3 million and the number two guy gets 2.8 or whatever, or if it's, just a flat, you know, everybody in the top 30 gets $3 million out of that pool. So we don't know it.

I believe it's probably going to be staggered somewhat. So the owner or the players that propose that. And in terms of the competitive balance type of stuff, the owner or the players are right now focusing kind of on draft incentives, you know, making there be a salary floor to get compensation picks or competitive balance picks things like you can't draft in the top in the top three three years in a row. And if you draft in the top three for two years in a row, the highest you could possibly draft in year three is eight, even if you have the worst record. That is kind of what the players are offering to try and curtail. There's also been talk of a salary floor and also raising the luxury tax without raising

penalties to try and incentivize teams like the Yankees and the Dodgers to spend even more, while also trying to nudge the pirates in Cleveland to spend more over the salary floor. That's basically what the players are asking for. Right, because you see so many teams now spending well below $100 million on their payroll, on their yearly payroll. And, you know, some teams are able to make it work, right? like the raise and A's through player development, they're able to still, you know,

remain competitive for most seasons. But that's also encouraged a lot of teams to basically work under the guys that they are also doing that when really it's just a matter of them trying to save money. And so, and that hasn't led to a lot of success for those teams in the past either. So, yeah.

There are, by the way, there are 12 teams who did not spend $100 million in 2020. So a little under half of the league is well under $100 million, which we'll talk about, you know, why that's a problem later on in the show. But yeah, to contextualize the bonus pool part even further of really how does that impact teams, how much more payroll would they be taking on in that instance? The money that these players would be getting paid, they aren't coming just from that team's owners' pockets. it's being shared by the 29 other teams. So basically, hypothetically, right?

Right. Say Jared Kelnick has the highest war of any of the zero to threes this year. And his prize for that is $3 million out of the top, out of the 100 million the players are proposing, just hypothetically. Maybe it's $5 million, whatever. That $5 million is not coming directly out of John Stanton's pocket, per se. It's coming from all 30 owners basically pitching in whatever,

5 million divided by, 30 is. So while it adds to the raw payroll number, it's not like the Mariners are on the hook for $5 million for Kelnick. Like basically the Yankees are helping pay Jared Kelnick's $5 million bonus in that case, just like the other 30 teams are. So that's what majorly based or that's what the players are pitching right now. That's, you know, kind of just a big point of this whole disagreement right now going on between the players and the league itself and and the concessions ultimately that are that are being made by the players and the frankly reasonable ask that they're putting on the table here we're going to talk

about it from the owner's side in just a moment but real quick a reminder this episode of lockdown mariners is brought to you by built bar this is the time of year that i've pretty much given up on all of my New Year's resolutions, that is. But not this year. I'm sticking to my resolution to eat right thanks to Bilt Bar. And it almost feels like it's not really a resolution because I actually enjoy eating them. Now, all Bilt bars are covered in 100% real chocolate. They're low calorie, high in protein. So replace your candy bars with these. They are better. A typical candy bar can be anywhere from 2 to 300 calories. So go to Bilt.com and scroll down. to the macros chart. You'll be blown away. High protein, low cow, high fiber, low carb.

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Check them out if you are interested in getting more coverage on that. So, Colby, we just talked about the player's side of the argument here for the lockout. What about the underside? What are they wanting? What are they aiming to do here? We kind of gave a glimpse into where we kind of fall. in this and who we kind of support in this. but let's just

let's just go over, you know, kind of what the league is offering to the players and what they're trying to accomplish here. They are offering a small pay raise to the to, you know, the league minimum of about 6% from 550, 575, 75, whatever it is,

to 600. thousand, which won't even cover the cost of inflation. The owners, they do appear to have some interest in at least meeting the players somewhere halfway in the tanking, anti-tanking measures. The two proposals are just different. And the owners is half-baked at best. Basically, the owner's proposal is that, well, you can't pick in the top three years in a row, but then you just fall to four if you have the worst record.

I mean, there's really no disincentive. They want to actually lower the luxury tax and keep the same penalties, which again, obviously that's going to be an issue for the players. And in terms of the bonus pool for the zero to three top 30 players, the owners want to make that bonus pool $10 million, or $333,000 per team, literally 10% of what the players are asking for.

And that's their whole thing. They want expanded playoffs to seven. They don't want to share any of the extra revenue. They, you know, it sounds like they, they're not willing to move off on, you know, age-based free agency or or you know less than six years of service time they're not interested they won't talk about that and the players have already dropped that

so yeah basically they want to offer a 5% increase to the minimum they want to they want the bonus pool for the zero to three guys to be $10 million instead of $100 million like the players want

and And there again is $3 million per team. Right. Right. And at most, it's going to be $9 million added to your raw payroll. Which doesn't mean anything because the money is coming from everybody else. But yeah, it's, it's yeah.

But that's basically what the owner. The owners want a deal as close to the last one as they could possibly get. That's what they want. if we want to be as plain and as objective as possible. The owners want the same exact deal. They want to keep saying status quo. Yep. Yeah.

They are not interested in growing the game. They are not interested in paying the players more, despite the fact that their revenues are through the roof. So that includes a COVID shortened season. So yeah, it's, it's gross. But that's what the owners want or that's what they say they want. It's being made to look like the players are the reason that you don't have baseball right now.

Players are the reason that, you know, this is how it's being framed by by the league, is that the players are the reason that you're not talking, that no one can talk about the Mariners right now, nothing new with the Mariners, that spring training is ultimately going to be delayed

as it's expected to be tomorrow, uh, officially. And like, that's not factual whatsoever. The owners are the ones that instituted the lockout and they can lift it. right now and work under last year's rules. Yeah, let's be very clear about this. Spring training isn't going to start next week because the owners will not allow it.

Period. End of statement. There is no other side of the coin to argue on that fact. That is a fact. If the owners lifted the lockout tomorrow, which they can do, players would report to spring training. fact. So let's just be clear about that.

They didn't have to impose a transaction freeze either. Nope. The owners. None of this. The owner said they did it. Right. The owner said they did it to spur negotiations.

And then they didn't meet with the players for a month. Yeah. And now they have completely refused to continue talks. They said we made our final offer. All 30 owners are in the same place right now, right the second. They have no plans to meet with anybody from the Players Association this week. When all 30 are together in Arizona, the owners are together in Florida. Apparently the players are going to Florida next week, but there's no talks of an actual meeting happening between the two sides.

Right now. So it's a mess. It's a mess. but at the end of the day, what the owners are doing are trying to, basically they're trying to keep things status quo, just to wrap up here. They're trying to keep things status quo and they're trying to make it look as if the players are the ones that are at fault for the lockout. That they are the ones that have instituted this, that this is why you don't have baseball. and that could not be further from the truth. So we're going to be talking more about our feelings.

We're going to be talking about how Mariners players feel about this situation, what they've said, particularly Paul Seawald, and more in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by betonline.net. Bet online has you covered this season with more props, odds, and lines than ever before as football continues its march through the playoffs right to the big game in a couple of weeks. Betonline.net remains the best spot for all of your sports scores, podcasts and news this season.

And it's not just football. BetOnline has up to the minute info on pro and college hoops, NHL, boxing, UFC, along with live real-time updates of current games. So don't wait to take advantage of all the new amazing offers available for the 2022 season. BetOnline, where the game starts. So how do the Mariners feel about everything that's going on? Obviously, we saw a lot of them respond to the lockout, like a lot of players around the league and changing their Twitter display photos to the blank faces that MLB replaced them with on their websites and all that stuff. We've also seen them, you know, make some statements.

Guys like Mitch Hanager and Paul Seawald have made public statements on Twitter about what the players want, which we went over in the first segment of this show. you know, the three key points that they're really trying to hammer home. And Paul Seewald, speaking of him, went on 17 ESPN Seattle yesterday. And Colby, you listened to it. What did he have to say about the lockout? Yeah, he's just basically reiterating what the players are asking for. So it wasn't anything groundbreaking, but he did speak. very thoughtfully. Clearly, he was aware of what was happening, you know, where the negotiations were.

Just a really good interview where he gave just solid answers. And, you know, he cited specific examples of Aaron Judge and Pete Alonzo hitting 50 home runs as rookies and still getting the same $55,000 that he was going to get the next year. like, um, so he was, he was, uh, just well, well, uh, well educated on the manner. He's definitely been keeping his pulse, uh, or his ear to the ground, um, even if he's not directly involved with negotiations. There wasn't anything I would consider groundbreaking. Uh, there was no real news break or anything like that, but it's still worth, it's still worth listen. Um, it, uh, like I said, it was just, it's, he speak, it, it was spoken with so much clarity that I think the average like fan, you know, like the people who don't even listen to us,

they would, they would listen to that and they would understand where he was coming from. So that's, I would recommend it. If you have somebody who's trying to, you know, figure out what's happening here, they're not sure. Obviously tell them to come here first. But then after that, tell them to go listen to Paul Cwall's interview on 710 on February 8th. And you'll get a pretty good idea of exactly what the players are. want. So let me just ask you this. When do you think this is going to come to an end? When is baseball coming back? Is opening day going to happen? And if it doesn't, you know, when it's supposed to be

happening at the end of the March, when will it happen? I don't know. That's that's the frustrating part, right? So I think none of us do. Right. Again, the fact that they're not meeting at all. And in their last counter proposal, if you want to call it that, the owners didn't increase the budget for the, or the pool. They left it at their original $10 million. It just seems to me that the owners are banking on the players

missing a couple of checks and just rolling over and accepting defeat. And I don't know if that's going to happen. It seems like, you know, there's a pretty good chance it might, but we don't know. We just, that's the frustrating part. We just have no idea just in general when this lockout might end because it's, I mean, it's brutal. So, you know, it should be noted here, right, that the people go into the bat for the players, right? right now, they're basically the 1% of the players in terms of how much money they make.

These are not guys making the league minimum that are on the front lines of these negotiations on the player's side. It's folks like James Paxson, who just got a nice deal from Boston. It's folks like Marcus Simeon who just signed a mega deal with the Rangers. Matt Scherzer. And for those guys, yeah, Max Scherzer is in Garrett Cole also on. I believe so, yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Miller, obviously, who's... I think the poorest... He's made quite a bit of money in his career. I think the poorest person negotiating on the player's behalf. I mean, obviously, besides the lawyers and the Tony Clark, like the poorest player, I believe is Jason Castro,

who I think has banked a cool $30 million. No, we looked into it, remember? Yeah, and I'm pretty sure. Paxton. I don't know with his latest deal, but yeah. Either way. Like Paxton's put away $40 million, $30 million. Like there's nobody on this panel that has been on the league minimum anytime recently.

They've done a pretty good job of focusing the efforts where it needs to be focused, which is on the 99% of major league baseball players, not the upper level 1% because contracts are going up. It seems like every year we set a new record for the for the most, money spent on a contract. And the payrolls, they are going up slightly, but and people will point to that and the owners will point to that. But this is what we need to remember, guys. I have the numbers right here.

The average major league salary in 2021 was 4.17 million. Again, that's the average. That's down six and a half percent from 2017. The median salary, so this is where half the players are below. this salary is 1.15 million and that is down 30% from 2015. So the vast majority of the players are making less money today than they would have been seven years ago. That's the problem.

I'll leave our dear listener here with this thought. for a lot of casual fans who see these negotiations, a lot of folks tend to go, you know, they're millionaires. You know, why should we, you know, feel bad for them, right? Over them not making a couple extra million dollars. It's really because they are the product. They are the brand and they aren't making. the most money out of this.

And obviously, you know, there's got to be some give and take here. The owners are the ones that provide the platform. But the players are the product. The league is not what it is without the players. And it's not as simple as just going to get replacement players. Like that is not like it's not a job that just anyone can do at the level that these, these current players play at. So they should be in.

title to more. And that's just the end of it. They need to be given what they deserve. And frankly, they're not even asking for what they deserve. They're just kind of asking for a small slice of it. So the players absolutely deserve your support in this situation. If you are someone that

has either been on the fence about it, just don't really know about what's going on, etc. the players are the league they are what makes this whole operation run they're who you root for at the end of the day you don't root for the owner heck i i i feel that probably a lot of casual baseball fans don't even know who the owner of their favorite team is so the players absolutely deserve your your support in this situation and that's where we're going to end things today that's going to do it for our show and really appreciate you tuning in today. Apologies that, you know, we've been kind of in a routine over the last few weeks,

but really there's just not a ton going on, not a lot to talk about. And we also enjoy, you know, interacting with you and letting you kind of control the show and make it kind of your own. And we love doing that with Mailback Monday. We love doing that with Fan Fiction Friday, which is coming up, by the way. So be sure to submit your trades to us on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners or via email at lockdown mariners at gmail.com. And yeah, you know, as soon as this is over, everything that you need to know, we're going to get you set for for the 2022 season whenever that gets started. And hopefully that's soon.

So thank you so much for joining us here on lockdown mariners for Colby Patton. node. I'm Tiding Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners again. And you can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-T-L-Z. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen to the day, just like you do here every day. We greatly appreciate all your support. And now make your second listen to the day locked on bets, your daily one-stop shop for all your gambling needs. Lockdown bets hosted by your boy Q with expert analysis and insight from Lee Sterling.

And just like us, their show is free and available wherever you get your podcast. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day. Be sure to submit your fan fiction Friday trade proposals to us. And we'll see you then. Peace.