Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 143 | MLB Has Made Their First Proposal to the Players

Episode Date: May 13, 2020

MLB and the MLBPA have officially begun negotiating for baseball's return. This week could get UGLY, but how will the two sides be able to come together? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 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.

Welcome to Talking Baseball. Very special midweek episode. We got some news. MLB. They proposed a proposition. It's a non-starter. Welcome to Talking Baseball. Thank you very much for joining us today on this fine Wednesday.

Tuesday, if you're watching live on Patreon and you're in the chat. Speaking of, this episode of Talking Baseball is brought to you by a ton of fun people. We got T.J. Ch. Pell Mead. Barbie's been around for a while. E. Brucker, 406. Nana G.

Nana, I had a Nana. Ryan Cassidy. Jared Dens. Jean-Carlos Delgado Braun. Good name. I think maybe those are the three favorite players. Andrew Lehawich, Calvin Mueller, Donna Cashman. Donna Cashman, been around for a while.

Donna Cashman won. our first ever giveaway way back when I was still living in California. What's up, Donna? Thank you for supporting us. I'm a big fan of Donnas. Yeah. Tyler Smith and Jeff Boyd. Thank you, everyone who has recently become a Patreon member.

We appreciate you and the support patreon.com slash John Boy Media. We'll get you there. You get live access to the show. Quick shout out to the people that are watching live. We got Quentin Huberin, Andrew Pelham, Hayden Cart, Nick Lohman, and Tree Guy, 98. So thank you. to all of you. Trev,

how are you doing on this fine Tuesday afternoon? I woke up a little sad this morning. Welcome to Jake's life. And I just got reminded of a, what's that movie, Friday night lights?

Mm-hmm. When he's like, we beat Bangville, way more than that or whatever. That's not what I was thinking about. Varsity Blues. Varsty Blues, whatever. I was thinking about

Hooters. Oh. When we were all there, and we were just young kids on a spring training trip. I was going home. You guys had a big event coming up. We were having big old beers, disgusting wings. Like, I just, I woke up missing that. Yeah.

I thought about the RV trip, too, because I drove a car for the first time since I drove the RV. I hadn't driven a car since I drove the RV. Jake, have you? Cross country. to move here. Oh, yeah, yeah. I forgot about that. New residents.

Road trip into a road trip for me. Yeah, and shout out, shout out Tree Guy 98 in the chat. And we're joined by Trevor Plouf, Tree Guy 86, his old Ame username. But yeah, no, Trevor, I think it's, well, if you're going to bring up having low moments, I'll take the ball and run with it. Yesterday was a tough one. And, hey, shout out to my guy, DJ, J. Jaffe P. coming out with his article that basically was trying to talk baseball people off the ledge today

that we'll talk about. But yeah, man, yesterday was a tough pill to swallow. And it's, again, it's kind of this weird reality that we're in where we've talked through this stuff, even months before, where we knew if we got to this point that it was going to look like this. But still, even when that starts and you're, you know, how long have we been waiting for the owners to come to the players with the offer. And then me and Jimmy, I mean, we ended up just laughing at ourselves last night doing our talking yank stuff when the offer gets sent. And the players unit and Tony Clark says, well, that's a non-starter.

So we built up to all of this to get the non-starter out of the way. And yeah, man, it's going to be fascinating. I think Jeff E.P. said two and a half weeks. about 15 days or so. Yeah, I'm, I'm buckled in. I'm feeling a little better, but they can change by the minute. We're going to go through Passon's article because he laid it out nice. And not through everything, but what I think is important.

So, you know, listeners to this show can be informed on what's actually happening. And then we'll give our opinions on it all. I don't know if you've seen, Trev, but I'm tweeting out a constant meter of if I think it's going to happen or not happen. And right now we're out of yes because Passon told me don't get discouraged. Is there a maybe in that meter? No, it's only a hard. It's a hard yes and no.

Love that. Yeah. That's how it works, you know. You know, this, before you even get started, we always talk about the PR game that the players lose constantly. This is another example. Baseball is back. People want it back. The MLB says, hey, we got to play.

plan to get it back. They throw a bullshit clause in there that they know is going to get rejected, but they want to play baseball. It's the greedy players rejecting our offer. We're losing money. They're saying, no, they want more money. They're greedy. This is the start of it.

It's bad for both sides. There's no, either side, both sides are going to come out looking bad. And both sides have like really good points, I think, which is usually the case, whenever something can't be decided. it's usually there's a middle ground. And that's where we're hoping that they meet.

And everyone that, so we'll go over the proposal, but everyone on Twitter that's just saying like hard yes and hard no, I mean, that's not even an option. Like a hard yes and hard no is so clearly not an option right now. There needs to be a middle ground. And I think even the players union and the owners know that. Like they know that one side's going to have to bend, but we have people screaming like,

just accept it as is or no way. It's like those aren't even real options, guys. So don't tie yourself to a hard yes or hard no. Like we're going to meet in the middle. That's hopefully. But anyway, let's go into it. This is the proposal that got sent in. And Passon did a good job on his ESPN article,

bullet pointing everything. And the first one is just a 50-50 split of revenue from the 2020. season. And I feel like it's silly to even go past that in this conversation because they're not even going past that in reading the contract. The Players Union saw that and said, nope, never mind. And I mean, there's a couple reasons why it makes sense. Like they've never been a salary cap. And if you tie your earnings to overall revenue, then you're limiting your earnings. and you're, you're, you know, you're just limiting a lot of things. And I hate revenue sharing from a business standpoint because pay people their worth.

And then it's up to you to make sure that you get what you're owed. So because it sets a precedent of a revenue split moving forward, the player's just automatic. No, no way. Trev, what was your, what was your reaction when you saw that this was the first broad term? kind of exactly what I was talking about before it's just the first step in a PR they knew this was going to get rejected by the players

they 100% knew it just wasn't going to happen so they throw it out there they let players reject it publicly and there we go now it's the start of real negotiations they know this was this was never ever ever going to happen but they're smart and they understand public relations and it was a very good move And one that you can't really avoid it. If you're the players, like, unless you get out in front of it and say they're going to do this, watch.

That's the only way to counter that. You know, this was just, like I said, it's just a, just a play. It's a non-starter than they knew it. Yeah. Jake, what was your reaction? Yeah, I mean, when it all comes out again, there's kind of that excitement. I got texts from people today that were like, hey, baseball's coming back, huh? And it's not not quite yet.

But yeah, I don't know. I mean, the players union has worked so hard for the past 25 years to not get into the salary cap revenue sharing like you mentioned. So for the owners to go with that. And yeah, and again, it's, it is tough to get the information. So I think it's funny that last time the first passing 20 questions article, he came out with, we kind of weren't overly impressed. I liked it just because it laid everything out there, but it's everything we discussed so far. This kind of laid all the information out there and stuff we couldn't put together.

He even, and hey, he gave us this whole speech about, you know, he's got to be careful putting his neck out there. He did some turkey math where he threw out some of the dividing billions in half and salaries and stuff like that, which he had to preface big time with like none of this. None of this is actually real, but it's kind of real at the same time. So, yeah, I get it as the players. And, you know, it's kind of funny because we go back to that contract from six weeks ago where the owners and the players shook hands and we were like, hey, you know, this is an okay sign.

Like, all right, people are making this work. And now I think that's what's going to be the most wild. If they get into arguments over that part of the language, whether that the players agreed with having fans there or not having fans there and the owners, because I know that was a separate part in the article where Passen said he talked to four separate union people. Two of them said it could potentially hold up. One said it would never hold up. And the other wasn't sure. It's like, well, I mean, when you give me that kind of information, that's when you hit the scary part.

Because if people start hammering the table over something like that, then you're running into the wall. Yeah, yeah. So that part of the article is talking about kind of, if you've seen any Scott Bors quotes, we're like, we already signed a deal. We're not opening up negotiations at all. And it's, this is like the cause of the of everything. And we've been talking about this for a while. Like did, did they fuck up and sign something?

And now the MLB is going to come and say, actually, The interpretation of that says we can open it up again. And we actually have the line now. We didn't have the line in the contract. We have it, which is good. So the actual wording says, the 2020 championship season shall not be commenced unless and until each of the following conditions is satisfied. Okay.

So it won't start until all of these conditions are satisfied. And it lists out a bunch of conditions. And the one that we're focusing on here is this condition. The Office of the Commissioner and Players Association will discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators or at appropriate substitute neutral sites. To me, who has a pea brain and doesn't really understand this lawyer. So I can understand some things. That seems like all that says is they have to discuss if it's feasible or if they're going to play at neutral sites.

Like all that promises is a discussion and an agreement on the feasibility of the economics and of the neutral sites. So pass and passed along to some labor lawyers that work for ESPN. And two of them said, yeah, that doesn't that doesn't say they can reopen negotiations it just says they have to agree on a discussion and then two others said yeah but if to agree they have to open up negotiations and refinance then that could be what that means so it's it's very like you know just tied to the wording of that clause and that's why players thought they signed this and thought it was done right And that's why Boris saying, we're not renegotiated.

We signed a deal. And the owner saying, no, that line says that we have to discuss it in good faith. And you guys aren't discussing it in good faith. So it's kind of what does disgust mean? It's the most lawyer sounding sentence you could come up with. Oh, yeah. You know, like it's this wiggle room. It's gray area.

You can interpret it three different ways. And that's exactly what I feel like. kind of goes down with these things, you know? Oh, and I'm sorry, I had it wrong. Two said, two of the lawyers that passed an ass said that, um, that, that they should renegotiate it.

One said no, the union's right. And a fourth called any potential grievous on the matter of toss up. That's what I was saying. That's what I was talking about. That's the, that is the area that if, if, if things get,

ugly, it feels like it's going to be in that section. Because again, we're passing pulled four professionals that this is their livelihood and they're not close to a conclusion. So if we start slamming the table over that kind of stuff. Well, I think that the fact that Tony Clark and them came out and said, hey, the 50-50 revenue split is a non-starter, you interpret that to mean that there is a starting point somewhere, which means they are open to renegotiate. in some capacity, which they will have to be.

Yeah. And I think, and that's all, that's end of the day, that's kind of all this is. And that's part of what the Passons article gets to, too, is that, again, this is negotiations. This is ugly. It's, it's how the world works. And you start at both ends and then you land somewhere in the middle. And then that last, when you're coming up on the 60-40 line, who's going to make the push to get there 55% or whatever it looks like.

So we'll see what that looks like on the negotiating table eventually. This week should be ugly. And then as they got into it, you know, Jeff did talk about, you know, pushing, delaying the contracts, which we've talked about. And I know Jimmy's a big fan of, you know, so that when the money is coming in, then you could pay these guys and make that work. I don't know. I just think it's end of the day.

day it's it's our cooler heads going to prevail because both sides um i think you're going to have some pissy people and i think both sides are also going to have some some good people and it's it's it's who who gets loud at the right moments and that's the scariest part for me that if one person one owner one lawyer and that's why this stuff is so nerve-wracking and such a scary thing says the wrong sentence or the wrong phrasing or someone lets out a bad tweet, like we could lose baseball for a year and a half because we're supposed to hit the negotiating table with these guys again. So that's, I mean, that's the terrifying factor for me that if, you know, if one owner gets loud and is having a bad day, that could screw everything up.

And the same thing from the player side too. Yeah. It's pretty dicey situation. Everyone's on edge. Let's go into some of the other terms of this proposal and see if the 50-50 split wasn't there, do you think, what do we have? You know, if they are not asking for the revenue, which we think was posturing anyway in a PR move. They go an 82 game schedule, a mid-June spring training and early June opening day.

We knew that because Commissioner Plouffe let us know. Thank you. Thank you. A 14-team postseason rather than the typical 10. that's that money that's the cash grab right there because you need to compensate which that'll that'll probably continue into the next CBA but I had to guess yeah um games played in home stadiums allowed we knew that because commissioner pluv told us then designated hitters in the american and national league my dream yeah pluffy I want I want to ask you because uh I've I've

I've wanted this for a while too. I mean, the origination of the story is probably the story I tell the most. There should have been an NLDH for a while now. I did see a couple

tweets come out and, hey, it gets fun talking about baseball stuff. So you got to mix it in from time to time. Do you think a lot of NL teams should actually feel

like they're at a disadvantage? Because I mean, they technically didn't plan on having a DH. You could say that, but I think a lot of teams will benefit from this. Right?

You know, like a lot of, lot of teams and especially in a season like this where it's kind of going to be it's going to be different i i've said this in the beginning like their injury risk was doing this because guys are going to be doing stuff they haven't done before training is going to be different obviously the season's different you know their bodies aren't ramped up like they should be on we're talking what are we at now it's may 12th today this is when you're starting to hit your stride a little bit. You know, you got spring training out of the way, that first cold month of April.

You know, guys aren't even, we haven't even started yet. So, like, there's some risk to injury there. And this is a way where you can take some mileage off, guys. You know, if you, you know, I was talking about the Phillies the other day. I mean, this is a way that Jay Bruce and McCutcheon can come back and be playing games instead of having to take a couple days off a week. You know, J.T. Real Muto, he doesn't have to catch. so many games. He can DH. There's a,

there's a, there's an article by, there's a ton of teams. There's an article by Jim Bowden, uh, the athletic. And he went through each national league team and like how they would use the DH in 2020 and whose careers it would change and all that.

Yeah. Like brawny's on there. And the biggest one is shore. He's the face of it. Yeah, shore for the Cubs. Huge. Exactly.

Buy some Robinson Kano stock right now, baby. I actually sent that to, to Ryan. I said, You're the face of the DH for the NL. I said now you have to play five more years. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I know that I'm very, I have a heavy. Actually, I want to read what he said to me because I remember it being pretty funny. So hold on. All right. Get it out. Man, just bring the DH. All the players want it. Half of the fan base want it.

And all National League fans that think they don't want it right now. In five years, they'll be like, I can't believe we used to pull pitchers. that had good games because they came up with a runner and scoring position in the fifth inning and then we had to pinch hit a non-starting quality bat and also a double switch

we had to take out our starting first baseman and put in our backup. So now we took out three starters and replaced them with three bench players and we're gonna in the guise of strategy. Like I just think in five years any National League fan is going to look back and be like, I can't believe we used to do that.

We're going to bunt with one out on a run around first base. Yeah. We're going to, the eighth hole hitter is basically just gets pitched around and never sees a pitch to hit because the pitcher comes up behind him and isn't easy out. It's not strategy. I texted Ryan and I said, you're the face of the universal DH. He says, I already got rid of my gloves. Just put them in the trophy room for good.

He says, like he says, I can still probably put up 900 OPS of like a D. EH only. So he's looking forward to it. Boom. Boom. Someone's going to grab that and tweet it, Trev. Hey, I don't care. I've got another quick hitter for Trevor. Trevor, would you say you're a company man? What does that mean? I think so. Yeah. You know, you're, you fight for the company. You fight for your team.

Yeah. He went on the news yesterday and put a John Boy Media shirt on. I did. Okay. Well, then why don't you get your goddamn arm loose and get on the fucking taxi squad, bro. Do you think I want to spend my time at the fucking spring training facility with like 20 dudes that are 22 years old? I think part of you does. Okay, that sounds great actually. I honestly, I was like, okay, I never really entertained it. But I said if this was something, like 50 fucking people per organization, that's a lot.

But then I started thinking, what is being on the taxi squad need? and that is when I started to really think about it being down there going through drills, hitting BP, probably inter-squadding. That is not the life for me. Hey, we've been watching the last dance, and this is off topic for a second. Do you get jealous a little bit that, you know, in the last dance, like the space jam sessions and the Olympic team sessions and the practices, they're just playing basketball. Like in its, in its correct form, baseball practices are just drill. and situational stuff and the you know rinse repeat like do you ever think that you know let's just scrimmage no yeah scrimaging sucks yeah it's it's baseball is weird in that way where it's like

you can't simulate live besides scrimaging but even then it's not the same so you know that's kind of worth all like this the new age thinking of how to practice has come about like a ton of hitting drills have come about, a ton of new pitching drills, weight programs have all come about because baseball has been doing the same shit for so long. You know, let's take ground balls and let's do PFP. Like it's, it's been, they've been doing that. So these guys that have new ideas, like they're being welcome with open arms because people, player development needed a change. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. This is the biggest bullet point from the proposal that we didn't already know. Games will only be played against divisional and regional

opponents. So the Yankees and the American League East would only play the American League East and the National League East. And that is who they would play their 82 games against. I mean, that's nine

teams. That's terrible for the Yankees. Yeah, to get the NL East, that sucks. Yeah. Terrible for the other nine teams that have to play them to, so. Is Gary Cole ready? he's so ready he's thrown with booney you haven't seen i haven't seen him him and booney get together like every once a week and it's a it's a conversation okay that's nine nine games against each team

so three series of three games that kind of works out fine it's interesting it's different and uh who's the biggest winner there the central teams that get to play the royals the tigers And the pirates. Okay. Yeah. I think. And I'll go just because I was kind of forming a firmer stance on this because I wanted some semblance of of realism, either with the divisions or something like that. And this is enough for me.

Like, again, who the fuck am I and who really cares? But again, if all of this goes through and we figure out the money and all that stuff and the safety, we know. you have to say the safety. If they figure everything out, I think this is like it's a good enough box to play in. We needed it, you know, our 80 games or so, you know, hey, we're playing all the East Coast teams. We're going to figure it out in the East.

I'm with that. Like that's enough rules to make this legitimate for me. So I'm good with that. Who does that suck for like Seattle and the Rockies, but travel always sucks for them anyway? Yeah, it does. Well, any team on the coast like that. Definitely Seattle has it probably the worst.

Like is anyone like, is our baseball division is pretty accurate. You know, like in the NFL, Dallas is in the east because they just did a grab bag. But yeah, that Midwest would actually be the best for travel, it's looking like.

It's always the best for travel. They're all right there. Essential, I mean, the longest flight you're going to have is three hours. So it's like, the Northeast is pretty good too, I guess. You really just have the Braves the Rays in Miami down south And then Washington, Baltimore, Philly, Yankees, Mets, Red Sox.

In this scenario, there'll be a ton of train rides or bus rides. I bet you they busts a lot if they're doing that. No who might have it the worst. How about your Houston Astros? Yeah. Besides the Rangers, they're like getting a lot of love right now, dude. and I'm not sure I like it.

Who's getting love? The Astros. I saw Carlos Correa on like a UFC broadcast talking about the fight. I'm like, what, who, why does anyone care what Carlos Correa say about UFC fighting? But he was there. And Bregman's getting a bunch of love because he's doing, well, at least he's doing something positive. He's like doing this awesome charity. So props for Bregman on that.

Yeah. They all do. They all do they're doing the right way. Do you see that? I did not see that. Like Bregman on two of it. They all deleted their Twitters because they're never going to escape that. Yeah, Twitter's, Twitter's tough.

But I'm kind of, you know, if Bregman keeps it up, like, I'll give him a pass because he's doing, at least he's using his time right now and he's really making an impact. Can't hate on that. No. Good is good. All right. So that, that, that, like what you're Jake, what you're saying, Jake, is like when I read that that that they're going to stay within their divisions and. regions. I was like, okay, that's a touch safer. It's still wild. Like, we had a buddy texting us about like the health benefits. Like how many MOB players are there? 26 times 30. Take that number.

There's no way I could do that math. 780. 780 players. Now staff, coaches, and now they're going to go home to all their families. So take the 780 and times it by two minimum probably, like who they encounter at their home and now times it by the pilots and the train conductors or the bus drivers and and you know in the the web you can get it pretty big if you continue to do that over and over and over with everyone that touches and then you're out but i mean this is all riding on health officials and the government's ruling so it's not like em will be saying hey you know fuck you guys we're doing this they are saying it depends on what state-by-state laws say and shit like that.

I think that's what they're going to talk about most today. That should be the first conversation, yeah. Yeah. And Jeff points it out in this article. He talks to Do Little had a really good Twitter thread on this about all the kind of those things that you just talked about. And, you know, that's what needs to be led with. Like, is everyone going to be safe?

Like, how ridiculous would it be? if some of these guys go and they contract COVID and don't make it. There's guys that play in the NLB that have compromised immune systems. Like how bad would everyone feel like we were trying to push for this game and like this guy goes and something really bad happens? I think we'd all feel horrible. So you really like when you think about it that way, you have to like say, okay, let's like number one priority 100% is the safety of everybody,

not just the players, but like everybody that comes in. contact too. Yeah. And I don't know how you assure that, but you can't really. I mean, Mets pitching coach Phil Regan was 82 years old last year. So, I mean, you do. And you have to bring all that into consideration, you know. And I think that's, it's an interesting thing because you, I flip,

flop on it, but you have to figure out the safety. And like Jim was just saying with that web, you know, there's some people that'll never be comfortable with that web. And that kind of is what it is. But I mean, there will, there will be a big web, no matter how that ends up looking at the end of the day. And if you're not comfortable in that, like, you're not necessarily wrong. But again, it's, it's what they are trying to do here. And Doolittle, our guy has been killing it. Because he, A, he had, he had that thread that, as Trevor mentioned, was really good. He came on talking baseball, which is just a savvy move right now. And then three, he followed it up. it was today because he gave his thread that was just asking a bunch of questions and he was getting

all the idiots that were like, hey, just play baseball, man, collect your money and play baseball. And he replied, I'm asking these questions because I want to play baseball. I'd also like to be healthy and keep my family healthy. So I think, you know, everyone kind of has the same goal. they're just going at it from different ways. And yeah, I think Jeffrey P did say that in the article that the players were going to do a, you know, and that's where this stuff gets kind of fun. Like if the players, they obviously said the money was a no starter,

if they just didn't bring up money at all today. You know, that's where negotiations and playing the game gets a little fun. And they just say, yeah, yeah, let's talk health today. But, you know, show us you care about it. us. And then we'll circle back on that. Let me ask you guys this. Sure. Friend of the pod, David Dahl. Yeah.

Right? He had his spleen removed. Ooh. Which is a spleen is like a filtering agent for your body. I think I heard that once before. BPD if you could fact check that one for me. DVD?

Say David has concerns about playing this year. Mm-hmm. And decide ultimately that it's not right. He doesn't feel safe playing. What happens? Do you think if you guys are running the show, like do you just not pay the guy?

Well, because he's, because he doesn't want to be put in a situation where he could die? This is happening in real life. I mean, I mean, not the baseball is in real life,

but like in meat plants in the Midwest and stuff, if people don't want to go to work because they feel like they're going to get sick, they are getting five. and they just passed something. I might be speaking wrong, but they just passed something saying like they can't collect unemployment. Like you're fucked.

They're also saying. That's ridiculous. Yeah. Also saying that making employees sign a waiver saying if you go to work and you get COVID, it's not on us. So like it's not just baseball players. Like there's a lot of people being forced to work in unsafe places across the country right now. So there's got to be precedents that legally somewhere.

This is also a unionized job, so that has something to do with it. You know, he's got backing. I'm just curious because I really do feel like there's going to be two, three, four guys. Or just like, look, it's not worth it to me. Yeah. And then what do you do with those guys? You have to make a, and who knows if it goes to, you know, they have to figure out in another courtroom. but you almost, and hey, maybe this is a cop out and this is why I'm not in the lawyer biz,

but you have to leave like an area where like some things can't be treated as equal. And if David, David Dahl doesn't want to play because of his spleen, that's his choice. And you either have to figure out how you want to make money work or how you don't want to make money work. Or maybe David Dahl has options. Like maybe he doesn't get paid, but he gets a year. of service time. Like, I don't know. I just think you have to, you have to leave something for the exceptions because this is an exceptional situation. It's, it's not like we're doing the day to day and someone's getting a little loud just to get loud. We're clearly in the deep end of a pandemic

that you have to leave a, hey, if there's a couple dolls or a couple, I mean, who is, there was an old Steeler safety that could never play. in Denver because the altitude was too much for him. And so, like, there's, you have to know that in this situation, there are going to be some outliers that can't fit every definition of the wording. And I don't know if you bring him to a separate arbitration court or however you want to do it, but you have to leave in a clause of some sort. Yeah.

You know, so another interesting little tidbit here is that, when you're leading up to a CBA, a negotiation, towards the end of your CBA, you have to negotiate another one which we were at right now. The three, four years before that, the Players Association starts stockpiling money. And they do it by licensing checks. I think we've gone over this before on the show. But just in case nobody's heard this, you know, like four years out, they take like 25% of your licensing check. And that's all shared revenue from anything with an MLB logo on it. Players get a piece of that and then we divide it up.

But four years out, 25%. Three years out, 50%. Two years out, 75% of that check gets kept. This year was the year that they're supposed to take 100% of that check and really fill up the war chest. I don't think there's going to be a ton of money in that licensing sharing. So although they've had three years to to fill it, I think it's going to be a little light on what they expected.

But in saying that, I got to think that if a couple of players sat out because of real underlying health issues, that the association would take care of them. That's just my thinking. You would hope. Let's keep going down this list. Because the other one is that it's 26 to 30 active players.

players with a 20-man taxi squad, which we kind of talked about, but that was official and no fans in the stadium. The rest of it sounds cool to me. Just figure out the money and the health, money and health. Those are the two issues. But for a while, we were wondering what a season would look like, you know, the bubble plan, the spring training plan. This one sounds good all around.

It sounds everything, everything that's easy, which is like, where. and when and who is good just the money and the health but on field decisions all good yeah i think the health is implied like that has to be there yeah you know the money thing is the kind of the biggest issue this i think this will come off more hot takey than i want it to um who who do you guys genuinely think because i i was surprised by my answer earlier today who do you think has more to lose in all this because that's that's what negotiations come down to right it's who's you know who who kind of gets pushed to their wicks and easier um and uh i've just genuinely throwing it out there i know like trevor you you were a player uh we we currently don't have an owner represented on

the podcast um and until until john boy keeps making those damn breakdowns um but who who do you guys think like how and obviously you don't have to lay everything out because it's going to become a push come to shove all over the board but what like where are you at right now and we'll use the john boy clause this can change within the next hour reserve your reserve the right change your mind i think owners who only own the team have the most to lose owners who don't have another business like the guy who owns the astros he made all his money and something else i forget what it is you know, and some owners have other webs of other revenue streams. But like the Steinbrenner family, they only make money from the Yankees.

Because we're talking about if this doesn't happen, right? And we lose this season. Payrolls are going to shrink. You're not going to be able to pick up players. Free agency is going to be terrible. And then you're going into a CBA with the worst momentum ever. and you might be looking at a strike. And if like worst case, worst case,

the Steinbrenners don't make money for two and a half years, I mean, they'd have to sell their team. And then they'd have to change their way of life. And then their fucking whole dynasty. So owners, I think owners that only have all their revenue comes from their baseball team, their livelihood is at stake. And sure, they're not going to go starving or hungry or whatever, but they may lose their business if this thing goes at,

as south as it can go. Where players, there's, for most, there is a recovery time. We're like, eventually there will be baseball again. Um,

but in the meantime, it'll hurt a lot of the players who aren't on big contracts, a fucking a ton too. Uh, like a ton. This whole thing's a mess. It's all a mess. I agree with you about the owners who only own the,

the teams. I mean, you can say only own the teams, which is, but you know what I mean? Like it's their, Yeah. They, you know, franchise values are probably taking a hit.

So this whole idea of Jerry Ryan's door, if I also mentioned this on the podcast before, his famous quote is that in 94, the owner should have been willing to hold out for two years. They can't do that. Not in this climate, not in this economic climate. So I think that if we get this season in,

and we see the owners, you know, obviously they're not going to make as much money. They're not going to, like you just preference, they're not going to spend a lot of money in free agency this year. We already know that. Yeah. So that's a loss for the players. But I do believe that the negotiations for the CBA, I think that'll get taken care of because both sides don't have a fallback plan. Like they literally baseball wouldn't survive. a strike. There'd be multiple bankruptcies on the owner's side. Players obviously would have to figure

something out and I think there'd be, it just would be bad for them as well. But I'd see, you'd see another league like an XFL or something try to try to start up and like snake guys. It'd be a mess if they go to that strike because then you're really going to have teams have to owners have to sell their teams. You'd probably see another league pop up. to try and steal guys away and make like a small traveling, like, exhibit? It would be... It sounds horrible.

Oh, my God. I think that, I think... And I think that's why... I think everyone's in trouble. Yeah, they have to come to an agreement on this one. Somehow. And that's... Because the tumbleweed is crazy.

That's kind of the more I read this. And I mean, it... And I don't want to undersell the player side of this. And man, you know, we do take it for granted and we see the big numbers in baseball. And, you know, even the low men on the MLB roster will make more in a season than a lot of people will make in any year of their life. And that is what it is. But their work lifetime may be two years, maybe three years.

And what if your two years are supposed to be right now? So there is that player side. But at the end of the day, when I was, if I just go, when you have more to lose, I mean, it feels like the old. owners for everything you guys said. I mean, the the franchise values that we feel like, you know, doesn't normally get talked about because the owners don't want you talking about it. Like I feel like, and Trevor, if you have any insight on this, let me know. And I, I kind of want to ask some of our connects, but I also don't because I feel like they're being offended. But I don't think the owners are going to open up their books, because I think that's just going

to open up a whole new wormhole and give the players so much ammunition saying, oh, you've been making this. And I just don't, I don't think the owners want to open up that can of worms of opening up their books. And like we said, I just think franchise values could plummet because they don't know the state of the league. I mean, you know,

if we're talking about going two years without baseball, um, and Jimmy, the, the lifestyle point is a great thing. Because, hey, having hundreds of million dollars and owning the Yankees,

is a lot cooler than having hundreds of million dollars and not owning the Yankees. So I don't know. I just think the owners might have to eat a little bit. And again, who the fuck am I? Because, you know, I'm saying the owners might have to eat a little bit. And what if that's $50 million? What if that's $100 million? I don't know the numbers.

But what if the owners have to eat a little bit? And I know Pisan threw a little bit in there about feely good and the owners, you know, look great and saving the USA. and maybe there's a little bit of that, but I think it's more so losing the value of their team and not having to sell their team, where the players like, yeah, you lose your livelihood for a little bit,

but you know, you kind of had a game plan the whole time that you were gonna. Like if you're a, if you're a ball player and you thought you were playing baseball until you're an 80, you know, you're the first one to ever think that. So I don't know.

So I don't know how it plays out. I don't know how it looks. but I think there is when we get to that tipping scale at the end of this, whether it's 55 to 60 or 45 to 40, however that final end game looks, I think the owners are going to have to bend a little bit. And for all my owners that are listening, you know, I'm sorry you don't like that. But I think like we are saying, there's going to be creative ways to make money and get the product out there and to get it going to. forward. So I, uh, I don't know. I just did it. When I read the passing article, it was the first time that I was like, man, maybe, maybe the players are going to stay strong and look okay in this. But again, I could be on here crying next week and very sad. And that's allowed, Jake. Change your mind

as much as you want. I can a 100% tell you that the players will not accept a revenue split. That's just not going to happen. I get it. They, too many people. have worked too hard and fought that fight for too long for it to just get changed right now. And that is drilled into your head. Every meeting that we have, do you know what guys did to get you in this position? Do you know the sacrifices that were made? Do you know the story of Kurt Flood? Do you understand what people did to put us in this situation? There is no way we're going to take a concession on this now. That's what players. think and it's the right way to think when garret coles did his press comments to the yankees that's who

he thanked right away is kurt flood and the like for uh doing what they did so that's why we're strong and then you know going back to the ryan's dwarf quote because i really it's like one of the most evil quotes ever we should have stayed locked down for two years that that's okay to say in a robust economy when your franchise value has stayed the same or it's gone up but they can't say that now. They can't say two years. So that's a internet boom guy talking. Yeah. So they're they are, it's, we're in a different world now with that. That's why I'm pretty, I'm pretty optimistic this gets done. All right. And I think it's going to get done soon. I think I will say this. End of this week, early next week, I think we have an agreement. And that's just, that is no tidbit.

That's just me. That's my guest. Yeah. And Jake kind of mentioned the timeline that past. and wrote about is that the top four sources landed on the same time frame about two and a half weeks with a chance for a resolution good or bad sooner but not much later so in 15 days or so we will know i got shorter than that that'd be cool that'd be cool uh all right i think that i mean that that's kind of it we talked through that as best we can and we will continue very interesting that we have become a someone said it in the Patreon chat like this is a labor dispute podcast not a baseball podcast anymore

dude we all we want to do is cover baseball trust me got to talk about what's going on though I mean that this is what's this is what's going on in the world of baseball right now and trying to break it down as simply as we can for you guys and give our thoughts which are as wishy-washy as ever because what the hell's going on out there what's your meter at right now it's a yes there's a yes there's too much to lose for both sides. I mean, there's just far too much to lose if they don't come to agreement here and it rolls into the CBA.

But that's the thing is both people think they have leverage because of that. Because both sides are playing this, this like cocky scared game. Like they're both cocky because they're scared. You know, like kind of like they're both in a corner just throwing their best punches. right now, knowing eventually they're going to have to like take some themselves. Okay. You're muted, Jake. I know we're deep into this and we were doing final lines, but what's a, what's the,

the owners need a headline, right? Or something they can be happy about. If the players get their full pro rated salaries, what's it going to be from the owners that they say we got? I don't think they'll get the full prorated salaries. prorated salary. I do. But then what's your answer to Jake's question then?

Because then there needs to be something the owners get. What's their what's their takeaway line? And you can't say more playoff games because that's to counteract the loss of revenue, which now is even more for the prorated salaries. So like what would they get if they if they have to pay the full salaries? Baseball. They get they get their franchises out there in in the line. light again. Like they need to have their franchise on TV playing and they for their franchise value to

secure and maintain. They need the product on the field. But but did you read the quote from one owner who said if I open up doors and we pay them the full pro rated salary and we open up doors with no fans, we lose 150 grand every game and you want us to play 80 games that way or 40 something games that way? So like that's not a good thing for them. Why would they do that? Well, what I think is going to happen, and I've said this before, is I think players will get the full pro-rated amount. It'll just be deferred. Possibly with interest.

And I think that's a win for everybody. I ultimately think that will be the decision that's made. Deferred makes sense. I don't know about the interest. Maybe that's the win. Maybe not getting interest on it is how the owners win. Deferred always sound nice to me. I feel like they need a headline and Trevor actually might have hit it on the nose.

I mean, the fact that if they could bring baseball back, if they can be those people, you know, maybe, maybe that's enough to inflate their chest. I feel like they do need one more walkaway line to be happy about. But that's interesting. And yeah, my. I don't think I understand about the public perception of them. Like I don't like, oh, you'll be heroes. Like, we don't care. Oh, they care about that.

Yeah, Jim, these guys have the biggest, they have the biggest ego. in the world, man. They like their wallet more. Yeah, they like their ego too. But that helps their wallet for their product to be on the field helps their franchise value. And that is the underlying number that nobody ever talks about is the franchise values.

Now they've taken a hit. If they sit out baseball this year and next year, guess what? Those things are going to be cut in half. So they need to play. Oh, my line. This is my line from the article. As we mentioned,

we're going to take 1% of every Jeff P thing. These are smart people. He's talking about both sides. These are smart people. If they want, they can find a deal. They just have to be willing to look for it. Boom. So that's quoted by Jeffrey P.

That's from me. Quoted by Jake. You didn't read that? Yeah. That's from me. But you read it from the article? I mean, it's in Jeff's article, but that's from me. Yeah, it's like the Michael Scott Wayne Gretzky thing.

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Perfect. All right. Thank you guys. We will be back on Friday with a fun interview we had with, you have to find out. Who is it?

Dahl. Sick.