The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Jake Kaplan On The Mess That Is MLB Negotiations

Episode Date: June 16, 2020

Jake Kaplan On The Mess That Is MLB Negotiations

is the Matt Thomas Show. 1 o'clock sports talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show. A man we miss hearing from because he's affable, informational, provocative, intriguing. And then we have Jake Cap of the Athletic. Jake, what's going on, Bigfella?

I've missed you guys. How are you? I know, how's the podcast going? What's it called? The Crawford Talks is? The Crawford Talk Yeah, it's going to Great

We uh You know Despite not having any actual baseball We've still managed to Do two episodes a week For the entire uh Summer Entire years since March

So uh It's going well Thank you Well don't become after my job now I mean you know I know these podcasts are growing But we just We need terrestrial radio to be successful too

I'm going to come after your rocket's job So I can go watch the Sixers play Oh look at you rooting on the Eastern conference wannabes. I'm sorry, contenders. I tease. I tease. All right, Jake, let's go through a variety of things. First, a little bit of a local note. You put out on Twitter earlier today that the Astros and Jim Crane are going to pay employees in full those that are making $100,000 or less until, is it October 31st? Is that what I saw? Yeah, so in baseball, most of the contracts run through October 31st because that's kind of when they expect the World Series to be

ending. So yeah, the news that Jim Crane delivered to the Astros employees today was that they won't have furloughs or layoffs through the year, but there are employees who make $100,000 or more will see pickups. Well, that's one of the things that, you know, let's be brutally honest here, we don't think a whole lot about with these work stoppages, is that the secondary group, the office staff, the ticket holders, anybody that's in marketing. I mean, those, you had that number up times 30 teams. That's a fairly large amount. What have you known, what do we do know about the rest of baseball?

A lot of teams doing the same thing, or the Astros kind of on island by themselves? Some teams have done similar things. It's kind of all over the place. You know, I don't have like the list in front of me of which teams have done what. Some teams are, you know, like until today, the Astros had kind of just put off a decision, and kept paying everyone, but kind of waited to see what was going to happen with MLB before making today's announcement to their staff. But other teams have done things earlier.

Some teams are still in limbo. So it's kind of all over the place. But, yeah, I mean, there are the people we don't often think about, right? And, you know, I particularly think about, like, all the people who work in these ticket offices right now. Right. And the anxiety they must be feeling because, you know, let's face it, the odds are there won't be any tickets to sell this year. So, yeah, it was definitely a tough time for, you know, we think about the players and the owners,

but there's a lot of other people involved. Before we get big picture, kind of the running joke around baseball is the Oakland Day is not paying their rent at Oakland Coliseum and there's this, you know, thought that there are bankrupt franchise and can't pay bills and never been a big spender in free agency. Have you talked with your counterparts about some of the smaller teams and how they're handling the situation? And what exactly is going on in Oakland from what you know? Yeah, I mean, I've talked to some of them, you know, some of the teams that you would expect, like the teams like the A's and the Marlins and the raise, it's like the teams with the lowest revenues and the lowest payrolls every year are the teams that you think about the most in those circumstances in terms of like how much trouble they're in.

But ultimately, I still think these franchises are plenty valuable. and, you know, it's interesting that the owners, you know, don't seem like they're in any rush to play despite all the money they're losing from not having their TV deals. And obviously they can't do anything about not having the fans in the stands right now. But, you know, if you play the season right now, you would have the TV deal money. So, yeah, I don't know exactly what's going on in Oakland. I know they had the minor league saying where they said they weren't.

aren't going to pay their minor leaguers, then they reverse course a couple weeks later after all the backlash. But, you know, it's tough with all these teams. We don't know, we don't see the books, right? So that's, we don't know what they make and how much, how much they break in in the given year. And it's hard to really know what's going on unless we, we have that information. You know, Jake, how you feel if you're pro player, pro owner, and frankly, I think a lot of us are just ambivalent and don't carry you the one, you know, they're both equally to blame. but the hardest argument that I would have for someone that would say pro-owner is, hey, owners, it's not your inherent right to make money.

Every year you own a baseball team. I know you have. I know that baseball is doing very well. You're about to sign a brand new billion-dollar television deal with Turner. But just because you have your mitts on a franchise doesn't mean you are going to be highly profitable. Sometimes business suffers, and this would be one of those years. What do you think owners would say if a player went right up to them and said what I just told you? It's a good question.

They might just say nothing. I agree with you. I'm probably more pro-player, especially. I'm definitely on the player side in this case. Yeah, I think there's risk in owning a business, right? And when you get all the profits when it's going well, and that doesn't automatically mean the players get paid more, you're making more money.

And now things aren't going well, and you're asking the players to make less money on top of the pro-rated salaries they agreed to. So, yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I think there's risk when you own a business. And like you said, you don't, like, you kind of have to wear the losses when they happen. And that's what a lot of people around the country and the world are doing right now. So I don't know why owners, it seems like a really short-sighted strategy, right? Like they're trying to mitigate their losses for one year, but at the same time, alienate fans for the future and, you know, push away people from the game.

Well, all right. So now let's go on the – let's go to the player's side. You guys are the faces of the sport, and they being your bosses are willing to pay you for a shortened season. Instead of threatening, you know, bad faith negotiation lawsuits and all this rhetoric that Tony Clark's out there, let's go pull. play these games. Let's get a part of your salary. And by the way, you're going to still be highly, highly compensated. Why aren't you taking it for the good of the game and saying this is just a one-year deal? We're not going to be thinking about this long term. And players, we need you. Our country needs you to be out there playing baseball for us. Well, I think

it's important to note that a vast majority of the players we're talking about are not those faces of the franchise high-paid guys. Most players make the minimum. Or, um, slightly above the minimum. So, you know, it's not as simple as, like, you guys make all this money and get all this marketing, you know, all these endorsement, all this endorsement profit, whatever. The players are taking a stand for future players as players in the past did, especially with a collective bargaining agreement coming in the winter of 2021. I think they feel that if they can see now, they're never getting that back.

So it's almost been as if the CBA is up now in a way because neither side wants to give in with that in the looming foreground there. And I wonder how different this would be if this was, you know, year one of a new CBA that had already been signed. I think it would be different. But I really think that's, you know, that's, they don't, the sides don't trust each other. And that's been the case for a lot of years. Does Commissioner Manfred survive the job if we don't have a season?

It's a great question. I mean, ultimately he works for the owners, right? And if the owners are pushing this process from his side, it's on them, right? So how could they turn around? If he's doing what they want, how could they turn around and fire him for that is where I'm out on that? I think he's the figurehead. He's the guy who gets in front of the camera, but the owners are really the ones behind this.

He works for them. So that's kind of where, you know, I think it's definitely fair to blame him, and his messaging the last six days has been terrible by coming out and saying there's 100% going to be baseball and then flip-flopping five days later. But ultimately, you know, I think the blame goes on the owners. All right.

So we've had the words through statements the last couple days. We had Commissioner Manfred on TV last night. Tony Clark in the Players Association putting out that very terse statement following that. I was turning out. Again, Jeff Passage is one of hundreds of you to cover the sport, but he felt like that was probably a sign in the right direction, ironically enough about trying to get a season going. After you've watched the developments, and look, you've got a lot of great colleagues

at the athletic that have done a great job covering this whole thing, where do you stand today? And ultimately, for our fans are listening to us, what's the deadline for a season, whether we're going to have one or not, and what is your timeline in your mind as a baseball reporter for the next couple of weeks? Yeah, I think a couple weeks is probably it.

I still would tend to think, you know, at least 50-50, maybe slightly more than 50-50 that there's a season. You know, it's just, it's hard to predict. I mean, I could have never predicted yesterday's news. So, you know, an answer doesn't really mean much for me right now. But I still think ultimately the owners, you know, if they're willing to do that whole like 48 game, pro-rated, full prorated salary thing,

now I don't see why they wouldn't do that in a couple of weeks, unless there's just so much animosity between the two sides that they can't even come together and talk. You know, and the whole looming litigation part of it's fascinating too because that March 26th agreement said that the commissioner would, you know, try to play as many games as possible. and MLB, you know, if MLB stalls a few weeks and then implement a 48-game season, they could easily argue that they did not hold up there under the bargain.

So with that in the foreground, I think a negotiation and an actual agreement is probably necessary. All right. Last question, Jake, Jacob from the Athletic. If we do play that 48 to 52 game schedule, what kind of baseball we're going to see? That's a good question. I'm curious how your listeners feel about it. You know, it's hard to view it too credibly, right? I mean, it's going to be a short spring training. It's such a small sample of the season.

No fans in the stand, so there's no energy in the ballpark. Like, I don't, it's going to be really weird if it does happen. And, you know, I'm not sure how people will look back on it. I think it has to have some sort of asterisk of some sort, at least, you know, in your mind, if not physically. Yeah. The audience, I've done a poll question, 65% of my audience, and again, it's just a very small sample size of people that follow me, we'll be willing to watch it.

I'm just curious the demeanor of the players. Will they treat it like every other season? And I'm not saying the guys that Justin Verlander would throw an Ephis pitch, but I'm saying, will George Springer, who lays his body out every single time you possibly can? And I'm not trying to use him as an example, but players like him, will there be the same sort of 150% all give no doubt about it effort? Or will these guys get on the diamond, play the game, but won't have the energy and the fire and the brimstone

to really make it a competitive season knowing that they're not out there because they want to be out there. They're going out there because the mandate says so. I think it could be somewhere in the middle. There's no doubt that the players generate energy from the fans and adrenaline from the fans and the fans. when they're playing. And without that, I think it definitely changes the game.

But at the same time, I think once players are on the field, they want to try their best to perform well and win, especially with, you know, future incentives to play well because you have your next contract always and the next arbitration case and whatnot. So there's always that. But, yeah, I think it'll be probably somewhere in the middle of those two things. But it's good that people want to see it. I think people definitely do want baseball basketball basketball.

but I'm just curious how credible fans will view it through the lens of like a real world series champion and a real division title and all that kind of stuff. We're doing a poll right now. Right now the leader in the clubhouse is a snack-sized season is what it's going to be, 2020 Major League Baseball. So take it for what it's worth. Remind folks where they can find your podcast. Yeah, go on Apple or Spotify search either my name, Jake Kaplan or the Crawford Talks.

I also tweet out links from my Twitter account. every now and then. So, yeah, I hope everyone's enjoyed it so far. Thanks for letting me plug it. All right, Jake. We're going to probably bug you again if something happens in the next week or so. So it'll be on standby, okay? Sounds good. We'll be. All right, buddy. Thanks. Jake Kaplan. Jake M. Kaplan on Twitter. Great friend of the show with The Athletic and the Crawford Talks podcast on all things Astros baseball.