Mlb history of collusion

[KCBrewerfan34]

In one contract signing Josh gets totally destroyed with his ridiculously stupid collusion claim. JJJ should fire you.

 

Machado colluded his way to 10/$300 million. The owners suck at this

[BlazingGunz]

I don't think his comments are about the top end of the market...Machado, Harper, Corbin they are all going to get paid. It's the middle of the market. Why are players like Moustakas having to sign 1 year deals? Why did Grandal not get a similar deals than catchers did 4 years ago?

 

I don't know if it's collusion or market correction or owners just taking advantage of a bad CBA. But the hallmarks are similar to what happened in the 80's to suppress salaries (stars not finding deals, 1 year contracts, etc) that led to the biggest labor disruption that we have seen in the sport. Regardless of the cause, history seems doomed to repeat itself in this case.

 

I do tend to agree with him though, that teams should be trying to win and getting the best players on their teams. If that is free agency...great, if that is trades...great, if that is promoting talent faster...great. The National League for the most part is primed to be exciting this year...because those teams bought or traded for good players (and contracts). The American League not so much and that hurts the game overall (and thus drives down player salaries in the process).

 

Another solution potentially could be expansion....if there are too many good young players...and too many still decent veterans, then maybe we need more spots to put that talent. (Hence the reason the MLBPA is insisting on a DH in the NL...equals more jobs).

[Fear The Chorizo]

I'm much more of the opinion that it's the agents with premier clients that are doing the most damage in recent offseasons - Machado's deal is exactly in line with what many predictions had him signing for back in late October 2018. Why does it take almost 4 months for a contract to get agreed to? Harper will sign a similar deal with a slightly higher AAV soon, too. The best players still get paid, the difference now seems to be the agents can't just expect the Yankees, Red Sox, and crazy old owners on their death beds to get into bidding wars from day 1 of free agency. Some of that has to be luxury tax-related, whether the players' union and agents want to admit it or not. If I'm a huge market team, every once in a while I'd want to get payroll below certain thresholds to keep that luxury tax money fire manageable over the long haul.

 

Holding the FA market hostage with the biggest names just gives these agents like Boras more opportunities to get in front of a microphone and cry poor, pushing the narrative towards a CBA conflict and blaming these greedy, penny-pinching owners for not paying everyone with a glove in their duffle bag $100M. The biggest names still get paid and as MM's deal shows still get long term commitments, but this tact of signing in late February absolutely kills the mid tier FA market for the vets who could otherwise find multi-year deals at market value if the more talented FAs signed earlier in free agency.

 

IMO, one solution for this would be to have a more structured offseason schedule for free agency to get the big names signed earlier and allow for an extended mid-tier market to develop for teams that missed out on the perceived best FA options - for example, under the current system the marquee FAs tend to be the ones who were given a qualifying offer but rejected it. I would like to see a deadline when interested teams have to provide their offers to these particular FAs, with a subsequent deadline for them to agree to a deal - and have both of those deadlines occur before December 31. In the event a deadline passes where a marquee free agent doesn't sign a contract, he goes back to his previous club under a 1-yr deal that matches the previously rejected qualifying offer - that club could then keep him for the following season at that price or trade his rights to a different team. Regardless of the team this "restricted FA" would wind up with, they'd have until Opening Day to structure a contract extension - otherwise they play the season at the QO rate and become a totally unrestricted FA the following offseason.

[502 to Right]

Who does this guy represent? Does he have Wisconsin roots? How did he land here?

[stoutdude04]

 

Who does this guy represent? Does he have Wisconsin roots? How did he land here?

 

Crazy!

 

)

 

JJ is his most prominent at the moment.

[wntrtxn21]

I don't think his comments are about the top end of the market...Machado, Harper, Corbin they are all going to get paid. It's the middle of the market. Why are players like Moustakas having to sign 1 year deals? Why did Grandal not get a similar deals than catchers did 4 years ago?

 

I don't know if it's collusion or market correction or owners just taking advantage of a bad CBA. But the hallmarks are similar to what happened in the 80's to suppress salaries (stars not finding deals, 1 year contracts, etc) that led to the biggest labor disruption that we have seen in the sport. Regardless of the cause, history seems doomed to repeat itself in this case.

 

I do tend to agree with him though, that teams should be trying to win and getting the best players on their teams. If that is free agency...great, if that is trades...great, if that is promoting talent faster...great. The National League for the most part is primed to be exciting this year...because those teams bought or traded for good players (and contracts). The American League not so much and that hurts the game overall (and thus drives down player salaries in the process).

 

Another solution potentially could be expansion....if there are too many good young players...and too many still decent veterans, then maybe we need more spots to put that talent. (Hence the reason the MLBPA is insisting on a DH in the NL...equals more jobs).

 

What you and others seem to forget is you have absolutely no idea IF other teams made offers to the FAs and the player refused it. Verlander, some cub players, and others bemoaned the fact that Harper and Machado were still FAs a week ago. What they so conveniently forgot to say was that Harper TURNED DOWN a $300M offer and Machado TURNED DOWN a $270M offer. Two years ago Moustakas turned down a $17.4M deal. If every team had the Dodgers, cubs, Yankees, Red Sox, etc.. money your argument about teams not trying to get better may hold water. However, there are only limited teams that can afford huge contracts. Many of the free agent players may be pricing themselves out of a job. If Machado and Harper were asking for $50M per year and went unsigned, would you still say there was collusion because they were unsigned?