Cup of Coffee: March 10, 2022

Another week of games is canceled because the owners are screwing around and negotiating in bad faith

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

I’m feeling good today, folks, as my dad is finally home after three weeks in the hospital and a nursing home. He was discharged yesterday afternoon. Even before that I knew he was feeling better because, yesterday morning, while still in the nursing home, and only one day after the PT people told him he was cleared to drive again, he was already complaining about $4+ gas. Dude was ready to get back to it.

Sadly baseball is not so healthy. Today I talk about the owners throwing a wrench into the negotiations yesterday. I also talk about how much money they’re raking in from national TV deals, and a couple of notable firings.

In Other Stuff, I talk about whether I’d do things over if I had the chance, about a bad look for a once-powerful jackass, about turning a blind eye to atrocities as long as the money is right, about how not to counter Russian aggression, and about the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” trailer.

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The Daily Briefing

More games canceled due to MLB’s bad faith negotiating

By yesterday afternoon the owners and players were reportedly super close to agreement on the core economic issues everyone has said was the key to a new CBA getting done. Specifically:

• The players moved to $65 million on the pre-arbitration bonus pool. The owners had last been at $40 million;

• The players offered Competitive Balance Tax thresholds of $232 million to $250 million over the five years of the deal. That’s only $2 million off on the first year and $8 million on the fifth year;

• The players moved to minimum salaries from $710,000 and moving up to $780,000. MLB is at $700,000 to start and finishing at $770,000.

These are not big gaps. This is “let’s get some coffee, come back in an hour, and finish this up” territory. And then Major League Baseball and the owners decided to fuck things up.

As we discussed yesterday, the owners had, throughout these negotiations, brought up the topic of an international draft many times. Each time it was a stand along thing which the players said they did not want. On Tuesday night the owners proposed it again, and this time tied it to the elimination of the qualifying offer for free agents. The players, yesterday, once again told the owners that an international draft was a non-starter. As they have done every time the owners have brought this up over the years, going back to 2016 and, before that, to 2013.

In response, the owners played games, making the players choose from three options, lest the owners end the talks and cancel more games. The choices:

• (a) MLB would get rid of the qualifying offer if parties agreed to study an international draft. If, however, an international draft is not accepted by the union by Nov. 15, 2022, the entire collective bargaining agreement would be reopened after the 2024 season;

• (b) MLB would take the international draft out of the deal but they’d maintain the qualifying offer;

• (c) MLB would implement the international draft in 2024 in exchange for the removal of the qualifying offer.

If the players did not accept one of these option, Rob Manfred and his boys said, they’d cancel another two series worth of games.

These are, to say the least horseshit options and that ultimatum is the utmost in bad faith. This is MLB driving the car into the ditch over an issue it has half-assedly thrown out there a bunch of times over the years, which has never been well-received by the players, and which the league never considered a priority, let alone a deal-breaker. It’s the elevation of a side issue into to a key term at the last minute, with all kinds of stupid strings attached and poison pills embedded within. The whole approach, which MLB did not deploy until the sides were close on the core issues, can only be calculated to sow divisions and scuttle any deal.

The players, nonetheless, responded to it with a counter: eliminate the qualifying offer and give the parties until November 15, 2022 to agree to an international draft. If they don’t agree on it, then the qualifying offer returns after the 2022-23 offseason and the international system also returns to status quo. The owners declined to respond to this counter. And then they canceled games through April 14.

Naturally, the sides disagreed on what happened and what it all means. MLB:

“In a last-ditch effort to preserve a 162-game season, this week we have made good-faith proposals that address the specific concerns voiced by the MLBPA and would have allowed the players to return to the field immediately. The clubs went to extraordinary lengths to meet the substantial demands of the MLBPA. On the key economic issues that have posed stumbling blocks, the clubs proposed ways to bridge gaps to preserve a full schedule. Regrettably, after our second late-night bargaining session in a week, we remain without a deal.

“Because of the logistical realities of the calendar, another two series are being removed from the schedule, meaning that Opening Day is postponed until April 14th. We worked hard to reach an agreement and offered a fair deal with significant improvements for the players and our fans. I am saddened by this situation’s continued impact on our game and all those who are a part of it, especially our loyal fans.

“We have the utmost respect for our players and hope they will ultimately choose to accept the fair agreement they have been offered.”

Funny, no mention of the owners’ baseless and unreasonable hostage-taking and ultimatum-making regarding the international draft.

From the MLBPA:

"The owners' decision to cancel additional games is completely unnecessary. After making a set of comprehensive proposals to the league earlier (Wednesday) afternoon, and being told substantive responses were forthcoming, players have yet to hear back.

"Players want to play, and we cannot wait to get back on the field for the best fans in the world. Our top priority remains the finalization of a fair contract for all players, and we will continue negotiations toward that end."

One side is being serious here. One side is not. It’s pretty obvious what’s going on.

And it’s pretty obvious that, unless someone smacks some sense into the owners, things are about to get worse. Way worse, because of what I like to think of as the Doomsday Devices each side has built in to their negotiating positions.

The owners have tied playing a 162-game schedule with full pay and full service time for players to a deal being done this week. At the same time, the MLBPA has said that if the league refuses to agree to full pay and service time, it will remove expanded playoffs from its proposal. With the sides already unable to agree on other issues, the triggering of these two things — the failure to play (or pay for) 162 games and the elimination of expanded playoffs — risks everyone going to the mattresses for a long, long war. It would make the reaching of a deal exponentially more difficult than it already is, because then they’re negotiating about a bunch of new things.

As of late last night there were tentative plans to talk today. Frankly, I wouldn’t blame the players for not wanting to given that bullshit the owners pulled yesterday, but I suppose we’ll see what happens.

You know it’s bad when . . .

The politicians start grandstanding:

Senator Dick Durbin @SenatorDurbin

Enough. After almost 100 days of the MLB lockout, it’s time to reconsider MLB’s special antitrust exemption, which allows them to act as a lawful monopoly. Fans across America deserve better. Message to the owners: unlock the lockout and play ball.

I’d obviously welcome that, but it ain’t happening. Members of Congress use this as a means of gaining some cheap heat fairly often but they will never — never — actually repeal the antitrust exemption. Major League Baseball makes a lot of political donations to ensure that.

In the meantime, though, I will happily accept any sentiment which righteously slams the owners for being the problem here, even if there’s nothing behind it.

MLB is raking in the national TV bucks

Forbes reports that the new streaming deal between Major League Baseball and Apple we talked about yesterday is worth $85 million annually over seven years. Forbes also reports that MLB has entered into a two-year streaming deal with NBC Sports for the Monday and Wednesday night games ESPN is dropping. These games will be streamed on Peacock, and will pay MLB $30 million annually.

What does that mean in the grand scheme?

Prior to the agreements with Apple and NBC Sports, the annual average of the league’s national media deals that begin this season was $1.84 billion, split evenly among the 30 teams. That figure is now $1.96 billion, representing a 26% increase annually over the league’s previous national media deals.

Doing the math, that means that each team now gets $65 million+ a year from national TV deals alone. Just national deals, not local broadcast deals — which themselves average around $50 million a year — not ticket sales, not concession sales, not sponsorships, not mech sales, and not revenue sharing checks from other teams. Just the national TV deals.

In 2021, meanwhile, the Marlins had an end-of-year payroll of $60.8 million, the Orioles had a were at $59 million, the Guardians were at $53 million and the Pirates were at $50.3 million. Which means they covered player payroll — by far their largest expense — even before a single ticket, hat, or hot dog was sold. With all of the other revenue streams they were, quite obviously, MASSIVELY profitable. And the same goes for the teams with higher payrolls.

Worth remembering the next time some owner cries poor.

Rockies fire analytics director they just hired

The Colorado Rockies have fired their director of research and development, Scott Van Lenten. His firing comes just six months after they hired him. according to Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post, he was fired because of “major disagreements” with the club regarding what his role would be moving forward. Which seems like the sort of thing that should’ve been clear on everyone’s part back in September when he was hired. Like, that’s literally the point of the interview process.

According to Danielle Allentuck of the Denver Gazette, the Rockies’ R&D department now has only five employees, most of whom were hired by Van Lenten and who are probably pretty scared and irked right now. So yeah, things are going great with the Rockies at the moment. They were already a team that has woefully lagged behind every other team when it comes to analytics and R&D and now they’re back to square one.

Mets and executive VP David Newman part ways

The New York Mets are parting ways with Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer David Newman. Newman had been with the team from 2005 through 2018 and then came back to the organization in 2020 when Sandy Alderson returned to run things.

More notably, Newman was mentioned in Katie Strang and Britt Ghiroli’s article in The Athletic about the Mets’ toxic culture which appeared last year. To wit:

Seven employees (both male and female) told The Athletic that David Newman, the team’s chief marketing, content and communications officer (and DeVito’s boss), made inappropriate comments to female employees during his first stint with the team from 2005-2018. Upon learning that Newman was slated to rejoin the team in November 2020, two female employees warned Mets president Sandy Alderson about Newman and suggested Alderson examine Newman’s previous behavior.

He was described as “an asshole who is terrible to work for.” Not by the writers of the article, mind you, but by Mets officials in job interviews for people who would be working under him. Like, they warned people about that up front. He was described by former Mets employees as “nasty,” “passive-aggressive,” and “incapable of any empathy” as well. That he lasted with the team for another year after that story broke is nuts. That Sandy Alderson is still with the team despite knowing about and tolerating that is even more nuts.

Even more nuts is that, according to the MLB.com story about Newman leaving the team — which mentions absolutely nothing about his history as a jackass — Newman intends to continue to serve as a consultant for the Mets.

There are zero consequences for most white male executive types.

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Other Stuff

Would you do it differently?

I saw an interesting prompt yesterday:

You wake up tomorrow and it's March 9th, 2012. You effectively have a re-do on the last 10 years knowing what you know now. What do you do differently?

That’s a fair restart date for me given that my divorce went final on March 20 of that year. Pretty good time to start fresh, right?

But nah.

What if my use of current knowledge to, say, make myself richer or more successful also caused me to become estranged from my kids or to screw up my then-nascent relationship with Allison? Maybe I could avoid the psychological bumps in the road I experienced in 2014-15 if I could see them coming but would that mean that I’d never experience the personal growth I subsequently realized from therapy I underwent around that time and just after?

You can make it a restart 10, 20, 30, or 48 years ago and I'll never entertain questions like these. We are the products of our experiences. If we start pulling threads like that we risk losing what we care about and value the most. Like most people I can identify problems or sub-optimal situations in my life at the moment that might be different if I had done different things before, but I cannot help but think that attempting to retroactively address them would necessarily risk the things I love now.

I guess it all comes down to regret. I don’t regret anything. Not because I’ve never done anything wrong, or because I don’t sometimes wish I had handled things differently, or because I think I have some perfect life which could not be improved upon. No, I don’t regret things because even those mistakes are part of who and what I am and I generally like who and what I am.

Great Moments in Adulthood

Bloomberg reported that Trump White House senior advisor Stephen Miller has sued the House of Representatives’ January 6 committee in order to block a subpoena of data from his parents’ T-Mobile family cell phone plan. Which his cell phone is on.

Far be it from me to criticize someone for trying to be frugal, but I sort of feel like if you were a top advisor to the President of the United States of America — and if you were the architect of hardline-to-the-point-of-fascist policies premised on the erroneous notion that immigrants were leeches on society — that you probably shouldn’t be sponging off your parents’ wireless package.

“They can turn a blind eye to any atrocity”

The New York Times has an interesting story about the web of U.S. and UK-based financial advisors, law firms, hedge funds, and others who manage the billions and billions of dollars owned and controlled by Russian oligarchs. It’s work they have done for years, mostly in secret, though sometimes they brag about it. Now that the winds have shifted and doing business with Russia’s billionaire/leadership class is out of fashion, many of them are scrambling to put distance between themselves and The Motherland.

But not all of them. And even those who do, it’ll probably be temporary:

When companies and individuals linked to Mr. Putin were sanctioned in 2014, Appleby jettisoned clients it believed were affected.

The Russians found other Western firms, including Credit Suisse, to help fill the void.

Ben Freeman, who tracks foreign influence for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said Russians will likely to be find new firms this time, too.

“There is that initial backlash, where these clients are too toxic,” Mr. Freeman said. “But when these lucrative contracts are out there, it gets to be too much for some people, and they can turn a blind eye to any atrocity.”

It’s easy to think of that stuff being far away, but it’s not. I had law school classmates go to work for almost all of the law firms named in that article. None of them, I presume, thought “when I graduate I’m going to help international gangsters and autocrats launder their billions!” but after a couple of years of working in, say, Skadden’s international trade department or what have you, I’m sure some of them woke up and realized “wait, I’m helping international gangsters and autocrats launder their billions. Shit.”

Liberty Cabbage Update

The other day I told subscribers about how I am fascinated with wartime propaganda and behaviors aimed at eliminating references to the enemy or to unfavored aggressors or whoever. The best example of this I can think of is how, during World War I, people began referring to sauerkraut as “liberty cabbage” because “sauerkraut” was a German word.

Sometimes these gestures are well-intentioned, even if they’re kind of silly. Often they’re benign. Sometimes, though, they’re just dumb. Like this one:

The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra has removed Tchaikovsky from its programme of its upcoming concert ‘in light of the recent Russian invasion’.

Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was due to be included in the orchestra’s upcoming all-Tchaikovsky concert at St David’s Hall on 18 March, but it was considered by the orchestra ‘to be inappropriate at this time’.

Tchaikovsky, it should be noted, was a gay man who was often criticized for being insufficiently nationalist, to the point where his critics went after him for being too pro-western Europe and insufficiently Russian.

But sure. that’s just the kind of guy we shouldn’t be recognizing right now because it’ll play into the homophobic Russian nationalist dictator’s interests.

The “Obi-Wan Kenobi” trailer

It’s out. Here it is:

The show takes place a decade after the events from “Revenge Of The Sith.” This is underscored by the voiceover: “The fight is done. We lost. Stay hidden.” Obi-Wan rides around Tatooine, observing a young Luke Skywalker from afar and, apparently, is being hunted down by an Inquisitor.

I’m not sure what to expect from this. I thought the first two seasons of “The Mandalorian” were fantastic. I thought “The Book of Boba Fett” was kinda dumb, even if it had a few good moments (mostly because of the stuff focusing on The Mandalorian).

Mostly, though, I just can’t get over that a universe as large and as rich and as wonderfully-imagined as the “Star Wars” universe exists yet the folks in charge of that universe cannot find a way to tell a story that doesn’t take place on Tatooine. In the films the place was referred to as a “backwater.” It’s now the center of the entire damn galaxy.

Not that I’m not gonna watch it. I mean, jeez, they’d take away my Gen-X card.

Have a great day, everyone.