For the first time since 1994, Major League Baseball finds itself in a labour stoppage, and there’s really only one thing to do about it:
Relax.
This isn’t 1994.
There’s four months until Opening Day. That’s a third of a calendar year. And instead of sabre-rattling or crying poor or threatening labour Armageddon, Major League teams dealt out $2 billion (all figures U.S.) in free-agent salaries since the end of the World Series, formally announcing 27 deals worth over $1.4 billion on Wednesday.
Instead of wringing hands about how small-market franchises are going to survive – an old labour war standby – owners and players looked on as the Tampa Bay Rays handed out a contract that could pay 20-year-old Wander Franco $233 million over 12 years and the Miami Marlins gave pitcher Sandy Alcantara a five-year, $56-million package that is the richest in history for a first-year arbitration-eligible pitcher.
That’s a helluva way to screw the players. Instead of some of the scorched-earth stuff seen in previous sports negotiations, we were treated to a re-seeding.
It’s preparation for a labour stoppage the likes of which I haven’t seen in 32 years of covering baseball. From the beginning, the understanding in the industry was that the only thing less likely than an agreement before 11:59 p.m. Wednesday was and is the loss of one regular-season game as a result.
Instead of hunkering down for a long, brutal slog teams and players – who still have competing $500-million labour grievances against each other out of the machinations from the re-start of the 2020 season – spent the last week rushing into each other’s arms. Honest to God: it almost made you long for the days when having Jerry Reinsdorf yell “salary cap” sent players to the barricades.
This feels so … so … complicated yet non-draconian at the same time.
I mean, this isn’t about two seats per player on the bus. We’re talking about tweaking the guts of how players get paid. Salary arbitration and, by extension, free agency. Big, big stuff … yet there was commissioner Rob Manfred telling reporters after recent owners’ meetings that “when you look at other sports, the pattern has become to control the timing of the labour dispute and try to minimize the prospect of actual disruption of the season. That’s what it’s about; avoiding doing damage to the season.” His statement early Thursday morning echoed those sentiments.
Translation from Manfred: better to kill the winter meetings and douse the hot stove than lose Opening Day, when leverage begins to shift to the players. Thing is, if I know that and you know that, what impetus has there been up to now for the players to give more than they want? So now we have a situation where no transactions involving players on 40-man rosters can occur and players are prevented from communicating with club officials – including coaches – or using team facilities to rehabilitate or train. Sounds serious … but that’s why it’s called a lockout.
From a distance, the optics stink. Billionaire owners arguing with millionaire (or, in some cases, one-third billionaire) players, with the world still trying to vaccinate its way out of a pandemic that has as many configurations as Angel Hernandez’s strike zone.
You don’t have time for this B.S., do you?
Yet this is how professional sports leagues determine who gets paid and how revenue gets distributed. The foaming mouths are going to be all over social media and the airwaves about this and with social media a worry that didn’t exist in 1994, the chance is this could get pretty funky at some point. No sooner had the lockout commenced than MLB.com dropped all current player imaging from its content, acknowledging it was instead going to focus on the history of the game. Somebody needs to confiscate the iPhone of New York Mets owner Steve Cohen. Now.
Still, I’m reminded of an interview I did with Manfred in August, 2019, on the 25th anniversary of the 1994 strike. Back in 1994, Manfred was outside legal counsel for the owners. Now, keep in mind that as commissioner, Manfred works for the owners. They give him his marching orders. And keep in mind that Manfred’s comments were made before the pandemic hit, when everybody’s world changed.
“Look at the process in 2001, 2006 and 2011,” Manfred told me. “There was just not the public back and forth (as there was in 1994.) Or 2016. You never saw either party talk about a lockout or strike. We both understood that creating an atmosphere where you could focus on genuine negotiations designed to come up with creative solutions was really important.
“Labour disputes never pay off for either party,” Manfred said. “The money lost was way more valuable than the issues that were on the table at the time. The industry took a step back in terms of revenue for the first time in decades.
“Another way to look at it: the union won that (1994) dispute. We were ordered (by courts) to go back to work. But the fact is the agreement we ultimately reached put in revenue sharing and a (luxury tax). The idea that I’m going to go out and strike you to get the agreement I want? It never works out that way.”
Manfred said a lockout and strike, although different, both represented, in his mind, “a failure of the process.”
Maybe the nasty labour wars of the past are a faulty lens to use in 2021. Nothing is the same as it was in 1994. Manfred was then owners’ outside legal counsel. Bud Selig was commissioner and Donald Fehr, who is now running the NHL Players’ Association, was head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, a position now held by former player Tony Clark.
The Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks didn’t exist in 1994. Ownership ranks have also changed by two-thirds, with nine holdover groups including the Steinbrenner, Pohlad and Montfort families and Reinsdorf and Peter Angelos.
A buck now is different than a buck back then and franchise values have gone through the roof. Let’s use the Baltimore Orioles as an example, since Angelos purchased them in Aug., 1993 – a year before the strike – for $173 million in a bankruptcy auction that saw him beat out Jeffrey Loria.
The Orioles are hardly the Cadillac franchise they once were, in many ways over-shadowed regionally by the Washington Nationals. Yet a conservative estimate is that the Orioles valuation is now in the neighbourhood of $1.4 billion give or take, a valuation that pales in comparison to the growth in value of other franchises. The Miami Marlins are valued at $900 million by Forbes but Bruce Sherman paid $1.2 billion for it two years ago which, by pure coincidence, is the amount Manfred says it would take to now buy an expansion franchise.
The Diamondbacks’ expansion fee in 1995 was $130 million.
Whole revenue streams exist now that didn’t exist back then, when getting the rights to parking was a big deal for owners and stadiums were expected to last decades, not years. Network TV was huge. Cord-cutting? Advanced media? Streaming? Formal arrangements with legalized sports wagering? I can see Bud Selig’s head explode over that one.
“Uh, Bud. About that Pete Rose thing …”
Baseball generated $10.7 billion in gross revenue in 2019. Let’s not even go back to 1994. Let’s just look at 2001, when it generated just under $4 billion. Salaries are different, too – the average salary in 1994 was $1.2 million compared to $4.17 million this year. Massively different.
But there has been a softness in salary growth in recent seasons that has shaped the union’s approach to bargaining – as it should. According to The Associated Press, the average salary in the majors in 2021 was a drop of 4.8 per cent from the game’s previous full season (2019.) Since 2017, the average salary has fallen 6.4 per cent. The median salary, which is the point at which an equal number of players are above and below and in in many ways a more accurate reflection of trends, fell to $1.15 million, an 18 per cent drop from 2019 and a 30 per cent drop from 2015. Of the 1,955 players who had signed major league contracts going into Sept. 1, 397 earned less than $1 million and 1,271 earned $600,000 dollars or less.
This season’s average would have been an increase from $3.89 million in 2020 had a full season been played (remember: because of the pandemic the actual earned average salary was $1.35 million because less than 40 per cent of the season was played.) But that 2020 full-year figure would have represented a 4.2 per cent decrease from 2019. The average salary in 2018 also fell – albeit sightly – from 2017.
I know, I know: we’re talking cheaper rims on luxury cars but it was the first time the average major league salary dropped in back-to-back seasons since 1967. In fact, until 2018, the average salary year to year had fallen on just three occasions, the last decline coming in 2004. The only other occasions were during the collusion era and 1995 – the year after the players strike. If you were a player, you’d want to know how that happens.
Boiled to its essence, the guts of any dispute is that owners want a system that allows them to win while controlling player costs as much as possible for as long as possible while players want a greater share of the revenue pie. They want owners to spend to win.
Every owner wants to win like the Rays … with Dodgers attendance.
That’s a significant divide, to be sure. But it seems as if there is an understanding on both sides that it makes sense for younger players to get their money sooner – witness what the Rays and Marlins did — and that the current system of salary arbitration needs tweaking. But it’s a safe bet that the sides don’t agree on the degree of tweaking that is needed, especially if it is simply a new way of allowing some owners to not put revenue sharing money into payroll.
Yeah, there’s all sorts of other talking points and trade-offs — a salary floor, tighter salary cap, pace of play, rejigging the draft to possibly include a lottery, the universal designated hitter and expanded playoffs. This could always go nuclear, I suppose, with de-certification and dragging up anti-trust stuff and from the formation of the union in 1967, leaders have always worried about management using its financial tools to split the union between older and younger players.
But the trick will be to see if there’s a common ground, and the idea of expanded playoffs gives us some insight into how these things can get tripped up by something that would appear to be acceptable to both sides: owners like it because it gives them more chances to make more money; players know more post-season games increases the possibility of playoff shares, but that is balanced off by a wariness of anything that could somehow reward owners who don’t spend.
The players don’t want a $55-million payroll in the playoffs and if you were a player you wouldn’t, either. Yet in their last offer to owners, players agreed to expanded playoffs, albeit to 12 teams over the owners’ preferred 14.
Let’s bring this down to the local level. Look: I was there in 1994. I was covering the Montreal Expos for The Gazette when that team had the best record in the majors at the time of the strike and there was little sense it was going to get resolved – players hung around for a week or so and then bailed — and a real fear that the stoppage would ultimately kill the team. The atmosphere around the game was toxic beyond belief. The Expos did pull up stakes after 2004, and while a lack of corporate and political support had more to do with the team leaving than anything else, you are allowed to wonder whether a possible World Series run could have ginned up support for a stadium in Montreal. The Toronto Blue Jays didn’t get off, either: the strike – plus Duane Ward’s arm woes – set baseball into a spin a year after the Blue Jays’ second of back-to-back World Series wins.
I kept some stories that I wrote during the strike. Hugh Hallward, a former limited partner of the Expos, came up with the idea of having the Expos and New York Yankees – the two best teams at the time of the strike – meet in an ersatz World Series with money to go to charity. Wrap your head around that.
President Bill Clinton tried to help the sides. Uh-huh.
And, of course, before future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor handed down a ruling that forced the owners to get the game back on the field, the game was treated to the spectacle of replacement players in replacement spring training.
Now? It seems likely that this new collective bargaining agreement will coincide with baseball returning to Montreal, since industry sources now view the Tampa/Montreal split cities idea as more of a plan than a mere concept.
And the Blue Jays? They were among the big free-agent spenders leading up to this and, while there must be some trepidation about changes in a new collective bargaining agreement that might have an impact on the service time status of Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., and Bo Bichette, unlike 1994, this edition of the Blue Jays are in their ascendancy and still largely cost-effective. If the Blue Jays wake up some February morning and find that their financial come-to-Jesus moment with these two has been pushed up by a year, the guess here is this ownership group will be ready.
Baseball came within hours – minutes, really – of a stoppage in 2001, when a players strike date would have fallen close to the first anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. Talk about an optics nightmare: Here was a game that was credited for the role it played in helping the U.S. get back to normality – its offices in the very city scarred by the attack on the Twin Towers, home of the New York freaking Yankees, for god’s sake – seriously preparing to shut itself down. There have been flashpoints, to be sure, over drug-testing and service time manipulation and, in 2019, a ham-handed return to action out of the pandemic.
But since 1994, the sides more often than not have been able to find common ground and get back to the task at hand. They’ve formed a joint venture company to start up the World Baseball Classic and the steroid crisis created common cause, as both owners and the MLBPA were forced to stare down Congress. The drama coming out of the pandemic was peanuts compared to agreeing to drug-testing.
Baseball has enjoyed more labour peace than any other sport for the better part of three decades. That’s just a fact and something to remember as the days get colder and both sides’ negotiators get deep into the weeds. And what hasn’t changed is that whatever happens in these next eight weeks or however long it takes to get a new CBA, it will be up to the players to sell the product. The good news is, there is a golden generation of young baseball talent – the most golden in my lifetime – ready to put on a show.
As long as this doesn’t get personal, the game will come out on the other side in fine shape. In the meantime …
Take a long, slow, deep breath. Let’s see where we are on Feb. 1 or thereabouts, because the approach of spring training is more of a deadline – a real deadline – than 11:59. It’s been that case all along. And both sides acted like they knew it.
VANCOUVER – As the Major League Soccer season ticks down, Vanni Sartini wants his Vancouver Whitecaps to make a declaration — the team is ready to compete.
“The time of hiding ourselves, I think it’s over,” the coach said after the ‘Caps earned a 2-0 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday.
“We need to really say that we are here to try to be at the ball until the end and trying to shoot for the highest position. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to make it, but we have the quality to do it.”
With seven games left on their regular-season schedule, the ‘Caps (13-8-6) sit in fifth spot in the congested Western Conference, just two points out of fourth.
Saturday’s loss officially eliminated the last-place Earthquakes (5-21-2) from post-season action.
Vancouver has been on a hot streak since returning from the Leagues Cup break and is unbeaten (3-0-1) in its last four outings across all competitions. The team has not allowed a goal in those matches.
“It’s the fact that we play really well,” Sartini said of the clean sheets. “We have the ball a lot, we finish our attack most of the time in their box. So it’s really hard for the other team to attack us. And then when they attack us, in the rare times that they arrive in the final third, we’re very solid.”
Recent additions have bolstered the team’s ranks, including the club’s newest designated player, Stuart Armstrong. The 32-year-old Scottish midfielder scored his first MLS goal Saturday.
Three minutes after coming on as a substitute for Alessandro Schopf, Armstrong gave Vancouver a two-goal cushion in the 87th minute.
Midfielder Pedro Vite dished a short pass to ‘Caps captain Ryan Gauld, who tapped it toward Armstrong. The former Southampton FC player then blasted a shot into the top of the net for his first strike in a Whitecaps’ jersey.
He was mobbed by teammates in the corner of the field.
“I think everyone was happy. Also for the first goal, but also that it was an important three points,” said Armstrong, who signed with the ‘Caps on Sept. 3.
“It kind of felt a little bit like last week, when we had a lot of chances and we didn’t get the three points. So today, I think everyone was just relieved to have that two-goal cushion.”
Vancouver was the dominant team from the outset Saturday and did not relent, outshooting the visitors 19-5 and controlling 54.1 per cent of possession.
Fafa Picault also found the back of the net for Vancouver, while Gauld contributed a pair of assists.
Whitecaps goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka stopped both shots he faced to collect his seventh clean sheet of the year, while Daniel made nine saves for the Quakes.
Gauld and Picault teamed up in the 22nd minute when Gauld curled a cross in and the Haitian striker headed it down toward the net, only to see Daniel catch a piece of the shot with his forearm and redirect it out of harm’s way.
The duo connected again in the 35th minute on a Vancouver corner. Gauld swung a ball in and Picault jumped up from the pack to send a glancing header in past Daniel for his ninth MLS goal of the season.
San Jose briefly appeared to level the score in the 68th minute when an unmarked Ousseni Bouda collected the ball, froze Takaoka and tapped a shot into the Vancouver net. An official quickly raised the offside flag and waved off the tally.
Daniel kept San Jose’s deficit to a single goal with a pair of solid stops in the 82nd minute.
First, the Brazilian ‘keeper dove sideways on his line to tip away a bomb from Alessandro Schopf. He was tested again on the ensuing corner and jumped up to send a header from Picault over the crossbar.
“I think we created a lot of chances again,” Gauld said.
“We probably should have put the game out of their reach sooner. But we’d be more worried if we weren’t creating the chances. Three clean sheets in a row in the league, I think it’s a big thing for us. And it gives us a good platform to go forward.”
NOTES
Vancouver played without leading scorer Brian White for a third consecutive game as the American striker works his way back from a concussion. … Gauld’s second assist marked his 15th goal contribution (six goals, nine assists) in his last 15 Whitecaps games across all competitions. … An announced crowd of 21,309 took in the game at B.C. Place.
UP NEXT
The Whitecaps kick off a two-game road swing Wednesday against the Houston Dynamo. The Earthquakes host the Seattle Sounders the same night.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2024.
MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Not good enough. That was Arne Slot’s verdict after his first defeat as Liverpool manager on Saturday.
A shock 1-0 loss at home to Nottingham Forest in the English Premier League ended Slot’s perfect record since succeeding Jurgen Klopp at Anfield at the end of last season.
“We had a lot of ball possession but only managed to create three (or) four quite good chances, so that is by far not enough if you have so much ball possession,” said the Dutchman, who suggested his team should not be losing to the likes of Forest.
“If you lose a home game it’s always a setback, especially if you face a team … we never know, maybe they will go all the way to fight for Champions League tickets, but normally this team is not ending up in the top 10, so if you lose a game against them that’s a big disappointment.”
Slot won his first three games in charge, including a memorable 3-0 victory against Manchester United before the international break.
But that run came to an end after Callum Hudson-Odoi struck in the 72nd with a curling effort from the edge of the box and beyond goalkeeper Alisson.
Liverpool’s defeat leaves Manchester City as the only team with a 100% record in the league after a 2-1 win against Brentford kept the defending champion at the top of the table.
United won at Southampton 3-0 to end its two-game losing streak.
Unstoppable Haaland
Erling Haaland moved to 99 goals for City after scoring twice against Brentford.
The Norwegian’s double came after Yoane Wissa fired Brentford ahead with just 22 seconds on the clock.
Haaland scored his 98th and 99th goals in his 103rd City appearance in all competitions. And he was the width of the post away from his third consecutive hat trick after trebles against Ipswich and West Ham.
“He’s been really, really good. Yeah, I would say he’s the best (he’s been), but it’s only four fixtures (this season),” City manager Pep Guardiola said.
Haaland, who has been nominated for the Ballon d’Or, has nine goals in four league games. He has topped the league scoring charts in each of his two seasons at City since joining from Borussia Dortmund in 2022 for $63 million.
Haaland’s first goal after 19 minutes evened the game following Wissa’s opener, which stunned the Etihad Stadium crowd. Haaland turned and swept a shot past goalkeeper Mark Flekken after a slight deflection off Ethan Pinnock.
He was then too strong for Pinnock when shaking off the defender and running through for his second in the 32nd.
He was inches away in the 81st; the shot came back off the post after beating the keeper.
Rashford snaps run
Marcus Rashford snapped a 12-game barren run in front of goal as United beat Southampton.
Rashford doubled United’s lead at Saint Mary’s after Matthijs de Ligt’s scored his first for the club. Substitute Alejandro Garnacho scored a third in the sixth minute of stoppage time.
The win came after back-to-back defeats for United.
Rashford hadn’t scored since March in United’s win over Liverpool in the FA Cup quarterfinals. He curled in a shot from the edge of the area to put Erik ten Hag’s team 2-0 up at Southampton in the 41st minute.
Ten Hag said it could be a turning point for the forward.
“For every striker, they want to be on the scoring list. Once the first is in, more is coming. Like a ketchup bottle, once it’s going, it’s coming more,” he said.
De Ligt, who joined United from Bayern Munich in the offseason, headed in from Bruno Fernandes’ cross in the 35th.
It could have been a different story if Cameron Archer converted a penalty for Southampton in the 33rd. Instead, his effort was saved by goalkeeper Andre Onana.
Newly promoted Southampton was reduced to 10 men when Jack Stephens was sent off in the 79th for a high challenge on Garnacho.
Villa comeback
After three straight defeats to start the league, Everton looked set for its first win when leading Aston Villa 2-0.
Goals from Dwight McNeil and Dominic Calvert-Lewin put Sean Dyche’s team in control until Ollie Watkins struck twice to even the game.
Jhon Duran completed Villa’s comeback and sealed a 3-2 win in the 76th to leave Everton rooted to the bottom of the table and the only top flight team without a point.
Late drama
Jean-Philippe Mateta converted a stoppage time penalty to salvage a 2-2 draw for Crystal Palace against Leicester.
Leicester led 2-0 at Selhurst Park after goals from Jamie Vardy and Stephy Mavididi.
But Mateta sparked Palace’s response with a goal in the 47th, a minute after Mavididi doubled Leicester’s advantage.
Conor Coady fouled Ismaili Sarr in the box right near fulltime and Mateta was cool enough to convert.
West Ham left it even later to salvage a point in a 1-1 draw at Fulham.
Danny Ings struck in the fifth minute of added time after Raul Jimenez’s goal looked like earning Fulham the win.
Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler, the manager of the month for August, was frustrated as his team was held to 0-0 at home by Ipswich.
CLEVELAND (AP) — Restricted free agent forward Isaac Okoro has agreed to re-sign with the Cleveland Cavaliers on a three-year contract, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Okoro’s new deal is worth $38 million, according to the person who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the contract has not been signed or announced by the team.
ESPN.com first reported the agreement, citing Okoro’s representation.
The fifth overall pick in the 2020 NBA draft, Okoro is Cleveland’s best perimeter defender, often drawing the assignment of guarding the opponent’s top scorer. Okoro also has worked to improve his offensive game.
The 23-year-old averaged 9.4 points and 3.0 rebounds in 69 games — 42 starts — last season for the Cavs, who beat Orlando in the opening round of the playoffs before losing to eventual champion Boston.
Okoro shot a career-best 39% on 3-pointers, forcing teams to come out and guard him.
His agreement caps an extraordinarily busy summer for the Cavs that began with coach J.B. Bickerstaff being fired and replaced by Kenny Atkinson. All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell signed a three-year, $150 million extension in July, ending months of speculation that he wanted out of Cleveland.
Also, power forward Evan Mobley signed a five-year, $224 deal and center Jarrett Allen signed a three-year, $91 million extension.
