Major League Baseball’s Bangs, Buzzes, and Bunnies?

This was published in the Huron Daily Plainsman’s Editorial section on January 22, 2020.

Major League Baseball is in the midst of what should be a redemptive offseason, but they know a storm is coming.

Last offseason, two of the players best positioned to ever hit free agency since its inception in 1976 waited until well after pitchers and catchers reported to sign enormous free agent deals. While they still got their big money, the delay in their signing and the “cold market” surrounding many other players last offseason became a talking point heading into Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiations sure to be underway in part throughout this year and next as the agreement comes to an end Dec. 1, 2021.

This offseason has been a return to the normal as far as player spending, which is astronomical money for the average fan to even consider but is still an incredibly small chunk of the business that is being funneled to those who are actually doing the work on the field to create the product.

To put a more “common man” spin on this, let’s say that you opened a lemonade stand. After taxes and all fees for facilities, lemons, sugar, water, etc. have been paid, you come away with $100,000 profit per year. At your stand, you employ four workers. To put the share of profits that are put back into the hands of the players into perspective, roughly $60,000 of that $100,000 of profits would be paid to your employees.

Major League Baseball players remain the highest-compensated league by the percentage of league revenue and percentage of league profits, and that’s been similar for over a decade. Why would players complain, then?

MLB is significantly more profitable than other sports leagues. Because MLB invested in online streaming technologies and developed many of the current streaming technologies employed by major live sports networks and leagues to broadcast their games, MLB is making significant money from their innovation beyond just the game on the field, where the league is also outpacing other leagues in profitability.

In other words, the players are still getting a bigger chunk of what is a bigger apple than other leagues, but they still feel that those bigger profits are made in large part off the backs of the players, and often off the back of managers and other team employees as well whose innovation leads to winning.

BANG THE DRUM (OR TRASH CAN) LOUDLY

That brings us to the scandal that rocked the league this last week. After a multiple-month investigation, MLB announced the punishment for the Houston Astros for what was found to be “sign-stealing” done during games, believed to have helped the Astros win the 2017 World Series. Manager A.J. Hinch and General Manager Jeff Luhnow were both suspended for a year from the game, and two years of first- and second-round draft picks were taken away, along with a multi-million dollar fine. The punishment to the Astros’ owner? Nothing.

In fact, when he came forward later in the day of the announcement and stated that he would be firing both suspended employees, he was hailed for his willingness to go farther than MLB in bringing about a “clean” organization.

His former coach, Alex Cora, who led his new team, the Boston Red Sox, to the 2018 World Series championship in his first year as manager, was soon let go by his organization as they were under investigation for their own sign stealing.

In their report, MLB mentioned multiple players involved in banging on a trash can to give away pitch signs, including Carlos Beltran, who had been announced as the New York Mets manager earlier this winter.

One week. Three managers, including a manager in each of the last three World Series (Hinch’s Astros lost to the Washington Nationals last October), all unemployed. No owners punished by MLB. No players (the source of revenue for those owners) punished by MLB.

In fact, as rumors of wearable buzzers for Astros players began to surface, MLB was quick to jump out and defend players who would still be active in the game, saying their investigation did not find any evidence of buzzers. At the same time, employees of MLB through MLB Network and social media called out the former Houston player who came out publicly with concerns about sign-stealing that the club had done in 2017. No mention from MLB that their investigation had been underway before that player, Mike Fiers, talked to the league or to media about his concerns.

BUNNIES

The “magic” of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat has less to do with the actual bunny than it does with misdirection. The magician gets you looking elsewhere, as he inserts the rabbit into the hat and pulls it out as if the bunny was there the entire time.

Major League Baseball is attempting to pull the same thing right now. The MLB relationship with Minor League Baseball is in dire straits, and after this season, the contract is headed for a VERY tumultuous negotiation that will likely require MLB teams to pay much more to minor league players (who make significantly below the poverty line until they reach the majors), upgrade facilities, and share revenues significantly with Minor League Baseball and its host cities in order to get some of the other issues MLB would like done accomplished in the deal.

The Professional Baseball Agreement (PBA), which outlines the details of how Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball works together, expires after the 2020 season. The aforementioned CBA between MLB players and MLB owners expires after the 2021 season. Investigations to appear to “clean up” the game, while only punishing those who won’t contribute revenue on the field or hold an ownership agreement for one of the MLB clubs over the next two seasons as they attempt to continue the financial boon the game is currently seeing is not just obvious, it’s lost its ability to misdirect at this time. The bunny has been exposed.