Baseball is Always Broken

I saw this Dylan Hernandez article about Stan Kasten speaking to the fans, and two things struck me. First, this quote from Kasten about avoiding the luxury tax:

The Dodgers kept their payroll under the luxury-tax threshold of $197 million last year, which would prevent them from being taxed at a higher rate for repeat offenders if they spent more than the limit of $206 million this year. So if they would be penalized as a first-time offender this year and have plenty of money coming off the books next year, why haven’t they spent more this offseason? Is this a warning of what is to come in future seasons?

“That’s also such a weird narrative,” Kasten said. “If we can do whatever we do and stay under [the luxury-tax threshold], there are a lot of advantages to being under — by the way, a lot more advantages than you all write about.”

Such as?

“I’m not going to go into that because that’s real inside baseball economic stuff,” Kasten said.

LATimes.com

I find that a bit offensive. There are plenty of people who are interested in the economic stuff, and are perfectly capable of understanding the economic stuff. They might even stop asking annoying questions about the lack of moves if someone explained to them the inside game.

Of course, the reporter showed his lack of economic understanding on another Kasten statement:

The facts, Kasten said, are that season-ticket sales point to the Dodgers leading baseball in attendance again. And if season tickets are selling, everything must be A-OK.

Of course, it’s not that simple.

At best, Kasten and Dodgers ownership are mistaking loyalty for satisfaction. At worst, they are taking advantage of their customers’ intense devotion.

I’ve often read that prices are signals. If Dodgers fans are willing to pay the price for season tickets, and sales are good, then the Dodgers should assume they are doing something right. The reporter and a few select fans might not like it, but the actual money says fans are betting on a good year.

Which brings me to the point of this post, and what’s been bothering me all day and most of his off-season. There has been a drum beat of articles about how the free-agent system in broken. It seems to me, over my many years of watching and following the game, that the system is always being reported as broken.

There were years when players seemed to be signing a record setting contract every week. There were complaints (in the not to distant past, even) that this would price fans out of the game. There was a time in the early 1990s when free agents were taking less money to play where they wanted to live (Bruce Hurst, for example). The union complained that this would hurt salaries in general. In the early 2000s their were complaints by other teams that the Yankees were not constrained by the luxury tax. The Yankees pointed out they were playing by the rules.

In all the cases above, that was basically true. Even during collusion, in which the system was actually broken, the CBA set up rules that helped the collusion happen. Owners wanted to restrict free agency by limiting the time a player could sign with the previous team, and the players went along with this. In general, players have gone along with more restrictive free agent rules, from allowing compensation to teams losing players, to allowing limits on the amount of money teams can spend signing amateurs.

The players are now where the owners were in the last 1970s. The owners wanted to keep the reserve system, but they kept losing ground as the MLBPA artfully challenged that system piece by piece. The players left enough of the reserve clause in place so that the number of free agents would be limited, and teams would bid on scarce resources.

Now the players like their antiquated system, while the owners keep finding ways to game it to their advantage. The MLBPA should be trying to shift more money to younger players. I hope they go big in order to move the owners in the right direction. I would ask for a four or five fold increase in the minimum salary, and free agency after three years, eliminating arbitration. If they wind up with a doubling of the minimum salary, free agency after five seasons, and the elimination of free-agent compensation, they will at least have moved in the right direction.

Meanwhile, both agents and owners act more rationally. Both sides know the best deals come at the last minute, so they wait out each other. The days of George Steinbrenner making deals just to generate news coverage are gone. It reminds me of this bit from ThirtySomething, a television show from the 1980s:

Michael: I took your advice, Miles. I read Nishiro on The Art of Management. He tells this story of these two samurai warriors standing in the rain. Their swords are drawn. They’re ready to strike. But neither of them moves. They just stand there in the storm, poised.

Miles:Why?

Michael: You tell me.

Miles: Because whoever moves first loses the advantage. So they both stand there getting soaked, accomplishing nothing. Stupid way to make a living, isn’t it?

I understand that we are all tired of getting soaked, but that is the new normal. Maybe owners and agents need a pitch clock.

from baseballmusings.com http://bit.ly/2UpD26d