Ben Frederickson talks about how the MLBPA needs to develop leverage before the next collective bargaining talks.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Complaining about teams not overspending on players who are viewed as declining assets is not going to fix the problem. Owners will not and should not be guilt-tripped into giving bad or risk-laden deals. No, this is on the players. When it comes time to negotiate, they must work to regain leverage lost.
He goes on to detail a number of negotiating points, that if added to the CBA would basically make free agency occur sooner and with fewer strings attached. I especially like his idea of rewarding teams in the draft who remain competitive, although I would rather see the draft eliminated entirely, or at least go back to amateurs negotiating freely for their signing bonus.
While all of these ideas would give players more leverage in negotiating contracts, Frederickson offers no ideas on the leverage needed to get the owners to agree to these ideas.
Despite what front offices have come to believe, the players are the most important part of the game.
The owners, however, no longer need the game. Even after selling most of MLBAM, the owners still have a very nice income stream from that entity. If the game disappeared tomorrow, the players would individually lose millions of dollars, but the owners could sit back, relax, and enjoy a very nice life, free from the hassles of winning and losing, media scrutiny, and collective bargaining agreements.
Somehow, the union needs to convince the owners that moving toward a more open free-agent system would improve the game (as I truly believe), and make the even more money. The game went a very long time without a work stoppage because the two sides decided they were better off being cooperative than combative. That’s still true. The ball is in the MLBPA court now to show that a shift in the rules will help all sides.
from baseballmusings.com http://bit.ly/2QEICPL
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