Six rookies may add impact for contenders

Yankees’ Peraza, Orioles’ Rodriguez among players who could take spotlight

TAMPA, Fla. — The baseball spring is a time of great anticipation, especially for rookies, and this year there are six in particular who are being counted on for various reasons not only to make the grade but also to have a significant impact on their teams’ seasons.

Oswald Peraza, Yankees: Manager Aaron Boone can talk all he wants about Isiah Kiner-Falefa still being the front-runner in a “wide-open” New York shortstop competition this spring and, accordingly, to open the Yankees’ season at shortstop. But, fair or not, that remains a “been there, done that” proposition.

There’s a much better chance of Kiner-Falefa opening the season as somebody else’s shortstop because (1) the Yankees were clearly not satisfied with his wildly inconsistent performance last year, and (2) they are desperate to finally produce their first homegrown regular player since the Derek Jeter/Jorge Posada/ Bernie Williams ‘90s dynasty. In that regard, it is unfortunate for them that their two top prospects, Peraza and Andrew Volpe, happen to be shortstops, which is why they had no interest in Carlos Correa, Trea Turner and Xander Bogaerts on the free-agent market.

Privately, they are committed to Peraza, who hit .306 with a .832 OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) in an 18-game late-season cameo last year after a breakout power (19 home runs) and speed (33 steals) season at Triple-A and has a one-year leg up in experience to Volpe. If there is one place in which the Yankees especially need to improve this season to close the gap on the Astros, it is shortstop, and Peraza seems to have all the tools to do that.

Brett Baty, Mets: This one might be a little slow to develop. General manager Billy Eppler, strongly fortified with owner Steve Cohen’s money, had a very busy winter — mostly in maintaining the Mets and not necessarily improving them from the 101-win team of a year ago. At the end of the day, the general belief was Eppler missed the boat in acquiring another power bat.

But very possibly that big bat was right there in the lefty-hitting Baty, who tore up Double-A last year, slashing .312/.406/.544 with 19 homers and 22 doubles for Binghamton before winning a late-season promotion to New York’s Citi Field.

But the point is this: It’s drivers whom the fans come to see, and it’s time for NASCAR to pay a fair share to these amazing athletes and the teams most responsible for the sport’s popularity. And make no mistake about it, drivers and team owners are getting more and more adamant about collectively bargaining a more equitable share of NASCAR’s TV revenue.

NASCAR has been essentially a dictatorship over the years run by the sport’s hard-fisted owners — the France family. “Big” Bill France, the founder of the sport, never took kindly to collective bargaining, dating to 1961 when driver Curtis Turner — a Virginia Sports Hall of Famer from Floyd County — tried to form a drivers’ union. Big Bill banned Turner for life.

In 1969, led by the great Richard Petty, 11 drivers formed a union — the Professional Drivers Association — to lobby for safer racing conditions and help drivers get better insurance plans and a bigger share of the profits. The 11 PDA drivers boycotted the historic first race at Talladega, Big Bill quickly replaced them with scab drivers, and the union disintegrated.

But times have changed, athletes have become more emboldened, and collective bargaining is here to stay. It’s time for NASCAR to realize that the drivers and the teams are the main attraction and deserve their fair share of the TV revenue.

NASCAR’s current 10-year, $8.2 billion TV deal with Fox and NBC runs through the 2024 season, and the sport is in negotiations for a new TV deal that could be worth more than a billion dollars per year.

Richmond-area native Denny Hamlin, one of the sport’s top drivers and part-owner of a race team, has been one of the most outspoken critics of NASCAR’s current revenue split. He warns that no TV network is going to want to negotiate a new deal with NASCAR if there is labor unrest on the horizon.

“I think NASCAR has to make a deal with us,” Hamlin said on a recent podcast. “I don’t see how you can go out and get the most money from a TV partner if you don’t have your house in order. No TV partner wants any interruptions in service. And with the teams publicly saying they weren’t happy with the deal, that could throw up red flags for TV.”

Currently, 65% of the TV revenue goes to the tracks, 25% goes to the teams and 10% goes to NASCAR. However, since NASCAR owns many of the tracks (13 to be exact) that host its races, it means NASCAR is getting 75% of the TV money; the teams and drivers are getting just 25%.

Could you imagine a 75%-25% split in the NBA or the NFL? Of course not. Those leagues essentially have a 50-50 revenue split with the players.

These drivers strap themselves behind the wheel of their 3,000pound land missiles and literally put their lives on the line every week for our entertainment.

Unlike the NBA, where a star player might sit out five games with a strained cuticle, there is no load management in NASCAR. Unlike the PGA Tour, where Tiger Woods in his heyday would never even play in half of the events, NASCAR drivers show up for all 36 races come hell or high water.

The stories of NASCAR drivers playing hurt are legendary.

The iconic Petty once raced with a broken neck. Former driver Ricky Rudd from Chesapeake, involved in a serious accident in a qualifying race, drove the next day with his eyes so swollen, he taped them open with duct tape. Current driver Kyle Busch won his first season championship in 2015 during a season when he broke his right leg and his left ankle during a crash at Daytona.

When Jimbo Fisher was the head football coach at Florida State, he served as the grand marshal of a race one summer at Daytona. When I talked to Fisher before that race, he was in absolute awe when discussing the toughness and dedication of NASCAR drivers.

“In NASCAR, they’re going to drive whether there’s rain, snow or sleet,” said Fisher, now the head coach at Texas A&M. “It’s a sport that is always there for you. You know, these guys are going to show up and race every week. That’s why many of us are such huge fans.”

And it’s why the sport needs to split up its billions more equitably.

It’s time for NASCAR to finally realize that the drivers and their teams are the show and deserve more of the dough.