COMPANY MAN'
Commish puts on happy face while ignoring MLB free - agency stagnation, delaying pace-of-play
S T. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Rob Manfred did the commissioner of baseball thing Thursday, opening a press conference by talking about the optimism and the positive momentum associated with a new season.
Then he spent most of the next 20 minutes parrying the questions suffocating the sport right now about pace — of both games and free-agent signings.
His upbeat attempt was to say “we believe that players who are major league players will eventually be signed.” Which makes sense because no one could imagine, for example, Lance Lynn going into plumbing supplies or Eric Hosmer opening a bait-and-tackle shop. Still, what hovers over it all is when signings will start, for how much and how bitter will the players and their union be about this historically slow market.
Speaking at Tropicana Field before the annual Governor’s Baseball Dinner to kick off spring training, Manfred also pledged pace of play/length of game rules would be in place next week, before spring games begin. The commissioner could do that by imposing rules he offered in writing to the union last year. But after little movement in negotiations on this matter, MLB officials seemed more encouraged that recent conversations with the union were netting some momentum and, thus, the likelihood of an agreement.
Manfred mentioned he has “delayed taking any action,” as he could have because, he said, “We have made it clear from the very, very beginning our preference was to have an agreement with the players, and in fact, we have significantly altered our substantive positions based on input we’ve had from players.”
The players have been most against having automatic ball or strike calls associated with violating a pitch clock, feeling that would fundamentally change the game. Thus, an accord could eliminate a pitch clock in 2018 and concentrate on quickening elements such as limiting visits to the mound and having players more quickly ready to play at the top of innings. Meanwhile, levels could be put in that if games do not speed up to, for example, less than a three-hour average, some kind of pitch clock would be instituted in 2019.
Speaking about research done by MLB that he explained was shared with the union, Manfred said, “The No. 1 issue that fans identify [as a problem] with respect to our great game is length of game and pace of the game.”
Manfred has been an activist commissioner on the speed of games; not so much on the speed of signings. He continued to state that this is a “market-based system” and that “markets operate differently from year to year.” Translation: Teams do not value, for example, players who will play large swaths of a contract in their thirties as highly as they once did and players have not refocused their expectations to match those changes.
He once again swatted away talk of collusion and concern that too many teams are forgoing a chance to win in the present to play the long game — aka, tanking. The lack of familiar movement in the market clearly annoyed the players association enough that it has been a factor in talks about pace of play.
I asked Manfred: If the union offered to reopen the collective bar- gaining agreement (which was finalized 14 months ago) and, say, give him one issue he didn’t get last time, notably a worldwide draft, would he be willing to make changes in arbitration, free agency or luxury-tax threshold levels that may better stimulate the market in the future?
“Not for economics [would he reopen],” Manfred said. “They wouldn’t do it for us.”
Indeed, part of what hovers over the tension now is that, for most of its existence, the players association got the better of MLB in negotiations. But that has not been the case in the past few collective bargaining agreement, notably this most recent one. Players should understand best that games already lost cannot be won, but lessons can be learned for next time.
The players, instead, should focus their fury on prepping for when this deal ends in 2021 — it will go quicker than you think — and deciding how to regain better footing on substantive economic issues.
Until then, no one is going to go poor playing in the majors (since Hosmer isn’t really opening a baitand-tackle place) and the players should take the forefront on pace of play because ultimately it is their game, not Manfred’s. They should take this out of the commissioner’s hands, recognize it will be good for the game, which is ultimately good for their wallets.
It is the players’ turn to do the optimistic thing and recognize the long game at play, not the problems of the moment.