Signs of labour showdown easy to see
With each passing day, it seems increasingly likely that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association are heading for a showdown in 2021.
The business side of the sport is broken. Veterans aren’t being compensated the way they used to be. Younger players are prioritized yet haven’t been paid accordingly. Not enough midmarket teams are trying to field competitive ball clubs.
There are a lot of issues. Plenty of solutions, too, of course, and nobody is saying a strike or a lockout in two years’ time is a foregone conclusion, but animosity between team owners and players has been building for quite some time and it feels like things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
The ill will was on full display Wednesday when MLBPA executive director Tony Clark lashed out at some innocuous comments made by former Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos.
The quote which drew Clark’s ire came when Anthopoulos was attempting to explain Atlanta’s decision to re-sign catcher Tyler Flowers and outfielder Nick Markakis. It could have been taken from any of Anthopoulos’s news conferences over the past decade. What’s telling is that it wasn’t an issue then but has become one now.
“Every day you get more information,” Anthopoulos told Atlanta reporters on a conference call. “And we’ve had time to connect with 27 of the clubs — obviously the Astros and (Nationals) being in the World Series, they were tied up — but we had a chance to get a sense of what the other clubs are going to look to do in free agency, who might be available in trades. So, the three weeks have been productive for us, just getting more information. All that shaped some of the decisions that we made.”
On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with what Anthopoulos said.
It’s common knowledge that GMs spend the bulk of October making plans for the following season and getting a feel for the market. If a team intends to shop an outfielder, it’s going to
call around to find out which clubs are looking for one. If an organization is looking for a starter, it’s going to explore which ones are available through trade before free agency begins.
During this process it’s natural to expect other information will be shared as well. A GM might offer up the names of other teams who have called about a specific player to create a bidding war. Gossip is shared about what other clubs are trying to accomplish. It’s called due diligence and separating the fact from fiction in those conversations is an integral characteristic of a successful front office.
Not surprisingly, the players don’t see it that way. They don’t think of this as an innocent fact-finding mission. The union views this as something far more sinister. Within the player ranks, quotes such as the one Anthopoulos gave earlier this week outline a much bigger problem.
“The statements made by Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos call into the question the integrity of the entire free-agent system,” Clark said in a statement Wednesday. “The clear description of club co-ordination is egregious, and we have launched an immediate investigation looking into the matter.”
The players are essentially accusing teams of colluding with each other in a blatant attempt to drive down salaries. Now that an official investigation has been launched, the next steps are likely to involve requesting information from the league and potentially filing a grievance.
A more drastic approach allows the MLBPA to seek a ruling from an arbitration panel to determine whether five or more teams were “acting in concert” with each other. If the MLBPA won the case, it could reopen the CBA after 60 days’ notice, instead of waiting until the end of 2021.
Collusion is difficult to prove, and Clark will need a lot more than some mundane comments from Anthopoulos to make his case. But there is precedent from the 1980s when players were awarded $280 million (U.S.) in damages after the league created an “information bank” to share offers made to players, as recently outlined by ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
The threat of legal action might seem far-fetched but it’s real enough that Anthopoulos was forced to retract his original comments and offer a clarification on what he meant to say.
“In advance of the general managers’ meetings, I called around to clubs to explore the possibility of potential offseason trades,” Anthopoulos said in a statement. “At no time during any of these calls was there discussion of individual free agents or the Braves’ intentions with respect to the free-agent market. To the extent I indicated otherwise during my media availability on Monday, I misspoke and apologize for any confusion.”
That’s hard to believe, but expecting the players’ association to prove collusion requires an even bigger leap of faith. That doesn’t mean this is a waste of time for Clark and his union brass. More than anything, this investigation appears to be a symbolic gesture to prove Clark has the players’ backs and that he’s preparing to address some difficult issues in the next round of talks.
Clark has put the league on notice and has struck a bit of fear into the front office of every team. He wants teams to know that the MLBPA is listening. Taking notes and gathering evidence. GMs who were paranoid to speak out of turn before will be even more tightlipped now.
The relationship between owners and players hasn’t been this fractured or this contentious in almost three decades, when labour strife was part of the daily discourse and eventually led to the cancellation of the 1994 season.
The current CBA expires in two years. There’s no imminent threat of a lockout or strike but both sides seem to be preparing for one just in case. Clark fired a warning shot. It might have been his first, but it won’t be his last.