Hard for Manfred to sidestep baseball’s issues
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Defensive. Defiant. Sweating under the lights.
And Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred still had 20 minutes to go.
“Everybody seems to approach this issue from the perspective of, ‘Gee, why aren’t the clubs signing players?’ ” Manfred said Sunday during a question-and-answer session there, and it’s a bilateral process. Players haven’t accepted those offers yet. That’s how a market works. We bargained for a market system. That market’s out there operating, and I don’t have any choice but to live with that.”
As of Sunday, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado — two of MLB’s biggest young and promotable stars — remained unsigned. Ex-Astros Dallas Keuchel and Marwin Gonzalez were also still available to all 30 teams. Which meant the questions just kept coming for Manfred, who increasingly became … what’s the right word?
Tense? Frustrated? Annoyed?
I’ll go with defiant and let the commish speak for himself.
“It would be nice to start with the facts on this topic. OK?” said Manfred, after being asked about mounting comments from very well-paid players who have highlighted MLB’s lack of overall competitiveness. “There has been no meaningful change in the distribution of winning percentages in Major League Baseball. The assertion that teams aren’t trying started last spring training with (MLB Players Association executive director) Tony Clark singling out four teams. OK? He did very poorly with those four teams.” Ooooh, burn.
More like, strike.
“It is not productive in terms of our business. I don’t think it’s good for our fans. I don’t think it’s
good for the players,” said Manfred, referring to constant public hints that a labor war is on the way. “And I know it’s not going to change the outcome of the negotiation — ultimately.”
Baseball has enjoyed bigpicture peace for 24 years. Baseball is baseball, though, which means the game that never changes is constantly under attack, especially in 2019.
An awkward 20-second pitch clock might be on the way and will be tested during spring training. It was easy to get the feeling that many of the decision-makers figuring out the hazy future of MLB aren’t too crazy about the shifts that have gotten so out of whack. (Like rebuilding/tanking, the Astros were ahead of the curve on defensive positioning leading to increased outs.) And even Manfred personally finds the use of openers to be an ugly art.
“The opener is an example of clubs … that may not have as many resources as other clubs thinking outside the box in creative ways in an attempt to win more games,” the commissioner said.
That is such a modern baseball answer.
It also sounds like someone describing the horrible 2011-13 Astros and ties directly into MLB’s rebuilding/tanking/competitiveness problem.
Credit to Manfred for standing up and taking it. He’s been more Adam Silver (NBA commissioner) than Roger Goodell (NFL king) during baseball’s improved post-Bud Selig days.
Manfred knows his sport has become too slow and boring. He’s pushed for hip change, pressed the union and consistently been transparent (in the positive use of that word).
But the commissioner began his message by teasing “great young players” who will come to define the upcoming 2019 season. (I guess it would be too hard for Harper and Machado, both 26, to promote the game they want hundreds of millions to play.) Then Manfred mentioned super-agent Scott Boras by name, kept referring to keeping it cool with Clark, and received Q after Q about the same pressing topics.
Free agency. Labor relations. Tanking. The uneven state of a still beautiful but increasingly conflicted sport.
“Who wants to go see some of these teams?” Astros ace Justin Verlander said during the first week of spring training. “Fans are smart. We ask them to pay their hard-earned money to come watch us play. If they want to do that, I think the organization should uphold a certain level of integrity and want to put a certain product on the field.”
Verlander won the 2017 World Series with a rebuilt franchise that lost 324 games from 2011-13.
Baseball — after all this time, still played with a ball, bat and glove in an open field — is trying to wrap its arms around a brave new world.
“The shift is controversial internally,” Manfred said. “Some people believe if we just eliminated the shift, we would kind of get baseball back to a more natural state. Other people think that eliminating the shift is likely to have outcomes that are unforeseeable to us, and it does divide our group a little bit.”
Boston had the highest payroll in MLB last season. The Red Sox won the World Series.
The NFL or NBA equivalent of Harper would have been triumphantly locked down in days — or simply re-signed with his original team.
And Manfred should know that inside the Astros’ clubhouse during the first week of spring training, several big names openly discussed the fact that only four or five teams have a shot to win the 2019 World Series — more than eight months before another Fall Classic is finished.
No wonder Manfred was so defiant on a gorgeous mid-February day in south Florida.
“You don’t want to change topics?” MLB’s commissioner joked. “I’m happy to change topics.”
Nice try.
The old game we still love has a ton of modern issues that aren’t going away any time soon.