Pitch clock ready for spring training
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that a 20-second pitch clock will be ready to roll for spring training games this week, as MLB “will get ready for the possibility of seeing a pitch clock by opening day.”
“The only prudent course for us is to be in a position to proceed — hopefully under our collectively bargained conditions,” he added.
Indeed, Manfred hopes to hammer out an agreement with MLB players’ association executive director Tony Clark on a pitch clock rather than unilaterally implement it, as is his right per the CBA.
But the clock is just one line item in a brewing labor showdown that began with last winter’s freeze-out of veteran players and continued this offseason as free agents Bryce Harper and Manny Machado — both in their prime, at 26, and both still MVP-caliber talents — remained available as spring training began.
The chorus of elite players ripping a mode of compensation that has flattened their pay even as industry revenue top $10 billion has been loud all winter, first on social media and then as camps opened last week.
Manfred did not waste his chance at the bully pulpit to respond.
In direct and veiled statements, Manfred shifted the blame of unmet expectations on super agent Scott Boras, whose dream of a $400 million deal for Harper will almost certainly go unfilled.
And while saying his relationship with Clark remained strong, he also chided the MLBPA chief for his February 2018 grievance that claimed the Rays, Marlins, Athletics and Pirates were not properly pouring revenue-sharing receipts into major league payroll.
Only the Marlins finished with a losing record in that bunch while the A’s made the playoffs with 97 wins.
“The assertion that teams aren’t trying started last spring training with Tony Clark singling out four teams,” Manfred said. “He did very poorly with those four teams. This narrative that our teams are not trying is just not supported by the facts. Every single team wants to win.
“It may look a little different to outsiders — the way people think about the game, the way a winning team is put together. That doesn’t mean teams are not trying.”
And he seemed particularly flummoxed at the threat of a player strike in 2021 floated by St. Louis pitcher Adam Wainwright.
“There is no personal acrimony between me and Tony Clark,” Manfred said. “I do believe it’s unfortunate, and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how to conduct good labor relations, to have people running around three years before an agreement expires, that there’s going to be a strike.
“I have a degree in labor relations. I’ve never heard that tactic.”
Indeed, most players have taken a far more sober approach to the endless winter. That doesn’t mean the resistance isn’t there.
“You look at overall revenue versus what the players are getting paid, it’s not correlated anymore,” Astros ace Justin Verlander told USA TODAY. “The value is decreased on players when it shouldn’t be; revenues are going up.
“I’ve got a great life and appreciate all that’s come my way. I’ve worked very hard for it. I get to play a sport for a job and make a lot of money doing it.