So we’ve lost MLB games. Officially.
Raise your hand if you’re surprised. I’ll wait.
Of course no one is surprised. The finger pointing and the mismanagement – from both sides – is nauseating, and as Times Free Press ace sports columnist Mark Wiedmer rightly noted this week, both sides would rather take a Max Scherzer fastball to the kidney than think about the fans. Or the game.
(Side note: So, Monday was the deadline to not miss games, but now come details that the deadline was Tuesday at 5 p.m. Hmmmmmm, the moving deadline makes you wonder if they actually know the definition of a deadline, no?)
And that news comes as Rob Manfred was grinning in a news conference like the cartoon cat on a bag of Cheetos. Yes, we’ve known for sometime that the current commissioner of baseball is somewhere close to Ferris Bueller’s economics teacher as a public speaker, but his smirk makes me believe that we care more about missed games than the leader of the game does.
The layers and details show the greed of each side, and each has sticking points I can understand and agree with. The clubs want something resembling a salary cap system, because they will never be able to get a hard cap. That toothpaste is so far out of the tube, it dripped off on the counter onto the floor to the point that your wife slipped on it and now you have to sleep on the couch.
Alas. Stupid Rob Manfred. The players are set against a 14-team playoff field, because that will allow more mediocrity into contention and into the postseason – where the big checks come for the owners – without teams spending like the big-market contenders.
There is a slew of other bits that will be quibbled over, but it’s really all about the money. Isn’t it always?
AP photo by Wilfredo Lee / Baseball fans watch as MLB commissioner Rob Manfred speaks during a Tuesday news conference after negotiations with the players’ association toward a labor deal at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Fla.And the shining example of the back and forth that lands in the laps of local fans is the disappointing unraveling talks between the Atlanta Braves and Mr. Freddie Freeman.
The Braves are set on five years with Freeman. The market will give him more.
The Braves have made an offer they believe to be fair, and it’s an offer I believe Freeman would have taken if they had made it 12 months ago and not caused their first baseman to play the final year – injury risk all on Freeman – without a new deal and caused him to answer all those questions and worry about said lack of contract.
The Braves are hiding behind the corporate line when, in truth, they had record-setting second and third quarters last year, according to financial records The Athletic shared last week.
They also ranked in the top three in MLB attendance last year and are on pace to sell out of season tickets for whenever the 2022 schedule starts, and they have the advantages of The Battery, a team-friendly home complex that Cobb County helped pay for and the club shares in revenues across the entire compound.
Sure, the Braves will cry about their mediocre TV deal, but they are flush.
And moreover, they have a proven championship nucleus – with Freeman – that will be affordable by any measure for the next few years, considering the Braves could easily have Freeman, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies for around $50 million total for the next few years. That’s roughly what the New York Mets will pay Scherzer and a middle infielder. Advantage, Braves.
But the Braves will bemoan that Freeman’s wanted six-plus years will take him into his mid-30s, which is why the players want earlier contract reset clauses in the negotiations.
Alas, an impasse with no end in sight, and the unfortunate realization that we’ll get more Manfred sound bites before we get back to baseball.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and read his 5-at-10 column every Monday through Friday at 10 a.m. at timesfreepress.com.