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“Baseball Bidding Wars ^ Bean Balls”

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We’re one week out from the opening of spring training,, and they’re throwing at each other.

Anger, threats, a likely brawl coming.

It’s not the Dodgers vs Giants, or Padres vs Braves, but rather MLB owners against the Union.

This will get bloody before it gets better.

At issue, more than 110-unsigned free agents, still out there on a street corner.

The agents say it is a form of collusion, owners electing not to cave in and sign over the top contracts to baseball’s biggest names.

The union saying the owners have decided to use the recently negotiated luxury tax, as a salary cap, refusing to go over the top and having to pay exorbitant tax money.

The clubs saying they are doing business differently, using baseball metrics to determine who is worth big money. Teams now also want to retain their draft picks, not have to give them up as compensation. And teams are redirecting payroll to players from abroad.

The rhetoric has rocketed in recent weeks, including from super agent Scott Boras who represents five of the most expensive unsigned free agents out there.

Depending on which rumor you believe, clubs have made 5-and-6 year offers to Boras for his players, some in value over 100M, but he has not delivered his clients there.
How can you feel sorry for guys who have been offered 9-figure packages?

The debate rages too about if it is good business sense to give pitchers, some of Boras’ clients 5-6-7 year deals, knowing he history of pitching breakdown in the game.

The war of words also involved prime examples of history, clubs going the distance to get stars, only to be on the hook for outrageous salaries, when players breakdown or head to the twilight of their career. Call it the Albert Pujols syndrome.

Baseball’s landscape is more than just saber metrics, it’s about the international venue, scouting, player affordable investments. And all that spills over to affect Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, JD Martinez, Jake Arrieta, and a select few more.

You can blame the agents and players for asking more and more every year.

You can blame the union for losing at the negotiating table, agreeing to both an international pool cap, and then the luxury tax on payroll, with little thought to what happens down the road.

People may be unhappy, but the average salary is now at 4M per year, per player, so no one is starving.

Owners aren’t starving either, though we don’t really know their profit margins, but they have to be pretty high, considering baseball has become a 10-B a year industry, and everyone is flush in money.

Everything goes up, including ticket prices, concessions and parking for the fans. The fans are the only ones not making better money these days.

It’s pretty bitter out there right now, akin to a beanball war, and I don’t think this will be resolved soon. I doubt there will be a boycott of camps. Doubt there will be a work stoppage, since the CBA has a couple of more years to run.

But the next CBA is going to be a civil war This could be a beanball war that turns into a Civil War

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