Rob Manfred Might Have Just Made a Mistake
Editor’s Note: as Ben Lindbergh’s recent piece at The Ringer illustrates, reasonable people can disagree on the proper methodology and calculus for determining the players’ share of baseball revenue. What follows is a view based on one such interpretation.
Before he was commissioner of baseball, before he was even in baseball, Rob Manfred was a lawyer. A Harvard-trained labor lawyer, to be precise, who had a successful stint at the elite law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. In fact, he’s still a registered lawyer, with an active New York law license.
Yesterday, Commissioner Manfred held a press conference that might have made Labor Lawyer Manfred cringe.
Manfred’s comments made headlines in a few different ways, but I want to focus on a couple of areas in particular. First among them is Manfred’s claim that player salaries are growing in line with revenues. That’s a matter of some debate, a point that has been illustrated both on this site and others. Manfred went on to say that “players who are major league players will eventually be signed.” This is technically true, but also a convenient tautology from his point of view. Players who are given major-league contracts will, by definition, be major-league players. This doesn’t necessarily mean the players signed will be the ones most qualified for the position, or that the players who haven’t signed are less qualified than those who have.
Manfred then went one step further, contending that the players are “[d]rawing a line in the sand based on a perception that [their] market value is different than what the market is telling you your value is,” and that doing so “doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
Remember that Manfred was not a unanimous choice for commissioner. In fact, on the first vote, he didn’t have enough support to win outright. The opposition to Manfred came largely from owners afraid that Manfred wouldn’t be tough enough in negotiations with the labor union, perhaps owing to his background as a labor lawyer. It seems that Manfred, once in office, has tacked hard towards that very bloc of owners who opposed him.
From one perspective, this makes sense. Manfred, as commissioner, represents the owners. They are, in a sense, his clients. Manfred is experienced and intelligent enough to know how best to serve their interests. But this is a dangerous game he’s playing, perhaps more so than he realizes.
Nathaniel Grow has already done a fine job over the past couple of months laying out on this very site the limited leverage the MLBPA has in combating the current situation. After all, the union agreed to this CBA. As Nathaniel explained, the MLBPA’s best (and only) option may be the drastic step of disbanding the union and filing an antitrust suit. Before Manfred’s press conference, I thought the odds of a suit like that were pretty long, simply because of the risk involved to the union and its longstanding risk-averse behavior. But I’d say the odds of something like that happening went up significantly yesterday with Manfred’s press conference.
Here’s why. At its core, an antitrust suit essentially alleges anti-competitive behavior by firms which are supposed to be competing, thereby driving down prices artificially. And Manfred’s comments, viewed from a legal perspective, would support the MLBPA’s case.
Any antitrust case is really about whether or not the market at the core of the industry you’re suing about is competitive. So when Manfred says that the market is dictating what players are receiving, that’s an admission. Think about it: if the numbers show that contract values are down, that players are receiving fewer years and less money, and that fewer players are signing, with all else equal, then something in the market must have changed. And here is Manfred, confirming that the market is to blame. Even worse, that line about the players’ demands not making sense is basically telling the players to accept this new reality because that’s just the way it is.
And that’s why Manfred’s contention about player salaries rising is so damning. If he were to admit salaries are falling, or rising more slowly than revenues, at the same time he’s blaming market conditions, he’d be opening a Pandora’s box of questions as to why that is. But by insisting that revenues are rising, Manfred is instead basically trying to cover up those changing market conditions. In the short term, maybe it’s a fine PR strategy. In the event of a lawsuit, his claim, repeated over and over, becomes evidence of MLB’s intent. Actively papering over those market changes becomes evidence of possible intent behind those market changes and transforms the 2017-18 offseason from a one-year blip into evidence of possible anti-competitive behavior by MLB itself.
In fact, if I were MLBPA’s lawyers, I’d be making a record of yesterday’s press conference. I’d be making a video record and a transcript. Because if there is a lawsuit, that’s going to be Exhibit A at Manfred’s deposition and prominently featured at a trial.
So what could Manfred do differently? Actually, he could do a lot differently. He could admit the facts on the ground and concede both that salaries aren’t rising with revenues and that the current free-agent market is concerning. That would, at least, provide some evidence that MLB isn’t intentionally trying to create this situation, and it would have the added benefit of being true. Telling the truth is rarely a suboptimal strategy, and while it might give the union some short-term leverage, it would also mitigate the long-term damage caused by a pointless cover-up.
Alternatively, Manfred could just say nothing at all. Instead, though, he’s trying to talk tough. Perhaps it’s for more short-term leverage with the union. Perhaps it’s to get his pace-of-play reforms rammed down the union’s throat. Perhaps it’s to please the hardline owners he represents. But as a lawyer, he has to think big picture, and that includes the potential for a future lawsuit when the time comes to negotiate the next CBA. Instead, yesterday, a formerly elite labor lawyer came up very short.
Sheryl Ring is a litigation attorney and General Counsel at Open Communities, a non-profit legal aid agency in the Chicago suburbs. You can reach her on twitter at @Ring_Sheryl. The opinions expressed here are solely the author's. This post is intended for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice.
Pretty sure I read that average salaries ARE on the rise, though.
But not in line with the increasing league revenue, which is what Manfred said.
So my statement is factually correct, that average salaries are increasing, but the rate of that increase is less than the rate of increase in league revenue.
Not sure how that gets me a boatload of down-votes, but whatever.
Because no one ever claimed otherwise, but your first comment seemed to indicate that someone *did* claim otherwise — which they didn’t.
you’re not sure? Because you’re being disingenuous. And then you feign ignorance. Because you’re arguing for a point that wasn’t ever claimed. Are player salaries growing in line with revenues? You don’t even recognize that question, but instead conflate it and say that player salaries are rising while leaving out the “with revenues” piece. When you’re so obviously dishonest in presenting an argument, you earn down votes. This ain’t rocket surgery.
Settle down, beavis. If players wanted their salaries directly linked to revenues, they should have held out for that. If they want both the security of guaranteed money and the upside of revenue sharing, good luck with that!
0.4% last year, 3.4% the year before. Maybe negative this year. This after a decade where the average growth was 5% except at the height of the Great Recession where even revenues fallened for a couple of years. Revenue growth is robust now so no excuse.
Where are you getting that data? The data from statista shows 14% growth in the huge boom of 16, and 2% growth last year.
YR AVG$ %Change
15: 3.84
16: 4.38 +14%
17: 4.47 +2%
https://www.statista.com/statistics/236213/mean-salaray-of-players-in-majpr-league-baseball/
I think your argument would be better if MLB had a CBA more like the NBA where there is a formula for player compensation directly tied to BasketballRelated Income. Manfred’s more damning statements relative to collusion were made when he acknowledged that he knew there were multiple 9 figure offers to three free agents. That sounds like the kind of collusion/price fixing from the 1980’s era collusion cases. That statement sounds a lot like teams notifying each other of what their bids are and agreeing not to go over a certain amount. The only way to really change the problems in the current CBA from the players perspective is going to require a harder line on earlier free agency. Most players don’t have 6 year careers so the benefits of free agency seem disproportionately weighted in favor of a smaller group of union members, but Union leadership and agents don’t care.
Bingo. Manfred’s knowledge of club offers was very, very curious.
Is he not allowed to read MLB Trade Rumors like the rest of us? He probably shouldn’t be putting it in official statements but it’s not like this is something other than widely-available public information at this point.
But we do not know for a fact that the reported offers are actually there, and Manfred is speaking as though they are confirmed facts.
I also think there’s a strong case to be made that the number of teams purposely tanking is evidence of “anti-competitive” behavior. Furthermore, if what Manfred said is true there could even be documents from the sale of Marlins that would show that MLB was well aware that one of its teams intended to tank (engage in anti-competitive behavior) and essentially was complicit in the tactic. Then again, I’m not a lawyer, and took all of one Con Law class in college.
The Marlins tanking wouldn’t be anti competitive. However 2 or 3 (or more) teams saying “Lets all agree not to pay more than $x amount for corner outfielders” would be.
The purpose of tanking is, in theory at least, about maximizing your future potential (draft picks) when your present potential doesn’t reasonably seem very good. Which at its worst is a thin veil of competition, and at its best, converting unlikely competition into likely competition.
This whole “hate billionaires” ideology that drives this collusion nonsense is just that – nonsense.
Hate billionaires? I admit to believing that having billions of dollars is fundamentally immoral. Nobody in America lives more than 20 miles from somebody in abject poverty. And after accounting for growth wealth is zero sum
Every dollar capital has is one dollar labor does not.
But pointing out iniquity of distribution isn’t nonsense.
There isn’t a stone tablet from on high that dictates what percentage of revenue should go to labor or capital.
That’s a cultural and to some extent, moral question. It’s not hate.
There’s a reasonably large number of people in America who live more than 20 miles from the next person period.
And after accounting for growth wealth is zero sum
This is just flatly silly too. If you want to make this argument try doing it better.
So Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, George Soros are fundamentally immoral?
It also betrays a startling ignorance of economics to say something like “Every dollar capital has is one dollar labor does not.” Capital investments are what make wages grow.
The Marlins’ asses are actually covered by the fact that they have no revenue, haha
I don’t agree with that at all. In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite. Teams are simply acting to maximize their potential to win big. FOs have learned that being in the middle doesn’t really help you much.
I agree with your three points especially the first two. Manfred better be able to detail that he got info from agents.
“So when Manfred says that the market is dictating what players are receiving, that’s an admission.”
No, that’s just the definition of the word “market”.
“Think about it: if the numbers show that contract values are down, that players are receiving fewer years and less money, and that fewer players are signing, with all else equal, then something in the market must have changed.”
The problem with this is that *all else isn’t equal*. This isn’t an admission of any sort by Manfred, just Manfred implicitly saying that this year’s FAs are worse than (e.g.) last year’s. It’s really not hard to defend his statement this way: the market is exactly the same, but the goods being sold simply aren’t as good as they once were (or might be again in the future).
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that the players’ position has significantly worsened in the last decade, but this particular press conference of Manfred’s, I don’t see in any way how it can lead to antitrust liability. The most reasonable interpretation is also the simplest, and doesn’t have any collusion implications.
If that were true, Manfred wouldn’t have to lie about salaries rising with revenues. *That’s* the key here.
where is it written that salaries have to rise with revenues? and on an equal level?
MLB as a league; is a form of artificial competition in an economic sense. Leagues, like unions, limit their competition to the benefit of the whole membership.
No one said that has to be the case. But Manfred is asserting that IS the case, which isn’t true. He could have just said “This year seems to be a one-year blip for all sorts of possible reasons….blah blah blah.” He didn’t say that. He lied and said that they are still rising with regard to revenue.
You say it isn’t true – and so does the author – but neither of you can back that up.
The claim Manfred made was not a general as it was presented to be in this article. He said –
“We have been at a very stable — approximately 50 percent of revenue going to player salaries — for five, six, seven years,” Manfred said.
The author says that is false (and later, a “lie”), but offers only three links to prove it.
The first link doesn’t even touch on that issue, let alone supply evidence for her claim.
The second and third links do supply evidence for her claim, but that evidence is controverted. The AP published a study in March 2016 concluding:
Financial data released by Major League Baseball to The Associated Press showed the big leaguers’ share of net revenue was between 48.5 percent and 51.7 percent each year since 2006.
The source for the third article’s data is self-described in the following way:
Graph made by an idiot Microsoft Excel user (me) with player salary data from Cot’s Contracts and league revenue data from Forbes.
The source for the second article’s data is fangraphs’ Nathaniel Grow. He claims to have drawn from “USA Today’s revenue estimates and Cot’s Contracts payroll estimates”. The article was published in 2015 and does not match the data from the third link’s author.
The data from the Associated Press study came directly from MLB.
You might suspect that MLB was falsifying the data it supplied to AP, but in doing so you would be disagreeing with the head of the player’s association, Tony Clark.
At worst, Manfred’s claim could be described as controversial. It cannot be fairly described as false or a lie without the person making those descriptions showing their work.
Tony Clark’s quote on this issue, when he has seen the actual financial data and when he has every reason in the world to deny it if it weren’t true, is really the end of the inquiry on this issue.
Ms. Ring, what you call a “lie” and “obviously not true” is in fact at best a debated point, at least over a several year period.
This point has frequently been raised by numerous commenters when Nathaniel Grow would write on this topic.
See http://www.chroniclet.com/national-news/2016/03/21/AP-study-players-share-of-Major-League-Baseball-revenues-remain-stable-over-past-decade.html , for example. It quotes an AP study concluding the MLB players’ percent of MLB revenue was basically the same from 2006 to 2016, with fluctuations within a narrow range. Tony Clark is quoted as saying that the MLBPA basically agrees with that conclusion. And, unlike Nathaniel Grow or others viewing this situation from the outside, the MLBPA actually has access to underlying team financial information because it is entitled under the CBA to see teams’ financial information that’s submitted to calculate revenue sharing.
Is it possible that this year’s payrolls will deviate from that trend? Perhaps, but it’s still an open question (1) what those payrolls will actually be once everyone signs, (2) whether they’re still within the long-term trend, and (3) whether it’s a one-year blip before much better free agent classes after both the 2018 and 2019 seasons.
So, let me turn your question around: What could Ring do differently? Do more research on this topic and consider sources that go beyond the apparent groupthink of several Fangraphs writers on this topic.
When is the last time one of the ‘Boras meme’ writers used a table with accurate data, sound analysis, and honest conclusions?
This is the worst type of analysis- i.e., we know the authors’ ax-to-grind regardless the topic or title. It’s the same with Nathaniel who has been recycling his law school papers as agenda-pushing “research articles” – clearly simply looking to push his talking points. But by bringing on a labor lawyer as a contributor, FG’s is heavily investing in this ‘least popular fangraphs talking point ever’ series.
The idea that Manfred said anything that can be used for legal leverage is laughable and dishonest.
We all understand that- if you change the definition of ‘revenue’ that the MLB and MLBPA have agreed upon, and if you throw in non-baseball related one-time sales revenue, then you can dispute Manfred’s statement that wages have grown proportionally to revenue.
But everyone interested in this matter knows that MLB and MLBPA have made agreements concerning net revenue. Manfred is speaking about net revenue, Clark is speaking about net revenue, the CBA deals with net revenue. Every single thing that could be said accurately about net revenue will of course not be accurate for gross revenue.
Really poor stuff, hard to imagine the content from these new authors getting worse at fangraphs- this is already Deadspin, ESPN quality stuff.
The author is definitely not a labor lawyer (nor someone with antitrust expertise).
“Manfred wouldn’t have to to lie” Wow, what is he, Dr. Evil or something?
Manfred and the owners are likely dishonest, but that doesn’t mean the Boras memes are true.
No problem at all with an author critiquing Manfred as dishonest – just wish the article wouldn’t be similarly dishonest, and that the new fangraphs writers would stop carrying water for Boras/CAA talking points, a key feature of which is undermine the head of the players’ union with a misinformation campaign.
Sure. As are Tony Clark, Boras, etc. The point I was trying to make is that lately the owners have been made into the villains while the players are the innocent babes in the woods being taken advantage of,
If you believe Manfred is lying about this issue, there a plenty of reasons that could motivate such a lie.
Collusion – which you say must be motivation – requires anti-competitive practices. A group of horizontal competitors choosing not to pay 9 for something worth, at max, 6.5, cannot possibly be anti-competitive.
Actually, that’s not correct. The price is determined by the market. Assets can be overvalued or undervalued depending on demand. When there’s a lot of demand, price will be pushed up, even beyond expected value, because the asset is wanted, even at a luxury price. When there’s little demand, bargains are possible. But a group of horizontal competitors interested in an asset, but not compelled to buy it, are tremendously advantaged by knowledge of all the bids.
I’m not saying collusion occurred but disagree with your underlying assumption.
Anti-competitive practice has a legal definition, it is not just whatever people think based on vague economic theory. Your theory that collusion can exist when the price point has become unprofitable is 100% wrong legally.
Horizontal restraints of trade that can be defined as collusion must involve anti-competitive practices- i.e. an agreement, or concerted action, not to go up to a certain price despite the price point still being competitive.
No assumption, just using standard legal definitions.
A good trial lawyer knows not to call the other side a liar when you can’t back it up, otherwise you lose all your credibility.
I agree, I don’t see why the quote is damning, “a perception that [their] market value is different than what the market is telling you your value is”
What he is saying is that the players “market value” (he meant what the players THINK is their market value) is higher than what the market bears.
I’m strongly for the players, but you are misreading the quote to find an admission of collusion. The quote is not evidence in support of either viewpoint.
If this is true: “player salaries are growing in line with revenues”
And this is true: “a perception that [their] market value is different than what the market is telling you your value is”
Then this can’t be true: ” if the numbers show that contract values are down, that players are receiving fewer years and less money, and that fewer players are signing, with all else equal, then something in the market must have changed”
However, it is! We can eaisly calculate expected salaries while evaluating signed contracts with the metrics known, if the first two claims (Manfred’s) are true. We have a device to compare players within an offseason and across offseasons – WAR. We can easily verify Manfred’s statements.
However! As Sheryl notes, something in the market must have changed because, all else equal, contracts are different this free agency.
The latest CBA implemented anti-competitive measures through restricted spending ideals. The players have the grounds on which to sue MLB for this anti-competitive market structure based on the teams’ behaviors. This says nothing of collusion, but that’s not the case the players would sue on.
The MLB CBA is not like the NBA CBA where there is a formula set up for players salaries (overall) to go up in proportion to Basketball Related Income. The MLB owners can simply point to overall salaries going up, which they are compared to 2017, and defend that position in Court. This Anti Trust argument based on Manfred’s comments quoted here is just flat out stupid.
I agree that something is different this year. His statement that salaries are growing in line with revenues is INCORRECT. I don’t see how that makes his other statement turn into an admission of collusion.
The statement that is being uncarefully quoted and paraphrased may be incorrect, but Manfred’s actual statement is not.
“We have been at a very stable — approximately 50 percent of revenue going to player salaries — for five, six, seven years,” Manfred said.
The comports with the only study of the issue that drew on MLB’s own data rather than some third party’s estimate of it. That study, published by the AP in 2016, was not disputed by the MLBPA.
Yup, here is the source.
http://www.chroniclet.com/national-news/2016/03/21/AP-study-players-share-of-Major-League-Baseball-revenues-remain-stable-over-past-decade.html
It’s not deadspin or Travis/Craig/Nathaniel, it’s an actual serious minded study that doesn’t intentionally pretend to be confused over the gross/net revenue distinction.
No- you have no evidence of what you claim at all, which is why (like these new authors) you use no data whatsoever.
2014 saw a record FA spend, 11% higher than the prior record. Then 2016 offseason saw $2.4b spent on FAs- a 33% increase on the prior record spend. 2018 opening day payroll is projected to be $138 or higher- again another record. And 2019 is projected to break a number of records for player compensation, with near $1b alone going to two FAs.
There are zero facts to support your argument- just a vague reference to Hosmer/Arrieta/Martinez sitting on mega contract offers (that pay them more than $9m/WAR), as if that somehow shows that compensation is down.
Yes, this is correct.
There is nothing in Manfred’s statements that is concerning from an antitrust perspective at all. None of these quotes would be concerning in the slightest if Manfred were questioned about them in a deposition.
>This isn’t an admission of any sort by Manfred, just Manfred implicitly saying that this year’s FAs are worse than (e.g.) last year’s.
it’s not really even saying that necessarily. the market structure has changed. it’s right in the CBA, which the players agreed to. the luxury tax draft pick penalties compel clubs to value free agents differently than they did under the last CBA.
arguably, players salaries ARE rising commensurate to revenues CONDITIONALLY upon the restructuring of the market under the new CBA.
as you said, all things are *not* equal.
MLBPA did this to themselves by going to sleep on how they’ve inflated the value of free agents by using past CBAs to structure the market in that way. they’ve deliberately depressed the cost of kids and journeymen and international signings to funnel available money into a narrow pool of aging free agents, resulting in those free agents being hugely compensated. the value proposition has gotten so out of whack that clubs have been responded by overprioritizing the draft — which is why we now see tanking used so commonly.
and then, somehow, MLBPA failed to realize how important they’d made the draft to the clubs and tied first round draft pick positions to the luxury cap, giving it real teeth!
Manfred could not have done that without the help of Tony Clark & Co.
Agreed, market forces will dictate the demand for these players just like every other industry. Having successful first six years does not obligate any team to shell out big money for FAs and just because revenues rise does not mean teams need to continue foolishly paying FAs salaries way beyond their marginal contributions. Manfred is absolutely right when he said agents have failed to properly calculate the market value of their clients. Teams have been paying huge amounts of surplus to FAs above their marginal contributions for a long time and teams are realizing that it just simply is not worth it in the short or long term perspective.
The MLB owners don’t open their books to anyone, so reporters have to track down and estimate revenue numbers, right?
How does it work for the NFL and NBA? Do the team owners in those sports make their books public? Or at least open to some sort of arbiter or oversight committee?
I think that’s what MLB needs: some committee that gets to see the owners revenue numbers, so that a certain percentage of the money generated by the players goes to the players. Somewhere around 50%.
The CBA’s in the NBA and NFL have a set percentage of “related” revenues set aside for player compensation so yes there is more transparency in that regard. MLB doesn’t have that and the closest it gets is the clubs have to disclose income for revenue sharing purposes. Manfred’s comments are not some kind of smoking gun and the idea they are is nonsensical.
@scooter262: the MLBPA has access to club financial information, specifically the information (including audited financial statements) that is provided for purposes of the revenue sharing plan.
See the CBA, with those information rights on pages 145 and 146 – http://www.mlbplayers.com/pdf9/5450407.pdf
So, broadly speaking, this “committee” you’re proposing that sees team financial information on behalf of the players already exists.
And, while there are admittedly ways that a team could generate revenue that doesn’t run through the team as an entity, consider that the numbers in question are the ones that are used to calculate revenue sharing. With the revenue sharing formula, one team understating its revenue has an impact on the net payments or receipts of all 29 other teams. I therefore don’t know how you’re going to find a set of numbers on which teams have a better motivation to self-police. There are, BTW, provisions in the CBA for an Administrator to conduct its own audit of the numbers from any team, including at the request of the MLBPA.
Great post.
The only parties that have access to the information (MLB, MLBPA, CBA Administrator, & AP) all say net revenue is split about 50-50. Admittedly, this means that the player share of gross revenue must be less than 50%- as its otherwise impossible that net revenue be split 50-50.
Nearly every poster here is strongly in favor of capping ownership take, dramatically re-allocating revenue to the underpaid contributors that make the game great. But this series of articles is Boras/CAA talking point nonsense.
I assume this PR push is being made this offseason because it would be impossible to do so next offseason (kind of like the crowded HOF ballot PR campaign from earlier this offseason- with the next 5 HOF classes basically barren). Nearly every poster agrees with the pro-labor sentiment but there is a large objection to the data-less analysis, anti-factual talking points, circular sourcing, and slick, dishonest refusal to address the issues brought up by fangraphs readers (i.e. net/gross revenue, MLBAM proceeds, shifting the focus to the underpaid rather than Boras clients, etc.)
Frustratingly poor content dominates this site now.
The MLB made its data available to the AP in 2016. The AP concluded:
Financial data released by Major League Baseball to The Associated Press showed the big leaguers’ share of net revenue was between 48.5 percent and 51.7 percent each year since 2006.
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2016/03/21/only-on-ap-mlb-ups-prospect-spending-overall-pct-steady/82066142/
The MLBPA also has access to the data and has not disputed these findings.
What a well thought out and well written article.
Well done Ms. Ring
Time to grab some popcorn. This could be a fun show.
Thank you for your wonderful perspective and welcome to the site (a few days late on my welcome, my apologies!), Sheryl.
No, no, no. Saying that the market is determining what players (rather than agents and players) are worth is NOT the same thing as saying that there’s collusion. Ring’s flagrant bias is showing and it’s a shame for Fangraphs. I’m done reading.
Did you even read the article?
Saying the market determines player salaries is not saying there is collusion. Lying about the state of the market, which just implemented anti-competitive regulations, then claiming the market is fair and just in determining salaries, is what implies anti-competitive behavior.
I trust a lawyer over a random commenter.
Myself, I trust a lawyer with Manfred’s bona fides backed up by however many lawyers MLB has at hand to pre-parse every public burp the Commissioner makes over whatever random lawyer Fangraphs has the resources to come up with. I’m sure Ring’s perfectly competent; just why would you bet on her over Manfred and MLB’s Legal Legion??
Your argument is basically MLB has a lot of resources and so they can’t make mistakes?
I see an insular group of people whose org tendencies check a lot of boxes for “how to make bad decisions”.
Up until Manfred went and released a statement that seems to have no apparent purpose except for emotional venting, I would have agreed.
How does Manfred’s act of providing a clear, to-the-point, answer about revenue split demonstrate ’emotional venting?’
Nobody asked.
i agree, but also
> the market, which just implemented anti-competitive regulations
markets are always and everywhere regulatory constructions, but MLBPA agreed to everything about the current market structure just 15 months ago. no one imposed and implemented anything against them. they wanted this. they agreed to it. they were excited to get it done.
in that sense, it is completely and entirely fair — just as it was when MLBPA got the owners to agree to free agency in the first place. there’s nothing anti-competitive about it.
Manfred did not lie about the market. The author claims that he did, but fails to make that case.
Ring’s [willful?] omission of the only study on the issue ever done using MLB data itself rather than third party estimates is an unstable basis for characterizing the situation as you have.
Exactly- she cites Nathaniel only really. Both Deadspin and Craig merely cite Nathaniel. Nathaniel’s work cites only to a defunct website BizofBaseball.
It would be one thing if the authors at least acknowledged the study.
Consider if this series were written as follows:
* We know that net revenue is supposedly split 50-50, but because gross revenue is expanding due to MLB tech, we think players ought to pivot towards a 50-50 split of gross revenue
or
* We know that the AP study found a 50-50 split, but we think that there were flaws to that study
or
* We recognize that most fans want to improve working conditions for minor leaguers, major league minimum players, international free agents, etc., – and to a lesser extent FAs- so how can the union start representing these parties better (some as third party beneficiaries)?
or
* What can be done to help Tony Clark achieve his vision and mandate as given to him by the players?
Instead we get constant Boras/CAA talking points and a refusal to have a serious discussion with the relevant information.
Agreed, she is likely in a tough spot.
Fangraphs has decided to bombard it’s audience with Boras/CAA talking points. Coming on as a labor lawyer, the remit will obviously involve recycling these same Nathaniel/Craig/Travis articles. It’s not easy when a writer is assigned the task of peddling nonsense.
Sympathies for the dud remit, but this work is poor.
Is she even a labor lawyer? The note at the end of the article indicates she is a “consumer rights” attorney. Big difference.
Worse than getting told what I already know is dismissively being told that I know something I don’t.
I’m still waiting for some convincing evidence that Manfred’s claim is false. Craig’s article is based on extrapolation from an incomplete offseason, and there are some legitimate questions about the source of his data that have never been directly addressed. Meanwhile, Nathaniels’ post from 2015 and the more recent one from Deadspin are basically the identical articles, based on the exact same datasets. I typically need more than one less-than-airtight reference before I “know” anything with certainty.
There’s also an unspoken assumption that growth needs to demonstrate smooth, unbroken exponential growth. Is this not something worth questioning?
At the risk of spamming the thread, here is the only study ever done using MLB’s own data rather than a third party estimate:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2016/03/21/only-on-ap-mlb-ups-prospect-spending-overall-pct-steady/82066142/
Financial data released by Major League Baseball to The Associated Press showed the big leaguers’ share of net revenue was between 48.5 percent and 51.7 percent each year since 2006.
This doesn’t sound like much of a legal argument, as Manfred’s language could just as easily be the result of sloppy PR work. If both “causes” — both hypotheses — produce an identical result, you can’t prove anything, even if collusion is really happening.
But the writer does well to suggest that Manfred is acting in bad faith by telling obvious lies, and I think that cannot help MLB in negotiations with the players. As the writer notes, Manfred seems to be playing to his base; that can be sufficient in politics to push an agenda, but Manfred eventually needs to make the players his partners, not his adversaries, to avoid a strike.
If, in future, the writer could cite some precedence (legal or popular), I would be most grateful. Could be a baseball blog first!
Won’t be a first. She did it in her great article on Miami and the Marlin’s sale.
Citing precedents might be more helpful.
Attendance is trending slightly down. TV revenues are expected to drop because of lost viewership. Isn’t most of the revenue increase due to MLBAM? Wasn’t some of that sold off? The fans are the other stakeholder in this and prices (ticket, parking, concessions) may have ballooned to the point fan base is lost. Since families cannot afford to attend, the loss may be permanent as kids won’t have ballpark memories with the family. I would think owners should be cutting costs, including player salaries, to bring prices down for fans. At the least, they need to prepare for a smaller TV contract when renegotiated in three years. Who represents the fan at the table and in the courts?
Ticket prices are determined by what the market will bear, not by player salary. Money that owners are saving on players goes into their pockets, not into yours.
The price a good ends up at is the intersection of the demand and supply curves, with the position and slope of the latter absolutely affected by costs. But given how heavily taxpayer subsidized the more expensive tickets are, my guess is a near flat demand curve would very much minimize any cost reductions translated into price. (but not eliminate them altogether)
I assume the demand curve is slightly negative (and perhaps accelerating) for both attendance, TV and merchandise sales. That will lead to lower prices for most mid-range and low-range tickets.
Unfortunately, corporate ticket purchases drive the price up beyond the wallet of many families. So the market isn’t very useful for developing a broad fanbase.
This is a great point. Owners are committing to future expenses when signing players. Why would they look at current revenues (as Ring argues they should)? Like any other business, MLB teams need to project the future. What they are suggesting this spring is that they are uncertain or outright bearish about future revenue growth. I do not blame them, considering attendance has declined 5 out of the last 6 seasons.
Probably a stupid question, but how does this work with MLB’s antitrust exemption? Isn’t it already established that baseball is a monopoly?
“markets operate differently from year to year”, Manfred quoted from the news conference.
I have no problem with this statement. Until I see evidence to support the claim he is lying… that all else is equal, as the writer seems to believe, I am not swayed toward the players beef here. If we come into the 2019 FA signings and find that teams are shy about that crop of players, then it is a different story.
I look at it as a supply and demand issue as well. From that view this FA class is poorly positioned.
An AFL-CIO report, cited by workers at Harvard University when they first tried to unionize more than 20 years ago, named Morgan Lewis & Brockius as one of the top five “union avoidance” firms in the U.S., a fancy name for union-busters. They are also Trumps tax advisor but thats beside the point
Manfred has been working with MLB on CBA negotiations and labor issues since 1987, which if people remember was a collusion year and at a time players had already filed a grievance
To imply Manfred is not a hard liner on labor
Is hard to fathom. Also he headed the Biogenesis investigation which included some shady behavior on the part of his investigators.
If anything , resistance to Manfred as owner may have been from owners afraid he was too much of a hardliner. I cant say I know this though.
As for any anti-trust lawsuit, MLB is exempt from anti-trust laws and in this political and judicial climate where the cult of neoliberalism rules, its just not smart to challenge the exemption and might even be what Manfred wants to bust the union. BTW, a partner at Morgan Lewis was nominated by Trump to fill the 5th seat of the NLRB
MLB anti-competitive befavior is quite simply is Collusion and thats against the CBA. No need to go to court, arbitration is good enough to start
MLB will argue that it is simply conscious parallelism which by itself is not collusion, but can be considered collusion if MLBPA proves plus factors exist, in which case it may be considered tacit collusion. This similar behaviour by 30 owners seemed to come about when Manfred took over as commissioner, and for 30 separate owners to act in unison stretches the concept of conscious parallelism as an argument. The concept is generally limited to industries where a handful of companies control 80% of the market and can result in price leadership where everyone follows to the mutual benefit of the owners, and in this case against labor.
Contrary to popular opinion explicit collusion with hard evidence of a formal agreement need not be proved.
Once the season starts I expect a formal charge of collusion to be filed. Circumstantional evidence is plentiful. The salary/signing data is Exhibit A and GM ‘s being quoted by Passan in November they would hold off signing to February to get the beat deal is Exhibit B. Manfreds statements as the
author correctly points out is definitely going to help.
I think you overstate your case. I do not think you can prove or even reasonably argue that all 30 teams are acting in concert–tacitly or otherwise. Different teams have different MOs and a team like the Brewers just handed out one of the largest contracts in franchise history while the Marlins are in a total sell-off. Yu Darvish (of tommy john surgery and recent performance woes) just landed a 6 year deal. With super teams like HOU, LAD, NYY, CLE, WAS, CHI, it just does not make sense for teams like the Braves, Rangers, Pirates, etc. to go out and bid up mid-level free agents asking prices when the expected value on their playoff chances is minimal and the marginal improvement some of the unsigned free agents could offer teams like Houston or Cleveland is also minimal.
You dont have to prove all 30 teams are colluding. Just some or most of them.
The 2nd WC means teams dont have to compete with Super Teams, and the playoffs are a roll of the dice
Really think you are confusing the issues. “Competitive” in terms of winning a WS and “competition” in the anti-trust context are two entirely different things. When the Astros tanked and ran embarrassingly low payrolls that was not anti-competitive from an anti-trust standpoint. Anti-trust law doesn’t require businesses to lose money or to spend for the sake of spending.
In addition you’ve yet to provide any route to persuasively prove that “most” teams are colluding (especially when it is clear numerous teams are going in very different directions)–particularly the kind of evidence that would persuade a court to award relief.
Lastly, neither you nor the author has offered up what plausible relief an arbitrator or court would award. There is greast deference to collective bargaining in American jurisprudence so courts resist getting in the way where sophisticated parties have collectively bargained. Here, two sophisticated parties represented by counsel negotiated this CBA that did not include a salary floor, did include a luxury tax and draft pick compensation and still left most players 30 or older when they hit FA. The current market could easily be a foreseeable result of those mechanicss and the MLBPA would have a hard time, absent actual and persuasive evidence of collusion, overcoming the judiciary’s deference to collective bargaining to step in here.
Good points about Manfred.
But the issue many commentators are having, IMO, is simply with poor writing and CAA/Boras talking points nonsense by fangraphs.
Manfred and the owners being anti-labor jerks doesn’t make Boras/CAA pro-labor good guys. Infact, no agent is cozier with ownership than Boras- he doesn’t represent the little guys or the players generally, he cuts deals with the Manfred types to screw over the rest.
There is literally no evidence at all that FA spending is declining, that $/WAR is declining, or that net revenue split is substantially different than 50/50. The data instead shows a recent 7% growth in average MLB salary, a record breaking 2016 FA market that blew away all previous records by so much (33%) that it is only natural that it will take a couple of years to surpass it- and now a 2019 FA market that is also shaping up as a record smasher.
The writers are distracting from the issues (net/gross revenue, MLBAM, benefits for the poor players) by simply pointing to ownership/Manfred as jerks- it works to some extent because nearly everyone dislikes Manfred/ownership, but that doesn’t mean that the Boras et al are any better.
Collusion must involve horizontal price fixing controls that are anti-competitive. There is 0% chance to make such a showing, because as Dave Cameron, Nate Silver, and all the many who have done the studies have shown: the added value of a projected WAR is estimated at $6.5m at most.
If the 2018 market produced contracts that valued players at less than $6.5m/projected WAR, and if clubs were shown to be using cost-calculations that capped wages below that number, then a prima facie showing could be made that MLB clubs were using horizontal agreements/standards that were anti-competitive. Until a serious showing can be made that players are getting less than they are worth, then it’s cannot be argued that clubs are passing up on FAs in a manner that is anti-competitive.
Just have to prove they are getting less than they were and that some teams hurt themselves and their ability to win by not signing a top FA to fill a need despite the financial resources to do so (Yankees, Red Sox etc).
MLB then needs to convince the arbitrator they are justified in doing so and that teams arrived at such decisions independently and did not share information as Manfreds comments suggested and that they did not agree on a strategy to delay signings collectively as Passan suggested to get better deals.
I still miss Dave and the other departed writers, but I love this new angle.
Had you asked me beforehand, “Would you like to see a lawyer’s perspective on FanGraphs?” I would have answered, “NO! Absolutely not!” But sometimes it’s fun to be wrong.
I often miss Wendy Thurm, but you apparently missed her entirely.
Wendy Thurm was a smart lawyer and a good writer. Wish she were still writing for the site.
Interesting article! It has a touch of the advocate’s voice in it, but that makes for fun reading. Perhaps that also invites some of the vociferous debate shown in the comments.
“a touch”?!? With Cameron gone, Fangraphs has obviously dived head first into advocacy as a business strategy. Works fine actually if your customer base is politically homogeneous. Don’t know that theirs’ is sufficiently so.
It is not just Dave Cameron. The loss of Eno Sarris and Mitchell, who took KOTAH with him leaves them without an analytical voice. Dan Szymborski and Jeff Zimmerman remain, but the meat is gone. Dan is increasingly writing for ESPN. They cannot survive with the current staff.
This isn’t really an issue that splits cleanly along traditional political lines anyway.
Nothing to do with politics. This is just an amateurish article written by someone who thinks she knows far more than she does.
A large part of all this is that MLB teams are increasingly allocating their dollars to young, rather than old, players. Because it turns out that old players are terrible. The problem is that with MLB’s system, you only get to be a free agent once you’re old. I wonder if the prevalence of high-value contract extensions will increase as young players realize that they are no longer sure to be compensated with $100+ million deals after age 30. Presumably part of what keeps these extensions relatively rare is the prospect of being able to hold out for a much larger payday later on. If the value of free agency is lowered then perhaps the relative value of a contract extension will have increased.
This is a good point. The “let’s force all the young guys to get underpaid to ensure we get overpaid” mentality that MLB vets have used so effectively to manipulate the labor market might finally be biting them in the ass. It’s about time.
“Telling the truth is rarely a suboptimal strategy.” That is an interesting perspective. I am going to take a wild guess here and venture that the author’s legal experience does not include much criminal defense work.
Hmm, so you figure Manfred is needing to hide criminal behavior?
(Her type of legal experience is mentioned just below the article.)
“tautology”
Nice.
Now I’m only a finance lawyer, but I think you are conflating a depressed market with an anti-competitive market. Any statement that the market is dictating salaries is commonsensical and hardly evidence of anti-competitive behavior. As an analogy, as innovation swept through American manufacturing, U.S. manufacturing workers saw their (real) wages depressed while revenues for manufacturing companies rose. Those companies were still very much competitive and did compete for top labor (though the lowest level jobs became more fungible so their wages did not increase). Here, more front offices are viewing aging curves and projection systems to determine that giving out long, fully guaranteed contracts to players in their 30s is a sub-optimal use of funds. Lastly, in the absence of evidence of actual collusion by ownership, as opposed to just the effects of a negotiated CBA playing out, I’m still not sure what recourse/damages the players might obtain from a court–especially given the courts’ deferrence to collective bargaining (and that it usually trumps anti-trust considerations). Would a court nullify the existing CBA and order the two sides to renegotiate? Doubtful, but even if so its hard to predict where that might end up and how much better off players might be, if at all.
The premise for this article is wrong.
2017 average MLB salary ($4.47m) was roughly double the average from 2003 ($2.37m)
YR: av$m %change
03: 2.37 na
04: 2.31 -3%
05: 2.48 +7%
06: 2.70 +9%
07: 2.82 +4%
08: 2.93 +4%
09: 3.00 +2%
10: 3.01 0%
11: 3.10 +3%
12: 3.21 +4%
13: 3.39 +6%
14: 3.69 +9%
15: 3.84 +4%
16: 4.38 +14%
17: 4.47 +2%
https://www.statista.com/statistics/236213/mean-salaray-of-players-in-majpr-league-baseball/
Salary growth in the past two seasons on record is 8% per annum.
It’s 6.7% pa over the past 3 years;
7.3% over the past 4 years;
7% over the past 5 years;
6.5% over the last 6 years;
6% over the past 7 years;
5.3% over the past 8 years;
4.9% over the past 9 years;
4.8% over the past 10 years;
4.7% over the past 11 years;
5.1% over the past 12 years;
5.2% over the past 13 years;
4.8% over the past 14 years; &
4.6% over the past 15 years.
So MLB salary growth has recently been more than 5%, roughly matching revenue growth. In recent years, the growth has been almost 50% higher.
The refusal to use any data in your article renders the writing and analysis very poor. Citing the poor work by Nathaniel Grow and Craig Edwards is only marginally worse than citing Deadspin (which merely cites Nathaniel’s work).
None of the cited sources demonstrate that wages are not growing in line with net revenue- because they all use gross revenue. For all the authors of this series to refuse to address the net revenue issue is disingenuous.
Obviously FGs won’t stop pushing this narrative, having made the decision to hire a labor lawyer to contintue to push these CAA/Boras talking points, I expect we’ll have a lot more of this bias, lazy research, circular citations, and agenda-driven nonsense. The citation to Deadspin is telling, very low quality work.
The AP says revenue split is 50-50
http://www.chroniclet.com/national-news/2016/03/21/AP-study-players-share-of-Major-League-Baseball-revenues-remain-stable-over-past-decade.html
The head of the union says revenue split is 50-50
http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-baseball-players-owners-tony-clark-scott-boras-20151203-story.html
Manfred and the data say that player wage growth has kept up with revenue growth.
The only way to push the Boras narrative that is being pushed here is to slip MLBAM sales money into the picture, or to be slippery about the gross/net distinction. Saying that Manfred lied is just clickbait.
Awful turn for fangraphs, this article is a step further for the worst bit of content I’ve seen on this site.
This is not about pushing a Boras narrative. She’s making the case an attorney on the other side of the table from MLB would make. I’m a lawyer as well, and if MLB was my client, I wouldn’t have been thrilled by Manfred’s statements. It’s not final proof of anything on its own, but it could be woven in a larger picture.
You are a smart guy. I really think you should either try to get on staff at Fangraphs, or write your own blog, publicize it, and see if you can draw some traffic. Whipping every writer you happen to disagree with isn’t going to change the content here.
I think the point is that lately FG writers have been pushing one “side of the table” to an extreme degree.
Her stance actually undermines the union and it’s leader and their positions, so no she isn’t making a case that a lawyer on the other side of the table from MLB would make. She’s making the Boras/CAA pitch.
Either way, ‘making a case’ as a partisan advocate isn’t an acceptable standard for journalism generally.
She is pushing the same talking points, via the same methods, that nearly all the new fangraphs writers are using so frequently and conspicuously:
(1a) [talking point] player revenue is down
(1b) [method] link only to Nathaniel Grow’s article (from a now defunct site) or articles that site him, ignore entirely AP’s 2016 study of official MLB data and ignore all criticism of Grow’s work (gross, sources, etc), don’t show any data, ignore 2016’s 33% increase over prior record spend
(2a) CBA was poorly negotiated;
(2b) use no evidence, data, or documents; dismiss gains on QOs as being minimal or having backfired without evidence; pretend focus was on silly things like chefs
(3a) Ridicule the idea that the luxury tax may be good for players
(3b) Use no evidence other than slow FA market, disregard basic economics about equilibrium and oligopolies
(4a) Critique Tony Clark as unqualified and poor
(4b) Cite Nathaniel’s claim about revenue, present Clark as unprepared because he is a former player, cite the slow FA market as well as CAA’s tweet that players are angry
(5a) Promote strike
(5b) use no market studies, cite Nathaniel’s articles arguing, without evidence, that the players have no other leverage
(6a) Promote ‘solutions,’ often a salary floor, that focus gains toward an increased FA spend, adding limited or no benefits to the underpaid
(6b) quote Boras & CAA, provide no data to demonstrate how players as a class will benefit
(7a) Harp on the tank narrative
(7b) Never analyze actual win distribution
(8a) Claim that these ‘problems’ are hurting the game
(8b) labored use of cliches and visualized writing, romanticizing Aaron Judge, green grass, HRs, etc., illogical advocacy of every team needing to always compete in the now
etc.
The unison in talking points and methods is surely structural- how can Nathaniel, Travis, Craig, Meg, Rian, and now Sheryl write some ~50 articles on this topic and never once cite the AP study, never once talk plainly about the gross/net revenue distinctions, etc?
Surely these talking-point FG decisions go hand-in-hand with the decision to hire a labor lawyer as a contributor. It would be odd indeed if Sheryl joined and wrote the opposite of what fangraphs has been promoting so intensely for the last several months.
Dude, she is not a labor lawyer (or an antitrust lawyer). She is a plaintiff-side consumer rights attorney who graduated from law school a few years ago. She has no more expertise in these areas than some divorce lawyer or personal-injury lawyer.
Neither Manfred nor Halem nor anyone in their shop is concerned in the slightest about these comments.
I know. This feels like an awesome/horrible April Fools column. Get some random 28 year old with a God complex to tell the world how it really is. Watch comments pile in.
Players salaries as a percentage of gross revenue is going down. There is no doubt about that. It was over 50% in 2001 and its under 40% now. It will drop further this year. Both figures are in the public domain.
Now you can talk about net revenue if you want, but from the MLBPA viewpoint giving silly money to amateurs like Moncada or Castillo or crazy opt out fees to Daisuke and Darvish should not count as deductions. Frankly only MLB has net revenue information and we can not know how it is arrived at.
Tony Clark, who is not a lawyer and got a history degree in night school believes players are not losing ground , and after the last CBA and this bloodbath players should be worried about him.
I’d have more confidence in MLB’s assertions if financials were not treated as top secret and there was more clarity. Perhaps in return for MLB keeping their antitrust exemption Congress should require more financial transparency. MLB teams keep asking for taxpayers assistance to build stadiums and nobody really sees the financials that show such subsidies are needed
Few write about baseball economics due to scarcity of data. I appreciate anything I can get. If its not 100% accurate thats on MLB secrecy and lack of transparency
Hey Paul,
Pretty sure the players can decide for themselves if Clark is doing a good job. Your snide comment about people who went to “night school” reveals so much more about yourself than it does Clark.
Regards,
Rest of the Internet
Isn’t MLB facing the same issue as basketball, when it succeeds financially. It eventually becomes a shared league, with players having financial leverage out of proportion to owners expectation. Football seems an exception because of how fast they injure and grind up athletes.
It’s funny how everyone wants a piece of the pie when it’s growing, but when they take a downturn, it’s all about the guaranteed paycheck. You can’t have it both ways.
Hot take “disband the union”
Markets correct themselves all the time. When the price of inputs goes down it isn’t generally because of collusion. All MLB has to do is show that teams that give out these huge contracts almost never win and that the contracts almost never provide value and the case is over.
I’d love to see that proof. But its not just the top of the market being affected its the middle as well where 1 -2 WAR seems to being worth less than half what it was and at less years (2 vs 3). They also have to explain the abruptness of the change. 30 different teams with different needs, different revenues and different positions on the win curve done start arriving at same valuations at the same time, which conveniently benefit them at the players expense
You make a completely unfounded assumption that the 30 teams are now valuing players the same. You have zero evidence to support that claim. The Cubs DFA’d Hector Rondon; Astros turned around and gave him a 2 year $9M contract. Cubs and Rockies clearly didn’t assign the same value to Wade Davis and you have no idea how most teams value most of these players. For example, the Yankees, Brewers, Dodgers, Cubs, Orioles, etc have no viable interest in JDM so how do you know how they value him?
Right. But the authors here don’t actually know what constitutes economic evidence of a group boycott or price-fixing cause of action, so we get the same dumb anecdotes about the slow FA market.
At some point in the last several months, multiple FG writers seem to have developed an affinity for promoting pro-MLBPA viewpoints. Yes, data and evidence is still used but oftentimes it’s massaged to make the owners out to be the enemies and the players out to be victims. I’m not sure why or how this happened, but quite honestly it’s getting old. I don’t think people come to FG looking to read sympathetic articles for players or owners. How about we get back to the business of analyzing baseball and drop the pseudo-political articles?
Its a refreshing change IMO since before it had a decidedly pro-owner perspective. Seems to have coincided with Daves departure. I think there is a good balance as there are still pro-owner articles coming out (at least in the sense of supporting the CBA has the root cause of the problem). In labor-management disputes people generally side with one or the other. In recent times its 70% pro management while 50 years ago it was 70% pro- labor , which is curious since income inequality is far greater today
Sorta like defining ‘moderate’ as Donald Trump, then proclaiming Melania as ‘liberal’ given that she’s now to the left of ‘moderate’.
Sorry, ‘progressive’.
I don’t think FG was pro-owner at all. Oftentimes they raked owners and FOs over the coals for certain transactions. I think FG was (and should be) pro-data and efficiency. And an equal opportunity critic of all parties.
The way they judge efficiency has been pro-owner, though. Not, I think, intentionally. But in general the result of Fangraphs’ work has been that fewer players are drastically overpaid and all of the players who were underpaid are still underpaid.
Not at all.
Fangraphs has been heavily involved in pioneering valuations that have led to the most underpaid players in the sport (pre FA player) getting paid a lot more. These pre-FA players still deserve more than they are getting, particularly the major league minimum (and of course minor league and int’l FAs) players: but it has been a strong move in the right direction.
The older players and the reps (CAA/Boras) that serve them moreso than younger players are pushing back with this PR campaign.
This is the first series at FGs that has been pro-big-owner. The big owners want a salary floor, the big owners would love to see the union disband, and are happy to war against the MLBPA leadership- and ESPN/fangraphs are helping this PR campaign.
Your other comments in the thread are spot on. This one, however, reeks of a conspiracy theorist. Why would FG suddenly mount a targeted campaign against small owners? Makes zero sense.
Exactly. If FanGraphs is now going to run biased articles then we need to be going elsewhere.
FanGraphs used to be balanced, then it changed ownership and mysteriously became pro-union regardless of the facts of the matter at hand.
Get your balance back, FanGraphs, or you will lose eyeballs.
FG’s recent pivot is not pro-union, it’s pro-big money.
The big clubs and big agencies want a salary floor.
Pro-union articles would support it’s leadership and it’s members.
Making one bad hire does not suggest an ideological pivot.
The guy who leashed this tendency is gone, and obviously whomever replaced Cameron in the decision structure is consciously going whole-hog on the advocacy gambit. If Appelman blindly delegated the handover and is now reading these comment threads in horror, maybe it’ll change. I’d think it’s far more likely Appelman’s been on board with this entire political turn. Welcome to ‘Fangraphs 2018’. They’re gambling that there’s enough Paul22 guys out there. ‘Rotsa ruck, Shaggy.’
It’s not pro-MLBPA, it’s pro Boras/CAA/ESPN.
All these new authors (Travis, Craig, Sheryl, Rian, Meg, plus Nathaniel who has written on and off for a while) are blasting Tony Clark and saying the union has failed the players, the union should disband, etc.
These authors are nearly pushing Boras for head of the union, and working hard to launch a fairly effective PR campaign to paint the head of the union as clueless. When the talking points are challenged for lack of substance, these writers simply say ‘well it’s not our fault that are talking points cannot be proven, because we lack the data:’ although they are choosing to distrust the AP, Manfred (with reason), and Clark (with less reason).
To call Manfred a liar on these issues is the same as calling Clark a liar on these issues- as they are saying the same thing about the near 50-50 split of net revenue and recent compensation growth.
5+ times a week these writers are slamming Clark and the MLBPA as incompetent liars, and yet trying to come off as pro-labor and pro-union.
Please don’t strike please don’t strike can they strike?
This entire article is biased and it accordingly has no place on a balanced, fact-based FanGraphs. Correction: it HAD no place on the FanGraphs we knew and loved before it changed ownership.
It’s biased in what direction? She’s a lawyer, analyzing statements. Are you concerned that it’s insufficiently admiring of Manfred and the owners? Would Fangraphs be better if it confined itself to stats and articles that call players greedy?
You missed the entire point. The article was completely and totally biased, and biased articles have no place at FanGraphs.
Well, at least they didn’t at the OLD FanGraphs. If the new FanGraphs is going to contain more biased articles like this one then it’s going to be time to abandon ship.
Mike, here’s my response to that:
(1) This article is the first time that I recall Fangraphs using the phrase “lied” to describe someone’s statements. (Perhaps I’ve missed that occurring on some other occasion, but it’s certainly not been a common claim.) That’s a fairly powerful term to use, as it’s an accusation that goes well beyond someone merely being wrong or selectively using advantageous facts while ignoring inconvenient ones.
(2) Ring ignores other revenue split information such as the AP study from a couple years ago that has been repeatedly linked by commenters whenever this topic comes up. It’s shoddy work for her to do so and rely simply on the estimates from Grow and Deadpsin (the latter appears just to be an update of Grow’s work), particularly given that the AP study used MLB data and includes a quote from Tony Clark. The MLBPA does have access to MLB revenue data, because the CBA gives the MLBPA the right to see the teams’ financial information that goes into revenue sharing.
And there’s a straightforward explanation for why league-wide net revenue and gross revenue look different in recent years: gross revenue growth has included revenue streams that have significant direct costs associated with them (most prominently, the MLB Network and MLBAM activities such as streaming). The AP information clearly says that net revenue includes the income thrown off by these activities, after costs, which is a methodologically sound and logical way to deal with these businesses.
(3) So, combining 1 and 2, we have a Fangraphs writer referring to information as “obvious lies” when the real issue is that she and other writers at this site have proved completely unwilling or unable to deal with information that doesn’t support their preferred conclusion.
When Fox news brings on an ‘environment lawyer’ to discuss fracking- we all know which position the lawyer is going to advocate because it is scripted. Or alternative, if NBC brings on such a lawyer, we also know which position will be advocated. Whichever partisan network, the expertise is undermined by the scripted talking point dynamic- it is therefore no surprise when convenient facts are left out and the multiple people are presenting the exact same points.
A company isn’t going to hire a featured expert to go against the exact memes that the company is invested in.
At a trial, parties call ‘expert witnesses’ to establish their talking points, not to go against them. It is rarely difficult for an attorney to find a paid-expert witness to advance their client’s position.
Similarly, there is no question whatsoever as to what Sheryl is going to write at fangraphs. Fangraphs is pushing the big-club, big-money talking points same as Boras/CAA and their content partner ESPN. The new fangraphs writers are obviously professionally invested in this biased advocacy- consider how much moreso will a labor lawyer be invested in a rigid stance on these labor issues as opposed to an objected and disinterested lawyer.
This pivot towards big-money talking points is so tone deaf, artless and anti-progressive, it has partially turned fangraphs into bizarro fangrphs.
I had not realized that fangraphs changed ownership- does anyone have a source?
FanGraphs has not changed ownership.
Further, your questions are silly IMO, as surely you already know the answers.
I have not see any posters say anything admiring Manfred or the owners.
Nearly every single poster is simply pointing out that Boras/CA style big-money bias is a bad turn for fangraphs, and that the pro-labor position would be better served with more honest content.
As Nietzsche said, the best way to discredit an idea is to advocate for it poorly. Fangraphs is advocating the pro-labor position poorly, turning it into Boras/CAA memes which are actually self-interested and not pro-labor.
As you well know, not a single poster is saying ‘the players are greedy and we want articles on that,’ instead nearly all the posters complaining about this series are saying -‘hey, where is the data, why ignore the AP study, why are all these talking points identical and tone deaf?’
OK, enough already, There are two ways for FG to lose visitors. One is to not satisfy people who vocalize their displeasure with virtually every article. The second is when the commenting section becomes a toxic environment where disagreements cannot be expressed civilly. We apparently are reaching both thresholds.
No one has said anything uncivil in any critique.
No commentator has even used language as inflammatory as the author’s statement that Manfred is a liar.
Arguably, telling other posts ‘enough’ or labeling a debate ‘toxic’ or ‘uncivil’ is more aggressive than people merely detailing why they disagree- which is what I’ve done, as well as others.
There is nothing at all indicating that the comments section has become toxic- this discussion has been civil, sourced, and has refrained from any abusive language. This article has drawn a lot of comments and discussion, sparked some controversy etc., but that’s natural when the author is making a fairly bold claim about the commissioner and the head of the MLBPA lying, and otherwise pushing Boras-style provocative talking points.
Fans need to work to reduce the revenues overall. No reason for it to continually climb.
All right, enough is enough. You are, of course, entitled to disagree with me – the beauty of the law is that it is subject to many different interpretations. I think Manfred was being disingenuous. Yes, I think he lied. You may not. You’re entitled to that opinion.
But here’s the deal. I’m a litigation attorney. I’ve actually done – and won – those accounting cases I talked about in my Loria article. No, they’re not the same as breach of contract cases. And guess what? A day after I wrote that article, Miami-Dade filed an accounting lawsuit. I’ve settled multi-million dollar class actions in both state and federal court, vacated the oldest judgment in the history of my state, and (I’m pretty sure) taken more depositions in my career than everyone in this comment thread combined. I’ve personally orally argued before appellate courts. I’ve presented cases to my state’s Supreme Court. I’ve been interviewed about my cases by the Chicago Tribune, the Marshall Project, Fusion, and more media outlets than I’d care to mention. I’ve actually litigated – and won – cases against the largest law firms in the world, including Morgan Lewis. I’m a member of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.
So…disagree with me all you want. But don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about.
The point of my article is to present what the MLBPA’s counsel could do with that press conference. And you know what? Having literally taken *dozens* of depositions in my career, I can tell you that any competent litigation attorney would eat Manfred alive after that press conference. And I stand by that.
Thank you. It was a good piece and made important points. Your CV should have been unnecessary, but I’m glad you included it.
then don’t make bold statements that ‘your facts’ don’t support.
that is the deal for us.
(1) While I appreciate that you are engaging with readers and think that is a good thing, I also believe you would be better served addressing the substance of their arguments and your argument rather than making your credentials as a lawyer the cornerstone of your response. It seemed to me that most who disagreed with you focused on your argument and use of evidence. Yes, a few took cheap shots at you personally, but that is par for the course when you write for a public forum, and I say that as someone who has written thousands of articles. If your use of argument and evidence is sound, you will be persuasive. If it is not, no amount of legal pedigree will make you convincing.
(2) Those who were critical of your argument and evidence raised two points, the first of which I will address in (2) and (3) : You have failed to distinguish between the growth in gross revenue and the growth of net revenue, and as measured against the latter, platers’ salaries have held steady, according to MLB, the players’ union and an independent review of those figures by the Associated Press, as shown in a link previously provided to you: http://www.chroniclet.com/national-news/2016/03/21/AP-study-players-share-of-Major-League-Baseball-revenues-remain-stable-over-past-decade.html. I would suggest you address this issue head-on rather than cite the number of depositions you have conducted, as the latter is not relevant. Should it be net revenue or gross revenue that serves as the denominator for purposes of calculating the share paid to players? If the former is the better measure — and that seems the case to me, at least initially — then are the numbers reviewed by Associated Press the best evidence of net revenue?
Are you relying instead exclusively on articles that cite gross revenue?
(3) Here’s what Manfred actually said about the link between revenue and salaries according to the NY Times: “We have been at a very stable — approximately 50 percent of revenue going to player salaries — for five, six, seven years,” he said. “The math of that means that salaries are growing in line with revenues.” Careful readers will note that Manfred did not specify whether the revenue was gross or net. If he meant the former, he is wrong; if he meant the latter, and if the previously linked article is the best evidence, than he is right. Unless you can provide evidence that he meant gross revenue, or that the cited study reviewed by AP was wrong, then calling him a liar seems unwarranted. One could criticize Manfred for not being clear or precise in his use of the term revenue, and that would be fair, but it appears both you and those whose articles you linked are guilty of the same offence.
(4) While it is your use of evidence that cast doubt on your first argument that Manfred is a liar and that the players’ share of revenue has plummeted, the problems with your second argument is multifaceted. Let’s start with the one that is the natural offspring of your first argument: That Manfred’s lying reveals an intent by MLB to collude to keep salaries artificially low. You have not established that Manfred lied. You have not established that he was incorrect. We only know that Manfred was not precise in explaining what he meant by revenue, a failing that you too share.
(5) Even before you get to your claim that Manfred is lying, you declare he has made an admission by stating that market forces shape players’ salaries at a time when, arguably, those salaries may be marginally less in the coming year. An admission, as a legal term, is a statement that can be used against the person who has made it, so we have to ask, in what context could someone use that statement against him. Since you are writing about a claimed violation of antitrust law, that is the context. To prove a violation of antitrust law, one must show a conspiracy that resulted in monopolization. But even if your factual claim is true, that salaries will be marginally less, that is hardly evidence of either conspiracy of monopolization. Market forces can and do cause the price of labor to rise and fall. It is hardly a damning indictment to state that a market has changed. It is a reality that happens continuously. If many or even all MLB teams respond in similar ways to market forces, that is not evidence of an antitrust violation unless someone can prove collusion, a point made repeatedly by the courts. ( Matsushita Electric Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 597 n.21 (1986) (“Conduct that is as consistent with permissible competition as with illegal conspiracy does not, without more, support even an inference of conspiracy.”) A plaintiff can rely on circumstantial evidence, but it must be of a sort that “tends to exclude the possibility” that the alleged conspirators acted independently. Monsanto Co. v. Spray-Rite Service Corp., 465 U.S. 752, 764 (1984))
(6) There appears to be ample evidence of MLB teams acting independently in ways that have changed the marketplace. While many in the reply thread have noted some of those ways, I think its helpful to turn to a player who has been affected by those changes, C.C. Sabathia, who recently said this: ““When I was a free agent, you got paid for what you did. Now, guys are getting paid for what they can do throughout their contract. So it’s just a different landscape in baseball the way teams are changing. G.M.s are getting younger and smarter, and want to get more value out of a player.”
I’ll take Sher up to -1000 over Ring in a lawyer reality show contest.
Yours is a fair response, and I certainly could have been more detailed. I was more responding to people who are making those cheap shots, to be honest.
I’m still working on how much detail to put in these (it’s my first week here people!). So I will be more detailed going forward.
It’s not a question of detail.
Sorry, but this post makes the article much worse. Have some humility about what you know as a lawyer.
Some people in this comment thread have a lot more experience than you in commercial litigation, including actually trying antitrust cases.
There is no need for you respond to unfair and ridiculous ad hominem attacks.
But if you are inclined to engage your readership, please take the time to respond to criticisms and questions regarding the substance of your statements, and let your arguments stand for themselves on their own merits.
time for a strike. Manfred wont be so tough then….that will be his legacy.
He’s already trying to ruin the game with pitch clocks and robo umps. Add in intentional walk disaster he did last year. He needs to go. Him and his puppet torre.
I’d be on the owners side except…they continue to get handouts from taxpayers for stadiums and tax free concessions all while being protected by anti-trust regulation. Tell you what owners, I’ll stop suing you for collusion with you bring down anti-trust regulations and when congress outlaws nationally the ability for municipalities to provide land, incentives or tax-free bonds to fund your business. Then feel free to do whatever you want.
Signed
Rays fan who just saw players dumped for $$ with team angling for stadium.
Agree on most all of that. With the money involved in professional sports, there is no good reason to have the tax money involved. But in this isolated contract situation, I do side with the owners.
Why is this environment “concerning?” The players are the ones who negotiated guaranteed contracts. With that unheard of level of protection comes the fact that smart employers will (or should) be extremely cautious with hiring.
Hmmm. Something tells me if revenues were to sharply decline for reason, we wouldn’t hear guys with 7-year guaranteed deals offer to take paycuts. You take the good with the bad. It’s the facts of life.
I doubt anyone is following this anymore, but I’ll just leave this here:
https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/2/21/17035624/mlb-revenue-sharing-owners-players-free-agency-rob-manfred
Wait, isn’t the MLB exempt from the antitrust statutes?