DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Stunning stuff on baseball’s union

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Stunning stuff on baseball’s union

Can’t tell you, can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be joined out here in the figurative wilderness by others who are seeing the financial light when it comes to Major League Baseball’s messed up economics. Good morning to you. Good Thursday morning. I’m Dan Kawachovich of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It comes your way bright and early every weekday if you’re into football andor hockey sports that already have salary cap systems. I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this. Mike Duri is a friend of mine. Mike is longtime writer for the Sporting News. predominantly renowned for his exceptional college basketball coverage. Some of you in the area might also remember Mike was a big part of the old Pittsburgh Press when that newspaper was still ticking. Mike put together some research and a resulting report yesterday in response to some quotes that he read in in our coverage at DK Pittsburgh Sports from both Rob Manford, Major League Baseball’s commissioner, and Tony Clark, the chief union executive from All-Star Week in Atlanta. Mike was particularly struck by Clark’s comments about how a cap system works and how flimsy and hollow misleading Clark’s comments were because that’s pretty much all the union has with which to rally the players because the truth is the salary cap system which I will remind for only about the billionth time always involves a ceiling and a floor that are only about $20 million apart benefits way more players than the current system does. And what he did and and this is something that deserves a deeper layering and I’m sure Mike would tell you the same thing than what he did. All he did was simply look at the percentage of big league players on current active rosters right now, 26-man rosters, who are earning less than the National Hockey League minimum over the course of a full season. And he pulled up as his prototype poor Henry Thun, million-doll defenseman in San Jose for the Sharks, who gave up more goals than anybody else in hockey this past season. And then he looked at a comparison of James Wood from the Nationals who’s just a a budding superstar and for that matter Paul Skins. They’re all making less than old Henry out there with the Sharks. The punchline 36.6% 6% of all players in Major League Baseball right now, current active rosters are making less than the NHL minimum. More than a third of them, I have been telling you for years now that the union is driven by the agents, specifically by Scott Boris, although the latter has changed somewhat over the past year. And the reason for that is that the agents again Boris in particular are motivated only by how the very very very upper crust fares. So if a Max Scherzer makes 50 million a year, that’s a much bigger cut for Scott and his company than if he and they waste all of their energy and resources piling up a bunch of bottom rungun clients. They go for the big fish. They actually fight over the big fish and the big fish get all the cash. Now, every sport is different. Every salary cap in some ways is different based on the nature of the sport, based on the roster sizes, based on the number of people that you can play at the same time. For example, in the NBA, it’s pretty much expected that your players individually are going to get more money cuz there’s way fewer players. In football, for example, you’re going to have non-g guaranteed contracts. Why? Because it’s pretty close to unmanageable to have a roster of 53 players otherwise. And it is 53. But in the NHL, the highest paid player this past season was Austin Matthews of the Maple Leafs. Fat lot of good that did them, but I digress. He’s at 13.25 million. Nathan McKinnon from the Avalanche at 12.6 million. Conor McDavid, of course, from the Oilers at 12.5 million. But that’s your upper crust in hockey. And that’s not all that far from the bottom, which is why you will see more players getting paid into the 3 million 4 million range per year in the NHL, a higher percentage of players. And that’s also why this past week, the NHL and the NHL Players Association ratified an extension of their collective bargaining agreement that was 100% frictionfree. Nobody argued it. It never came out in public anything. They just showed up one morning and said, “Hey, we’ve got a new deal.” You want to know why? Because the players are happy with it. The players are delighted by it. The NFL hasn’t had labor strife in forever. Want to know why? Yeah, that’s right. Same reason. Because the league puts into motion a system that they know benefits all 53 players, not just one, two, or three on each team. So even though the quarterbacks are getting my goodness 50 million plus, you still see a better overall balance for the remainder and they’re able to achieve that because there are 53 votes in that room. And whether you’re Ben Rothllessberger or Tyler Madakavich, your vote counts the same. The rank and file decide those elections. Baseball doesn’t want that because the union doesn’t want that. And the union doesn’t want that because the union is immensely influenced by the agents. So why don’t baseball players realize this? Well, I’m going to guess that most baseball players, even today on a day that does not have baseball, this all-star break, they’re not going to be sitting around going, “Man, I wonder what Mike Dorsy’s up to.” And checking out the Sporting News website to find out what’s going on. But you know what? The truth does come out. The facts do come out. And there are a lot of very intelligent players, hyper intelligent players in Major League Baseball who really need to start asking more questions instead of just nodding along every time Tony Clark says something. When we come back, J1Q, if you’re looking for a great dining experience, look no further than Northshore Tavern. Located directly across Federal Street from PNC Park, next door to Mike’s Beer Bar, Northshore Tavern is Pittsburgh’s home for steak on a stone. Enjoy your steak finished on a hot lava stone in front of you where you ensure each piece is cooked to exactly your liking. Or try their rotating selection of entre, hot sandwiches, salads, and burgers, all while enjoying the ambiance dedicated to the great players and history of the Pittsburgh Pirates all around you. Come see why everyone’s talking about Northshore Tavern and Steak on a stone. It’s Gun Storage Check Week. Help prevent unwanted access to your firearms. No one wants their unsecured gun to be used in an accident, a suicide, or a crime. Use lockboxes, safes, and locks to secure your firearms. Learn more at gunstoch checkck.org. That’s gunstoch checkck.org. Brought to you by NSSF, the firearm industry trade association. Today’s J1 Q comes from Mike who says, “DK, let’s fast forward and assume that a salary cap system is installed in Major League Baseball. How does it take into account existing large contracts like Showi Otanis? I assume some sort of grandfather clause, but how does it look? Surely some teams like the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Phillies, the Mets are already two or three times over whatever the salary cap ceiling would be. Yeah, this one comes up quite a bit, Mike. And it anytime this subject arises and there’s a very simple answer for it because there are now multiple leagues in fact all of the rest of the leagues who’ve gone through this and they similarly had ways to affect the transition. First and foremost, and this is really important to stress, when you move to a salary cap system, every penny of every existing contract is 100% honored. And you know why? Because it has to be. Because at the time that it’s signed, no one cares about the overall system. It’s a contract between the athlete and the team. And you’d better believe the owners have to pay up. Secondly, I think there’s a lot of misperception about h how low the ceiling figure would be. And I think that’s again it relates to that term salary cap. Everybody hears the word cap and thinks that all they’re going to do they’re just going to put a cap on it. It’s going to be really low and there’s not going to be any money for the players. And that’s not how these things have worked either. Looking right now at the 2025 team payrolls as they currently exist. There are 10 teams over 200 million in order. They’re the Dodgers, the Mets, the Yankees, the Phillies, the Blue Jays, Astros, Rangers, Braves, Padres’s, and Angels. Cubs are really close, but they’re not quite there. As I look at the midpoint of these teams, the ones that are in the 14, 15, 16 range, it’s somewhere in the vicinity of 180. When anybody has asked me in casual conversation, and this can only be speculation, where do you think the ceiling would be in a baseball salary cap system? I always say 180. I’m sure you can be flexible in either direction, but I still think it’s going to be a pretty high figure. And I think 200 would be a fair starting point, presuming you value a real attempt to get the players, notice I’m saying players, not union, to go along with it. But the correct answer to that is you’re supposed to take the total amount of revenue that comes in and split it with the players. They get 60%, you keep 40. That’s just the way it is. NFL, NHL, NBA. That way, the players and the owners have a common incentive to collectively bring the sport up because if the players do that, the players get more money. So, my answer to your question here is it using show as an example, the Dodgers current payroll is number one. They’re at 341. The Mets are pretty close behind at 332 and nobody else is over 300. If there’s a grandfathering period of some kind, and I will repeat that’s always been the case in a transition to a salary cap system, then the Dodgers get some grace in being able to pay show for X number of years, however that goes. But from there, look, man, you get your payroll from 341 to 200. You can pay show in a $200 billion payroll. You can. You just can. Now, what you won’t be able to do is pay Tyler Glass now 32.5 million a year or Mookie Betts 26 million or Freddy Freeman 22 million or just basically walting out there and paying every single free agent of worth whatever it is that they want just because you have a local TV contract that’s way bigger than everybody else’s. You know how much that TV contract would be worth to the Dodgers if the other teams decided they no longer wanted to play the Dodgers? You know, if the Dodgers just had to start playing against, I don’t know, the Savannah Bananas. It’d be pretty entertaining for about a week, but that would be about it. The Dodgers can’t go about this alone. So, would they have adjustments to make? Yes. Are they realistic, plausible adjustments? Also, yes. And most important, one more time, would show get his money, including the obscene $70 million in deferments and all that other stuff. Yes. And once more, from the mountaintops on this subject, nothing, nothing, nothing makes baseball special in this discussion. Nothing. Every other sport has done it. Every other union has fallen to it. And then once it’s gotten done, every other union has been delighted by it. The same would and will happen here. I appreciate question, Mike. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Pirates. We’ll be back with another one tomorrow when their season resumes with a home stand against the White Socks.

Stunning stuff on how baseball union buries bottom-tier players.

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