Nightengale's Notebook: MLB's lockout is doing more permanent damage every single day
JUPITER, Fla. — There was no Twitter during the 1994-95 strike that resulted in the cancellation of the World Series.
The internet wasn’t around during baseball’s first seven work stoppages.
These days you don’t need a laptop, iPad or cellphone to gauge the level of anger spewing during baseball’s lockout.
There isn’t a baseball fan, player, owner, executive or peanut salesman who isn’t absolutely furious.
There is not a single issue that can’t be compromised on during these labor negotiations.
The owners are not asking for a hard salary cap. The players are not asking for earlier free agency.
It’s just a matter of splitting up money in a $10.7 billion industry, this time, primarily to take care of young players, most of whom make close to baseball’s minimum salary.
And yet, three months have passed, a dozen negotiations have taken place, and there barely has been any progress to save the start of the regular season with an MLB-mandated deadline of Monday, Feb. 28.
"This has been years in the making," one MLB executive told Paste BN Sports. "Bad relationships. Mistrust. It has a cost."
And everyone is paying the price.
The players are livid at the owners, convinced they are making a killing and would rather cancel games than cut into their profits.
"This isn’t millionaires vs. billionaires," Los Angeles Dodgers ace Walker Buehler tweeted, before later deleting it. "This is workers vs. owners. The value is subjective. We are EXTREMELY lucky to do what we do but the numbers don’t line up. I appreciate the fans getting where we are coming from. Truly."
The owners are upset with the players, believing their demands are completely unreasonable.
"We came to Florida to make a deal," an MLB executive said. "Did they?"
And, oh, there are the fans, who will have at least two weeks of spring training wiped off the books – most likely a shortened regular-season – and are asking themselves if they should remain emotionally invested in the sport.
"This is just terrible," one former MLB slugger said in a text message. "It just doesn’t make any sense. No one really comes out a winner by this. The cost is serious damage to the greatest pastime in American sports."
Well, make that America’s former greatest pastime.
Let’s be honest, if you surveyed the casual sports fan, most wouldn’t have even been aware there was a baseball lockout until the day after the Super Bowl.
Wait, what do you mean spring training is delayed?
Major League Baseball can’t afford to delay the start of the season. It would be catastrophic to see even a week of games cancelled.
This time, there is no Cal Ripken consecutive-game streak to command our attention.
There is no Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run chase to captivate the country.
Who’s going to save it this time?
"This already looks bad," former Blue Jays All-Star outfielder Vernon Wells said on the Toronto-based "Deep Left Field" podcast. "The NHL is doing well. The NFL just probably had its greatest postseason ever. The NBA has constantly done such a great job of marketing its players and the game being so entertaining that baseball (had) already taken a step back. Now you add this on, we’re falling back even more."
Ticket sales are down throughout the industry thanks to the lockout, with the Boston Red Sox reporting 30% decline in ticket sales this winter. It’s hardly as if fans are going to storm the gates once the lockout is over. Attendance has been down the past four years.
Even with most teams starting spring training with their minor leaguers, the fans have been stuck outside the gates, unable to enter the back fields and watch. One fan took his family down from Colorado after being told that minor-league workouts would be open, only to find them all closed.
"All of the out-of-state fans I’ve spoken to in Phoenix, my family included," he said, "feel left in the dark. And most of all, misled."
Fans already are growing awfully wary about the product, particularly the young audience, and a shortened season would infuriate the baseball purists.
The best public-relations move MLB can make, according to one All-Star, is to eliminate blackouts for a season and provide viewers a free MLB.TV subscription considering so many disputes between regional networks and the carrier. There still are viewers in Orange County, for instance, that can’t get Dodger games, and there are folks in Iowa who are blacked out from six different MLB teams.
And remember, even when the lockout ends, the sport is going to be suffocated in bitterness, resentment and anger. Players will rip management for the lockout. Players like Nick Anderson of the Tampa Bay Rays will be filling notebooks talking about how he actually had to pitch in a Tampa parking lot since he couldn’t use the Rays facilities. Houston Astros starter Lance McCullers already has publicly said he’s behind schedule in his recovery from a forearm strain because he was unable to speak with the Astros’ medical team.
"The people I would usually rely on for the rehab, I haven’t been able to speak to or communicate with," McCullers said to a local Houston sportscaster. "It’s been a little difficult, I’m not going to lie. ... It’s frustrating for me because, ultimately, I’m the one who suffers and the fans are the one who suffers while we argue away."
There also still are about 200 unemployed major-league free agents. You think more than a handful will actually get what they believe will be a fair deal? Guys are going to be scrambling to find takers, others will be forced to retire. There will be such precious little time before the start of the season that players won’t afford to be patient in negotiations.
MLB will need all of the goodwill it can muster, and lifting the blackouts just for one season, or giving fans free MLB.TV, it might be good business.
Then again, considering the game’s defects these days, maybe it’s better to limit that audience to prevent fans from realizing just how little they’re missing.
"Play ball" sounds more like a threat heading into the 2022 season.
Around the basepaths
– Commissioner Rob Manfred is asking the union permission to implement a pitch clock for the 2023 season, but has been rebuffed since the Commissioner’s office can’t unilaterally implement a rule change without giving one year’s notice to the union.
Considering spring training is delayed, MLB wouldn’t be able to have a pitch clock in time for spring training next season, and likely would have to wait until 2024.
MLB wants a pitch clock as soon as possible.
– One former teammate of Dodgers three-time Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw believes that he’ll either pitch for his hometown Texas Rangers or retire, and not return to the Dodgers.
Kershaw has not publicly provided any clues.
– Position players need just two weeks of spring training, team officials insist, but starting pitchers need to pitch in at least four spring training games, which will be virtually impossible in a three-week camp.
MLB is expected to allow teams to open the season with two or three extra players, which will work nicely for the minor league pitchers who are already in camp and should be ready to provide immediate help.
– MLB has sent memos to teams that they are not required to permit scouts onto their minor-league complexes, and if they don’t, they are not allowed the same privilege. There are at least four teams who have already decided that scouts will not be provided access.
– Kevin Phelps, the city manager for Glendale, Ariz., is asking MLB to help offset the losses of spring training at their Camelback Ranch stadium, the spring training home of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox.
"I propose MLB provide a $10 million subsidy to the Arizona Office of Tourism," Phelps wrote in an op-ed published in the Arizona Republic. "These dollars would help promote our tourism and hospitality industry, which has been significantly impacted by canceled and shortened Cactus League seasons."
– The New York Yankees continue to insist they are not interested in signing free agent shortstop Carlos Correa. They believe that prized shortstop prospect Anthony Volpe will be ready in two years, and don’t want someone to stand in his way.
– That is Cubs assistant GM Jeff Greenberg who is a finalist to become the NHL Chicago Blackhawks’ GM. Greenberg is the son of former Texas Rangers owner Chuck Greenberg.
– MLB is considering playing a "Field of Dreams Game" at the restored Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, N.J., where the Newark Eagles of the Negro Leagues played. The $94 million restoration project will be complete this fall.
– San Francisco Giants outfielder Mike Yastrzemski has one of the most famous names in all of baseball, but it didn’t stop the 2022 Topps baseball set from misspelling his name.
"It’s really funny," Yastrzemski told The Athletic. "People were like, ‘How can they do this to you? How can they mess it up?’ And I’m like, ‘Hey, it’s a really hard name to spell.’
"I’m shocked they get it right most of the time. I’m used to seeing it spelled wrong more than right."
– The most intriguing free agent watch will be Atlanta first baseman Freddie Freeman when the lockout ends. He rejected a five-year, $135 million deal during the season, is seeking a six-year, $180 million deal, and now we’ll soon see if Atlanta ups its offer or lets him walk away.
– Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Ranger Suarez is exactly who the union is fighting for in its talks. Suarez, who became the first pitcher since Bob Gibson in 1968 to make at least 10 starts and pitch at least 100 innings with a sub 1.50 ERA, was one of about 63% of players who played last year with less than three years of major-league service.
His salary? Barely above the $570,500 minimum.
And considering he has two years and 112 days of service, he is shy of reaching Super 2 status, and won’t be earning much more this year either.
"Ranger is kind of what the fight is for," Daniel Szew, Suarez’s agent, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "He’s one of the poster children in all of this."
– The most active team once the lockout ends could be the Oakland Athletics, who will be listening to anyone and everyone as they slice and dice their payroll.
We’re talking about All-Star first baseman Matt Olson, two-time Platinum Gold Glove third baseman Matt Chapman, along with starting pitchers Chris Bassitt, Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas.
They all are eligible for salary arbitration and are projected to earn a total of $45.7 million, according to MLB Trade Rumors.
– There may be no owner rooting harder for a higher luxury tax than Steve Cohen of the New York Mets, whose payroll this year could approach a record $300 million.
– Yes, that is future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols who will be driving a pace car in NASCAR’s Wise Power 400 on Sunday.
– Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is in discussions for a contract extension, and is hopeful of reaching an agreement by opening day. His contract expires after the season.
– Pretty cool seeing Ken MacKenzie, 87, an original Met, wearing a jersey and cap talking about that 1962 expansion team that lost 120 games in a Zoom call about the Mets’ Old-Timers’ Game this summer.
"It took a while to realize that the flags (at the Polo Grounds) told us where we were in the league," MacKenzie said. "We watched them work their way down all season. It was when they were getting near the end at the roof that we realized we were not going to win any pennants."
– Tough news for Rangers prospect Josh Jung, who was expected to compete for their starting third-base job, and now is out for about six months after undergoing surgery to repair a torn left labrum.
Jung, the 8th overall pick in the 2019 draft, also missed the start of 2021 with a stress fracture in his foot.
The Rangers’ third-base job has been a black hole since Adrian Beltre’s retirement after the 2018 season. They have ranked last in the major leagues with a .620 OPS at third base in the last three seasons while ranking last in the 2021 season with only seven home runs. The starting job now is expected to go to Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who has only a .670 career OPS.
– Great gesture by agent Burton Rocks, who represents Cardinals shortstop Paul DeJong, to host the Symphony Rocks Invitational charity event in West Palm Beach, Florida, last weekend to provide money for kids who can’t afford instruments.
Rocks grew up playing the piano and saxophone while DeJong played the piano and trumpet.
"Economics," Rocks said, "should not be a boundary for trying to fulfill your dreams."
– Ryan Zimmerman, who announced his retirement from the Nationals, says he can certainly understand why former teammate Juan Soto rejected a 13-year, $350 million offer. The way he figures it, Soto will earn about $60 million in salary arbitration the next three years, and he’d be a steal at $290 million over 10 years at the age of 26.
The Nats, of course, also have to convince him to stay by being competitive the next three seasons after trading away Max Scherzer and Trea Turner at last year’s trade deadline.
– It was a little surprising that the Yankees will retire Paul O’Neill’s No. 21 jersey. Sure, he helped them win four World Series, but he didn’t rank among the franchise’s top 10 in any career statistical category. He becomes the 23rd Yankees player or manager to have their number retired. There are only eight numbers under 24 that aren’t retired now.
– Scott Spiezio, the former Angels’ World Series star who also helped the Cardinals win a World Series, said he has gone through 11 rehabs for cocaine and alcohol, but told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he will be celebrating his fourth year of sobriety on April 6.
Spiezio, 49, who lives in Morris, Illinois, said he speaks to local schools and his church about his struggles.
"It was about a 12-year struggle," Spiezio said. "I’d get eight or nine months of sobriety multiple times, but I could just never break through."
– Mets manager Buck Showalter believes the universal DH plays right into his team's hands with J.D. Davis, Dominic Smith and Robinson Cano as the leading candidates.
"I was pulling for it for a lot of reasons," Showalter told reporters. "I think fans, just the game itself. But for us selfishly, I think it fits better."
– The Blue Jays, meanwhile, badly need a DH. Their DH position, filled by 19 different players, combined to hit just .222 last season with a .707 OPS.
Free agent slugger Kyle Schwarber?
– Hall of Fame catcher Pudge Rodriguez just sold his Florida mansion to Marlins starter Sandy Alcantara for $3.25 million. The house features six bedrooms, 8 ½ bathrooms and a media room.
Certainly, Alcantara won’t have trouble making the mortgage payments since he signed a five-year, $56 million contract extension just before the lockout.