The Airing of Grievances
I got a lot of problems with MLB, and now it's going to hear about it!
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The famous “Festivus” episode of Seinfeld aired on December 18, 1997. The episode, titled “The Strike,” featured George Constanza’s father Frank talking about a holiday he invented called “Festivus,” which falls on December 23 each year. Festivus is a secular holiday presented as an alternative to the commercialism associated with Christmas. The holiday involves a Festivus pole made of aluminum, a holiday dinner, and three events: the Airing of Grievances, Feats of Strength, and Festivus Miracles.
Festivus became a meme before memes were really a thing. It was Internet humor before Internet humor was really a thing. Naturally, marketing departments have latched onto quirky humor like this to make themselves appear personable. Enter Major League Baseball:
“Grievances” is an interesting word, especially when used by MLB, isn’t it?
The Airing of Grievances takes place after Festivus dinner and is as the name implies: people get to air their grievances with one another. As Frank said in the episode, “I got a lot of problems with you people, and now you’re going to hear about it!” In that spirit, I’d like to air my grievances with MLB, especially since they were kind enough to kick start the conversation.
No Enforcement of COVID-19 Protocol
Although Stephanie Apstein of Sports Illustrated argues otherwise, MLB did a poor job of implementing and enforcing COVID-19 protocol during the pandemic shortened and playoff-expanded 2020 season. It started with MLB fudging their testing numbers. There were testing delays. Players were using “outside labs” to get their testing done. The Marlins and Cardinals had COVID-19 outbreaks, causing many games to be postponed. The Indians had two players, Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac, break protocol.
In the playoffs, MLB had what were touted as “playoff bubbles.” MLB players and other relevant staff, however, did not undergo a two-week quarantine process. The Blue Jays, for example, hosted the Orioles in Buffalo for the final series of the season, ending on September 27. On the 29th, they traveled to St. Petersburg, Florida to begin the best-of-three Wild Card Series with the Rays. Players and staff were instead expected to “quarantine” in the week and a half prior to the start of the playoffs, but some teams traveled often during that time. The Marlins finished out the season in Atlanta and the Bronx before traveling to Chicago to open up the Wild Card Series with the Cubs. That’s nothing approaching a two-week quarantine.
The rest of the playoffs took place in four cities: Los Angeles, San Diego, Arlington, and Houston. Players and staff were expected to remain in their hotels, but it wasn’t something that was strictly enforced.
Ahead of the Championship Series – the semifinals – MLB decided that even though Texas, and specifically Tarrant county which includes Arlington, was one of the areas experiencing the largest COVID-19 outbreaks in the country at the time, it would still allow fans to attend the NLCS and World Series. It hedged, promising to strictly enforce mask-wearing and social distancing, and limited tickets sold to just over 10,000 per game, or slightly more than 25% of Globe Life Field’s capacity. Before, during, and after games, fans were seen not wearing their masks properly, if at all, and groups were certainly within six feet of one another. This is not to say that MLB made zero effort to enforce protocol, but it did not do so absolutely, and with something as serious as a pandemic that has now claimed nearly 325,000 lives, anything less than perfection is a letdown.
MLB’s crowning moment, quite literally, was marred by its own incompetence as well. During Game 6 of the World Series between the Dodgers and Rays, third baseman Justin Turner was informed he had tested positive for COVID-19. MLB ordered another one of his tests rushed through to make sure, and when that turned up positive, the league instructed the Dodgers to remove Turner from the game in the seventh inning. The Dodgers went on to win. Turner was allowed to return to the field to celebrate with his teammates. He was seen not wearing masks or gloves, hugging his teammates (including at-risk manager Dave Roberts), kissing his wife, and touching the trophy. Turner apologized publicly, which MLB saw as sufficient to not punish him and considered the matter resolved.
Rending of the Minor Leagues
MLB used the pandemic as cover to significantly alter the composition of the minor and independent leagues. Commissioner Rob Manfred wanted to shrink the size of the minors by more than 25% before “COVID-19” was part of our vocabulary. Manfred offered flimsy justification for the idea, suggesting that reducing the size of the minor leagues (i.e. cutting jobs) would result in pay raises. He also said that travel would be improved, some teams have “inadequate facilities,” and spat on the dreams of non-prospects, saying that many players on minor league rosters don’t have a realistic shot to reach the majors.
Manfred received a lot more criticism than he was expecting. The idea largely went under wraps for a few months and people seemed to forget about it as spring training began. Then the pandemic hit and Manfred pounced, setting his dream into motion. More than a quarter of the minor leagues were cut, mostly short-season and A-ball teams. Indy league teams became “partners” with MLB. The minor league teams that were left were essentially strongarmed by MLB to accept affiliation. MLB sent minor league team owners what was essentially a contract before a contract which included indemnification and non-disclosure agreements. The first contract is essentially a review of the second, known as a Professional Development License. In order to get the full text of the PDL, they would have to sign the much more succinct “review” of the PDL first.
MLB also botched the execution by not communicating with teams. Many team owners found out through reports on Twitter that they would not be affiliated with Major League Baseball, including the Trenton Thunder and Staten Island Yankees.
This all happened because MLB wanted to continue to systematically underpay minor league players. A group of former minor leaguers, including current attorney Garret Broshuis, filed a class-action lawsuit against MLB. The case is still ongoing. However, in the time since, MLB spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress to amend language in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 such that minor league players would be classified as seasonal workers and thus not owed worker protections including a minimum wage and overtime pay. Many minor league players make under $10,000 per season. MLB’s lobbying efforts worked, as the legislation was amended in 2018.
MLB has seen an ever-increasing fervor for minor leaguers to be compensated fairly and even some teams relented of their own free will. The Blue Jays raised minor league pay within their organization by over 50% in 2019. MLB will be increasing minor league pay in 2021, but is using the money saved by cutting over 25% of minor league jobs to pay for it. MLB teams, not MiLB teams, are responsible for player salaries, which is why this is so important to this $10 billion industry.
Monopoly
MLB is a legal monopoly. All of the financial issues within the sport ultimately stem from the fact that, for nearly 100 years, MLB has been allowed to operate without competitors. In 1922’s Federal Baseball Club v. National League, the Supreme Court ruled that MLB games did not qualify as “interstate commerce” and thus the Sherman Antitrust Act did not apply.
Sports leagues that came later, like the National Football League, did not enjoy the same privilege as MLB. Even though the NFL has come to enjoy similar industry-wide dominance, it has had to at least consider potential rivals. MLB never had to worry about that, thus it was able to wield its power absolutely.
MLB’s power was threatened many times over the years, most famously by Curt Flood in Flood v. Kuhn which went all the way to the Supreme Court. Flood challenged the reserve clause, which gave teams the ability to indefinitely retain players, even against their will. Flood had been traded from the Cardinals to the Phillies after the 1969 season, but he did not want to play in Philadelphia, which was noted for racism towards Black players. The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 against Flood, upholding the antitrust exemption. However, the reserve clause was nullified which led to players ultimately winning free agency in 1975.
While gaining free agency was tremendous for players, MLB owners and executives were able to cement a favorable power structure within the sport for over 50 years. The union has simply fought to tilt that balance of power closer towards even in the decades since, largely unsuccessfully. Along with systematically underpaying minor leaguers, MLB teams have near unchecked say on players until they reach three years of service time.
Let’s start with the draft. High school and college players are selected by teams. They must either agree to a signing bonus to join those teams or refuse, missing out on a year of baseball and reentering the draft the following year. This does not happen often; J.D. Drew is among the more famous of these cases. The players’ leverage here is accepting or declining their signing bonuses, but the system is already tilted in teams’ favor, so these players in their late teens and early 20’s are pressured to sign.
The MLB minimum salary in 2021 will be $570,500. Players with zero to three years of service time under their belts will be paid close to that figure, perhaps a few thousand or so above here and there. Consider Mike Trout, the greatest player of this generation. In 2012, when he won the AL Rookie of the Year Award, he was paid $482,500, barely above what was then a $480,000 minimum.
Between years three and six (sometimes two and six for certain players), players are known as “arbitration-eligible.” They have slightly more power, as both they and their controlling teams will submit salary figures. If there’s a disagreement, they can negotiate among themselves to reach an amenable figure; if they can’t reach a resolution, the matter goes before a panel of independent arbitrators. In an arbitration hearing, teams essentially trash their own players, highlighting their flaws as justification to pay them their lower submitted figure. Historically, arbitrators have favored teams in these hearings.
Only after six years of service time do players reach free agency. And that’s if teams haven’t toyed with their service time during those six years. Every team, however, manipulates their players’ service time. Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant is the most well-known example of this. I wrote a primer on the service time structure in August, and talked about Bryant’s situation specifically, so check that out if you’re not sure what I’m talking about.
Then there’s free agency. MLB team owners have been caught colluding with each other in order to depress player salaries before, famously in the 1980’s, and have been suspected of continuing to collude in the years since. In 2018 and ’19, the average player salary declined in consecutive seasons for the first time since the union began keeping records in 1967. That’s because MLB front offices decided, seemingly at once, to stop spending on free agents. We still saw the Bryce Harpers and Manny Machados of the world get record contracts, but it was more the veteran free agents in their 30’s who were shut out of the process. Additionally, free agent signings happened later and later. Harper and Machado, for example, didn’t sign until February 2019, after spring training had begun.
From the draft through the minors through their first three years through arbitration eligibility and even into free agency, teams hold sway over players every step of the way. All of this stems from MLB being allowed, even to this day, to operate as a monopoly.
Crying Poor
Regular readers of this newsletter already know what I’m going to say here. MLB is a $10 billion industry. Each individual team is worth over $1 billion. Most teams are owned by a billionaire or a group of billionaires.
MLB is incredibly profitable. It is damn near impossible not to turn a profit owning a baseball team. Consider Jeffrey Loria, who bought the Marlins for $158 million in 2002 and sold the team to Derek Jeter and Bruce Sherman for $1.2 billion in 2017. The Marlins won a championship in 2003, then didn’t reach the playoffs again for the remainder of Loria’s tenure as owner, a span of 14 seasons. During that time, the club was routinely last or near last in attendance and had among baseball’s tiniest payrolls. Fans could not become attached to players because they were traded soon after they became stars.
This didn’t stop Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr. from claiming “the industry isn’t very profitable” this past summer. DeWitt bought the Cardinals from Anheuser-Busch for $150 million in 1995. Forbes currently values the team at $2.2 billion. If DeWitt were to sell the team now, he could arguably see a 15-to-1 return on his initial investment.
MLB owners continued to cry poor throughout the pandemic. They claimed they would lose unspeakable amounts of money if the 2020 season were to happen with a larger slate of games. While the union suggested 114 games, then 100, then 89 games. The owners refused to budge, claiming regular season games played without fans – for which they would have to pay players – would result in huge financial losses. Ultimately no deal was reached and Manfred implemented a 60-game season under the power granted to him in the temporary March agreement between the union and owners. Players were paid pro-rata and playoffs were expanded, allowing MLB owners to recoup profits not seen from ticket sales and concessions with national TV broadcast money.
During the pandemic, the Dodgers and Phillies are claiming over $100 million in “losses.” At FanGraphs earlier this month, Craig Edwards looked at the Braves’ books – the only available MLB team ledger since they are publicly traded – and found a more realistic figure to be in the $65 million range.
Culture Wars
While a lot of my gripes with MLB have to do with the business side of things, there’s one that was just so incredibly stupid that it had to be included in my grievances: bat flipping. Bat flipping was not always against MLB’s “unwritten rules,” but as the demographic makeup of MLB players changed, certain groups of players attempted to control the newcomers’ behavior.
MLB pitchers upset with a player who gawked at a home run too long, or who flipped his bat in celebration, retaliated by throwing a baseball at or near the head of either that batter the next time he came to the plate or his teammate. A baseball, especially in the hand of an expert who can throw it around 95 MPH or faster, is a weapon. Taking a baseball to the head can cause broken bones (see: Stanton, Giancarlo; Fiers, Mike), a concussion, or even death (see: Chapman, Ray).
For decades, this was simply part of MLB’s culture: show a pitcher up, get some “chin music.” Oldheads, mostly white former players, liked this because they believed the sport was becoming “soft.” The players most likely to celebrate their accomplishments have been non-white players and it’s because of cultural differences. Barry Enright, a former major league pitcher, described baseball games in Mexico as “a party atmosphere.” Baseball games in Mexico, Panama, the Dominican Republic, etc. aren’t taken as seriously. Thus, the players have a good time and feel free to express their emotions. Then they play in the U.S. and are told to stuff those emotions down. Sometimes it doesn’t always happen.
It’s not just bat flips, either. Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. received a tongue-lashing from both the Rangers and his own manager (who later walked back his comments) after hitting a grand slam on a 3-0 pitch with his team leading by seven runs in the eighth inning. The unwritten rules advise players to never swing at a 3-0 pitch in this situation since his team is already leading by so many runs. Similarly, players are advised against attempting to steal bases in similar situations. Both are seen as showing up the opposition. Again, it’s largely non-white players who are likely to be criticized for either not knowing the rules or being used to their own, less-serious baseball cultures.
MLB, for a long time, did nothing to protect players. Pitchers would hurl baseballs in anger at opposing players. Those pitchers would receive a scant punishment, typically five or six games, and a small fine. Since starting pitchers only pitch once every five days, these punishments were hardly deterrents as they simply pushed back their next starts by a day or two.
MLB then saw the whole thing as a marketing opportunity, putting out “Let the Kids Play” ads in which they glorified bat-flipping. At the same time, pitchers were still hardly punished for wielding baseballs as weapons against said bat-flippers.
MLB put out the above video in March 2019. Several weeks later, White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson flipped his bat after hitting a two-run home run in the fourth inning against Royals pitcher Brad Keller. [Edit: I called him Mitch originally. My apologies.] In the sixth inning, Anderson led off and was promptly hit by Keller, thankfully in the left hip. Both teams’ benches emptied, and both Keller and Anderson were ejected from the game. Afterwards, MLB announced Keller was suspended five games and Anderson received a one-game suspension. By both suspending Anderson and not suspending Keller for a larger amount of games, MLB reinforced the culture war against players showing emotion. It incentivizes pitchers to continue retaliating and disincentivizes batters from flipping their bats. And yet MLB put out that ad.
I could go on for another 3,000 words with more grievances, but this should suffice. Happy Festivus!
Great article and a great ending. This old white guy is 100% pro fun so give me bat flips and ✈ trips around the bases all day everyday. My biggest concern is that in 10 or 20 years no one will like baseball anymore.
Merry Christmas Bill and thanks for the newsletter