First, I need to be honest. To be sure, I hope I live long enough to no longer need to udder the words ‘Rob Manfred’. Indeed, I dislike the MLB commissioner.
While I will make no apologies for this today, I will tell you within this post another negative association I have with the gentleman. And by ‘gentleman’ I mean complete movie villain in a movie I dearly love.
Right now you would love as a baseball fan to be hearing about progress moving in the right direction in regards to the suits and the player’s union. However, that’s not the case. What this means is a baseball strike is approaching all of us like an iceberg in front of the Titanic.
Rob Manfred told the MLBPA there will be no economic concessions for labor peace https://t.co/gHIQ0hJoOn via @HardballTalk
— Craig Calcaterra (@craigcalcaterra) November 20, 2019
This information is directly from NBC Sports’ Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk.
Manfred took an aggressive posture, telling the union that there is “not going to be a deal where we pay you in economics to get labor peace.” Manfred also told union representatives that, “maybe Marvin Miller’s financial system doesn’t work anymore.”
Then, NBC sports continued a little by breaking down what these comments mean for those who struggle or are bored by it. It’s anything but boring, if you love baseball; but rather terrifying.
Those briefed on Manfred’s comments tell NBC Sports that the impression left by them was that the league plans to take a hard line with the union and is unwilling to make any concessions on the numerous pocketbook issues about which the players are concerned, including tanking, the glacial pace of the free agent market, the Competitive Balance Tax, and qualifying offers.
Basically, Manfred and the owners are at least publicly saying that they’re not going to budge when it comes to making concessions towards the player’s union. Therefore, one would assume that the two sides are going to have trouble reaching an agreement and holding off a strike.
It’s so painful to write about labor talks – there’s almost nothing fun about it. Even more, with baseball in such a great place with all the great young talent; it’s hard to think about these guys missing playing time do to something this ugly.
Finally, if you’re keeping score at home on Manfred. He’s the guy who wants to downsize the minor leagues, advertise on baseball uniforms, put a time clock in the game, allow robots to call the game, and about a dozen other things I will avoid listing to avoid a vastly run-on sentence.
Perhaps now you understand my disdain for Rob Manfred.
