Monday's Frosty Mug

Or by the fact that he didn’t keep himself in shape, especially in the off-season?

A slightly-less effective Gallardo means he’s not Gallardo anymore. If he holds out as an ace for 3 years, that’s worth more to the Brewers than a solid #2 man for 10 years given that he’ll only be with the Brewers for four (?) more years.

The early reports on Parra this year was that they were trying to get him to change his pitch selection. Did they make any mechanical changes? I think I’m just still in denial about how bad he was this year.

I just meant to point out that there are other jobs that have similarities like choosing to make minimum wage, because it’s a job they enjoy. I don’t think any job precisely matches the life of a minor league baseball player (or the local TV guy, for that matter), but there are jobs that match it in certain respects.

I don’t think the relocation issues still fit into the supply and demand argument and the market failure argument. There are still guys willing to make the relocation work for the pay offered and there are still affiliate owners that are never going to lift a finger to help them because they don’t have to.

Sure, baseball’s never followed free market capitalism, but the point has to be made. The very first counterargument to “I’m not being paid enough” is “go work for somewhere else.” That works for the vast majority of Americans. If you can’t find someone willing to pay you what you think you’re worth, then you’re not worth that much. Baseball players don’t have the freedom to sell their skills on the open market for many years.

You’re right that the Player’s Association is the only organization that could make a difference and it’s an entirely different thread of discussion as to why they don’t bother (honestly, I don’t get it either, but I don’t belong to a union so I suppose I wouldn’t).

And the agents. Don’t forget about the agents. It’s not just the MLBPA though. The same is certainly true of the NFLPA. The truth is that Scott Boras wields a great deal more power in the MLBPA than almost all individual players do. Most of the union members will be gone in 10 years or less but Boras will be there forever, and his clients make the most money and thus wield a lot of influence in the union room too. The identity of the player Boras is standing next to almost doesn’t matter. Two years later it’ll be his latest stud signing a ridiculously large contract, and when Boras’s boys stand up and say “this is what worked for me, and we have to protect my ability to earn that kind of salary” the McClungs, Dillards and Coffeys of the world vote the way their told because if they can hang on long enough, they’ll make a few million a season to be slightly above replacement level. And the Weeks, Fielders and Brauns of the world vote the way their told because someday they’ve got a real chance at being the guy standing next to Boras a few weeks after signing a 5 year, 100million plus deal.

The guys at the bottom of the pecking order, the 23rd-25th man on the active roster, have no ability to influence that room. They know the least number of people in the room, they have the least amount of time to make connections and get comfortable with how the union works, and most of them are gone for good in 5 years or less. And quite frankly, I doubt many of them try. The current system lets them play ball for a couple hundred thousand per year and my guess most of them are thrilled to cash those checks even if it’s just for a season or two. It beats hustling cars for 40K.

Maybe most important of all, each player in the league knows their sitting in a room that’s populated with millionaires. They’ve won the lottery even getting in the door, and they want thost top end contracts to be as big as possible on the theory that it brings up the value of the scratch off tickets the 25th man leaves the game with. That IS capitalism. I’m not sure why people think otherwise.

As for the union leaders, why should they bust their backs for the backbenchers who will be out of the league in a couple of years? If they do, Boras and his big-agent colleagues will talk to their clients and get those leaders tossed out into the unemployment line. The only professional athlete union leader I can recall who ever made the bottom guys his priority was Ed Garvey, who was the NFLPA’s legal counsel during the labor wars back inn the 80’s. He told the players in that league not to use agents, or if they did, to pay them flat fees instead of a percentage of their contracts, particularly for rookies whose salaries were largely dictated by the NFL slotting system.

His reward for that effort? He got run out by a group of players that just happened to be represented by the same dozen or so agents.

a lot of these guys live at home in the offseason …. a 19-year-old living at home doesn’t (have to) have many expenses during the offseason.

Also keep in mind that many of these kids have gotten parental support for lots and lots of baseball through junior high and high school…all this talk about baseball being a sport for rich kids isn’t 100% true, but I’ll bet an awful lot of guys in rookie ball are getting spending money from their parents.

Also, for some, living expenses during the season are lower than you might think, since some players live with host families, meaning that the players don’t pay rent, and get some food provided too.