The Chris Moeller Archives

The new rules in baseball

Baseball “super agent” Scott Boras doesn’t like the new free agency rules that award a draft pick and additional compensation dollars to the free agent’s departing team. His use of the word “corrupt” to describe it is out of line because it’s the result of collective bargaining, but he’s right that it’s not a beneficial clause for the players and indicative of too many recent "give-backs" by the Players Association even as the sport enjoys unprecedented business growth.

Under the new agreement, Type A and Type B (upper tier) free agents cost their new teams a chunk of the dollars that each is allocated for signing bonuses with drafted players. As a Cardinals fan, I’m thrilled that the division rival Brewers have signed former Cards pitcher Kyle Lohse at the cost of three years, $33 million, the surrendering to the Cards of the 17th pick in this summer’s amateur draft, and $2 million dollars from their bonus pool besides. The Cardinals currently have one of the top rated minor league systems in baseball (maybe the best in my lifetime), and the Brewers are considered to be near the bottom, so this only helps to widen the talent gap and suggests even a little desperation on behalf of the Brewers. But this isn’t good, generally, for the livelihoods of the collective group of ballplayers we all cheer for when it creates a competitive disincentive to sign them.

Boras is describing this new rule like it’s a mold for a modern collusion scandal, but it’s not exactly that. Improving your club through the amateur draft is a legitimate business strategy, and holding on to valuable amateur picks is vital for some clubs in a baseball economy that’s famously lopsided between clubs. The sad part is that the new compensation rules are going to have the opposite effect of their intent. They will not balance competition, as promised, and the Brewers forfeiture of both dollars and a draft pick in this case bears this out.

The issue comes down to understanding the greatest lie that exists in the sports labor world-- that free agency is the cause of competitive imbalance. In fact, the opposite is true. A system of player freedom prevents the top clubs from hording all of the top talent. Now here’s you: So what about the Yankees then, smart guy? Here's me: What about ‘em? They outspend their competitors by a country mile, this is true, and they’ve won seven total championships since Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally were declared free agents by an independent arbitrator in 1976, the action that formally began the era of free agency. That’s seven championships in 37 years, not a number that suggests incompetent play or management, but it's nothing compared to the 20 championships the team won in the 54-year period that preceded it when the club could often boast both the best and second-best player in the American League at any given position.

Another error committed by the Players Association in the 2011 CBA was agreeing to even more drug testing—including, for the first time, blood testing for Human Growth Hormone. (Yes, it's spring so I'm back on this topic.) This is one area where union leaders need to do a better job of educating the rank and file. The PA’s founding director, Marvin Miller, was on public record before his death opposed to any drug testing in the business whatsoever. That was the wise position. A majority of players have demanded it because, even though it’s wildly intrusive into someone’s personal life, they have wanted to increase the public perception that they were “clean.”

Years later, the results speak for themselves. After a decade of drug testing in both the major and minor leagues, some players are being tested multiple times a week, and the testing is more rigorous than in any of the other North American team sports, yet professional baseball players are still routinely looked upon with suspicion. New batting records are still the cause of whisper campaigns inside and outside of locker rooms, and there exists a constant media narrative about the legitimacy, or illegitimacy, of any individual accomplishment in the sport.

Baseball’s drug testing program has brought about multiple claims of false positives, a curiously-disproportionate number of positive results and suspensions for players who are of Latin descent, and at least one high profile example of a test being mishandled by the employer, causing a 50-game suspension to be reversed. Really the only difference between now and ten years ago is that the baseball bosses get to take more urine—and blood—from their workers. Agreeing to increased testing was a surviving remnant of the old paternalism that seeped through the game up until two generations ago.

Drug testing in the American workplace has increased more than 300 percent since the 1980s, yet there is no proven link between more testing and the stoppage of drug use. Millions of Americans are required to prove their innocence in random drug tests each year through their employer despite no evidence that they are using drugs and even when they aren’t suspected of drug use. The lack of privacy legal protections in this area is just one of those seemingly-millions of concessions that have been provided to corporate America without regard to human liberty. Blood tests and urinalysis can also have the intrusive quality of potentially revealing to your boss private medical conditions, and ones that have nothing to do with either drug use or the performance of one’s job. This includes pregnancy for women and genetic predisposition for specific diseases. Remember that your employer is also your health care provider in most cases.

Drug tests do not measure on-the-job impairment, only that a substance has been ingested at some point in the past. This is directly applicable to Major League Baseball (even if the potential revelation of pregnancy is not), especially in respect to participants who use medical substances in connection with injury rehabilitation-- and a who’s who of the Mitchell Report reveals that rehab is a major factor in linked drug use.

Most Americans would likely tell you that they consider drug testing to be reliable, yet simultaneously, I’m sure also you’re very familiar, for example, with the fact that ingestion of poppy seeds on a baked good can produce a positive test for heroin. Ibuprofen has shown up as marijuana on drug tests, and a prescription drug for Parkinson’s disease, Depronil, has shown up as an amphetamine on standard tests. You would have a hard time making the argument that baseball players require the same public safety scrutiny in their alertness as we wisely require of airline pilots or commercial drivers.
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Right on cue then comes the annual Forbes magazine report on the estimated financial worth of each MLB team. This is the one that league officials are always disputing even as the sale price of clubs continues to keep general pace with the appraisals. Forbes suggests that the value of the clubs overall has increased 23% in only one year, which is an astronomical bump, the biggest in the 15-year history of the report. And if you're like me, and you enjoy online stories about corporate greed, get this: just last week the owners took action to end the pension plan for their team employees who do not wear the team uniform. Yeah, that seems about right.

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I like how the Forbes magazine website has a "Thought of the Day." For March 27, 2013, that quote is from James Russell Lowell. I'm not going to Google him. "Endurance is the crowning quality, and patience all the passion of great hearts." You'll miss the quote if you skip the advertisement and "Continue to site."

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My Facebook page shows me an advertisement today from "Emily's List." The political action group declares "We Love Hillary," and praises Hillary Clinton for coming out publicly in favor of same-sex marriage. Did anyone else notice that she announced her support the same day that Bill O'Reilly did? That's a profile in political courage is what that is. Where's the "We Love Bill" ad? Emily's List is an organization that supports pro-choice women who run for Congress or governorships (well, Democrats only), but to my knowledge, Hillary Clinton isn't running for anything.

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I appreciate and respect all of the people who have expressed through social media their religious opposition to same-sex marriage. And that's why I oppose the movement to force each of these people to marry someone of the same sex.

posted by CM @ 9:36 PM