Management Bullshit Archives - Page 30 of 33 - Marc Normandin is creating baseball coverage, featuring leftism

Rob Manfred declares war on the MLBPA

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For decades, MLB’s owners, regardless of who actually comprised that group, attempted again and again to break the union: they failed, and eventually developed more subtle measures to combat the MLB Players Association. Those plans, supported by unity among the owners despite their various differences, has helped lead us to where we are today, with the MLBPA once again fighting from well underneath as they try to even things up with the bosses.

Over the last two years, much of what I’ve written on MLB’s labor issues has been coming from the assumption that the owners were planning on eventually, once again, declaring open war on the Players Association. We might have seen the first salvo, even, thanks to a report from Craig Calcattera at NBC’s Hardball Talk. MLB and the MLBPA are already discussing changes to the collective bargaining agreement, over two years from the expiration of the current one, and in one of those talks, Manfred reportedly told the PA that there is “not going to be a deal where we pay you in economics to get labor peace.” Since the entire point of opening up the discussions early was economic in nature, and, 50 years in, the major sticking points of the CBA are going to be economically based as the nature of the game’s economics and revenue streams continue to evolve and grow, this is a real problem for anyone who harbored optimism about these and the coming CBA talks.

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Congress sends letter to MLB over MiLB disaffiliating, but what does it mean?

MLB thinks paying MiLB players is a “waste”

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We now know the identity of the 42 minor-league teams MLB plans to shut down as part of a major restructuring of Minor League Baseball. The New York Times published the list this weekend, and there are some threads to pull on within it that reveal some of MLB’s intent: we’ll focus on the idea of “waste” today.

Just 14 of the shuttered teams are full-season, out of 120 that exist right now. However, 28 of the 40 short-season teams out there would be disaffiliated: those are inherently lower on the attendance spectrum, considering they are short-season leagues, in smaller parks, often in smaller cities that maybe couldn’t support something the size and scope of a Triple-A team and its park. That doesn’t mean they failed to, say, pay for the stadium they do have to be built, or that the people within those cities aren’t enjoying having a team in town. As Neil deMause writes:

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Scott Boras opened up about MLB’s attendance issues

Gabe Kapler’s hiring a reminder that MLB is still a good ole boys club

The MLBPA is right to investigate Alex Anthopoulos

The MLBPA rejected a bad-faith MLB economic proposal

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If you’re wondering how seriously Major League Baseball is taking the concerns of the Players Association when it comes to stagnant free agency, we’ve got ourselves an answer. As Evan Drellich reported, the MLBPA recently rejected a proposal from MLB during their early economic negotiations. This proposal aimed to set an offseason deadline, beyond which no player would be eligible to sign a multi-year deal.

The Players Association rejected it — Drellich described it as “a non-starter” — so that’s good news. The worse news is that this is yet another instance of MLB attempting to introduce an enormous loophole into the system that will allow for their behavior — behavior that has them in early negotiations with the MLBPA two years before the current collective bargaining agreement expires — to continue unimpeded.

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The Pirates are insulting your intelligence again

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In the past week, the Pittsburgh Pirates have seen a major shakeup in their front office personnel. Longtime president Frank Coonelly left the organization last week, and then, on Monday, general manager Neal Huntington was fired. Both of these changes might seem like reasons to rejoice if you’re a Pirates fan, but don’t worry: team owner Bob Nutting immediately hosted a press conference to tell you that your optimism is unwarranted.

Nutting didn’t say that in those exact words, but why does this outlet exist if not to parse the words of rich dudes who love to lie and imply? In short, Nutting says he and the Pirates don’t want to use the team’s economic situation as an excuse for their poor performance and lack of effort, but also, they are going to use the team’s economic situation as an excuse to change nothing:

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Kris Bryant’s service time grievance is under review, and it has huge implications

On Brandon Taubman, the Astros, and MLB’s domestic abuse problem

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The Astros have been in the headlines for the wrong reasons this week, as their assistant general manager, Brandon Taubman, publicly chastised three sports reporters — all women — about Houston’s 2018 acquisition of domestic abuser Roberto Osuna. Stephanie Apstein, a Sports Illustrated reporter who was on the scene, described the moment in a story that the Astros initially declined to comment on:

And in the center of the room, assistant general manager Brandon Taubman turned to a group of three female reporters, including one wearing a purple domestic-violence awareness bracelet, and yelled, half a dozen times, “Thank God we got Osuna! I’m so f—— glad we got Osuna!”

The outburst was offensive and frightening enough that another Houston staffer apologized. The Astros declined to comment. They also declined to make Taubman available for an interview.

Despite the scene being so alarming that another Astros’ staffer felt the need to apologize for Taubman’s behavior, the Astros would eventually deny that it even occurred by releasing a statement whose tl;dr is “fake news.” The slightly longer version of it is that the Astros claimed Taubman was trying to help out a player having a rough go of things, even though Osuna wasn’t even present at the time of the incident.

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