Spring training is beginning, but baseball anger is in midseason form.
It’s Feb. 13, and Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and triple-digit free agents are still unsigned, the latest evidence of a changing marketplace in which less money is being spent, cheap prospects are valued more and age is more and more a deterrent.
Justin Verlander sees it. Everyone sees it. Major League Baseball is making more money than ever, and the middle class of player — and even parts of the upper class with warts — are seeing paychecks with fewer zeroes, if they’re seeing paychecks at all.
Last year, it was Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen who took the first step toward the nuclear option. This year, it’s Phillies pitcher Pat Neshek, who dipped his toe in the strike waters.
“It’s sad to see. It stinks. They want to go cheaper, the front offices. I think we signed a bad CBA, personally,” the 12-year veteran told NBC Philadelphia on Wednesday. “When there’s a little disrespect, when the revenues are going up, and the portion that’s being paid to the players is consistently declining, there’s going to be an issue.
“It’s going to get pretty ugly. The smart front offices, a lot of those guys might not have jobs anymore, because we’re not going to have baseball. It’s a respect issue.”
If they’re not going to have baseball, that means one side would be holding out. The “smart” front offices are typically the ones that spend frugally, finding talent on the margins at costs they can live with. Or they don’t spend on established players at all, investing in their farm systems, where they can produce players on rookie contracts. They can tank to get better draft picks, turn those picks into major league players in a few years and develop a system that theoretically can eventually yield wins for cheap. That’s the hope at least.
That groupthink has infested baseball, and the more free-wheeling, money-spending GMs have disappeared. Emerging have been the voices of angry players, whose CBA doesn’t expire until December 2021. Emerging have been angry agents like CAA’s Jeff Berry, who released a memo proposing pitchers cap their workload to ensure teams don’t use them up before they can hit free agency.
After Verlander ranted about the “broken” system, former Marlins president David Samson wrote: “There is a problem that will not be fixed by players systematically tweeting about the broken system. The reality is that players and agents have to adjust to a new reality.”
“F–k you,” agent Joshua Kusnick responded.
The baseball time bomb will not be defused when Harper and Machado sign.