MLB's new CBA: Nothing To Cheer About in Toronto

Local pundits are lauding Major League Baseball's new CBA. I don't know what they're reading, I don't see much to cheer about. I certainly don't see what Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos sees in it that could be considered positive.

Getting most of the headlines is the expansion of the playoffs from 8 to 10 teams. Currently, the 8 teams that make the payoffs do so on relatively even footing. If/when the playoffs are expanded to 10 teams, 6 teams will get preferred status and 4 will be also-rans. The 6 division winners will essentially get a "bye" into the second round of the playoffs. Another way of looking at it is that the 4 non-divisional winners that qualify for the 'playoffs' are actually quaoifying for a 'play-in'! This play-in will take the form of a winner-take-all single game. As far as I'm concerned they might as well forget the game and flip a coin.

In fact, MLB isn't expanding the playoffs, they are effectively reducing the playoffs to 6 teams with 4 additional teams getting to play in an extremely gimmicky one-off for the privilege to join the 6 'real' playoff teams. Anything can happen in a single game. Anything. A satellite could crash into the pitchers mound killing one team's ace effectively deciding the game for the other team.

OK, that's not very likely. Here are some things that are incredibly likely. Umpires can blow a call that is obvious to everyone but the umpires. Instant replay (more about that later) won't be able to help because it isn't allowed. Bud Selig's favorite thing about Baseball is the "human element" also known as the propensity for umpires to insinuate themselves into the result of a game by blowing a call. I don't think they do it on purpose, but they do it nonetheless. Their fallibility can decide a game just as sure as a player's outstanding athleticism can. A player can be called away from the game by the birth of a child. A player may feel it completely necessary to miss the game to observe a major religious holiday. A player could wake up with a crick in their neck that only lasts one day. Any of these things could be overcome easily over the course of a longer series but in a single game they become virtually insurmountable tragedies.

For the 2 teams that manage to persevere, or get lucky, and advance to the real playoffs, they are at a huge disadvantage. They were most likely forced to play their best pitcher as their entire season depended on the result of that one game. Now, their best pitcher is unavailable for the opening of their next series, giving an advantage to the team that got to rest their entire roster. (If they didn't use their best pitcher they were taking a huge gamble by risking their one shot of getting to the playoffs against a better chance of succeeding in the playoffs, should they actually get there. In this case, the huge disadvantage doesn't disappear, it manifests a game earlier!) So, that is yet a second advantage to the 6 division winners and a second handicap to the 4 teams that qualify as non-division winners.

This is much worse than it sounds. The 1987 Minnesota Twins made the playoffs by winning the AL West with a mediocre record of 85-77 (4 games better than a .500 81-81 season). The 2006 St. Louis Cardinals lowered the bar even further by winning the NL Central with only 83 wins! What is amazing is that both went on to win the World Series. Anything can happen in the playoffs when teams are given an even footing! You can argue among yourselves as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. In both cases, more than one team missed the playoffs with better records by virtue of the fact that they were unfortunate enough to be in a stronger division. These 2 teams shouldn't even have been given the honour of making the playoffs! But, because they won their pathetically weak divisions they got the same ticket to ride that the other playoff teams got.

So, now that we're going to have a two-tier playoff system, we're going to be giving teams like the '86 Twins and '06 Cardinals an extra leg up on teams that finish with vastly better records! What is so magical or significant about winning arbitrary divisions, anyway? Thanks to Selig's second favorite thing about Baseball, the unbalanced schedule (more about this later), those other teams with better records achieved those better records by playing significantly harder schedules! So, they are better than the division winners by difficulty of schedule AND overall record, but they will be rewarded with the ignominy of having to win a play-in just to take their rightful place in the playoffs, playoffs sullied by these relatively terrible teams! Hey, I have an idea! Let's just decide the World Series by drawing lots! Long straw wins! It's actually more fair, but it has nothing to do with baseball talent or acumen. Neither does the proposed system.

Presumably, this decision is based on the fact that a number of Wild Card teams have won the World Series and this offends Selig's delicate sensibilities. Again I ask, what is so magical about winning arbitrary divisions? How does it merit a greater right to playoff success than finishing with a better record against tougher opposition? The Wild Cards winning the World Series has been GOOD for Baseball. Without it, the competitive balance that Selig says is fine -- it isn't -- would be that much worse! Selig apparently is completely clueless about nearly everything.

The next most talked about section of the new CBA is that the Houston Astros will be moving to the American League West. I have already stated elsewhere that this is a terrible idea! Not only is a terrible idea, but Bud Selig actually paid $65 million to make it happen! That is probably the worst money spent in human history! Rather than rehash the entire argument again, I'll summarize.

Selig must recognize that Baseball has some problems and I guess he wants to do something about it. His solution is to create symmetry. Both leagues will have 15 teams. All 6 divisions will have 5 teams. What awesome symmetry! Newflash...it is entirely meaningless! If Selig wanted to balance something he should have started and ended with balancing teams' schedules! What are the consequences of this pointless change?

1. More interleague play.  This is bad.
2. Fewer meaningful interleague rivalries. This is bad.
3. A new Houston-Texas rivalry.  This is good, but it comes at the expense of doubling the number of times that Houston plays on the West coast, which is monumentally bad for both Houston's competitiveness (jet lag) and television ratings (money).
4. More games with the Yankees and Red Sox.  Everybody wants this except the teams forced to be in the same division as these two Goliaths.  It might increase Houston's revenue by a couple of percentage points, but the increase will be less than the losses incurred by the West coast road trips and their associated loss of television ratings.
5. The illusion of parity.  All illusions are bad.  Why is it an illusion?  Doesn't having 6 teams in one division make it harder to win and having 4 teams in a division make it easier?  Not in and of itself!  It depends on who is in the division! Also, look at the empirical evidence.  Since Milwaukee moved to the NL Central to make it a 6-team division, every team but the Pittsburgh Pirates have made the playoffs.  The Pirates are always among baseball's lowest spenders, so this is no surprise.  They almost always allow their stars to leave when they reach free agency, or preempt their leaving by trading them before they get their chance to leave. Competitive balance in the NL Central is far better than in the AL East!  It is even slightly better than the NL East.  Both only have 5 teams.  Also, the relative ease of making the playoffs in the AL West is not significantly better than in any of the other divisions just because they only have four teams.  Symmetry only results in parity when all the constituent elements (teams) are equal.  They aren't.  Haven't been for decades.  A big fat illusion.  The only teams that will experience any change at all in terms of playoff chances are: the Rangers, Angels, Athletics and Mariners will have a slightly harder time making the playoffs; the Cardinals, Pirates, Cubs, Reds and Brewers will have a slightly easier time making the playoffs.

Balancing the divisions structure is pointless.  Here's a medical analogy.  Baseball has a treatable case of throat cancer.  (It's probably from all the smokeless tobacco.)  Don't worry, Dr. Selig is going to operate!  After surgery, Baseball has a brand new facelift.  A very interesting strategy, using a facelift to treat internal cancer.  Things look very pretty on the surface, but the cancer is still there.  Perhaps an internist and not a plastic surgeon should have addressed the problem?   If the cancer continues to be ignored it will eventually kill the patient.  In this case, surgically excising the cancer requires the balancing of the schedule, not the structure.  Alternately, the structure can be thrown out entirely, getting rid of divisions and letting the best teams with the best records make the playoffs, period.  Selig will never do either.  The perceived evil of added travel expenses and the perceived benefit of 'better' rivalries supports his inaction.  Deeper analysis proves that these surface issues are relatively minor compared to the negatives of the current system.

As far as paying $65 million to the new Houston owner to make this happen, all I can say is that this must be a symptom of insanity.  I wouldn't pay 65 cents to the new Houston owner to move the team.  Actually, I wouldn't TAKE $65 million FROM the new Houston owner to move the team!  It will cost MLB far more in the long run.

If having 15 teams per league was so beautiful and important, why did Selig move HIS Milwaukee Brewers to the National League to create that asymmetry in the first place?  Instead, he could have moved Kansas City to the AL West and had Milwaukee stay in the AL Central.  How does this compare to having Houston in the AL West?  They're in the same time zone.  Actually, they're a lot closer than that implies.  Houston is less than 1 degree of longitude farther West than Kansas City.  (Time zones are 15 degrees wide.)  That is trivial!  It works out to about 50 miles.  Kansas City had spent its entire history in the AL West until Selig's creation of the AL Central, and would have been fine remaining there.

No, there were other, ulterior motives for moving the Brewers to the NL Central and there are ulterior motives for moving Houston to the AL West.  The only thing in common with these 2 changes is that they both benefit Milwaukee.  Selig has a history of providing windfalls to his home town and home team.  Here's an example that involves Houston.  For Hurricane Ike, Selig mandated that the Astros play 2 home games against the Chicago Cubs in Milwaukee despite the proximity to the visiting Cubs.  The home ballparks for the much-closer-to-Houston Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves were both available to host the games but were passed over in favour of a special treat for the people of Milwaukee.  It wasn't bad enough that the Astros were distracted by the severe and dangerous weather that was threatening their homes and their families.  No, they had to play in Chicago's backyard.  The displaced Astros were subsequently victimized by a no-hitter by Carlos Zambrano (the 1st ever at a supposedly 'neutral' site) and recorded just 1 hit in the following game.  In the midst of the playoff race, this decision and its impact deeply affected the playoff race and team seeding with 8 NL teams holding winning records at that moment.  Selig's Milwaukee Brewers benefited from these events by qualifying for the playoffs as the Wild Card team.  Surprise!

What other wolves-in-sheep's-clothing are in this bundle of joy called the CBA?

MLB is moving into the 20th Century by instituting blood tests for HGH.  MLB becomes the 1st of the "Big 4" North American team sport leagues to address HGH.    MLB says it waited until reliable testing could be found.  The World Anti-Doping Agency has been testing athletes since the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.  No one has been caught yet!  Before you break out the champagne, consider the specifics of the testing.  Testing will be mandatory in Spring Training.There will be 'random' testing during the off-season.  Testing will only take place during the season if there is deemed to be 'reasonable cause'.  This is a great step forward, but it is also largely meaningless.  Here's why:

1. The best available methods are still extremely poor.
2. HGH exits the bloodstream within hours of having been injected under normal circumstances.  The chances of 'catching' an athlete in the midst of an HGH coping cycle are very slim.  If an athlete has any notice at all they can make efforts to flush their system before the test, making the window of opportunity for a successful test even smaller.  I'll believe that the 'random' testing is truly random and without advance notice when they catch a high profile player and not a moment sooner.
3. Athletes that 'fear' the test will change their training methods to work around testing.
4. 'Reasonable cause' is wide open to interpretation.  You can also bet that the MLBPA will do everything in its power to appeal/block any attempts by MLB to test during the season on these grounds.  Again, if the athlete has any advance notice at all, they can make efforts to flush their system. The MLBPA will do whatever it can to protect its players from the looming spectre of 50-game suspensions, 100-game suspensions and lifetime bans.

MLB is planing a study to determine whether random testing during the regular season is warranted.  They don't need to waste money on any study.  It is warranted!  

So, by and large, this is much ado about nothing.

In the title of this blog entry I implied that the new CBA is bad specifically for Toronto.  It is, in many ways.  Toronto is a somewhat unique market.  It has elements of a small market and elements of a huge market.  The current GM and President (Alex Anthopoulos and Paul Beeston) have instituted various methods to try and be competitive in the toughest division in professional sports without throwing vast amounts of money out the window.  Toronto may have the potential to be nearly as big a market as New York or Boston but that reality hasn't arrived just yet, and won't any time soon.  Here are some of the things that Anthopoulos has done in recent years that he won't be able to do anymore.

1. Traded for catcher Miguel Olivo and then refused his contract option.  This resulted in Toronto receiving a compensatory draft pick when Olivo was signed by another team as a free agent.  This is no longer allowed.
2. Trade Aaron Hill and John McDonald to Arizona for Kelly Johnson in what could be a win-win-win deal.  Hill was having a terrible season and was projected to be neither a Type-A nor Type-B free agent at season's end.  That meant that holding Hill could mean losing him to free agency and receive no compensation whatsoever.  Johnson was projected to be one of the last/lowest Type-A free agents.  Should Toronto decide not to seriously pursue Johnson for next year and subsequently lose him to free agency, they would receive TWO compensatory draft picks.  Not going to happen anymore.
   
   Both item #1 and item #2 are being eliminated in one fell swoop of the pen.  From now on, you can't receive compensation for any player that wasn't on your roster for a full year.  No more creative thinking for GMs.  Thinking outside of the box will get you smacked!  Anthopoulos' greatest asset was thinking outside of the box.
3. There will no longer even be Type-A or Type-B free agents.  Now, to qualify for any compensation, you have to offer your free agent player a 1-year qualifying offer within 5 days of the end of the World Series.  Further, this offer must at least match the average of the top 125 salaries.  Anything less and they get to walk Scot-free.  If you fulfill this requirement and lose your free agent you will receive a single sandwich picks between the 1st and 2nd round of the Amateur Draft.  No longer can you receive a second pick from the signing team.  Thus, the cost of retating your own free agents is going up.  Way up.  This favours the richest teams like the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies.  It puts more emphasis on spending megabucks on free agents and de-emphasizes amateur signings.  It gets worse.  It definitely hurts Toronto.
4. If you sign someone else's free agent, you lose either a 1st or 2nd round pick in the Amateur Draft.  I can't figure out what happens to these picks.  They don't go to the team that lost their free agent as they have in the past for Type-A free agents.  I can only guess that the picks simply evaporate, disappearing.  This hurts the rich teams, but only somewhat.  These teams already tend to be successful so their picks tend to come very late in their rounds, minimizing the value of the lost 'asset'.  In the event that a weak team tries to buy its way out of the basement, the top 10 picks are protected from this mechanism.  Further, since it no longer goes to the victimized team, generally a poor/low-spending team, it hurts the little guy.  The only real winner here?  The players.  Another rule change that hurts Toronto.
5. The non-tender deadline is moved up to December 2nd.  This gives GMs less time to decide what to do with their borderline assets.  This hurts the poor more than the rich.  Fully determining the pool of free agents before the Winter Meetings is a nice benefit for GMs, but again, it favours the big spenders.  This isn't Toronto.
6. The way the Amateur Draft is handled is changing.  Teams will be allotted a pool of funds for signing their amateur picks.  This pool will range from $4.5 million to $11 million depending on position.  Presumably, the larger pools go to the weakest teams, but that isn't clear yet.  Teams are limited to this pool of funds for signing all their picks in the 1st 10 rounds.  This includes all sandwich picks!  Further, any amateur signing bonus greater than $10,000 counts against the pool even if the player is picked later than the 10th round.  Teams can exceed this pool allotment b yup to 5% with relative impunity.  The punishment is just a fine.  If they exceed the allotment by more than 5% they start losing draft picks in subsequent drafts!  In other words, exceeding your allotment by more than 5% and you are gambling that your picks this year will be more valuable than your early round picks in the next or next two drafts.  This is a massive gamble!
   This is great for teams that don't value the amateur draft or have stringent policies against paying amateurs significant signing bonuses.  Since Anthopoulos became Toronto's GM the amateur draft has been where he has been the biggest spender! This is a serious blow to Toronto!
   What is more insidious is how this will change the behaviour of potential draftees.  Amateurs that are just looking for a big payday will be forced to at least strongly consider signing with the have-nots.  Those are the teams that will have the money to spend.  Players will have to weigh the benefit of signing with a winner or a cash cow.  By that, I mean that the amateurs and their agents can clearly inform franchises that they will be seeking huge money, sending a signal to teams with limited pools to look elsewhere for talent.  Or, they can waive their 'right' to a big payday and sign on the cheap with a winning franchise.  In any case, players will always have the right to refuse signing and go back into the draft in subsequent years.  Currently, players don't really have to decide much as the winning teams are  generally the biggest spenders in the draft, too.
   There's more.  Players being drafted out of high school will have increased incentive to refuse paltry signing bonuses in favor of scholarships from colleges and universities.  This happens now if and only if the player thinks he came be drafted higher and command a higher signing bonus when he is next eligible for the draft (2 years).  With signing bonuses being severely curtailed, high schoolers may actually see more financial benefit from receiving a (mostly) free education even if they don't end up commanding a better signing bonus in the future.  Most players don't make the big leagues and have to worry about life after baseball.  This will steer them away from the minor leagues and into schools.  Overall, this is good for ALL GMs.  Signing players out of high school is inherently riskier than signing college players.  Until now, this is one of the ways that teams sought philosophical advantage.  Some teams, like the Blue Jays, would sign a fair number of "high ceiling" high school players.  Other teams, like the 'Moneyballers' in Oakland, focus on lower risk and cheaper college players.  Going forward, there will be more and more players opting for school before baseball, removing the option from GMs like Anthopoulos and eliminating one form of competitive advantage for franchises.
   We're not done yet.  Amateurs have four reasons to 'choose' a prospective team.  The size of their potential signing bonus offer, the likelihood of success on the field, the potential for off-field income and  the 'destination' status of the home city.  Imposing these changes limits the attractiveness of the 1st reason, signing bonuses.  This places additional emphasis on the other 3 reasons.  All three favour big markets.  The big markets are the big spenders and for the most part they buy their success on the field.  The bigger the market, the greater the potential for off-field income. Finally, the perception of the reputation and history of a franchise is strongly influenced by the size of the market.  It also somewhat favours financially mid- & low-tier but storied franchises like St. Louis and Cincinnati in the NL and Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland or Cleveland in the AL.  Expansion teams need not apply.  This hurts Toronto, the only team with the dubious (in the mind of often unworldly amateurs) distinction of being outside of the United States, perceived as a small market with poor potential for off-field income or on-field success.  Those World Series wins were a lifetime ago.  Half of the players eligible for the 2012 amateur draft hadn't even been born when the Jays last had succcess!
   But that's not all.  The very best athletes have more than one option on their plates.  They are multi-sport athletes.  Colleges and universities have a limited number of full and partial scholarships to offer ballplayers.  Less than half of any college's baseball team typically earns a scholarship.  There is only so much love to go around.  By and large, college football teams are able to offer full scholarships to their entire rosters!  So by limiting MLB franchises' ability to sign amateur athletes at 'what the market will bear' MLB is going to be sending potential superstars into other sports.  The overall talent pool for baseball will shrink!  This is terrible for everyone!  Thanks, Uncle Bud!  You win in your battle with union and in the process cut off your own nose.  Being noseless suits you!
   No matter how you slice it, the changes in the Amateur Draft hurt Toronto enormously, and possibly more than any other team!
7. The way international free agents are signed is changing, too.  Like the Amateur Draft, teams will receive a pool of money to spend, but it will be equal for all teams.  Teams that have no interest in the international free agent market can trade their pool or portions of it to other teams for other assets.  Again, this may hurt Toronto more than any other team.  GM Anthopoulos has seriously beefed up the scouting department since he arrived and much of that is focused on the international market.  Toronto has made significant international free agent signings every year since he became GM.  Their future ability to do this is going to be radically limited by the imposition of a budget.
8. Toronto may gain some benefit from this next change, but likely only for another year or two.  They qualify only barely for this benefit and any improvement in revenue will likely eliminate them from receiving the benefit.  What is it?  Between the 1st round of the draft and the sandwich picks there will be "competitive balance lottery" picks.  6 picks will be up for grabs for the 10 teams with the lowest revenue.  The 4 that miss out in this lottery will be eligible for 6 more 'lottery' picks after the 2nd round, but they will have to compete with the rest of the 'revenue-sharing payees' to get them.  These picks may be traded -- they are the only picks that can be traded!  For the time being, Toronto may benefit as I believe they are among the lowest 10 in revenue.  I could be wrong.  Please note that this is based entirely on revenue, not profitability.  Increasing the payroll and increasing the net operating loss does nothing to qualify for this tiny benefit.  If, as is generally expected, Toronto starts to see some additional success on the field, revenues will go up and they will lose access to this benefit (assuming they have access now).
9. The rules for qualifying for salary arbitration are changing, too.  Instead of the players with 2-full years of service plus the top 17% of 1-year-plus players qualifying it will now be the 2-year players and the top 22% of the 1-year-plus players qualifying.  More players qualifying for arbitration earlier is great for the players, bad for the franchises and worst for the low-budget or frugal teams like Toronto.

That's an awful lot of reasons why things have just gotten a lot darker for baseball fans in Toronto.  Sure, there's that extra play-in spot (in each league), but good luck with that!  Knowing the luck of Toronto sports franchises in the next 100 years the Blue Jays won't qualify for Wild Card spot #2, and even if they do they will then lose the 1-game play-in. More likely, they will qualify for Wild Card spots #1 (which so far has been a full-fledged ticket into the playoffs) and lose the 1-game play-in to the inferior 2nd Wild Card team.  That's just the way it is in Toronto sports history.  (OK, I suppose there's a remote chance they might win a 1-game play-in, but if they do, their absolute best player will suffer an injury during the game ending all hope of success in the real playoffs.)

Is there anything actually positive in the CBA?

Well, for one, there's no strike or lockout.  That would have been the death knell for the league.

The top amateur prospects, both domestic and international will be subject to drug testing.  This might tease out a few frauds, but catching cheaters in 1-shot testing is next to impossible.

They'll be phasing out the super-fragile and extremely dangerous maple bats, but players currently using them may continue to do so.  It could take 20 years to entirely eliminate them.  Why MLB doesn't invest in Ash tree farms around the world so there will be a sufficient supply of quality wood I'll never know!

There are two real, purely positive pieces of news in the CBA (for everyone, not just the players).

First, instant replay is being expanded.  Fair/foul and trapped/caught are added to the list of reviewable plays.  We're making progress, but we'e not quite there yet.  Getting it right should be the most important thing officials do.  I still say that the fans place zero value on Bud Selig's favorite thing in baseball, "the human element", i.e.the chance of umpires bungling calls.  If you ask a typical fan how much money he's willing to spend for the human element you'll probably hear the answer "nothing".  If more than 0 cents of every ticket goes to paying for the human element it is too much.  It's obvious why he likes the human element.  Human psychology predicts that the vast majority of mistakes will favour the home team, the star player and/or the 'popular' team.  (Popular doesn't necessarily mean better.)  All of these things are good for marketing and bad for fans.  If it's bad for fans it's bad for baseball.  Time and again, Selig has shown that what is bad for baseball is good in his book!  And that's why the owners love him and why he'll probably die before relinquishing the role of Commissioner.

Second, the use of smokeless tobacco is being restricted.  Well, sort of.  Players can still use chaw, but they can't carry it in their uniforms and can't chew during an interview.  I imagine that they will still be seen spitting tobacco juice onto the dugout floor every time the camera happens to look in that direction.  I also figure that they will still take their at-bats with their cheeks overly full of poison.  Part of the mythology of chaw is that the cheek bulge helps batters see the ball better.  R-i-g-h-t... If that's all it is then chewing gum would be just as helpful and far less lethal.  Still, it's a start.

Overall, Selig seems to have decided that he needed to 'win' something in the battle against the union.  What baseball really needs is a salary cap, but that would be hard to get, and would probably lead to another work stoppage.  Why they didn't force the issue when they had the chance during the last work stoppage is a good question.  Now it is a holy grail that may never be attained.  Instead, he went for little victories in the form of cost-cutting affecting amateurs.  They have no rights, so that is easy!  Unfortunately it does virtually nothing for the over all competitive balance in baseball.  It merely pits the focus squarely on fee agency which suits the union just fine!  Player salaries will go up as teams find it harder to win big in the draft.  Qualifying offers will go up, another big win for the players.  How exactly did Selig 'win' in this CBA?  In any case, that's the story he's going to be telling and, by and large, he decides what spin gets placed on everything because the media lets him.

I had really high hopes for this CBA and mostly I feel I've been let down by the process and the participants.  It's been like this for 15-20 years and there's little chance of improvement.  Why exactly do I still care?  Oh yeah, I love the game.  I wish I still felt the same way about MLB.