THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

America giveth and America restricteth

Great piece by JD.

Personally, I am far more concerned with an individual’s right to freely negotiate than I am with competitive balance. There are other equitable ways to achieve that end. Where is the public outcry that despite a tremendous difference in natural ability, Leonys Martin just signed a contract of almost equal value to that of pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg?

The young player does not want to jeopardize his possibly very short future litigating the issue.  Not to mention he’ll be treated as a problem-child (JD Drew, Eric Lindros) for challenging his masters.  (It’s weird that the public will side with the owners on this issue.) Sports leagues are set up as 30 or 32 individual clubs, but they are under one league umbrella.  They collectively bargain with its union members, but those union members bargain away rights of non-union members.  Even the different laws between baseball and other sports is inconsistent (and the Supreme Court punts by saying Congress should fix the imbalance).

Even the idea of an international draft doesn’t make any sense.  How can a non-resident of USA and Canada be subjected to the hiring rules of US and Canadian companies (other than as mandated by Federal or Provincial/State law)?  I presume that’s why there is no international draft for baseball, though I don’t know why there is an international draft in hockey. 

***

By the way, HBO Sports with Bryan Gumbel had a great piece on NCAA last week (see if you can find it on HBO.com).  Apparently 15 or 20 years ago, there was going to be a boycott by the athletes at the NCAA 64, where the players would refuse to play.  They backed down, for the obvious reason that they didn’t want to get blamed for causing a moral disruption to people’s away-from-regular-life enjoyment.  Basically, the players are the court jesters, and they better like it.

The NCAA guy also was saying how the system is fair because the athletes get scholarships and other perks that “you can’t put a price on”.  Uh, yeah you can.  You can absolutely put a price on it.  The NCAA guy was so… I can’t think of a good yucky word… Just the way that the overlord decides that his minions should be thankful to be part of the system that they didn’t negotiate.

Someone else mentioned, I don’t remember where, that it’s inconsistent that NCAA requires its athletes to be amateurs, but its artists (piano players, writers, etc) can definitely be professional by selling their services.  The reason, that NCAA of course does not want to acknowledge, is that they are not setup to sell millions of dollars of tickets to a symphony to control their artists, but they can with their athletes.

***

How about this: MLB managers are highly paid, in the ballpark of a bench to average player.  Why not put THEM in a draft?  The Mets draft Mike Scioscia as a manager, they hold his rights for two years, and he either accepts the deal, or he has to sit out.  He qualifies for arbitration, and can be a free agent after six years.  Why not?  Exactly why not?

I mean, a large number of MLB managers were minor league coaches, coaches that those teams “developed”, and spent time and growing pains with them.  How dare a minor league manager interview for a MLB team other than the parent team, right?

Any why not control asst GMs from being GMs on other teams?  They spent 5-6 years grooming the asst GM, and then, suddenly, he can just walk?

***

Set aside your biases.  Start with a clean slate.  And there’s no way that the NCAA system could possibly exist if it started today, and neither could the draft exist.