MLB Lockout News: Tanking an Issue in Negotiations

The Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) expired December 1. Since then, MLB owners and the players association have met just once. That was on January 13, and no progress was made.

They’ll meet again on Monday (January 24), as time is starting to run out on any hope that the season could get started on time.

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The impression one gets is that the owners are waiting out the players, hoping they’ll cave. Indeed, many of the players have expensive tastes, and that brings with it expensive bills that have to be paid. With no income, that becomes tougher.

Of course, there is a flip side to that. A number of teams rushed to sign free agents, and any momentum that could have been gathered by those signings is being lost. We’re talking especially about franchises like Seattle and Texas, who made big splashes, with plans to do more.

There are a number of issues on the table, and we’ll keep talking about them if this thing drags on. But there is one dilemma that the owners (at least the majority of them) and the players should readily agree on addressing.

Tanking Has Become a Big Problem

That is the issue of “tanking.”

As we go forward with this piece, please understand that we are using that term in a broad sense. Teams aren’t throwing games. Players aren’t going at half-speed. But there are too many teams where management and / or ownership hoists the white flag.

This can be for a lot of reasons. Sometimes they can’t assume enough payroll to field a top-shelf roster because they just don’t have access to enough revenue. Some teams are simply content to pocket their share of the luxury tax that is assessed to teams which overspend.

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The owners would like to expand the number of teams making the playoffs to 14, with the rationale that more teams can stay in contention longer, and fewer teams might feel compelled to become “sellers” of their best talent at the trade deadline. Look at the NFL this year, with seven playoff entries in each conference; there were precious few teams that were eliminated from the playoff picture before the last few weeks of the season. There is nothing worse in a baseball season than for fans to have to endure the last couple of months of a season without any hope.

Even so, the players are holding fast at twelve playoff participants.

I don’t know how much sense that makes, since one of their contentions is that with less in the way of tanking, it is inevitable that there will be more spending on the part of MLB clubs.

The luxury tax threshold is going to be a subject that is difficult to resolve. Right now that limit (which isn’t necessarily a salary cap, but may have a similar effect for some) is $210 million. The owners have indicated a willingness to increase that to $220 million over several years. That increase is not dramatic enough for the players, who would like it to go to $245 million. Naturally, their logic is that if teams have more money they can spend without “penalty,” payroll figures will go up.

And maybe they would spend more.

We said “maybe.” There’s no guarantee of that. Some teams have no other choice but to be frugal.

Another idea that has been a three-team “lottery,” in which the teams with the worst records would go into a drawing to see who would get the #1 pick in the amateur draft. This presumably would prevent a team from diving deep into the “tank” in order to obtain that top selection – something the Houston Astros had been accused of doing before they built themselves into a power.

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Longshots to Win the 2022 MLB World Series

If you follow NASCAR, you know that some of these teams (admittedly not Houston) bear a similarity to the “start-and-park” teams that are consistently bringing up the rear; that is, they are in the game, but they have no intention to do what is necessary to contender. And if you were wondering who those teams were, just take a look at the longshots to win the World Series. We went to one of the sportsbook sites and pulled up these numbers:

Kansas City Royals 100-1

Colorado Rockies 175-1

Baltimore Orioles 175-1

Pittsburgh Pirates 200-1

Arizona Diamondbacks 200-1

And while we understand that the Royals won a World Series not all that long ago, it is very hard for teams not spending huge on players to sustain success for any considerable period of time.

Ken Rosenthal, a baseball writer who was let go by MLB Network for comments he made about Commissioner Rob Manfred last year, asserts that the institution of Major League Baseball, while recognizing that there are “haves” and “have-nots,” really doesn’t fully acknowledge that there is tanking going on. And why would they?

After all, these are the owners,and some of them are tanking. Why would they admit to it?

And why would they admit it to the public?

That may prove to be a key stumbling block.

Read our MLB first team to score props betting guide next.