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It didn't look, didn't smell, didn't feel like the kind of moment that would launch a war.
Let's just say it wasn't exactly the sinking of the Lusitania.
Heck, it was only a news release.
But mark the words of the resident psychics here at World Rumblings and Grumblings headquarters: In two years, we'll be looking back on that news release as seven paragraphs that changed baseball.
They were seven meticulously worded paragraphs about those low-budget Florida Marlins, issued just a couple of weeks ago. Somewhere in there, the Marlins made a solemn vow to spend their revenue-sharing dollars "to increase player payroll annually as they move toward the opening of their new ballpark."
But make no mistake about it. This was not just about the Marlins.
This was a sneak preview of potentially the most volatile issue standing in the way of baseball's next labor deal.
Let's draw up the complicated battle lines for you, as they've been painted for us by several knowledgeable sources.
You've got your big-budget teams, now pointing fingers at five or six low-budget teams.
You've got those low-budget teams, assuring one and all that they haven't done a darned thing wrong, even as one of them is getting slapped on the wrist in an unprecedented press release.
You've got a bunch of middle-market teams, squished in between the main combatants, who aren't real happy with either side.
And then you've got the folks from the players' union, watching all of this carefully because, at the moment, it's affecting their troops' livelihood, and because, sooner or later, it's all going to come crashing down on their side at the bargaining table.
In other words, you have a war looming that's going to drag in just about everyone in the game -- except maybe the guys grilling the hot dogs behind section 238.
Now the good news is, this probably isn't a dispute that's going to wind up shutting down the sport, the way it did in the bad old days of 1994. It's probably not leading us to a strike or lockout two years down the highway.
But it's still a gigantic issue -- because it is a modern-day version of the same battles that blew up baseball a decade and a half ago.
Except now this is a sport where more than $400 million in revenue-sharing welfare gets passed from the haves to the have-nots every year. And that's a great development, at least on the old drawing board.
Obviously, the reason baseball is sharing all that money now is as basic as a 3-and-0 "take" sign:
It's supposed to even out the playing field.
But here's the big question: Is that working?
It's a question we've heard before. But this time, it isn't the fine citizens of Pittsburgh and Kansas City and Cincinnati who are asking it.
It's teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets and Cubs. Those four teams are dumping enormous amounts of money into the revenue-sharing pool -- more than $300 million just among the four of them, by some estimates. And they're wondering where it's going. We don't blame them.
As we documented in a Rumblings column earlier in the offseason, you have a half-dozen teams -- believed to be the Marlins, Pirates, Padres, Rays, Royals and Blue Jays -- receiving somewhere in the neighborhood of $35 million to $40 million a year in revenue sharing alone. You have even more teams that take in at least $80 million a year before they sell a single ticket.
But are those teams actually spending that money on "improving their performance on the field," as the Basic Agreement requires them to? Fascinating question.
In just the last few months, we've heard Red Sox owner John Henry and agent Scott Boras pose that question publicly. We've heard many more people raise it privately.
TRIVIALITY
This season, Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman will become only the fourth set of active teammates who have played together for at least the last 10 seasons. Can you name the other three? (Answer later.)
And then we read that news release.
What preceded it, from what we've heard, were threats from the players' union to file grievances against the Marlins, Pirates, Padres and Rays for not spending their revenue-sharing checks the way the rules require them to.
Next thing we knew, the Marlins were promising to do just that -- and then, almost immediately afterward, signing their ace, Josh Johnson, to the biggest pitching contract in the history of the franchise.
We're hearing that other teams -- particularly the Pirates -- could be next in the line of fire. But whether they are or aren't, what happened to the Marlins, one source said, is a sign that this sport is now "paying close attention" to what teams do with their revenue-sharing welfare checks. And that's a major development.
But to be honest, any attention we devote to any one team is just small-picture stuff. The big picture is way more important, because all of this is merely the pregame show for what's coming -- namely, a monumental adjustment to The System.
That adjustment is going to have to come in those labor talks. It won't be easy. And it won't be pretty. But here's where that might be leading at your friendly neighborhood bargaining table:
• The big-budget teams are clearly going to rebel against continuing to paying out monstrous revenue-sharing dollars without a more concrete guarantee that the teams getting that money will spend those dollars on payroll -- not on debt service, ballpark construction fees or the office Christmas party.
• There's an excellent chance that those big-budget titans will find plenty of allies in that rebellion. The next tier of teams paying smaller revenue-sharing bills -- the Angels and Dodgers, for instance -- could easily line up in the same corner.
• Then there are a bunch of teams in the middle -- clubs like the Astros, Rangers and Orioles that were once viewed as the biggest beneficiaries of this system -- that could rise up and ask why they're not getting a meaningful slice of this pie.
• And, finally, there will always be a contingent of clubs grumbling about a system in which the Yankees are allowed to have a payroll two or three times as large as teams in their own division.
The most likely outcome, if you look at this logically, is a big correction to The System -- toward a system that isn't as top-heavy or bottom-heavy.
When the rubble settles, we see a world where the revenue-sharing bills aren't as monstrous at the top, where the checks aren't as humongous for the bottom and the clubs in the middle reap more of the benefits. Then again, we can also guarantee nobody will ask us how to settle this mess.
But with all those forces tugging at one another, and with so many negotiable U.S. dollars at stake, you can see where this is leading.
"It's going to be a donnybrook," one baseball official said succinctly.
And, as with all classic labor-talk donnybrooks, we can … um … hardly wait. How 'bout you?
Let's just say it wasn't exactly the sinking of the Lusitania.
Heck, it was only a news release.
But mark the words of the resident psychics here at World Rumblings and Grumblings headquarters: In two years, we'll be looking back on that news release as seven paragraphs that changed baseball.
They were seven meticulously worded paragraphs about those low-budget Florida Marlins, issued just a couple of weeks ago. Somewhere in there, the Marlins made a solemn vow to spend their revenue-sharing dollars "to increase player payroll annually as they move toward the opening of their new ballpark."
But make no mistake about it. This was not just about the Marlins.
This was a sneak preview of potentially the most volatile issue standing in the way of baseball's next labor deal.
Let's draw up the complicated battle lines for you, as they've been painted for us by several knowledgeable sources.
You've got your big-budget teams, now pointing fingers at five or six low-budget teams.
You've got those low-budget teams, assuring one and all that they haven't done a darned thing wrong, even as one of them is getting slapped on the wrist in an unprecedented press release.
You've got a bunch of middle-market teams, squished in between the main combatants, who aren't real happy with either side.
And then you've got the folks from the players' union, watching all of this carefully because, at the moment, it's affecting their troops' livelihood, and because, sooner or later, it's all going to come crashing down on their side at the bargaining table.
In other words, you have a war looming that's going to drag in just about everyone in the game -- except maybe the guys grilling the hot dogs behind section 238.
Now the good news is, this probably isn't a dispute that's going to wind up shutting down the sport, the way it did in the bad old days of 1994. It's probably not leading us to a strike or lockout two years down the highway.
But it's still a gigantic issue -- because it is a modern-day version of the same battles that blew up baseball a decade and a half ago.
Except now this is a sport where more than $400 million in revenue-sharing welfare gets passed from the haves to the have-nots every year. And that's a great development, at least on the old drawing board.
Obviously, the reason baseball is sharing all that money now is as basic as a 3-and-0 "take" sign:
It's supposed to even out the playing field.
But here's the big question: Is that working?
It's a question we've heard before. But this time, it isn't the fine citizens of Pittsburgh and Kansas City and Cincinnati who are asking it.
It's teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets and Cubs. Those four teams are dumping enormous amounts of money into the revenue-sharing pool -- more than $300 million just among the four of them, by some estimates. And they're wondering where it's going. We don't blame them.
As we documented in a Rumblings column earlier in the offseason, you have a half-dozen teams -- believed to be the Marlins, Pirates, Padres, Rays, Royals and Blue Jays -- receiving somewhere in the neighborhood of $35 million to $40 million a year in revenue sharing alone. You have even more teams that take in at least $80 million a year before they sell a single ticket.
But are those teams actually spending that money on "improving their performance on the field," as the Basic Agreement requires them to? Fascinating question.
In just the last few months, we've heard Red Sox owner John Henry and agent Scott Boras pose that question publicly. We've heard many more people raise it privately.
TRIVIALITY
This season, Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman will become only the fourth set of active teammates who have played together for at least the last 10 seasons. Can you name the other three? (Answer later.)
And then we read that news release.
What preceded it, from what we've heard, were threats from the players' union to file grievances against the Marlins, Pirates, Padres and Rays for not spending their revenue-sharing checks the way the rules require them to.
Next thing we knew, the Marlins were promising to do just that -- and then, almost immediately afterward, signing their ace, Josh Johnson, to the biggest pitching contract in the history of the franchise.
We're hearing that other teams -- particularly the Pirates -- could be next in the line of fire. But whether they are or aren't, what happened to the Marlins, one source said, is a sign that this sport is now "paying close attention" to what teams do with their revenue-sharing welfare checks. And that's a major development.
But to be honest, any attention we devote to any one team is just small-picture stuff. The big picture is way more important, because all of this is merely the pregame show for what's coming -- namely, a monumental adjustment to The System.
That adjustment is going to have to come in those labor talks. It won't be easy. And it won't be pretty. But here's where that might be leading at your friendly neighborhood bargaining table:
• The big-budget teams are clearly going to rebel against continuing to paying out monstrous revenue-sharing dollars without a more concrete guarantee that the teams getting that money will spend those dollars on payroll -- not on debt service, ballpark construction fees or the office Christmas party.
• There's an excellent chance that those big-budget titans will find plenty of allies in that rebellion. The next tier of teams paying smaller revenue-sharing bills -- the Angels and Dodgers, for instance -- could easily line up in the same corner.
• Then there are a bunch of teams in the middle -- clubs like the Astros, Rangers and Orioles that were once viewed as the biggest beneficiaries of this system -- that could rise up and ask why they're not getting a meaningful slice of this pie.
• And, finally, there will always be a contingent of clubs grumbling about a system in which the Yankees are allowed to have a payroll two or three times as large as teams in their own division.
The most likely outcome, if you look at this logically, is a big correction to The System -- toward a system that isn't as top-heavy or bottom-heavy.
When the rubble settles, we see a world where the revenue-sharing bills aren't as monstrous at the top, where the checks aren't as humongous for the bottom and the clubs in the middle reap more of the benefits. Then again, we can also guarantee nobody will ask us how to settle this mess.
But with all those forces tugging at one another, and with so many negotiable U.S. dollars at stake, you can see where this is leading.
"It's going to be a donnybrook," one baseball official said succinctly.
And, as with all classic labor-talk donnybrooks, we can … um … hardly wait. How 'bout you?
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