Players Union Needs to Stop Complaining, Start Focusing On What's Important

This irks me: “We have concerns about the operation of the post-2009 free agent market,” new union head Michael Weiner said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “We have been investigating that market. Our investigation is far along but not yet complete.”

Ok, Mike, I'm assuming you're not talking about Scott Boras and his clear conflict on interest, because, well, you seem to have no interest in regulating agents. And I'm sure you're not talking about the treatment/salaries of minor league players, since, well, you don't seem to have much interest in their well-being. So what exactly are you talking about?

Oh, right, Mike...you're talking about players (read: high-paid veterans) whose salaries--as your union cited recently--is actually up. This in a time where the economies of all your American League Central cities from Cleveland to Detroit seem to be in shambles. I'm not crying for the owners, but let us not shed a tear for these poor players either. I'm not getting involved in the convoluted baseball labor negotiations but I have a feeling that big-market owners, small-market owners, and the (veteran) players are all making out just fine.

And this all started because Jim Edmonds and Jermaine Dye had a hard time finding work? Boo hoo. Maybe teams are realizing that signing defensively challenged, over-the-hill players is not a good use of funds. Maybe there is more (read: better) information available to teams and they are giving out more offers that are consistent to what they read--like FanGraphs telling us that Jermaine Dye was worth negative $1 million in 2009 and negative $2.4 million in 2007. I don't always agree with FanGraphs values, but maybe teams are realizing that giving these guys $5 M guaranteed is a waste of funds. Good for them. As FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal writes: "Employees seek to earn as much possible. Employers seek to pay as little as possible. That’s how free enterprise works. If the owners simply are showing more discipline in free agency, the players have little basis for complaint."

Listen, it may be true that teams colluded and maybe an investigation will uncover something egregious. But I agree with Sabernomics' J.C. Bradbury: I'm not buying it. The Econ education in me leads to me to cling strongly to Bradbury's opening argument:

First, let me comment on the notion that players receiving similar offers is evidence of collusion. If owners were conspiring to hold down wages, it is likely that any offers players received—in the 1980s free agents didn’t receive offers at all—will be similar. But what would happen in a perfectly competitive market? We would expect teams to compete against one another and ultimately settle on offers that are roughly equivalent to their projected marginal revenue products. Thus, we would expect teams to be submitting similar offers to players. The evidence that supposedly damns the owners is also consistent with competitive pricing. Just as gasoline prices at different gas stations fluctuate together with petroleum prices, so too does the amount that different teams are willing to pay players according to each player’s financial worth.

It's easy for Michael Weiner to cry collusion. It's really good cred for him with his union, especially with some members who were upset Donald Fehr didn't do enough crying of collusion. Now it's Weiner's job to prove it. Unless there's a smoking gun (and HardballTalk's Craig Calcaterra has a source who says there may be, so the jury is still out there), good luck. Let's just hope this issues in a new age where teams stop making bad financial decisions and then blame it on the Yankees. Maybe they can actually focus their union activities to make sure minor league players are getting a living wage. That would be an accomplishment everyone could rally around.

(picture from MLB FanHouse)