Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
January 04, 2003
Collusion:

This story on ESPN.com points out that the union may be looking for collusion this year:


The union wouldn't comment on the possibility of a collusion case, and Gene Orza, the associate general counsel of the players' association, said Friday that requesting agents to keep records was not unusual. The agents, however, said the union has emphasized record-keeping more than in recent years.


"Asking agents to keep good notes of negotiating meetings is nothing new,'' said Orza, the union's No. 2 official. "We've been doing it the last 15 years. It's the way we monitor the market. The operation of the free-agency market is always a concern for us.''


I've had readers over the last month e-mail me about this possibility, and frankly, I don't think it's happening. The 1986 collusion was very different. The top free agent that year was probably Jack Morris, and there was no interest in him:

After finding no other clubs interested in signing him, free-agent pitcher and 20-game winner Jack Morris agrees to salary arbitration with the Tigers while at the same time accusing the ML owners of collusion against free agents. Morris had offered to sign a one-year contract, with salary to be determined by an arbitrator, with either the Yankees, Angels, Twins, or Phillies, but was turned down by all 4.

The Yankees of that era were a great offensive team that lacked pitching. The boss signing Morris at any other time in his history would be a given. Today, while there was little interest in Thome, there was bidding for his services. There were negotiations and bidding for Glavine. Other top free agents are old, so it's likely clubs thought their money was spent better elsewhere.

The other difference between today and the mid-80's is the make up of front offices. More and more, GM's are in the mold of Billy Beane, well educated men with good sabremetric skills. They can look at a player's stats, and figure out what he's worth. I'm not surprised at all that a number of teams would come to the same conclusion.

So is there collusion? Probably not. But if there is, the owners appear to have done enough to make it really hard to prove.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:43 AM | Baseball