John Brattain at The Hardball Times offers good advice to the MLBPA:

Their job is to protect the players and their freedom and not the salary bar. The organization has forgotten this, and it's the players who will pay (and are paying) the price. It's time for the MLBPA to get back to protecting the players. If the game is enjoying high revenues, the player marketplace is free and open and the union is solidly united, then salaries will continue to enjoy healthy increase.

What will prevent this from happening is a union lacking consensus. We've seen it in the NFLPA, NBAPA and NHLPA. Fight for money and they will be divided since only a few truly benefit; fight for freedom and everybody is on board because everybody benefits.

This is why I don't understand why people were so upset with Mark Ellis. He received the money he wanted to play where he wanted. If Orlando Hudson wants $10 million a year for his skills, then he has every right to ask for it and every right not to play if no one is willing to pay him. Ellis' contract made him happy. That's all that matters.

The union launched its annual preemptive strike against collusion:

General managers, in an innovation, each spoke at their annual meeting Tuesday about their offseason goals, and many mentioned what players they were making available. The idea was suggested by this year's co-chairs, Boston's Theo Epstein and Florida's Larry Beinfest, and many GMs said they found it to be useful.

"Over the past few days, press reports coming out of the general managers' meetings relating to the sharing of information between clubs as to their plans regarding players potentially raise serious questions concerning the fairness and integrity of the free-agent market," the union said in a statement Thursday night after the four-day session ended. "Such questions are amplified by reports stating that the commissioner is attempting to influence the market for at least one player."

The commissioner tried to influence the bonuses paid to draft picks, and in many instances teams ignored those suggestions. Collusion is much more difficult to prove today because teams are a lot smarter about pricing players. Without sharing information, I would guess each team has a good idea of what A-Rod should be paid, within a few million dollars over an 8 to 10 year time period. Teams are also smart enough to know that it's silly to bid too much over that calculated price.

The union is smart to mention this, as it puts teams on notice, but they'll have a very tough time proving it. In the Internet age, shared information is the norm.

The MLBPA will file a grievence on behalf of Todd Walker. I wish one of these stories on the subject would explain why the union thinks this was wrongful termination.

Maury Brown now believes the collusion agreement in the CBA is not a big deal:

Fast-forward to the new CBA. What appears to have been negotiated is a number of these outstanding grievances that have been sitting in limbo waiting to be addressed. In the case of the grievances regarding collusion, it appears what has happened is a case where management said, "Look, we don't want to have this issue from 2002 clouding the new agreement. Agree to settle these outstanding grievances involving claims of collusion, so that we can place wording in the new agreement that says this matter from 2002 can no longer be grieved. Let's not sour this new deal with these matters from the past."

So, apparently, the sides agreed on the matter. The paltry dollar figure associated to the settlement underscores that this was more of a book-clearing incident, than the type of colluding we saw during the '90s.

The 1980's actually. During that era, teams refused to offer players contracts. So players like Tim Raines, one of the great leadoff men, missed their big payday. The more recent alleged collusion is more of a price fixing scheme:

Bill Madden has confirmed that offers "were actually being determined for the clubs by MLB's central office."

But we knew about this. The league was advising teams on the value of free agents, since, I guess, some GMs are mathematically challenged. Collusion would occur if teams refused to bid over that level. I'm not sure that happened, but the settlement made the question moot. This is similar to a defendant paying off a plaintiff to make a case go away, because it's cheaper than actually defending your innocence. In any case, any collusion that occured recently was on a much smaller scale than what happened in the late 1980s.

I've been wondering if the new CBA eliminated deadlines for a team to sign one of its players who file for free agency. The answer is yes:

Under baseball's new collective bargaining agreement, a five-year deal reached Tuesday night, there is less of a time constraint on the Giants and Bonds to get something done on a new contract.

The previous labor agreement mandated that if the Giants had not offered Bonds arbitration by Dec. 7, they would be unable to sign him until May 1. Now, the club can still negotiate with the 42-year-old Bonds even if it doesn't offer him arbitration by the new Dec. 1 deadline.

The bigger story here is what will happen to Barry Bonds? Will a team take a chance on him? Has an edict come down from on high that no one touches him? Does he try to go to somewhere with good home run characteristics that make his quest for Aaron's record more easily obtainable? The bidding should start soon.

It seems there was a collusion settlement as part of the new CBA.

It is being reported, that as part of the new agreement, payments have been awarded to the players after some 50 grievances were filed regarding owner collusion during the 2002 free agency period. The total dollar figure of the payments is reported to be $12 million.

Given the small figure on the payments, this issue was most likely a matter of keeping things in check.

I always thought that collusion talk during that period wasn't that realistic. Obviously, the union made enough of a case that the owners were willing to settle without a big fight. Maybe we'll find out more when the CBA is finally published.

METSquire doesn't like the new draft compensation rule (discussed here).

With no ceiling on bonuses, the best players will still not necessarily be selected by the worst teams, thus the point of the draft, to create talent balance in the league, is still not being effectuated. The fact that a team will have a chance to pick in the same slot next year if they can't sign this year's selection doesn't solve the problem: why would the Royals or the Devil Rays be any more likely to sign a pick next year when they couldn't sign a pick this year?

And, while players will now know by August 16th whether they have been signed or not by the team that selected them in the draft, some players will still go unsigned and will miss out on a year of development in a Major League system. Thus, my concerns have really not been addressed by the changes in the new Agreement and, unfortunately, the league and the players have missed an opportunity to fix this flawed system.

Let's take this to an extreme. Why are there signing bonuses at all? Before the draft, players were free agents until they signed with a major league club, and then the reserve clause kicked in. The time players could sell their services was at this time, and teams bid for players, often signing them to large amounts of money. This is where the term bonus baby comes from. Then, as today, the low revenue teams felt they couldn't compete with the high revenue teams, so the draft was instituted. This removal of almost all bargaining power from the players led to the formation of a union.

The only leverage the player had left was the fact that if a team didn't sign him, he could reenter the draft the next year. So players picked up bonuses to sign with a team, especially if they were considered top prospects. And until free agency came into being, this was the only leverage players had against teams.

But free agency changed that. The rules are now the big payday comes after you've played in the majors for six years. But the draft rules remained in place, and of course agents and players took advantage of these. If in fact, the draft is supposed to help the weak teams, there is a simple solution. Take away any bargaining power by drafted players. Any player would be placed under control of the team that drafted him period. If a player doesn't want to work for that team, he can find something else to do. He'll get his big payday when he proves he can play major league baseball, not before. The reason bonuses existed in the past is no longer valid. Players get a chance at the big pay day eventually.

Now, as a free market person, I don't really like that idea. Players should have as much choice as possible. One way to help would be the ability of teams to trade or sell draft choices. I don't know the objections to this on either side, but it would give teams more flexibility. Team A can't sign prospect X for whatever reason, but Team B can. Team B can trade a prospect of it's own, or even an established player. It seems like an obvious thing to do.

And finally, why can't teams pony up the money for draft choices? The league is awash in money. Revenue sharing is lining the pockets of low revenue clubs. If they're not going to spend the money on player salaries, at least spend it on draft picks.

Someone sent me an e-mail this moring on the CBA. I mistakenly deleted it before I was able to read it (my web mail doesn't give you a chance to retrieve deleted items). Could you please resend?

Alan Schwarz rounds up the major changes to the collective bargaining agreement (CBA), although I'm still not sure about limits to free agents negotiating with the same team:

Some changes have been made to the draft-pick compensation afforded teams which lose major league free agents. Type C free agents have been eliminated, while teams that lose Type B free agents, which had previously received a second-round pick from the signing club, will now get a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds. (This was pursued by the union to remove the disincentive for teams to sign those players.) Those changes go into effect immediately.

The number of players deemed Type A and B has been tweaked as well. Type A free agents, whose former team continue to receive a first- or second-round pick from the signing club as well as an extra pick between the first and second rounds, will be reduced from the 30 percent of players (as determined by a statistical formula) to 20; the Type B band is reduced from 31-50 percent to 21-40.

These changes will take effect next offseason, allowing clubs which lose free agents this winter the same compensation they had always expected. Teams must still offer players salary arbitration to receive draft-pick compensation, though the deadline for that offer was moved up from Dec. 7 to Dec. 1.

So fewer players are eligible for compensation. This post says the arbitration date is eliminated, but Schwarz says the date's been changed. I'm still wondering if they eliminated the "if you don't sign with your team by a certain date, you can't sign until May 1."

The amateur draft changes are interesting, too. They're designed to dampen the growth in high pick player bonuses without putting a set price on the bonus. A team that fails to sign a high pick gets a similar pick the next year.

Teams that fail to sign a first-round pick no longer receive an extra pick after the first round as compensation, but instead a virtually identical pick the following year; for example, a team that fails to sign the No. 5 pick one year will receive the No. 6 pick the next, rather than one in the 30s or 40s. The same compensation also now exists for unsigned second-round picks, while a team that fails to sign a third-round pick will receive a sandwich pick between the third and fourth rounds.

The new system should decrease the growth of bonus payments to amateurs, as teams can walk away from negotiations with the reassurance of having a similar pick the next year. (Although that compensation pick, if unsigned, is not subject to compensation, which keeps clubs from using it over and over.) Clubs have for years wanted a system of prescribed, slotted bonuses for every high pick but learned early in the negotiations that the union would not accept it, so instead focused on stronger compensation rules.

I don't think the union gave up much here. Like everything in baseball, the bonus amount is driven by the amount of money available to teams. As long as revenue keeps rising, bonuses will keep rising. It is good that teams trying to rebuild through the draft get better compensated if a pick simply doesn't wish to sign with that team. In the long run, this should improve competitive balance.

The Cub Reporter looks at the new CBA, and both he and I are confused by this:

After Major League players file for free agency in the one-week period that begins at midnight the day after the World Series, all subsequent deadline dates are eliminated: Dec. 7 (for club to offer arbitration), Dec. 19 (for players to accept), Jan. 8 (last day the old club could re-sign its own free agent) and May 1 (first day a club's former player could re-sign with its former club if he went past Jan. 8 date). Also, the tender date for clubs to offer contracts to all players has been moved up from Dec. 20 to Dec. 12. And players traded in the middle of a multi-year contract can no longer demand a trade.

I take this to mean that the whole free agent arbitration deal is dead. I always thought it was a stupid rule. If you're a free agent, you should be able to negotiate with any team, including your former team. Can anyone shed more light on this paragraph?

The most impressive thing about the new labor agreement to me is that the term is five years. Congratulations to both sides for finally coming to trust each other and trust a system that's working.

It appears that free agent compensation survived the new CBA negotiations, but in a modified form:

The new agreement will make a subtle change in compensation to teams that lose free agents, according to The New York Times, which reported teams would receive draft picks for departing high-end free agents, but not others.

There was speculation that this would be removed, but it's a great way for low payroll clubs to stay competitive. Now, however, they'll only be compensated for developing stars. I'm not sure how different that is, becuase the level of compensation did depend on the value of the player signed away.

MLB announces the deal tonight, so we'll know more then.

It looks like the owners and players reached a new labor agreement.

The deal, struck during bargaining in New York on Friday night and Saturday, is subject to the sides putting the deal in writing, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the agreement had not been finalized.

That's great news, as we don't need to worry about a work stoppage. By getting the deal done now, GMs will know if they continue to get compensation for free agents lost. We'll also see if the luxury tax survived.

FishStripes rounds up the latest news on the CBA. It looks very good for a deal with no acrimony, although it strikes me that negotiations will go down to the last minute, because that's when you're most likely to get the best deal from the other side. If indeed, the contract is signed earlier than that, then the owners and players must really like the way things are working right now.

It turns out there's an out on the drug testing policy:

Major league players can scrap the sport's toughened drug rules if they don't have a new labor contract by August, a provision drawing attention from congressmen who pushed for the strengthened policy.

If players and owners don't agree to a new labor contract by Aug. 1, the union has until Aug. 15 to unilaterally end the new drug policy as of Dec. 19, when the current collective bargaining agreement expires.

It's a great bargaining chip for the players. If they scrap the agreement, Congress gets involved, and my guess is the owners don't want that as much as the players. Since the two sides are as close as they've ever been since labor trouble started in the 1970s, this gives everybody a good reason to get the contract done quickly.

Donald Fehr is rightly optimistic about the upcoming labor negotiation.

Don Fehr admits that the history of baseball's labor negotiations has not been very good: Eight strikes or lockouts since 1972 and talks that went down to the final hours four years ago.

But with the current labor deal expiring on Dec. 19, Fehr does see reasons why negotiations could be different this time around.

"What I can say is that the overall atmosphere of the sport is such that there are a lot of reasons that people on the outside should be optimistic about our chances of reaching an agreement," Fehr, the head of the baseball players' union, said Thursday at a luncheon hosted by Fox Sports Bay Area.

Actually, there was nothing wrong with the last negotiation. Any good negotiator will use all the time on the clock to try to get the best deal for his side. Toward the end of that bargaining period, the two sides were basically trying to see how much money either side would give up. There were no great issues that needed to be resolved.

If there were going to be trouble this time around, you'd already hear owner or players complaining. The players seem happy with their situation, the owners (for the most part) seem happy with their situation, and the two sides showed they can work cooperatively by opening the CBA to change drug testing. No one is trying to destroy free agency or arbitration. No one wants to destroy revenue sharing, although the union will try to modify how it works.

Fehr said he is concerned that some teams that are receiving payments from baseball's central fund might be making more money than teams that are putting money into it. He also wants to make sure teams are using the money on player salaries.

"There are teams in major-league baseball that receive more money from central baseball from the national television contract and revenue sharing than they spend on payrolls," he said. "That's before they sell a ticket or a hot dog or a beer or a parking space.

There's plenty of room for improvement on this issue, so the two sides have a chance to be constructive in changing it. There's also no rush. Despite the agreement expiring in December, the two sides have the option of just renewing for another year. Things are definitely looking good for 2007.

Tony Massarotti is fed up with Manny Ramirez. There's nothing new in that, but Tony does throw out this tidbit on page 2.

Yesterday, when discussing the latest Ramirez adventure, one high-ranking baseball executive said he expects the issue of trade requests to come up during the next labor talks, which will begin this year. In the interim, star players continue to sign contracts they may have no intention of honoring, whether they know it or not.

Part of the problem here is that Manny is demanding a trade, but still using his 10/5 status to block deals. My guess is that owners want a clause that if a player demands a trade, the 10/5 goes out the window.

Tom Fevola sends this thoughtful letter:

I've come to the conclusion that I was a bit hasty yesterday in chastising the MLBPA. Maybe we all were. I am beginning to see the picture clearer now.

Firstly, I understand why the MLBPA did what they did. Actually, I understood it yesterday too, but I just didn't agree with the decision. I felt that the "setting of the precedent" argument was wrong based on A-Rod's "special" situation. I don't see that today after reflecting on this subject.

It can set a precedent, and MLBPA is correct in what they did by nixing the deal. However, now I question the entire system. The MLBPA is in place for the players. I believe that they do indeed need some type of protection from the Owners and Clubs so they do not revert to the old days where they sorely underpay for a player's worth. The MLBPA is doing what they are supposed to be doing, albeit ridiculous sometimes.

But, there also needs to be some flexibility to take into considerations a player and an owner's feelings. The current system doesn't allow for the correction of "mistakes". One person on your comments section posed an excellent question, "Doesn't a player's value ever decrease?" Well, the answer is yes it does. Take any player nearing the end of a larger contract that's considered a bust. Obviously they could not get the same contract again if they aren't performing to the same level they did when the originally negotiated the contract. Using simple logic, the player's baseball value has decreased.

In this particular case, the player's value hasn't decreased. It's simply that Texas wants to undo a "mistake". Now, it's not as if Boston doesn't want to help, and even the player himself wants the deal to be done. This is evidenced of his willingness to take a pay reduction, whatever that value may have been. Did Boston try to take advantage of the situation as the Globe reports simply because it would be a nightmare for Texas if the deal doesn't go through at this point? Maybe. Possibly. Probably more than likely. But, and here is where I question the system now, what if Texas decides to simply bench A-Rod? We both know that wouldn't happen. But to a lesser player it might. The club's penalty is basically that they have to continue to pay whether that player plays or not.

But, what if A-Rod decided not to put forth the effort he has in the past? Or what if being somewhere he really doesn't want to be affects his performance? What I'm driving at is that even with the rule in place that a player's salary can't be decreased because then it might force clubs to make situations miserable for the players and use that to negotiate, players can certainly do the reverse and make situations miserable for the clubs. What are the clubs to do then? They don't seem protected. His baseball value will decrease and when the contract expires he may sign for less elsewhere. All of this could be avoided by allowing this to be done earlier if ALL parties agree.

The rule is a good rule, but it's not complete. It doesn't follow through for the clubs OR the individual players, and that is not fair, for either. It's only protecting the players to a certain extent. Look at Manny Ramirez. Do you think the club wouldn't love to have something in place that allows him to renegotiate a contract at a lower cost elsewhere? That may be a bad example because Manny wants to stay a Red Sox. But, having the option should at least be there. And remember, a player still has to want to do the deal. If a club signs a contract and wants to trade a player for a lower value, they should not be able to do that if the player refuses to take a pay cut. That's a mistake they then have to live with. Just as if a player signs a 5 year contract and the next 2 or 3 years the values for someone like him increases. But, in this case, if the new club, the old club and the player agree, then that should be allowed. It would be good for the sport in the PR department because it would show that teams and players can negotiate and get along and at least give off some perception that it's not all being done for "just the money".

Sorry I missed this, but if you haven't seen it, read Alex Belth's interview with Marvin Miller on a fascinating subject, Curt Flood.