High Time to Change Commissioners
PLUS: PLETHORA OF PITCHING STARS COULD BECOME FREE AGENTS THIS FALL
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Reader Reacts
“When the joint Koufax-Drysdale holdout ended, Don Drysdale came away with a $110,000 salary for 1966 and Sandy Koufax came away with $125,000. (They originally wanted to split $1,000,000 between them over a five-year period, which would have meant $100,000 a year for each over the five years.) It was after the holdout ended, with spring training practically over, that Koufax confided to San Diego Tribune writer Phil Collier that 1966 would be his final season no matter what. Collier agreed to sit on the story until Koufax was finally ready to announce his retirement.”
— Jeff Kallman, Las Vegas, NV
Jeff Kallman is a regular contributor to Here’s The Pitch
Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
Mike Trout, a 13-year veteran, has only been to the post-season once — in 2014, when the Angels were swept in the ALDS by the Kansas City Royals . . .
Brandon Woodruff (shoulder surgery) signed a two-year Milwaukee pact with a 2006 option so he’s only lost to the Brewers until his injury heals . . .
Kudos to Jenny Cavnar, the first female to serve as primary play-by-play voice for a major-league team . . .
With 73.8 per cent of the vote in the Class of 2024 Hall of Fame election, former closer Billy Wagner is virtually certain to top the required 75 per cent next time, his 10th and last year on the regular ballot . . .
Bartolo Colon may be a legend in his own mind but he’s off the Cooperstown ballot after polling a pathetic 1.3 per cent.
Leading Off
Rob Manfred’s Reign of Error Should End Now
By Dan Schlossberg
The Baseball Hall of Fame should not be a haven for bad commissioners.
Blustering Bowie Kuhn got in, Bud Selig followed, and Selig clone Rob Manfred is virtually certain to find his niche too.
The big question is “why?”
Manfred, hand-picked by Selig as his successor, has done virtually nothing with the “best interests of baseball” clause that supposedly grants him power to make all kinds of decisions.
Yet since arriving on Jan. 25, 2015, he’s railroaded such revenue-grabbing gimmicks as expanded playoffs, advertising on uniforms, rules changes designed to speed up pace-of-play, and the most ridiculous idea of all: the Manfred Man automatic runner that starts every extra inning on second base.
Before filling a seat that was obviously too big for him, the Rome, NY native created a reputation as a negotiator who couldn’t fail, representing ownership in three collective bargaining agreements (2002, 2006, and 2011) with the players union. He also cemented the first drug-testing agreement between MLB and the union, in 2002, and led MLB’s investigation into the Biogenesis scandal 11 years later.
But something happened when ascended to the seat once occupied by Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Ford Frick, and other giants of baseball history.
When the chips were down, The Great Negotiator fell flat on his face. Like Selig in 1994, the year the postseason perished, Manfred was the man in charge when owners imposed a lockout that lasted 99 days, wiping out the winter meetings, free agent signing season, and part of the 2022 exhibition schedule.
He’s done nothing to address the runaway salary spiral, which peaked when Shohei Ohtani got a 10-year, $700,000 deal from the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Even Kuhn stopped sales and signings, especially when they involved arch-nemesis Charlie Finley.
But Manfred barely blinked when owners lavished $3.7 billion (with a b) on 104 free agents last winter before all but the Dodgers came down to earth this time.
To his credit — though years too late — Manfred endorsed the idea of a signing deadline for free agents so that baseball news would dominate the sports pages for six weeks between the end of the World Series and the start of the winter meetings.
He should also prohibit publication of salary figures, a practice that drives prices up.
But until he tames Scott Boras, the agent-run-wild from California, both ideas seems dead in the water.
Now Manfred has his eyes on expansion, stating that he’d like to have two new cities selected before his contract expires in 2029. That would be great, if it results in four eight-team leagues rather than eight four-team divisions that would further ensnarl the playoffs.
This commissioner, like Selig before him, should understand that anything that compromises the integrity of the World Series is a bad idea. That means anything that reduces the chances of the best teams reaching the Fall Classic should be a no-no.
Before he gets to 2029, Manfred must navigate through the iceberg-infested waters of another collective bargaining agreement. If the owners insist on imposing a salary cap — which exists in all of the other major-league sports — a strike is a virtual certainty.
It’s also a virtual certainty that Manfred will make a mess of things again.
If he really wants to leave a legacy that could lead to Cooperstown, he needs to turn back the clock and restore The Good Old Days of Baseball.
That means shelving inter-league play, playing weekend World Series games in daylight, moving the All-Star Game from Tuesday night to a weekend day game, reducing travel team for all teams, and prohibiting advertising on uniforms (Babe Ruth didn’t even wear a Yankee logo for a good chunk on his career!).
Plus so much more.
Widely disliked, Manfred would be wise to retire immediately rather than ride than risk doing more harm to the game. And he shouldn’t let the barn door hit him in the rear.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is the author of 41 baseball books. He covers the game for forbes.com, Memories & Dreams, Sports Collectors Digest, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Here’s The Pitch, and MLBReport.com. E.mail him at ballauthor@gmail.com.
Cleaning Up
Free Agency Looms For A Dozen Dynamite Pitchers
By Dan Schlossberg
Premium pitchers will dominate the next class of veteran free agents.
Including potential contractural opt-outs, the list, in alphabetical order, is likely to include Shane Bieber, Walker Buehler, Corbin Burnes, Nathan Eovaldi, Max Fried, Lucas Giolito, Robbie Ray, Max Scherzer, Blake Snell, Justin Verlander, and Zack Wheeler.
Snell has yet to sniff out a new ballclub for this year, while Verlander and Scherzer are battling age and injuries. At the same time, Ray won’t be ready to pitch for San Francisco before mid-season at best, while Buehler is also unlikely to open 2024 on the roster of the Dodgers.
Of all the pitchers on this virtual All-Star staff, Burnes has been the most emphatic about wanting to test the free agent market.
Acquired by Baltimore from Milwaukee, he’s suddenly the highest-paid player on his team but also likely to double his $15,000,000 salary overnight after he signs with somebody else.
Fried, who has spent almost his whole career in Atlanta, is also likely to find greener pastures elsewhere. Born in Santa Monica, he could rejoin former teammate Freddie Freeman in Chavez Ravine, where the Dodgers are doing their best to corner the market on superstars.
Wheeler also faces a lucrative future — even if the Phillies do for him what they already did for Aaron Nola.
Wheeler, who turns 34 in May, is in the last year of a five-year, $118 million contract signed in December 2019. During the last four years, the Atlanta native has a 3.06 ERA in 629 1/3 innings and leads all pitchers with 19.6 WAR.
Snell is younger, at 31, and also has two more Cy Young Awards than Wheeler — one in each league. But the Scott Boras client is hurting himself by delaying his signing, as are Jordan Montgomery, Michael Lorenzen, and others still on the outside looking in.
Burnes, like Snell, has won a Cy Young while Verlander and Scherzer have combined for a half-dozen (3 each). Fried has come close, finishing second several years ago.
Everybody needs pitching, as the Dodgers proved in signing Yoshinobu Yamamoto, James Paxton, Tyler Glasnow, and injured veteran Clayton Kershaw, so the stars on this list shouldn’t have to wait long to land good deals for 2025 and beyond.
At least it will keep the fires burning in the next Hot Stove League.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ covers the game for Here’s The Pitch, forbes.com, Memories & Dreams, Sports Collectors Digest, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, and other outlets. His Hank Aaron biography comes out just before the 50th anniversary of No. 715 in April. Book Dan to speak via ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia: Manfred Won’t Seek New Term
“You can only have so much fun in one lifetime.”
— Rob Manfred revealing he’ll retire rather than seek another term as baseball commissioner in 2029
Manfred, baseball czar since January 2015, got a five-year contract extension from the owners last July . . .
His controversial tenure includes expanded playoffs, roster expansion, implementation of new rules, a lengthy lockout that lasted into 2022 spring training, advertising on uniforms, and the disastrous “Manfred Man,” mandating an automatic runner on second base during every half-inning of a game that exceeds the regulation nine innings . . .
Ominously, he’ll still be in charge when the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with players expires after the 2026 campaign . . .
Once considered a star labor negotiator, Manfred mismanaged the most recent work stoppage, a 99-day lockout launched in December that wiped out trades, free agency, contract negotiations, the 2021 winter meetings and early exhibition games, as it lingered into March . . .
On the plus side, Manfred’s pitch clock that puts limits on relief pitcher rules and infield shifting shrunk games times to 2:39 last year, the first year since 2015 that figure was under three hours . . .
Manfred, 65, was hand-picked by predecessor Bud Selig, the longest-serving commissioner but also the most contentious . . .
The former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and only owner to serve as commissioner, Selig ordered the cancellation of the 1994 post-season, including the World Series, because it occurred during the 232-day players strike, longest in the history of professional sports.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.