Calling out Max Scherzer

 I know, I know.   Don't kll the messenger.  

But I had to respond to his comments:

"Specifically, frst and foremost, we see a competion problem and how teams are behaving because of certain rules....Adjustments have to be made to bring up the competition.  As players, that's critical to us to have a highly competitive league, and when we don't have that, we have issues."

Let's unravel Mr. Scherzer's words for their true meaning.  We have been down this road with the MLBPA before. Basically they see the problem as this:

While the best players are getting paid, the middle-of-the-road players are not getting paid and, in many cases (See Bryan Shaw) are having to accept low-end free agent contracts or even minor league deals.

Why is this happening? Well, the teams that are not going to be competitive don't feel compelled to sign these lesser free agents.  Why, they are not going to be competitive any way.  Why not save the money for the draft or for international free agents and just go with ML mnimum rookies?  You might even be bad enough to get the first overall pick in the next draft (cough. tank. cough).  

In Mr. Scherzer's mind one of the worst words in the baseball lexicon is R-E-B-U-I-L-D.  My guess is that two of the teams he would like disbanded are the Tampa Bay Rays and the Oakland A's, followed closely thereafter by the Cleveland Indians.  Basically those teams are being successful without going all New York Mets on the free agent market.  

What to do? We MAKE the teams be competitive.  What does that do for the teams?  Nothing.  But what does that do for the players?

1. Competition is created for the upper level free agents (if you are forced to be 'competitive' why not go big?).  The more competition, the more those players get paid.

2. Failing signing the top free agents (as the Marlins and Pirates wlll likely to be) they will be forced to sign, and likely overpay, for players in the next two levels of free agents.   Those players won't make those teams competitive but it will make those middling free agents richer.

How to we force teams into competing:

1. Put in a salary floor that teams have to meet.

2. Disincentivize teams from tanking by putting in a lottery system for the top draft choices

There are probably other measures they want, as well, but you get the point.   Mr. Owner, we are going to make you spend more money so our players get paid.   The Robbie Rays of the world will get paid even if they never have a Cy Young season.  Maybe not as much but they will still get paid.  

The problem is that owners are already paying mediocre talent too much money (see Steve Matz's 4 year $44 million contract with the Cardinals).  But at least Matz had SOME level of performance.   

What the upshot of his proposal is will be that teams like the Guardians will have to pay Bryan Shaw and Blake Parker MILLIONS just so they can say, on paper, that they are "competitive".

That is why I am calling bullshit on Mr. Scherzer.  You don't give a crap about players actually earning their pay.   You want them to get paid even if they are mediocre.  You don't want teams to look at their minor league system and say 'Crap, if that is all I can get for $5 million a year in year in free agency I will just give that job to a rookie who has more potential and is much cheaper.'  

But Mr. Scherzer doesn't want to allow teams to be competitive by doing more with less.   He wants them to pay more and not do any better in the standings, in essence just taking any profits the owners make and giving it back to the players, whether or not they deserve it.

Now,  I can pretty much guarantee you that this isn't the worst union in the world.  But I can say, without a doubt, that this is the most unscrupulous union of millionaires that has ever existed in the world.  In fact if a person's position in the world was based on their worth nstead of their stature within an organization, the members of the MLBPA would have already been indicted for collusion and price fixing.   But since they are 'employees' they can call themselves a union and get away with extorting money.

Mr. Scherzer, you and the consummate ass in this situation.  Take your millions and go, sit down and shut up.  Or, more benificially, find out how to raise the salary of minor leaguers, raise the salary of ML rookies and second year players and remove the awful Rule 5 draft.   Those are worthy causes.  Much more worthy than finding ways to get mediocre and broken down veterans more money than they have been shown over the last 6 years to be worth.

The end.