Major League Baseball's 99-day lockout did little to repair the game's badly broken economic system -- and it is perhaps even worse than before.
That is one of the takeaways of a new article published by Baseball Prospectus analyzing the Cincinnati Reds' recent salary-dumping spree, as well as other post-lockout fire sales.
According to author Patrick Dubuque, the Reds' offloading of sluggers Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suarez to the Seattle Mariners on Monday in exchange for a middling prospect and a couple of unremarkable veterans was proof positive that little, if anything, has changed after three-plus months of bitter recriminations from the owners and players during the stoppage.
Per Dubuque:
You saw “fans are the real winners” stories in the days following the CBA, but that was a lie. Those three months were nothing but ugly trench warfare, an aggression for the sake of a few hundred yards of mud and stone. If all of this had been for anything more than money, if the fans had in any way won anything, we wouldn’t have these Cincinnati Reds.
As noted by Audacy insider Jon Heyman, the Winker-Suarez deal drastically pared down Cincinnati's payroll, setting up the possibility that the long-retired Ken Griffey Jr., who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016, could be the team's fourth-highest paid player in 2022, owing to salary deferments on the nine-year, $112.5 million deal he inked over two decades ago.
Related
The Reds-Mariners deal came on the same day that the Oakland Athletics dumped star slugger Matt Olson to the Atlanta Braves, essentially paving the way for the reigning World Series champions to allow franchise great and longtime fan favorite Freddie Freeman to walk in free agency for no apparent reason other than good old fashioned cheapness.
The A's also dumped right-hander Chris Bassitt over the weekend in a deal with the Mets, apparently getting out in front of the All-Star's projected date with free agency next offseason.
For the Reds, their post-lockout fire sale, which also included dumping Sonny Gray to the Twins, shaved about $70 million off their payroll, bringing them from 10th overall in MLB in 2021 down to 20th and still counting, according to Dubuque:
That $70 million figure won’t come close to the amount the team will earn from television alone, between national broadcast revenue sharing and the local RSN. The offseason amounts to nothing more than a total abandonment of a city and its faithful fans ...
Meanwhile star players such as Freeman and former Astros star Carlos Correa remain unsigned, with the latter potentially facing the prospect of having to settle for a one-year deal, according to MLB insider Ken Rosenthal.
Baseball is back, but even after a three-month lockout that tested fans' patience and arguably compromised a second season in three years, the old dynamics seem to have intensified, rather than changed for the better.
Teams long reputed to be in "small" and "middle" markets appear just as content to field uncompetitive teams while still raking in profits from the league's ever-growing TV deals and revenue-sharing system.
LISTEN NOW on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow Audacy Sports
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram