PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – The owner's lockout hours shy of 100 days, now Thursday there is a tentative deal for baseball again. What do Pirates fans get out of the deal?
We know the players saw their minimum salary with less than three years of major league service bump up to $700,000. An increase in luxury tax should help salaries of the very rich.
The owners got expanded playoffs from 10 to 12 teams, advertising on jerseys and helmets, a 162-game season in 2022 and more.
At this point we are awaiting many of the details. Of what we know right now, Pirates fans waited 99 days and didn't see much of anything that helps them.
Here is what hurts the Pirates:
The National League is adopting the designated hitter. It doesn't impact the Pirates because of the purity of the game. Big-money teams can afford big-money hitters. Having the pitchers bat was the only spot in the lineup where small-market teams could be guaranteed of a level playing field.
The Draft Lottery-part of the Pirates plan in 2021 was to look to the future. That meant playing a lot of younger players, saving money on contracts and getting high draft picks as the team inevitably failed. This lottery is not only another made-for-TV event, but meant to discourage teams from 'saving money and looking to the future' or it might also be called 'tanking'.
Preventing Service Time Manipulation-it's meant to stop teams from keeping a prospect in the minors to prevent them from starting their clock until free agency. It will allow the fans to see younger stars earlier, but it will limit how long a team can keep a player it won't be able to afford when service-time is used up.
Minor-league option limits-how many different players did we see with the Pirates in 2021? There were injury reasons, but there was also giving multiple players looks multiple times. Now you won't have the ability to see a player as many times during a season in the majors. It could be viewed as no longer being able to tryout players as many times at the MLB level.
Luxury Tax increase-it will allow the rich to spend more on free agents without being dinged. The Pirates ain't rich, in baseball terms.
International Draft-much like the salary cap for the Entry Level Draft, an area where the Pirates could afford to pay more than other teams dries up. It's just being evaluated right now, but the DH, expanded playoffs and interleague play were also once just being evaluated.
Pirates management did gain in one big area-there is no salary floor. No minimum team salary to prevent owners from paying miniscule amounts for their team.
This franchise can do a lot more to help themselves, that's a given. For the fans, you waited nearly four months for a deal that did nothing to improve fairness in baseball and this CBA will last five more seasons.
