Owners and players must come together to move baseball forward through the pandemic crisis and the years-long rebuild to come.
The process could start this week as the two sides try to negotiate the financial terms for reopening Our National Pastime.
But bargaining got off to a rocky start Tuesday with the owners proposing to pay top-earning players significantly less than their pro-rated salary for the remaining games.
As you expect, this offer did not please the MLB Players Association.
If the owners and players can cut through the usual bickering and forge a deal, they could build mutual trust and gain momentum towards a new collective bargaining agreement.
If they fail, baseball could shut down again, via a strike or lockout, when the current CBA expires in 2021.
Another baseball labor war would only add to the damage this coronavirus shutdown is creating. Owners and players must buy into a plan that rewards both sides.
Unfortunately, that will be easier said than done.
The owners won the last round of bargaining in 2016. They expanded their ability to exploit cheap labor, er, maximize value from young players in their pre-arbitration years.
Owners began viewing the luxury tax threshold as a de facto salary cap. They developed more self-discipline and quit paying crazy money to aging veterans based on how they used to perform.
You don't need Ivy League numbers-crunchers spewing out spreadsheets to realize how stupid that is. Yet it took an influx of executives from the financial sector to finally convince more owners to embrace a forward-thinking approach.
Some have been taking it too far, dumping veterans to slash payroll, stockpile more cheap labor and maximize profits.
So what if fans quit coming? Franchises pocket so much shared MLB revenue that they can tank multiple seasons and still make a killing.
These business realities put the talent in a bad spot. Not only have young stars like Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty earned less than they deserve, established veterans have been stiffed in free agency.
One example: After rejecting a $17.4 million qualifying offer from the Cardinals, pitcher Lance Lynn settled for $12 million on a one-year deal in Minnesota in 2018.
Led by indomitable agent Scott Boras, the players began pushing back. The pressure on MLB Players Association chief Tony Clark intensified.
Megacontracts given to Bryce Harper, Mike Trout and Gerrit Cole eased some of the tension, but energy was building to the 2021 showdown.
Then the pandemic hit in March and caught MLB square. Now the owners and players are haggling over the response.
They bargained the initial terms of the shutdown and embarked on health-and-safety talks. Now the harder economic negotiation is underway.
The owners floated a revenue-sharing idea which the players panned. To their thinking, that concept leads to the dreaded salary cap.
But the cap is effectively there today. Revenue sharing could create a new salary floor, like the one that greatly benefits NHL players.
MLB players should insist on such a floor in their next contract. In the meantime, they want to collect their full pay on a per-game basis if play resumes this summer.
The owners claim they would they lose 40% of their revenue while playing in empty ballparks. That's in addition to losing most of their revenue for the half-season that vanished.
On Tuesday the owners proposed a sliding scale of pay, hitting the top-paid players with a higher percentage reduction.
"We made a proposal to the union that is completely consistent with the economic realities facing our sport," MLB said in an official statement.
"Interesting strategy of making the best most marketable player potentially look like the bad guys," Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Brett Anderson tweeted.
So there's work to do. The players could defer some salary to ease the cash-flow crunch, but agents fear that would prompt owners to slash additional payroll next season to cover those payments.
Looking to 2021, the two sides should explore some sort of revenue sharing model for their next collective bargaining agreement.
The owners loathe to share financial information with the players. They keep opening up new revenue streams. Franchise values have soared.
Many teams have branched out into real estate projects like Ballpark Village. Just when you think MLB has run out of ways to make money, something else pops up, like legalized gambling.
So how do you define team revenue? How do you factor in the debt franchises incur while investing in stadium improvements and related businesses?
That has never been more complicated. But given the circumstances it's time to tackle that task. The owners must become transparent.
Meanwhile the players must wise up too. While the concept of an unrestrained marketplace sounds nice _ especially to Boras and his top clients _ it's not working well for most members.
MLB needs a new relationship that allows billionaire owners and millionaire players to share revenues fairly. There will be a win-win deal out there if they look hard enough.
