Red Sox to Boycott Japan Trip

[PShabi]

It's "2/5" of their salary. So, they make $100k, but they want $140k, because their duties are not including a one-week business trip, where they could feasibly go to Japan and get by w/o spending a single dime out of their own pocket if they wanted to.

I totally understand getting your money, but still...."Wahhhhhhhh."

You know?

[Kurn]

No, I don't know. It's not "wahh" at all. In fact, its not the coaches who are complaining. Its the players saying it isn't fair to the coaches.

Forget your jealousy over how much these guys make. They have a job where the only days off they get during the spring and summer are when it rains. They spend a minimum of half their work year away from their families. Yeah, its baseball, not football or basketball, but the job is still physically grueling.

A short trip to the other side of the world may be an adventure to me and you, but its just more down time on an airplane to them, and for what? So MLB can make more money off the Japanese market.

The $40 K payout to the players is a token, but it would be meaningful to the coaches. MLB stands to make a lot of scratch from marketing inroads into the world's 4th or 5th largest consumer economy. No reason for them to get cheap.

Good for the Sox players!

[Talking Poker]

I am in complete agreement with Kurn here.

I have no idea how you can see the players saying, "Hey - that's not fair for the coaches and staff. These guys deserve bonuses too" as "Wahhhhhh." They are doing what they think is right for someone else - not for themselves.

And yeah, when you are talking about 2/5 of someone's salary, that's a lot of money.

I'd be interested to hear GTDawg's take on this.

[PShabi]

They aren't losing 2/5 of their salary. They are losing a "bonus" (not exactly, but close enough) that adds another 40%.

[PShabi]

I applaud the players for standing up for the coaching staff. You think the coaches aren't complaining? Not out loud, they've got the players to do that for them. And they make $100k/year and aren't even playing.

Let's say a teacher makes $40k/year. They get hired to take a senior group on a trip to DC for a week. They deserve $16k for it? No way in hell.

Now, if it was "promised" to them, they deserve it. I agree with that. But for the last time....."Wahhhhhhhhh."

[Kurn]

"deserve" is irrelevant. People are never paid what they "deserve" nor should they be. Labor is a market. people get paid what value their employer places on their labor, which is 100% an economic decision and 0% judgmental on some "higher" moral concept.

[PShabi]

Fair enough.

The way this whole thing sounds, is that someone in management misinformed the coaches about what they would be getting for the trip. I have a very hard time believing that MLB would reneg. Also, if they were renegging, then I'd expect Oakland to be upset as well. Oakland's response to the Sox sounds like, "No, we're not getting any money, were we supposed to?" This is my assuming, obv, but it seems weird.

To me, it sounds like someone in the Sox brass assumed something that wasn't true and now the players/coaches are pissed off. The Sox could pay the coaches if they wanted to, right?

Anyway, I'll bet they play those games in Japan, one way or another. What odds you want?

[Kurn]

Here's what this whole thing sounds like to me.

Remember, MLB is and has always been about which group of inmates (owners or players) controls the asylum. Recent history shows that the players usually win.

1. The players NEVER wanted to make this trip. From their point of view, its too much travel, too much of a distraction, and too alien an environment to play games that count, but ultimately, enough got talked into it that they voted to go (not unanimously)

2. MLB then decided to throw the players a bone - the $40,000. For most, that's not much more than marginal additional work for their tax accountant, but you never turn down money.

3. At some point along the line, somebody told the coaching staff that they'd get the same money, and later it turned out they wouldn't. Miscommunication? An honest error? A change of heart? We may never know.

4. Now the players feel that MLB embarrassed them (apparently so does Francona). If this were purely financial, the players could just vote to contribute some amount for the coaching staff and everybody could be happy, but considering the history of MLB, it can't be that simple.

So what we're left with is yet the next chapter in the soap opera that is MLB. And don't think for a minute that MLB's position on the steroid issue has nothing to do with this. I'm sure fehr, et. al. think ownership has hung them out to dry on that issue, so you know the Union is at least tacitly behind the players on this.

[PShabi]