The GM meetings are ongoing in Arizona, and the first significant hootenanny of the offseason provided MLB commissioner Rob Manfred with the chance to address several issues facing the sport.
Here's a sampling of what Manfred had to say on Wednesday regarding those various and sundry matters ...
On President-Elect Donald Trump
MLB of course relies heavily on international talent and thus as an industry is susceptible, for better or worse, to changes in immigration policy. Changes to immigration policy were of course central to President-Elect Trump's successful campaign for the White House. On that front ...
Obviously, promises made on the campaign stump don't always yield policy changes, but Manfred sounds confident that no near-term upheavals are in the picture.
On the possibility of an international draft
The league is reportedly working to implement an international draft by 2018, and very likely the players association will go along with the idea in exchange for concessions elsewhere (mostly because an international draft won't directly affect its current membership in a negative way). It's a tall order, and it's likely to be very unpopular among those who stand to see their upfront earnings drastically limited. However, it seems to be a priority for Manfred. Here's a bit of what he said:
Transparency is indeed a problem when it comes to international signings, but that's remediable without implementation of a draft. As for the competitive balance concerns, that's a dodge. The entire goal of a draft from the league standpoint is to reduce labor costs and thus increase the profits of ownership. That's what businesses are going to do, and MLB is a business. Framing it under competitive balance is just an attempt to spin it for the rest of us.
On ongoing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations
The CBA governs the working relationship between the clubs (i.e., owners) and the players. Younger fans may not remember this, but that was when every CBA negotiation yielded a labor stoppage of some kind. Since the transformative owner-player feud of 1994-95, though, we've had no such interruptions. Over that span, the owners have made significant gains at the table after years of getting hammered by labor. This time around, the players are surely angling to increase their dwindling share of revenues and, in a related matter, make changes to the current free agent structure. As noted above, it also would be less than shocking to see an international draft framework come out of the wash. Another perhaps remote possibility is the return of the 154-game regular season in exchange for expanded playoffs -- expansion likely in the form of a best-of-three wild card series.
As for ongoing labor peace, here's the commish ...
Given the quiet nature of the proceedings and almost complete lack of leaks to the press, that sounds like a safe assumption.
On pace-of-play concerns
A staple of Manfred's still-young tenure as the commissioner has made efforts to curb game times and improve pace of play. We saw some improvement on that front in 2015, but that ground was mostly lost in 2016. The 2016 postseason was especially slow-paced at times, thanks in part to the methodical approach of the Dodgers. To Manfred ...
Those mechanisms may include the use of a pitch clock, which is already in use in minor-league ballparks. More drastic steps may include limits on pitching changes and the implementation of automatic intentional walks. The latter two, however, may be a bit drastic for Manfred's tastes. Already, Manfred's ordered batters to keep one foot in the box at all times, and reduced the amount of time between innings. Obviously, this is a priority item for him as baseball tries to expand its reach to a younger and more lucrative demographic.
On the penalties in the Cardinals' hacking scandal
In 2014, then-Cardinals scouting director Chris Correa hacked into the Astros' proprietary internal information system, and he was later sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for his role in the scandal. Manfred and MLB, meantime, have been investigating to what, if any, extent knowledge of the hacking extended throughout the Cardinal organization. By the sounds of things on Thursday, a conclusion is nigh ...
The safe bet is that the penalty levied against the Cardinals will be some kind of hefty fine, but that mostly depends upon what Manfred's internal probe turned up. Either way, we should know soon.
On the Jeurys Familia situation
Mets closer Jeurys Famila was arrested Oct. 1 on domestic violence charges. Under baseball's policy on domestic abuse, sexual assault and child abuse, Manfred has the power to discipline players for alleged offenses such as this. He's done just that on three occasions with Aroldis Chapman, Jose Reyes and Hector Olivera. As for Familia:
In the past, Manfred has preferred to let the legal process conclude before deciding on a disciplinary course, and that appears to be his approach with Familia.