Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 515: Jeff Passan on How the Commissioner Got Made

Episode Date: August 15, 2014

Ben and Sam talk to Yahoo! Sports columnist Jeff Passan about Commissioner-elect Rob Manfred.

Looking for a leader to bring our country home Be a knight, the red, white, and blue Before it turns to stone Looking for somebody, come and doctor, take it all Clean up the corruption and make the country strong Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Today, we are also joined by, I think, one of our most highly esteemed writers and reporters, Jeff Passon, the baseball columnist for Yahoo Sports. And we're going to talk about the big news from yesterday, still the big news today, that there has been a new commissioner elected in baseball, and that is Rob Manfred. Now, the record will show officially that he was

elected unanimously in a vote by the owners yesterday. That, of course, doesn't tell the whole story. The initial vote was 2010 in favor of Manfred. He needed 23 votes to pass. There were several rounds of voting. So there was some pushback, there was some resistance. And we wanted to ask Jeff a bit about that and about the issues facing Manfred. So tell us, was there ever really a serious threat that Manfred would not be the guy? Or was this just a few recalcitrant owners kicking their feet and stamping their feet and having to be dragged into this? But ultimately, Manfred was always going to be elected one way or another. I think it was Jerry Reinsdorf's pipe dream that he was going to be able to summon

some sort of a candidate who was going to at least get in the heads and minds of other owners. Because Jerry Reinsdorf is a very unique animal in the annals of owners. We have to just look at his history. He was the guy who, along with Bud Selig, pushed for collusion. He was the guy who, along with Bud Selig, pulled a coup d'etat on Faye Vincent. And so to think Jerry Reinsdorf was going to go quietly into the night when his greatest ally was going to be absconding the power throne and giving it to a person in Rob Man outlived, frankly, his usefulness to the MLB owner base. And the fact that he had seven owners along with him is what to me is most shocking of this, especially when he's putting Tom Warner out there as his candidate, a guy who doesn't even have power in his own organization, let alone respect throughout Major League Baseball. Right. And so you wrote in your piece at Yahoo, and I'm quoting now, the job of commissioner is not to broker TV deals. It is to make sure baseball is played. And nobody in the sports history has done a better job of that than Manfred. So

why is it that there were any owners wanting to go back in time 20 years to a time when the league and the players union were at odds and were striking? When we look at what has happened since then, and baseball has record revenues, and the player's share of those revenues has shrunk considerably. So you think that owners would be quite happy with the state of affairs, that they wouldn't want to rekindle all the animus that was in place a couple of decades ago. So what is it that made Reinsdorf and anyone else really want to take a hard line here when things are going so swimmingly? You know, it's funny to live in the real world where logic applies, as opposed to this fiefdom of billionaires where power games are more important than anything. And that's the big takeaway from this, that there was

no good reason or rationale for a block of owners to try and challenge Rob Manfred like they did. At least the reasons that they stated both publicly and privately were frankly garbage. I mean, the idea that Rob Manfred has not been tough on the union is a joke. Let's look back at the last collective bargaining agreement. I mean, in exchange for a couple of Super 2 slots, the owners got the qualifying offer, which has lost players how many tens of millions of dollars? offer, which has lost players how many tens of millions of dollars? I'd say we're up in the neighborhood of probably nine figures at this point that players have lost on account of that one rule that was negotiated in by Rob Manford. And so the idea that the union, which has historically not just beaten Major League Baseball, but embarrassed Major League Baseball

and collective bargaining time after time after time. The idea that Rob Manfred, a guy who has survived as many collective bargaining sessions as he has and still has the respect of the Players Association, that's a guy who you want to make king, not a guy who you're trying to push out. And so there is no good logic.

There is no good rationale behind this. Ultimately, it was an old man who realized that his time was up and he was grasping as much as he could to try and hold on to it. And he lost. And hopefully any power base that Jerry Reinstorf once had is now eroded because it's the type of dangerous thing that could have been very, very bad for baseball had he somehow succeeded. So the 10 votes that were cast against Manfred initially are reportedly the White Sox, the Red Sox, the Angels, the A's, the Diamondbacks, the Reds, the Blue Jays,

the Brewers, the Rays, and thes, the Blue Jays, the Brewers, the Rays, and the Nationals. Is there anything that links those teams? Is there any particular interest that they share in this case? Is there anything that links the owners? Is there anything they share as far as their desires? Yeah, Artie Moreno made a promise to Jerry Reinstorf that he was going to stick by him. That's why he was there.

He made a promise to Jerry Reinstorf that he was going to stick by him. That's why he was there. Because Artie Moreno was, according to people on both sides at the meeting yesterday, he was very gracious. He was kind. He wasn't confrontational like Jerry Reinstorf was. In the case of Milwaukee, for example, where Mark Adonazio may or may not have voted for Manfred one time and then peeled back his vote another time and then the next time voted for him again. You wonder if, you know, if Mark Adonazio saw the potential for a deadlock, meaning that he could slither in and possibly be the, you know, the compromise candidate.

You see with Oakland, you know, were the A's cracking back for Bud Selig's, frankly, his misdeeds and his mishandling of their stadium situation. And was this more a vote against Bud Selig than it was a vote against Rob Manfred? And, you know, the same type of situation with Washington, which ultimately was the swing vote, was Washington casting its displeasure about the Masson debate and the fact that it's taken this long to resolve and the resolution,

frankly, isn't all that great for the nationals. And so, you know, when you put 30 rich, powerful people together in a room, the idea that you are going to be able to get any sort of consensus is laughable. And the idea that these little petty grudges aren't going to end up rearing their ugly head at a time like this, you just can't, you have to expect for that to happen. And so ultimately, I think one thing I take away from this is when we look back at Bud Selig, we are going to remember him for the 94 strike. And we absolutely never should forget that. We are going to remember him for the All-Star Game tie. We're going to remember him for performance enhancing drugs. We're going to remember him for all of the bad things that

happened under his watch. And you know what? All of those things are entirely warranted. But the fact that Bud Selig, during this massive growth period for Major League Baseball, where revenues have more than quadrupled, was able to keep together 30 rich old guys and keep them on the same page is, I think, the greatest thing that he did and something that is going to be underappreciated because all of the other things just have so much more flair to them and have so much more impact to just the average fan. We don't realize that Bud Selig being a consensus builder and being the type of person who strikes backroom deals has saved baseball a lot of headaches over the last two decades.

So you wrote about the owners today that some of them, or maybe all of them, who knows, are, as you wrote, plenty happy to look out for themselves and only themselves. Sport be damned. Are there any areas where the health of the sport and the health of a team and what's good for the owner and what's good for the sport are in conflict? And is there any team that has lost out in the Bud Seelig years that wouldn't see Bud Seelig's record of growing the sport as having profited them? That's a great question. I think you can argue that the big market teams don't feel like they're getting their fair share of the revenues now, considering just how much money the Yankees and Red Sox do generate.

The Red Sox were at the forefront yesterday of trying to challenge Rob Manfred. And there have been complaints internally from them for years. And same thing with the Yankees. And on one hand, I understand that. If you take baseball as 30 individual businesses, then those businesses should be allowed to run independent of one another. Those businesses should be allowed to reap their natural resources, so to speak. It know, it's like New York and Boston are countries that happen to sit on oil wells and they get everything from it. But they've been forced to give it away because of revenue sharing. And now it's the middle of August and the Kansas City Royals and Oakland A's are in

first place. And you can argue that that's a good thing for baseball. You can argue that that's a bad thing for baseball. But that dovetails with what Bud Selig wanted from the sport. And, you know, personally, I like the idea of revenue sharing, but fallible exceeds the idea of, you know, the mediocrity that we have in the sport right now and the pennant races, quote unquote, that it generates. So you mentioned ceiling strength as a consensus builder and backroom dealer. Does Manfred have that same ability? And is there going to be any hangover effect from this semi-contentious election process? I know that Larry Baer, the CEO of the Giants, said that he thinks that all of that debate and conflict has a shelf life of about

20 minutes. He said when Rob takes over in January, nobody's going to be thinking about that. Do you buy that? Is it a clean slate now? Is everyone on board? From the people with whom I've spoken, and these are generally people who are honest with me, they agree with that sentiment. Now, as a human being, I cannot sit here and imagine how Rob Manfred does not remember for a long time what Jerry Reinsdorf tried to do to him. Right. I mean, this was this was a job that uh he has been working toward since it was since it was a reasonable thought probably five six years ago now that people thought my god rob manford could be the next commissioner and so this is something that

has been in his mind for that time and to see it almost ruined on account of one guy who was essentially playing a game. I mean, in my mind, that that is an unforgivable sin. But Rob Manfred also understands that he's the head of a nine billion dollar corporation and that if you let personal grudges and pettiness get in the way, the likelihood of you succeeding in that job is hindered significantly. And so I do think that they're going to get past this. And I think the ultimate goal of Rob Manford now is to become more like Bud Seelig in that respect. You know, Rob Manford makes deals. He's done that with the last three collective bargaining agreements, and he's done a very good job at that.

But at the same time, it is not an easy thing to do when you have this shifting landscape in baseball, when you have, you know, large market owners versus small market owners. And then you also have to deal with a union that's job is the toughest because, you know, Tony Clark faces Major League Baseball. Rob Manfred faces the Major League Baseball Players Association and 30 owners to whom he has to answer and whom he has to placate. And that is not an easy thing to do. So what does the Players Association think about this? So what does the Players Association think about this? Is this a victory for them in that they have somebody they know they can work for, or is he tougher than they would like? I think it's sort of both.

I think that's a great assessment of it. If it were Tom Werner in there, they would be dealing with a brand-new negotiator because there is no way that Rob Manford would have stuck around. And when you're dealing with a brand-new negotiator, somebody who doesn't have the institutional knowledge, somebody who doesn't have the history, somebody who doesn't know how to parry with the people that are in there already, you run into a situation with a stick of dynamite that's just waiting to be lit. And so I think from that respect, the union is happy that at least they know they can get along with Rob Manfred. But at the same time, they are not going to go into this negotiation lightly. They feel like they need to get things back.

And ultimately, I think Rob Manfred's election means labor peace and that we're not going to have a situation come 2016 that that's significantly changed. But, you know, I alluded to this in a column a couple of weeks ago, and maybe it's because I am, you know, so in deep with this idea of baseball's future being potentially hampered and hampered badly by pitching injuries. But I wonder what contracts John Lester and Max Scherzer are going to get this offseason. I think that's going to be a big bellwether because if anything could stop these two sides from agreeing on something, it is the compensation going to pitchers who, frankly, historically have been miserable investments. And that's the problem with baseball's economics.

You've got a situation that tamps down salaries when, frankly, it should probably be higher and pays guys when they're going into years where they're likelier to get injured. And we see it again and again. Justin Verlander is just the latest example. We have to imagine based on history that Felix Hernandez and Clayton Kershaw will at some point be going down that path as well. But the Lester and Scherzer situation, seeing if there's just, you know, there's the cliche, all it takes is one stupid team.

If there's not one stupid team this offseason, cliche, all it takes is one stupid team. If there's not one stupid team this offseason, that is the type of thing that will be the first rocket flown in what would be a war. But what do you mean? Where does the commissioner's office come into that? I think the commissioner's office comes into that in that if teams are not spending, then the union, frankly, is free to think that there's some sort of collusion among them. And if teams are not spending like they have in the past on pitchers because they believe that pitchers are not a good investment, well, the market has dictated that pitchers have been paid X amount. I mean, we saw a contract for a higher average

annual value than ever was given before to Clayton Kershaw just this offseason. And so if it doesn't continue on that track, if the growth in salaries doesn't match that, the union's going to wonder, why are teams doing this? And is there some sort of conspiracy against players? conspiracy against players. So Manfred was obviously extremely important to running, you know, to basically accomplishing a lot of what Bud Sealy accomplished. He was a big part of that regime. Is there any sort of feeling that now that he's in this higher job that there's actually a void in his position and that maybe he can actually do less of some of the day-to-day stuff that he was doing now that he's got a lot more responsibilities to the owners? Yeah, you know, I think one of the strong, frankly, one of the strongest parts of the commissioner's office has been its labor side

division. I'm assuming that Dan Halem is probably going to take over Rob Manfred's duties, maybe not as the chief negotiator. I think Rob Manfred will be sitting in on those meetings. But, you know, taking over some of that role, Chris Maranac in the commissioner's office in the labor division is a younger guy who I think is going to be handed more responsibility. Frankly, the more important thing to me, and I think certainly the more important thing to Rob Manfred is on the marketing side of the game and if they are going to change things up there and how they're going to do it. I asked a couple of sources what is his top priority and unequivocally they said it is figuring out how to market this game to younger people and how to recapture the fan that has been lost. And I think that's the right thing to do. And bless the heart of anyone who tries to do it, because it is going to be a very,

very difficult thing to do. You know, the marketing alongside the pace of play issues, I think those go hand in hand. And I think that's going to be a big priority. Not just the idea of a pitch clock, which I don't frankly see happening, but the fact that even in between innings, we're talking about two minute and 30 second breaks ending up bleeding into three minutes and there being some sort of a clock inside of dugouts, but not for fans to see that says, OK, we're going to be back at 2.30. It's little things like that that I think are hugely important, not just for baseball, but to Rob Manfred. And I think he recognizes those things. And, you know, maybe he's not going to put his stamp on the game quite like Bud Selig, who gave us the

wild card, who gave us interleague play, who gave us plenty more things. But it's those little things where I think Rob Manfred can make a difference and is open minded enough to consider them. So one of the areas in which Manfred was involved that maybe gave people some pause, people looking from outside, from afar, was the way the biogenesis investigations were handled and his role in that. Is that something that could cause conflict with the players? Are they upset about the way that went down? Or are they so opposed to A-Rod and generally to PEDs at this point that they were kind of on board with that, that that won't be a sticking point in the next negotiations?

I don't think they were happy the length to which MLB and Rob Manford went with the investigation. You know what? I don't blame them because there was a lot of shady stuff that went on. I think his excuse, and I don't know that I buy this frankly, but I think his excuse is and I don't know that I buy this, frankly, but I think his excuse is that they went dirty. We needed to go dirty to get done what we wanted to get done. And ultimately, it comes down to whether you believe seeking the truth warrants that or that the truth is not the most important thing here. If the truth about what Alex Rodriguez did was important, then hey, they went and did what they had to do to find it. And I think that was the order from high above.

Bud Selig wanted a pelt, and he got one. And Rob Manfred's job was to get him that pelt, and he went out and he got it. If it were anyone other than Alex Rodriguez, I think it would be a much different scenario. But the union is still, players are still just so appalled by the way he handled things, by the lawsuit, by everything, by the denials, the lies, everything A-Rod did, you know, they're going to welcome him back, but I don't think they're going to cast aspersions necessarily on Rob Manfred on account of that. People out in public, I think there's good reason to at the very least be skeptical.

The way that they have run their investigative department has been like a police department. And I, for one, don't see police presence being necessary inside of a sport and with what amounts to employees. But Major League Baseball has taken that tack because they feel like this is a war that's needed fighting. And without subpoena power and without all those other things that, you know, helps governments get the job done, they feel like they've had to do that in order to look after their sport. You can argue that ethically they have crossed lines, but it's tough to say now after what Bud Selig has done that he doesn't care about PEDs anymore.

He didn't back then when he should have maybe, but now, frankly, he cares too much about it. So you, as you noted, Werner was not a very good candidate. And how come there wasn't a good second candidate? Does nobody want the job? Did nobody want to challenge it? And are we officially past the era where people propose like crazy things like George Will being the commissioner? Is that just absolutely a thing of the past? No, I saw Bob Costas for commissioner on Twitter yesterday. And I don't block people, but I was very inclined to block immediately just to get that idea.

Like the Bob Costas, George Will, Peter Gammon's three-headed hydra of commissioner would be awesome. I think we need that. And George W. Bush. Look, the commissioner's job now is going to be someone internally. It's going to be that way forever because the politics of baseball are very unique. The politics of sports are very unique, but baseball in particular, I think, because, you know, I've spoken with somebody who's been

in multiple sports and you look at football, for example, a lot of these teams have been in families for decades, for generations now. And so the idea of people coming in and fighting and challenging like they did in football, it's just not the same. Baseball's ownership is far, far more rancorous and far more difficult to deal with. And I think this is like a perfect example of how messed up baseball ownership is. Do you know who the voice of reason was yesterday when it came to Rob Manfred? It was David Sampson. I'm serious. And I have been the most vociferous critic of David Sampson in the past, but I will give credit where it's due.

David Sampson was the one who was going around and politicking and lobbying for Rob Manfred more than anybody yesterday. And when David Sampson is suddenly the voice of reason in a room, that speaks volumes about the type of people who you have in that particular room. Baseball is a very unique place, and no owner is ever going to be commissioner again, I don't think, because the owners frankly don't like each other. If you think about it, they spend all this time competing against one another. Their interests very rarely dovetail, but Rob Manford was the right guy in this situation considering who all the other candidates were. They just weren't very good.

How many people were in that room? Is it just like one owner from every team or are there staff? Is this an assembly hall? Yeah, you know, I think it's groups. I got a story relayed to me about the Nationals right when they were changing their vote. And it was Ted Lerner and it was his son, Mark Lerner. And there were other people involved there. So I think it was contingencies all together. I just can't imagine what that room would be like. It would just feel so old and so white. And Bud Selig was in that

room listening to presentations about what people should do differently as commissioner of baseball. Yeah, I mean, not just that, but what the hell was he doing in there? That did not make much sense to me. Usually the outgoing CEO of a corporation does not sit in when the board is picking a new CEO. But like I said, baseball is weird, man. It is not your typical $9 billion corporation. All right. Well, thank you for coming on and explaining the situation to us.

And if nothing else, we have achieved the impossible and made the Marlins more popular, hopefully, after listening to this. I know. Trust me, I feel dirty having done that. But hey, no one can ever call me biased or unfair. That's true. You are fair and balanced. Okay.

So people, go read Jeff's work if you don't already at Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter at Jeff Passan, P-A-S-S-A-N. And thanks again, Jeff. Pleasure's all mine, boys. Thanks for having me. All right. Please support our sponsor, Baseball Reference, by going to baseballreference.com,

subscribing to the Play Index using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30. If you're at Sabre Seminar in Boston this weekend, please come say hello. I'm on some panels and things, so you'll have no choice but to see me and hear me. But you have a choice to come speak to me, and it'd be great if

you did. And have a wonderful weekend. We will be back on Monday. Outro Music