The game’s SABRmetric guru, Bill James, fires up the establishment with inflammatory remarks about whether fans root for the players or the uniform
Bill James is no stranger to controversy. So it was hardly a surprise when both players and representatives of the World Series champion Boston Red Sox, for whom James is a paid consultant, quickly denounced his latest contention.
In a since-deleted tweet published as part of a discussion about agent Scott Boras, James wrote that “if the players all retired tomorrow, we would replace them, the game would go on; in three years it would make no difference whatsoever.”
The Red Sox, for whom Bill James has been a consultant since 2003, called his comments “inappropriate and absurd.” Tony Clark, head of the Players Union, termed them “reckless and insulting considering our game’s history regarding the use of replacement players.” Clark said “the players ARE the game.”
In a team statement, the Red Sox said the recent world championship “would not have been possible without our incredibly talented players … the backbone of our franchise and our industry.” The statement added that “to insinuate otherwise is fraud.”
Put simply, the controversy boiled down to whether fans root for the players or the uniform. It’s an especially sensitive question around times when renewal of the Basic Agreement between players and teams comes due for renegotiation. The current Basic Agreement expires in December of 2021.
Players have historically taken the position that they, not the teams, are the ones who draw fans to major league ballparks. By their argument, fans would reject any effort by teams to use replacement-level players, as was pursued during the 1994-95 strike. Although no replacement players were used in big league games during those seasons, they were used in spring training games and teams prepared to use replacement teams in 1995 until prevented from doing so by a ruling by now Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
The speed and sharpness of the Red Sox refutation of James’ assertion can be read as a desire not to needlessly sew dissension between teams and players at a time when the game’s finances appear to be thriving for all parties.
Final 2018 revenue figures have not yet become available, but various sources have indicated that the average team revenue increased by close to $15 million between 2016 and 2017, from $300.7 million to about $315.3 million. It was estimated that 23 teams saw revenue increases between 2016 and 2017, led by the Yankees (+$93 million), Dodgers (+61 million) and Braves (+58 million).
Even so, it is also worth noting that attendance fell about 4.2 percent during 2018 as compared with the previous season.
In his reply, Clark fired a direct warning shot about the talks leading up to the next agreement. “If these sentiments resonate beyond this one individual, then any challenges that lie ahead will be more difficult to overcome than initially anticipated,” he said.
Various sources that James’ comment developed out of an exchange initiated in a tweet by Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald involving criticisms leveled by agent Scott Boras against teams Boras viewed as having tanked. In the course of a tweet exchange with several reporters, James suggested that players underperforming their contracts had a lot to do with the problem, and that – given the more than half-million dollar minimum salary – few if any players were truly underpaid.
The exchanges re-opened a long-discussed and recently suppressed topic: whether the propriety of player salaries should be measured against salaries generally – by which standard all players would be considered wealthy – or whether the proper measurement was against the money generated by the teams for which they play. By that classic market standard, players are worth whatever fans are willing to pay to watch them.
In theory, while a league of replacement players would force teams to drastically scale back admission prices in the hope of retaining attendance, expenses would also be drastically reduced…and – again in theory — fans of winning teams would continue to go to the park.
Although Red Sox players did not immediately respond to James’ observations, some other players did. Justin Verlander questioned whether the Red Sox would have won the World Series if replacement players had been used instead of one or more of their stars. That statement, obviously, somewhat mischaracterized James’ point to the extent that it implied he was talking about the use of replacements on one particular team as opposed to the impact of their use across the game as a whole.
For his part, Bill James adopted a self-deprecating tone but did not back done from his central point. “I do my best not to offend people,” he wrote. “Can’t say that I have much talent for it.”