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TORONTO SUN

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

MLB ANNOUNCES NEW LABOUR DEAL

SPORTS NETWORK

NEW YORK - There continues to be labour peace in baseball.

After the NFL survived its brief labour tiff during the summer and the NBA currently wallows through its acrimonious lockout, Major League Baseball will continue without a work stoppage for another five years.

Owners and players on Tuesday announced a new collective bargaining agreement through the 2016 season.

Included in the new deal will be expanded playoffs -- one additional wild card team for each league -- starting no later than 2013, an increase in the minimum salary and blood testing for human growth hormone.

"I am thrilled for the fans that the clubs and the players of Major League Baseball, together, have the opportunity to further build on our game's unprecedented popularity," Commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement on Tuesday. "Labour peace has proven essential to the best interests of baseball and its millions of fans, who have attended our ballparks in historic numbers over the last eight years. During this remarkable era, we have seen outstanding competitive balance, record business performance and a seamless transition to the new modes in which fans want to embrace our sport. I truly believe the best is yet to come for the game we love."

The conclusion of a new five-year pact will give the sport uninterrupted labour peace for more than 20 years, something once considered unimaginable after constant battles between the owners and players led to strikes in 1981 and 1994 -- the latter of which eventually forced the cancellation of that year's World Series and delayed the start of the 1995 campaign.

"Nobody would ever have believed we would have 21 years of labour peace," Selig added at a joint press conference with union members Tuesday.

RYAN BRAUN WINS NL MVP AWARD

QMI Agency

Slugger Ryan Braun, who helped the Milwaukee Brewers reach a league championship for the first time in 29 years, was announced Tuesday as the National League MVP.

Braun, who hit the home run that clinched the NL Central title for Milwaukee, had a .332 batting average with 33 home runs, 111 RBI and 33 steals during the season.

"It's hard to put into words what this means to me," Braun said. "It's very emotional and something I'm really proud of."

The 28-year-old outfielder was listed first on 20 ballots and second on the other 12.

Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Matt Kemp, who led the NL in homers, RBI, runs and total bases, was second with 10 first-place votes.

The other first-place votes went to Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder, who finished third, and Arizona Diamondbacks right fielder Justin Upton, who was fourth.

Braun said playing on a winning team probably helped him win the award over Kemp, whose Dodgers posted an 82-79 record and missed the playoffs.

"I think ultimately I won it because they put a better team around me," Braun said.

Canadian Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds finished sixth in MVP voting. Votto won the award in 2010.

LOEWEN SIGNS WITH METS

Pitcher-turned-outfielder Adam Loewen is now a Blue Jay-turned-Met.

Loewen, 27, signed a minor-league contract with the New York Mets, according to multiple reports Tuesday.

Loewen's conversion from the pitching mound to the outfield went smoothly enough that the left-hander earned a spot in the majors in September with Toronto.

But the B.C. native was outrighted from the Jays' 40-man roster after the season.

Loewen hit .306 with 17 homers and an .884 OPS in 134 games at triple-A Las Vegas in 2011.

He was drafted fourth overall by Baltimore in 2002 and pitched 164 innings for the Orioles before suffering recurring elbow injuries.

He made a comeback as an outfielder in 2009.

NO LABOUR PAINS IN MLB

Major League Baseball players and owners announced a five-year collective bargaining agreement Tuesday that includes extra drug testing and plans to expand the playoffs.

The deal will replace a pact that expires Dec. 11 and ensures the league will have 21 consecutive years of labour peace.

The new deal includes blood testing for human growth hormone as early as next year and plans to add an extra wild-card playoff spot in each of the two leagues no later than 2013.

Among other changes:

Players who routinely have blown off the all-star game will now be required to play unless they are injured or excused by MLB; If the umpires' union agrees, a replay review can be requested to confirm if a fielder has caught a ball or trapped it, and to check whether a hit is fair or foul; and in a crackdown on smokeless tobacco, players will not be allowed to have chew in their mouth during TV interviews and cannot have a can of smokeless in their back pocket while on the field.

BRIEFLY

Four-time all-star Joe Nathan signed a two-year contract Tuesday reported to be worth $14.5 million to become the closer for the Texas Rangers. Signing the former Minnesota Twins pitcher allows the team to shift closer Neftali Feliz into the starting rotation ... A group headed by Jim Crane completed its purchase Tuesday of the Houston Astros from Drayton McLane. The group becomes the fifth owner of the Houston franchise, which began play in the major leagues as the Colt .45s in 1962.

TORONTO STAR

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

BASEBALL’S NEW DEAL GAME-CHANGER FOR JAYS

Richard Griffin

The Jays, under young GM Alex Anthopoulos, were on the cutting edge of using the old collective bargaining agreement to full advantage. Whether it was trading for catcher Miguel Olivo and then refusing his option to get a draft pick, or overpaying in the draft for talented high schoolers, under the new CBA announced Tuesday in New York Anthopoulos may have to re-think his strategy.

There was never any doubt this time around that major league baseball and its players’ union would reach agreement before push came to destructive shove. There was no chance under any circumstances that it would end badly, in another of pro sports’ always destructive work stoppages. Baseball learned a difficult lesson in 1994 when the final two months of the season and the World Series were cancelled because of a strike. Some fans have never forgiven. All fans will never forget.

The MLB owners and players have arrived at a new five-year CBA that will carry through to Dec. 1, 2016, ensuring 21 seasons of labour peace, an unprecedented period of tranquility for the national pastime since the union was founded in the ’60s.

“This is an agreement that will benefit all players, an agreement that will benefit all clubs,” said Michael Weiner, executive director of the MLBPA, seated elbow-to-elbow with commissioner Bud Selig. “It’s not just a good day for baseball but a good day for collective bargaining.”

Here are some of the highlights:

Drug testing

Sure, the CFL began testing for human growth hormone in September, but with baseball’s program set to begin at spring training in 2012, MLB becomes the first of the big four pro sports to institute blood testing. To kick off the change, HGH testing will be as folllows: mandatory at spring training, random in the off-season and only with “reasonable cause” in-season.

A study will be made to determine whether random testing could be expanded to take place during the season as well. Penalties will be the same as the current PED testing with a 50-game ban for failing the first time. Baseball held off until reliable blood testing could be discovered.

Free agency

Under the same criteria as before, six years of service , eligible players will automatically become free the day after the World Series. They don’t have to declare. There will be five quiet days before open bidding. The non-tender date for roster players is moved up to Dec. 2, meaning that the total free agent pool will be known by that date, prior to the winter meetings.

Free-agent compensation

There are no more Type A or B free agents and the Elias ranking system is scrapped. In order for a team to receive draft-pick compensation, it must make a one-year qualifying offer to its own free agent five days after the World Series. That offer must be at least equal to the average salary of the top 125 players in baseball that year. A player has seven days to accept.

If a club makes the necessary qualifying offer to its own prime free agent and he signs with another club, the team losing the player receives only a sandwich pick at the end of the first round, with the exact spot to be determined in reverse order of the standings among those teams that lost qualifying free agents. The signing team loses its first- or second-round pick, depending on the standings. The top 10 choices are protected.

There is an additional qualifier to free agency that hurts GMs like Anthopoulos. Only a player who has been with the same team the entire season will qualify for draft-pick compensation, even if a qualifying offer has been made. So there will no longer be an advantage to trading for a potential free agent at the deadline and then letting him walk at season’s end. No Kelly Johnson scenarios.

More draft changes

Here’s where it gets interesting and bizarre. Following the first round, picks 31 to 36 will be placed in a “competitive balance lottery” from among 10 teams with the lowest revenue and in reverse order of standings. The four losers of that lottery will bump down and compete with the rest of the “revenue-sharing payees” for six more added picks at the end of the second round. The chances will be weighted to determine the most needy. These picks may be traded.

Bonus pool for signing picks

There will be a total bonus pool assigned for each team in the draft ranging from $4.5 million to $11 million, depending on position. The pool covers players in the first 10 rounds — unless a player receives a bonus of more than $10,000, in which case it also counts. It’s a draft-day luxury tax.

If a team exceeds its pool total by:

• Zero to 5 per cent, it pays a fine.

Five to 10 per cent, it’s a fine and loss of a first-round pick.

Ten to 15 per cent, a fine and loss of a first- and second-rounder.

Fifteen per cent or more costs a team first-rounders for two years.

Lost picks then go into another small-market lottery and ping-pong balls determine who gets them. Prior to the draft, the top 200 prospects must undergo drug testing and a medical exam.

International free agents

For Pacific Rim, Caribbean, South American and European free agents there will be a similar signing pool, identical for all clubs. A committee will be set up to study the possibility of adding an international draft, but for now it stays the same. The international signing period will be July 2 to June 15 the next year, with similar penalties for going over your pool allotment. Teams that are not active internationally can trade some of their pool money.

International prospects must register to be eligible and the top 100 prospects will undergo drug testing and physicals. Baseball will set up an educationa/vocational program to help international free agents after their careers are over.

Other highlights

• The Astros shift to the AL in 2013, but there will likely be a second wild card in each league in time for 2012. The deadline for that decision is March 1, 2012.

• No new MLB player will be allowed to use low-density maple bats, although they will be grandfathered moving forward.

• Rosters can expand to 26 for doubleheaders.

• Arbitration eligibility will extend to players with two years of service plus the top 22 per cent, rather than the top 17 per cent.

• Minimum salary rises to $480,000, $490,000 and $500,000 in the first three years of the deal, then is tied to cost of living the final two.

• Instant replay will be expanded after talking to the umpires union to include fair/foul and trapped/caught calls.

BREWERS’ BRAUN NAMED NL MVP

Howie Rumberg, AP

NEW YORK—Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun won the NL most valuable player award on Tuesday after helping lead the Brewers to their first division title in nearly 30 years.

The left fielder received 20 of 32 first-place votes and 388 points in voting announced by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

“I’m not going to pretend like I wasn’t anxious or nervous because I was,” said Braun, who was sitting on the balcony of his home in Malibu, Calif., when he received the call that he had won. “I was obviously thrilled, excited. It’s honestly difficult to put into words how much this means to me.”

Los Angeles centre fielder Matt Kemp, who came close to winning the Triple Crown, received 10 first-place votes and finished second with 332 points. Braun’s teammate Prince Fielder finished third with 229 points, and Arizona’s Justin Upton finished fourth with 214 points. Fielder and Upton each received one first-place vote.

St. Louis’ Albert Pujols finished fifth. It was the 11th straight year the three-time MVP was in the top 10 in balloting.

NL Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw was 12th in the voting a day after Detroit’s Justin Verlander added the AL MVP to his Cy Young.

“I think he was the single most dominant player in baseball this year,” Braun said of Verlander. “As a position player I’m biased to the fact that I think position players should be at the forefront of the award but if you honestly look at what he accomplished, how much he meant to that team and how dominant he truly was you cannot make any argument against him winning that award.”

Braun led the NL with a .597 slugging percentage and had a chance to overtake Jose Reyes for the batting title on the last day of the season but finished second with a .332 average. The four-time all-star had 33 homers, 111 RBIs, 109 runs scored and stole 33 bases as Milwaukee won a franchise-best 96 games. His 77 extra-base hits was tops in the league.

Kemp led the NL in homers with 39 and RBIs with 126 and was third in average (.324), but played for the NL West’s third-place Dodgers. He also won a Gold Glove.

“Matt’s one of the best players in the game. No question about it. The season he had will go down as one of the greatest in Dodgers history,” said Braun, who grew up rooting for the Dodgers. “If he had won the MVP I certainly couldn’t have argued with him winning. He had a phenomenal year.”

While Braun and Kemp had similar statistics, Kemp was hindered by the Dodgers’ 82-79 third-place finish in the NL West.

“Without a doubt I think it’s a drastically different experience playing meaningful games down the stretch,” Braun said.

The 28-year-old Braun is the first Brewers player to win the MVP award in the National League and first since Robin Yount won in 1989, when Milwaukee was in the AL East. Rollie Fingers (1981) and Yount in 1982 are the other Brewers to take home MVP honours.

“Robin’s the greatest player in Milwaukee Brewers history so any time you’re mentioned alongside him it’s a tremendous achievement,” Braun said.

Braun signed a $105 million (U.S.), five-year contract extension in April, linking him to the Brewers through 2020. He received a $100,000 bonus for winning the MVP.

“This team has been so loyal to me. They believed in me. They drafted me. They helped to develop me and there would be nothing more meaningful to me than to eventually win a world championship in Milwaukee,” he said. “It would mean a lot more to me than if I went to a large-market team, big-market-team and won two or three championships.”

The 2007 NL rookie of the year winner rewarded the club with his fourth straight season with more than 100 RBIs. He hit a three-run, go-ahead homer in the eighth inning on Sept. 23 to clinch the division title for Milwaukee.

LOUD MUSIC MAY HAVE LED TO HALMAN’S STABBING

AP

AMSTERDAM—Police say an argument about loud music could be the reason Seattle Mariners outfielder Greg Halman was stabbed to death.

Police spokeswoman Patricia Wessels tells the Associated Press that loud music “appears to be the reason the victim walked downstairs,” but police are still trying to piece together what happened after that.

Police say they are still interviewing the brother of Halman as a suspect in the death of the 24-year-old Dutch baseball player, who was killed in the early hours of Monday morning at an apartment in Rotterdam.

Halman hit .230 in 35 games and made starts at all three outfield positions for the Mariners in 2011 before being optioned to Triple-A Tacoma.

PRINCE OF A FREE-AGENT DEAL COULD BACKFIRE ON JAYS

Cathal Kelly

If the purpose of splashing on a free-agent signing is to acquire truly elite talent, this season’s baseball awards suggest that the results can be contrary to the objective.

Thirty-eight players finished in the top 10 of Cy Young and MVP balloting in both leagues (pitchers Justin Verlander and Roy Halladay featured on both the Cy Young and MVP lists).

Of those 38, only four were acquired via free agency.

Three of them were pitchers — C.C. Sabathia of the Yankees, Cliff Lee of the Phillies and Tigers closer Jose Valverde.

The sole free-agent hitter on the list in either league — Lance Berkman of the Cardinals — was picked up on a one-year deal in line with his age (35) and declining production. He took a huge salary haircut. Buying Berkman looks like genius only because it’s that rarest of baseball buys — one with a decent cost/benefit ratio.

The Cardinals re-signed Berkman on another (relatively speaking) cheap one-year deal in September. If past performance really is a predictor of future success, it didn’t help Berkman’s bargaining position much.

The other 34 players on our list break down thusly:

Twenty-two were drafted by the teams they play for;

Nine were acquired via trade (including the biggest theft in recent memory, Jose Bautista);

Two were international signings (Yankees Robinson Cano and Mariano Rivera);

One was acquired on a free-agent minor-league deal after being released (Brewers closer nee Hamilton bartender, John Axford).

For those hoping the Jays lay a carpet made of money in front of Prince Fielder, this may offer some insight into Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos’ thinking.

In real life, you pay more in the expectation of getting more. Nobody wants to hear that a Hyundai has more horsepower than their Mercedes. If it did, they’d make a hell of a lot more cars in Korea.

Too often, baseball free agents are that underpowered German sedan. You’re paying for the badge, not the car.

A certain type of player gets as far as the free-agent market — one that is prohibitively priced and/or is surplus to needs and/or is flawed in some way and/or wants to wear pinstripes.

Players headed toward free agency with enormous upside and a reasonable asking price are traded or re-signed. Halladay is the instructive example. The Phillies stripped their minor-league system of three top prospects in order to acquire him. They have continued to do this sort of business.

While the new CBA will make free agency less onerous on the bottom end — from now on, clubs will only lose a first-round pick if the free agent being acquired has been offered a high-end, one-year deal by the club losing them — this cycle will continue. The type of marquee free agents clubs tend to bid up to huge prices will always cost you a piece of your future.

So while it may be fun to contemplate life as a Phillie fan in 2012, it wouldn’t do the morale much good to think a few years beyond that.

Barring enormous luck in the next couple of drafts, the Phillies are now locked into a free-agent binge that has them overloaded with win-right-now players and past-their-prime parts. Like Florida real estate, the Phillie crash is coming.

It’s in the Jays’ best interest to avoid this cycle altogether — not only because it costs up front, but because the dividends are often disappointing.

Anthopoulos has been at his best when acquiring either controllable players or ones with a limited window of contract exposure. Brett Lawrie and Yunel Escobar are the prime examples.

These economics get turned upside down in Boston or New York, where unlimited budgets trump strategy. As much as Jays fans might like to believe otherwise, Toronto baseball will not truly thrive until the club looks like a winner in three years as well as the coming year — something money alone can’t buy you.

Clearly, with the coming addition of a wild card spot, Toronto is entering its win-now phase. Free agents will play a role, though I’d take Lawrie over whatever $75 million might buy you on this market. Best case scenario — you’d take both.

The team is still a couple of stars shy of a contender. The 2011 season suggests that, more often than not, those future MVP and Cy Young finalists will be acquired using strategic smarts rather than a chequebook.

GLOBE & MAIL

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

HGH TESTING A NECESSARY NEXT STEP FOR BASEBALL

JEFF BLAIR

The devil is in the details as always, so it will take some time to figure out whether Major League Baseball owners pursued or received a pound of flesh in the new five-year collective bargaining agreement they announced Tuesday.

But they drew blood.

If, as expected, the new CBA is passed in a vote of players, major leaguers will be blood-tested for human growth hormone (HGH) in spring training. They will also be subject to unannounced off-season testing and “reasonable-cause testing” in-season.

Michael Weiner, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association said “the answer is, clearly, yes,” when asked if in-season blood-testing was possible during the life of the agreement.

The usual constituencies, such as the World Anti-Doping Agency, will of course find flaws in the system because, God bless them, that’s what WADA does best. And there will be skepticism about players being tipped off, as there was when steroid testing came into effect.

But this is a necessary next step for baseball and the fact owners and players were able to get it done quietly, along with the rest of an agreement that guarantees 21 years of uninterrupted labour peace, shows how far the game’s leadership has come, not just since the players’ strike of 1994, but since August of 2002, when the game seemed poised at another precipice.

It is true baseball has no defined salary cap, beyond a luxury tax threshold. The absence of that irritant, or rather the absence of what in wording alone carries the stigma of defeat for a players’ association, creates a different background for discussion. (One of the intriguing elements of the next round of NHL bargaining will be watching former MLBPA executive director Donald Fehr do his thing within the context of a salary cap system.)

But there are two other elements at play, as well.

First, Major League Baseball sits on a gold mine in the form of MLBAM, its advanced media properties arm, which is a multibillion-dollar industry sought out by the International Olympic Committee, among other groups.

Second, none of the other major sports in North America had its feet held to the fire in U.S. Congressional steroid investigations the way baseball did, using as a threat the revoking of baseball’s historic antitrust exemption. Those hearings proved to both commissioner Bud Selig and Fehr that they were viewed in some quarters as co-conspirators on an issue of tremendous sensitivity.

It was a bridge of sorts, and helps explain why blood testing for HGH – which wouldn’t have made it past Fehr’s desk in the last round of bargaining – was placed on the table by the players. According to Weiner, the players’ association resolved to address the issue after British rugby player Terry Newton tested positive for HGH and was suspended in February of 2010. That result proved to the union an effective HGH test was possible – something both the commissioner’s office and union had said it needed to see.

There are specifics contained in the CBA that will change the way a team like the Toronto Blue Jays does business.

As general manager Alex Anthopoulos says, some of the changes to free-agent compensation will fundamentally alter the value a certain player has to the organization. And any move to tighten international free-agent spending will get the Jays’ attention in light of the organization’s new-found aggressiveness in that market.

But as long as the players are on the field selling the game, all else is workable.

Just ask the NBA.

YANKEES RAISE PRICE OF BLEACHER SEATS

The Yankees are raising the price of bleacher seats for next season in an effort to cut down on resales by ticket brokers.

New York said Tuesday the price of bleacher seats will be $20 and $12 next year, up from $15 and $5.

“The $5 bleacher seats sold for about six times face value and were bought up by ticket brokers,” chief operating officer Lonn Trost said. “The folks that really wanted it for affordability couldn't get it.”

The team is keeping 70 per cent of ticket prices unchanged, including all field-level seats between the bases. The prices of field-level seats in fair territory in the outfield, which sometimes had unsold areas last season, are being reduced, from $100 to as low as $65.

Some Field Level MVP seats, starting with the outside edge of the dugouts, will be reduced by $35-$50.

The Yankees averaged 45,107 fans this season, down from a major league-best 46,491 last year and 45,918 in 2009, when the stadium opened.



Wednesday, November 23, 2011

MLB, UNION ANNOUNCE FIVE-YEAR LABOR DEAL

CBA features two more Wild Cards, HGH testing, Draft luxury tax

By Barry M. Bloom /

NEW YORK -- Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association entered an enhanced period of cooperation on Tuesday with the signing of a memorandum of understanding on a new five-year Basic Agreement, ensuring 21 years of labour peace for the sport.

The deal will last through Dec. 1, 2016, and includes mandatory testing of blood for human growth hormone for the first time at the Major League level beginning in Spring Training; 15 teams in each league by the 2013 season; another layer of playoffs and two more Wild Card teams as early as this coming season; changes in the First-Year Player Draft that could lead to a worldwide Draft by 2014; and expansion of the use of instant replay.

The new agreement now needs to be formalized in writing and ratified independantly by the players and owners.

That process will begin today," Commissioner Bud Selig said on Tuesday during a news conference to announce the new pact at MLB's central offices on Park Avenue in Manhattan. "There's still a lot of work to be done."

But nearly 11 months of the heaviest lifting is over as labour negotiators for both sides can take a deep breath and enjoy Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday and some down time with their families after weeks of long sessions.

This could be the last season of collective bargaining for Selig, who has said he will retire when his current contract expires at the end of 2012. If he does, he will have overseen three consecutive labour negotiations -- 2002, '06 and '11 -- without a strike or lockout. Baseball has not suffered a work stoppage since 1994-95.

"I believe that this new five-year agreement will continue the remarkable surge in popularity that baseball has enjoyed," Selig said. "I've said this before, and I will say it again today: Nobody back in the '70s, the '80s and the '90s -- especially '94 -- would ever have believed that we'd have 21 years of labour peace. It's really remarkable and clearly it's the longest period of labor peace that this sport has enjoyed.

"It's interesting to note that baseball's popularity, which has manifested in a myriad of ways, has been at its greatest in the last 15 or 16 years. One of the primary reasons, if not the primary reason, has been because of labour peace."

Tuesday's news conference capped a week full of positive announcements for Selig, who has overseen numerous changes to baseball since taking over as interim Commissioner in 1992. Under his watch MLB introduced the Wild Card, the first-round Division Series and Interleague Play. Gross revenues for the sport rose from $1 billion the year he took office to a record figure of more than $7 billion this year.

This past Thursday, at their final joint quarterly meeting of the year, the owners approved the transfer of the Houston Astros from outgoing owner Drayton McLane to a group headed by Houston businessman Jim Crane. With that, Selig announced that the Astros would move from the National League Central to the American League West in 2013 and that two more Wild Card teams will be added to the playoff mix as early as next season. The Wild Card teams in each league would most likely face each other in a one-game playoff to advance to the Division Series. MLB now has until March 1 to determine whether the playoffs will be expanded for the coming season.

The negotiation process for the new deal, which started in January, marked a seamless and successful initial go-round at the bargaining table between lead negotiator Rob Manfred -- MLB's executive vice president of labour relations and human resources, who represented the owners -- and the players, represented for the first time by executive director Michael Weiner, who took over that position from Don Fehr nearly two years ago.

It was in stark contrast to the labour wars, which resulted in eight consecutive work stoppages, beginning in 1972 and ending with the strike that shortened the 1994 season, wiping out that postseason and delaying the start of the '95 season.

In August 2002, the clock came down to a noon deadline before a deal was reached while players were seated on buses and about to again go out on strike. Instead, those buses rolled to the ballparks and an era of goodwill and cooperation began.

In 2006, the last negotiations led by Fehr were conducted quietly and behind the scenes, resulting in the agreement that was to expire on Dec. 11. These just-concluded negotiations were meticulous and led to the updating and rewriting of almost every clause in the Basic Agreement. Weiner called it "a good day for baseball and a good day for collective bargaining."

"I think what we've seen is a complete change in tone from the owners," Weiner said after the news conference. "In 2002, as you know, we came as close to a work stoppage as you can get without actually having [one]. I think that proved to both sides that maybe there was another way to do this. And now we've built on that two times in a row."

Highlights of the new CBA include:

• Blood testing for HGH with a 50-game suspension for a first failed test, 100 games for a second and lifetime ban with the right to seek reinstatement for the third.

• A raise in the minimum salary from $414,000 this year to $480,000 in 2012, and ultimately to more than $500,000.

• A luxury tax on teams that spend above an aggregate figure for players signed through the annual First-Year Player Draft and the near elimination of Draft-pick compensation for the signing of free agents.

• Subject to MLB discussions with the umpires' union, the expansion of instant replay to include fair and foul calls on balls hit down the line in addition to others trapped by fielders. Replay has been used only to review home runs -- fair or foul, in or out of the park.

• Restrictions for the first time on the use of smokeless tobacco on the field or in dugouts. Players are still allowed to chew, but while they're in an area where they can be picked up by a television camera, the protocol now is for them not to have pouches or tins of tobacco visible in their uniform back pockets.

As far as blood testing for HGH, both sides said that they are confident that the tests are now certain enough to be able to utilize them. MLB and the union have spent considerable money since survey testing began at the big league level for performance-enhancing drugs during the 2003 season. HGH has been banned since 2005, but until now, there has been no way to reliably test for it.

"If the tests weren't reliable," Manfred said, "I don't think that either side would have agreed to do it."

The competitive-balance tax is back to balance big market teams spending large amounts of cash on player payroll. In the new deal, the threshold of $178 million this past season will hold steady for 2012-13, then increase to $189 million for the final three years. The tax will decrease to 17.5 percent of the actual dollars spent for clubs exceeding the threshold for the first time, but the repeaters tax will increase to 50 percent of that same figure for clubs that have done it at least four consecutive times.

There will be no dispensation in this deal for the Yankees, who have been over the threshold every year. Their past spending pattern will carry over into the new agreement.

Both the Wild Card expansion and realignment were resolved in collective bargaining because they involved scheduling. It will be the first change in the postseason since the Wild Cards were added and MLB went to a three-division format in both leagues in 1994. It will be the first realignment since the Brewers moved from the AL to the NL in 1998, ushering in the era of Interleague Play.

SPORTSNET.CA

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

NEW CBA COULD ALTER JAYS' PLANS

Alex Anthopoulos is still adjusting to the new details of the CBA.share

Shi Davidi

The sexy changes in baseball's new collective bargaining agreement -- two new wildcard berths, realignment to a pair of 15-team leagues, additional replay, HGH testing -- should each make a big impact on the game.

But the five-year labour deal's most significant adjustments come in the form of new spending controls on the draft and international signings that will dramatically alter the sport's business and dynamics of player acquisition.

The new systems are quite complicated, and executives around the league were busy trying to wrap their heads around it all following the contract's unveiling Tuesday afternoon in New York.

The bottom line is the many teams that flexed their financial muscles by exceeding Major League Baseball's slot recommendations for draft bonuses, and spent aggressively on Latin American free -- - the Toronto Blue Jays chief among them -- now must readjust their game-plans.

Let's start with the draft, which has been broken for years as certain players priced themselves out of range of lower-spending teams, turning the system into one where some clubs drafted the best player they could afford, rather than the best player available.

Under GM Alex Anthopoulos, the Blue Jays have made a habit of selecting those types of players, willing to ante up for talent they otherwise would not have had a shot at. They spent a total of about $23 million in the past two drafts, easily near the top of all teams.

The new system will not allow that, as each team will have its own signing bonus pool figure based on the slot recommendations for each pick it owns through the first 10 rounds.

Teams that exceed that number by 0-5 per cent will be forced to pay a 75 per cent tax on the overage. Go over by 5-10 per cent and a club loses a first-round pick on top of the 75 percent tax. At 10-15 per cent overage, the tax rate shoots up to 100 per cent, while first and second round picks must be surrendered, while anything over 15 per cent comes with an 100 per cent tax and the loss of two first-rounders.

Those are very stiff penalties, and will force teams to be especially careful on how they spend their money. They can still blow slot if there's a particular player they like, but that means they'll have to either sign fewer players in the first 10 rounds, or do some major bargain-finding.

Further, any player chosen after the first 10 rounds signed for more than $100,000 will also count against the pool, a clever inclusion to prevent players and clubs from trying to circumvent the spending threshold that way.

If it works, there should be less money available for drafted players, ushering the measure of cost-certainty owners sought in the draft, and a more level playing field. And the players can say that they didn't surrender a cap, since each player is still somewhat free to negotiate their own price, rather than have one set for them.

The principles are similar in the international market, where for years teams with money to spend have been able to gobble up the best young talent in baseball's Wild West. In 2010, for instance, the Blue Jays spent more than $4 million, and this year they spent over $7 million.

The new CBA calls for the formation of an International Talent Committee charged with, in part, looking into the possibility of creating a draft or drafts for international amateurs by July of 2014.

Until then, a signing bonus pool -- at first the same for all clubs, but then staggered in reverse order of the standings -- will guide international spending.

As with the draft, an inhibiting luxury tax should deter teams from surpassing their threshold, an overage of 0-5 per cent will be taxed at 75 per cent, and an overage of 5-10 per cent will be taxed at 75 per cent and teams will only be able to sign one player for more than $500,000. The tax rate increases to 100 per cent for a 10-15 per cent overage, while anything over 15 percent is taxed at 100 percent and prevents teams from signing anyone for more than $250,000 in the next period.

In theory, this should help balance out international spending among the 30 clubs, and give more teams a shot at the top players. With money perhaps not the deciding factor any longer, clubs with good reputations and top facilities in Latin America like the Blue Jays may gain an edge, but it won't replace their ability to settle matters with a bigger dollar figure.

Still, the changes to the draft and international spending put a significant dent into Anthopoulos' plan to surpass the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays through aggressive talent acquisition.

The limiting of compensatory draft picks to only the free agents who receive a one-year offer from their former teams equal to or greater than the average salary of the 125 highest paid players from the previous season is another blow to the Blue Jays, who manipulated the current system to load up on picks the previous two seasons.

Those rules won't take effect until next off-season and the easing of restrictions on certain Type A free agents this year -- Kelly Johnson included -- may mean the second baseman will not return to the Blue Jays as Anthopoulos may prefer to collect the extra draft picks while he still can.

There are some things in the new CBA for the Blue Jays to like -- the luxury tax remaining at $178 million for the next two years before increasing to $189 million for the final three years of the deal, for instance, which should help keep the payroll gap with the Yankees and Red Sox in check.

And the addition of the second wildcard in each league opens up another avenue to the post-season for them. But on the whole, the agreement means the Blue Jays will have to adjust a sizable portion of their big-picture plan, and find other ways to gain an advantage.

DONE DEAL

AP

NEW YORK -- Baseball commissioner Bud Selig and union head Michael Weiner smiled and exchanged handshakes while others in the room dug into knishes and pigs in a blanket.

Not exactly the kind of scene that played out in sports labour talks this year.

Baseball ensured itself of 21 consecutive years of peace at a time the NBA season might be cancelled because of a lockout and the NFL still is recovering from its CBA negotiations.

"We've learned," Selig said Tuesday after players and owners signed an agreement for a five-year contract running until December 2016. "Nobody back in the '70s, '80s and the early '90s, 1994, would ever believe that we would have 21 years of labour peace."

The agreement makes MLB the first pro major league in North America to conduct blood tests for human growth hormone, allowing it during spring training and future off-seasons but for now only studying whether it will be implemented during the regular season.

"MLB and the players union should be applauded for taking the strong step to implement the HGH test at the major league level to protect clean athletes," said Travis Tygart, chief executive officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. "This is great progress in MLB's effort to protect the integrity of baseball at every level."

The deal, which must be ratified by both sides and drafted into a formal contract, expands the playoffs from eight to 10 teams by 2013, lessens draft-pick compensation for free agents, expands salary arbitration by a few players and for the first time allows teams to trade some draft selections.

It also adds unprecedented restraints on signing bonuses for amateur players coming to the major leagues from high school, college and overseas, perhaps hurting MLB as it competes with the NFL and NBA for multi-sport talent.

"If I've got a great athlete, why am I going to go to baseball? I'm going to focus on the other sports," said agent Scott Boras, who has negotiated baseball's highest signing bonuses.

Following eight work stoppages from 1972-95, baseball reached its third consecutive agreement without an interruption of play. The agreement was signed three weeks before the current deal was to expire Dec. 11, the second straight time the sides reached a deal early.

Baseball seems to have learned the lessons of the 1994-95 strike, which wiped out the World Series for the first time in nine decades.

"I think our history is more important than what's happening in other sports," said Michael Weiner, who took over from Donald Fehr as union head last year. "It took a while for the owners to appreciate that the union is not only here to stay, but that the union and its members can contribute positively to a discussion about the game -- about its economics, about the nature of the competition, about how it's marketed in every way."

Owners hope the changes will lessen the difference in spending by high- and low-revenue teams, much as the payroll luxury tax that began after the 2002 season.

"We feel that competitive balance is crucial to the product that we put on the field," said Rob Manfred, MLB's executive vice-president for labour relations. "Every time I took a proposal back to the commissioner, his bellwether on whether that proposal was good, bad or indifferent is what it did for competitive balance."

As players Andrew Bailey, Andrew Miller, Carlos Villanueva and David Bush sat alongside the officials, the sides described other highlights that included: requiring players to play in the all-star game unless injured or excused; expanding instant replay to include decisions on foul lines and traps, subject to an agreement with umpires; banning smokeless tobacco products during televised interviews by players, managers and coaches; requiring players arrested for DWI to undergo mandatory evaluation; and wearing improved batting helmets manufactured by Rawlings by 2013.

An initial positive test for HGH would result in a 50-game suspension, the same as a first positive urine test for a performance-enhancing substance. HGH testing in the minor leagues started late in the 2010 season.

"It meant a great deal to me personally, and a great deal to our sport," Selig said.

Random testing for HGH will take place during spring training and the off-season, but there is no agreement yet on random testing in-season. There can be testing at any time for cause.

Although the NFL has wanted to start HGH blood tests, its players' union has thus far resisted.

"The agreement to begin testing puts baseball ahead of other American professional sports leagues and is a credit to their leadership," Rep. Henry Waxman said. "It will be important that the testing be extended to the regular season to avoid creating a loophole in the new policy."

Weiner said scientists told MLB that the HGH test can detect the substance in the blood for 48-to-72 hours.

"We are sufficiently comfortable with the science to go ahead with testing, but we have preserved the right if there is a positive test for there to be a challenge -- if that's appropriate -- to the science at that point in time," he said.

Former union head Marvin Miller, who spoke to Weiner on Tuesday, praised much of the agreement but was critical of the HGH testing.

"It's the same as steroids. There's not a single test worldwide (proving) that it improves athletic performance, not one," he said. "I don't know if it does, and neither does anyone else."

The sides will explore in-season testing, but the union wants to make sure it's done in a way that doesn't interfere with players' health and safety.

"The players want to get out and be leaders on this issue, and they want there to be a level playing field," Weiner said. "The realities, though, are that baseball players play virtually every single day from Feb. 20 through October. And that's unlike any other athlete -- professional or amateur -- who's subject to drug testing. We want to make sure that we're doing everything we can on the HGH issue, but that it be consistent with not interfering with competition and not interfering with players health and safety."

In addition, the number of off-season urine tests will increase gradually from 125 currently to 250 before the 2015 season.

As for the playoffs, there will be an additional two teams that will give baseball 10 of 30 clubs in the post-season. In the NFL, 12 of 32 teams make the playoffs. In the NBA and NHL, 16 of 30 advance.

The wild-card teams in each league -- the non-first place teams with the best records -- will meet in a one-game playoff, with the winners advancing to the division series. Manfred said a decision on whether the expanded playoffs would start next year likely will be made by the January owners' meeting.

"I think having a second wild-card team is great for the game," said NL MVP Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers. "I think it adds intrigue, it adds excitement. If you look at what the wild card, the first wild card, has done for baseball over the last few years, it's made games late in the season relevant for everybody."

This agreement also calls for the Houston Astros to switch from the NL Central to the AL West in 2013, leaving each league with three five-team divisions and a new schedule format that's still being determined. It's baseball's first realignment since the Brewers went to the NL after the 1997 season.

Teams will be allowed to have 26 active players for day-night doubleheaders, provided they are scheduled with a day's notice in order to give clubs time to bring up someone from the minor leagues.

On the economics, the threshold for the luxury tax on payrolls will be left at $178 million in each of the next two seasons, putting pressure on high-spending teams such as the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies not to raise their spending even more. The threshold rises to $189 million for 2014-16.

And there is a new market disqualification test as an incentive for clubs to increase revenue, preventing teams from large markets from receiving revenue-sharing proceeds.

Both teams from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago will be ineligible to receive revenue sharing by 2016 along with Atlanta, Boston, Houston, Oakland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Texas, Toronto and Washington, a person familiar with the agreement said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the teams were not announced. The proceeds will be given back to the teams paying in revenue-sharing, as long as they stay under the luxury-tax payroll threshold. A provision says Oakland will remain eligible as long as its ballpark situation remains unresolved.

.The minimum salary reaches the $500,000 mark in 2014, and then there will be cost-of-living increases in both of the following two years. There also will be a new "competitive balance lottery" that gives small-market and low-revenue teams 12 extra selections in the amateur draft.

Major league free agent compensation will be completely revised in 2013, with a team having to offer its former players who became free agents the average of the top 125 contracts -- currently about $12.4 million -- to receive draft-pick compensation if a player signs with a new team. It eliminates the statistical formula that had been in place since the 1981 strike settlement.

In addition, the portion of players with 2-3 years of major league service who are eligible for salary arbitration will rise from 17 per cent to 22 per cent starting in 2013.

Owners achieved their goal of reining in spending on amateur players coming to the major leagues. For high school and college players taken in the June amateur draft, there will be four bands of penalties and major league contracts will be prohibited.

Boras, who negotiated Stephen Strasburg's record $15.1 million deal with Washington two years ago, praised the union for what it achieved but was critical of the draft changes.

"If I'm a person interested in buying a major league team, I believe I'm going to not be as anxious to provide an aggressive price because my ability to improve myself through scouting and development has been severely restrained," he said.

For international amateur signings from nations such as the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, a luxury tax will begin with the July 2012-June 2013 signing season on amounts over $2.9 million. A study committee was established to study whether there should be an international draft starting in 2014.

CBC.CA

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

LOEWEN LANDS IN NL WITH METS: REPORT

Blue Jays outrighted Canadian outfielder to AAA earlier this month

Doug Harrison

Adam Loewen, the 17th Canadian to play for the Blue Jays, posted a .188 batting average in 14 games in 2011.

Adam Loewen has found his way off the Toronto Blue Jays’ 40-man roster to a new team in less than three weeks.

The New York Mets signed the 27-year-old outfielder to a minor league contract on Tuesday, according to Baseball America.

On Nov. 3, Loewen was outrighted to AAA, a move that some believed gave the Vancouver native the best chance to stick with the Blue Jays in 2012, considering Loewen may have been waived at spring training had he remained on the 40-man roster.

Out of minor league options, Loewen posted a .188 batting average and one home run in 14 games with Toronto.

The former Baltimore Orioles pitcher became the 17th Canadian to play for the Jays.

Prior to his recall, Loewen hit .306 with 46 doubles, 17 home runs and 85 runs batted in with Las Vegas of the Pacific Coast League.

The Blue Jays signed Loewen to a minor league deal after the converted pitcher was released by the Baltimore Orioles.

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