August 30, 2002. The A’s were coming off an off-day, a well-deserved rest after extending The Streak to 15 games. Even with the delirium we all felt about the on-field stuff, a dark cloud loomed on the horizon. The league and union were at the latter’s deadline to ratify a new CBA, otherwise a strike was certain. The most controversial bone of contention was the possibility that MLB could contract two teams. The four candidates most cited were the Expos, Marlins, Twins and A’s. None had stadium deals in the near future. All four of the teams’ owners involved were considered cheap at best, criminally awful at worst. Coincidentally, the Twins were in town for a weekend series with the A’s, both teams in playoff contention. I was terribly distracted by the labor situation, and that combined with it being Friday made for one of the more unproductive workdays on record. I spent a good deal of time hanging out at friends’ cubicles, listening to the radio and checking ESPN.com and a new service called Google News every couple of minutes for updates. We learned in the afternoon that after some nonstop negotiation, a new agreement was reached. Later we would find out that contraction would be off the table until at least 2007.

Fast forward eight years, and the landscape is quite different. The Expos are no more, as Bud Selig prepared an elaborate dog-and-pony show to attract cities to bid for the ‘Spos, only to drive up the price for DC interests while swindling the District out of $611 million for a new ballpark. The Twins eventually got their ballpark, somehow by raising sales taxes without requiring a referendum. The Marlins also tricked Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami into funding two-thirds of their new digs. Here we are, in 2011, and the biggest reason the A’s don’t have a new stadium is that there’s no way we’d go for a publicly funded one. C’est la vie.

Anyway, it would be only slightly hyperbolic to characterize the relationship between MLB and MLBPA as marital bliss. Other than squabbling over fines and suspensions and changes to the drug policy, it’s been smooth sailing. Meanwhile, the other leagues have dug trenches and donned armor for their labor battles, and there’s no telling how or when some of them will end. So what’s the secret behind the MLB’s success?

Four years ago, I offhandedly suggested that the players would be helped if they agreed to a salary cap and floor implementation in the salary/payroll structure. By doing this they could guarantee a higher percentage of revenue than what they have gotten historically. Over time, it could also lead to greater parity if executed correctly. They would be more in line with their counterparts in the other leagues. Sounded good at the time, right?

Silly me. The players don’t want that kind of nonsense. The top 32 free agents this offseason signed a combined $1 Billion in new contracts! They’re perfectly happy where they are for the most part. The biggest upcoming bargaining item has nothing to do with established players and everything to do with amateurs and draftees. Other money-related items, such as increasing the minimum salary or changing service time requirements, are only modifications of the current system, not wholesale changes. Last week, the owners meetings had the CBA as its #1 agenda item. All the talk coming out of it was about new replay rules and the possible inclusion of an extra wild card playoff team. It’s almost eerie how little financial matters are playing into this. So what’s Bud’s secret?

The big key to this unnatural harmony is the lack of a set percentage of revenue given to the players. The other three leagues have defined guarantees and/or limits for players, ranging from 50-60%. Setting that number is like opening Pandora’s Box. It automatically creates a new tug-of-war between management and labor, an arbitrary way by which they can measure themselves. In the modern or expansion era, there have always been pendulum swings between the two sides, and victories could be measured by rights gained or lost. Now everything is ultra-quantitative, which is great for people like me who like to count the numbers, but not so great in terms of properly assessing the health of a sport. Is there a way to determine whether players getting 52% or 56% of a league’s revenues make the quality of play proportionally better or worse? Not really. With no set percentage, there’s no tension, even though guys like me will occasionally question the players’ wisdom in getting less when they could get more in theory.

There’s also one curious thing I’ve noticed about the Big Four’s CBA documents – their length. The NFL’s CBA is 361 pages long. The NHL’s is 472 pages including exhibits while the NBA’s is 425 pages excluding exhibits. MLB? Only 241 pages. There’s also the Major League Constitution, but it is also fairly brief at only 23 pages. I have no interest in combing through 1200 pages of legalese to pinpoint all of the differences, but I’m guessing that MLB’s lack of language regarding salary caps and floors helps a lot. It’s telling that the longest section in the entire CBA, at 22 pages, is titled Article XXIII – Competitive Balance Tax. This relatively recent addition to the document deals with the luxury tax, a feature of the CBA that usually only applies to 2-4 teams each season, one of them guaranteed to be the Yankees. Less rules, less to negotiate. Perhaps this is due to the change-averse way MLB has operated.

Then what are they negotiating? Mostly it’s competition-related stuff, which is great because all fans can have an opinion without feeling dirty. Take replay, for instance. Currently, the system is much like the NHL’s video replay system in that it’s controlled by the league office and it can only be used for scoring plays. MLB restricts this further by only using instant replay for home run calls, not other plays on the field such as missed tags or a runner missing the plate/base. MLB also gives the umpiring crew the final say instead of a remote replay judge. The NBA does the same thing for buzzer-beating shots or three-pointers where a guy may be on the line. Football lacks a consensus. College football has replay possible for every play by the booth, except for penalties. The NFL has the dual-challenge system, which is replaced by booth review in the last two minutes of every half. Still, the referee has the final say. It’s all a hodgepodge of different implementations, which makes little sense. College football has somehow managed to incorporate a more thorough system than all other sports without noticeably slowing down the game. Surely there’s a way to make this work in baseball.

Drug policy is not likely to change right away, as MLB only started its fantasy unicorn HGH blood test in the minors last summer. MLB has had the latitude to make changes in the middle of the agreement when it proved politically expedient, so if the heat is turned up for some reason they may react in kind. Since baseball is trending more pitcher friendly these days, my guess is that Bud will get back to us at some point. Whenever.

The idea of adding wild cards is interesting, though it is too complex to add to the 2011 season. A popular option seems to be a play-in game for two wild card teams, with the loser going home. I personally don’t mind expansion as long as it doesn’t add more than 3 days to the postseason schedule while keeping the regular season intact.

So-called “hard slotting” of the draft will be up for debate. It’s a good opportunity for MLBPA to gain a concession in exchange for agreeing to this rookie cap. Fundamentally, the big difference between MLB/NFL and NBA/NHL is who determines the numbers. In the end, who’d you rather have figure this out – the players and league by enshrining it in a document, or a Scott Boras-type who has the power to dictate the figures in the weeks leading up to the draft?

If MLBPA accepts hard slotting, I figure they’ll be able to keep Super 2 status, even though teams are bound to abuse the system by repeatedly holding back players to keep them from earning service time. On this point, it’s not worth fighting too much since it’s really a pyrrhic victory with the way it’s used. I haven’t heard anything about the players trying to shorten the six-year period covered by the reserve clause to five years. Not much to argue about right now.

Negotiations for the next CBA could begin as early as this spring, now that MLB is getting its ducks in a row. This time around is not expected to be much different than last time, with bitterness and acrimony missing from the talks. That’s great, because I’d rather have Bud and his minions figure out the A’s stadium situation once and for all. Help a brother out, Bud.

P.S.: AN readers who may be interested in putting this into a fanpost have my express permission to do so – the entire post – with attribution.