Historically, Major League Baseball owners have overplayed their hands to an astonishing degree and caused themselves far more pain than they otherwise would have endured had they been upfront and fair with the players and fans to start with.

In recent history, that includes:

• The dive into stat-based theory at the expense of the fundamental joy and diversity of the game
• Performance-enhancing drugs and the tacit approval of their use
• The 1994 strike costing the World Series
• Collusion in 1986-87

That’s in the past 35 years.

Now, with COVID-19, the dispute between the owners and the players has reached a level of toxicity where there may or may not be a season in 2020 and, if there is, it will be drastically shortened with many of the biggest stars potentially opting out of playing.

The engaging storylines from spring training are gone. No longer does the discussion center on the Houston Astros’ cheating and the number of beanballs and brawls they were set to face; whether Gerrit Cole was the final piece to the New York Yankees’ championship puzzle; if the Los Angeles Dodgers’ acquisition of Mookie Betts would get them over the World Series hump; or which side in the Chicago Cubs’ divorce with Joe Maddon would come out looking better. Again, labor difficulties have come to the forefront and it’s exacerbated with an ongoing pandemic.

The financial details and origins of the dispute can be found anywhere through a simple web search or by checking social media, so it makes little sense to rehash them here. What it boils down to is that the owners are showing where their true interests lie – where their true interests always lie: maximizing profits by any means necessary. The rare owner who put winning and fan demands above all else is gone. It died with George Steinbrenner and Mike Ilitch. Today, most clubs are owned by corporations who couldn’t care less about baseball in any context other than how they can benefit from their investment or individuals who see it as a business venture in their diverse portfolios.

There is immense risk in again alienating fans by canceling the season through greed, but they’ve done it before.

For many, this level of risk-taking and tolerance for ambiguity is how they accrued the cash and the credit to buy a franchise in the first place. For others, they inherited the money and bought their way out of whatever mistakes they made by equating being born on third base with hitting a triple.

They don’t care about the fans in any way other than as customers. If the profit for opening the “store” –  i.e. playing baseball and paying the players a wage that the players find acceptable even with salaries prorated and providing protections if they happen to get sick with COVID-19-related illnesses – is not worth it in a business sense, then they won’t open it.

The easy solution until now has been to blame Commissioner Rob Manfred for the lack of decisiveness and comprehensive planning to have baseball and keep players safe from potential infection. Rather than negotiate in good faith, MLB has set the terms for negotiating by drawing a line and not deviating from it at all.

The owners are often accused of chopping off their noses to spite their faces. That may be partially true. More likely, they use these concerns as an opportunity to serve as a hedge maneuver and they’re exploiting the pandemic to implement a long-range plan to cut into salaries and damage the union. Already, they’re eliminating minor league affiliates and slashing the number of rounds in the draft, all in the interest of saving a few bucks. These were long-held goals they’re finally putting into action. Why not go all out as labor difficulties are on the horizon with a year-and-a-half remaining in the collective bargaining agreement? Essentially, they’ve started the predicted labor strife early and added to the animosity not just with their treatment of MLB players and dismissal of the reasonable MLBPA proposals to get back on the field, but with how they’re treating the minor leaguers.

Blaming Manfred is exactly what the owners want. He’s a stooge. MLB has not had a strong commissioner who was willing to buck ownership demands to try and do what was in his view right for the game since Fay Vincent. Vincent was forced to resign after a no-confidence vote from two-thirds of the owners based on his independence, disciplinary procedures and attempts at realignment. Right there, the owners’ cover was blown and the concept of an independent entity overseeing the game for the interests of the clubs and the players was torn off like a calcified scab.

The owners did not even bother with pretense in selecting Vincent’s replacement when they chose Bud Selig, who was an owner himself. It was supposed to be an interim appointment, but Selig just kept the job. Manfred succeeded Selig because he happened to be there and was a sufficiently vanilla automaton who’d do what he was told as a willing target of scorn and ridicule in exchange for the perks of the job. In other words, his secret to success was just showing up.

The owners are truly pushing to see what they can get away with. Only due to public outrage did clubs decide to pay many of their employees and to compensate their minor leaguers during the nationwide shutdown and they did it grudgingly. The amount of money clubs pay for these services is minuscule in the grand scheme, but they don’t care. Every 10 to 15 years, MLB’s overlords try these tactics to try and get a handle on payroll all while clubs in “small” markets like Kansas City are sold for a billion dollars. Former owner David Glass bought the club for less than $100 million just 20 years ago.

Who really believes these cries of poverty when they refuse to open the books to prove their financial situation is as dire as they say?

Some have suggested that MLB needs to take the lead of the NBA and anoint a strong-handed commissioner who will “keep the owners in line.” David Stern did that and now Adam Silver is also doing it. What is missed is that Stern and Silver have the support of the cabal of owners – within reason – and they accept a “strong” hand for the benefit of the business. There’s also a hard salary cap and cost control in the NBA that does not generally exist in baseball. Any limitation on MLB salaries is based on owners seeking ways to keep them down by using a different form of legal collusion and “valuing” players based on advanced metrics. If everyone is using the same advanced metrics, then players will be paid within a bracket where the richer teams won’t go utterly insane in collecting players and bloating their payroll to $300 million, $400 million or more even if they can afford it. This is how the Dodgers went from $300 million for their 40-man roster in 2015 to $200 million in 2020.

Calling for Manfred to be fired is meaningless. Could the owners throw him overboard to quell the simmering anger of players and fans? Might they install a commissioner who would be a commissioner and not a figurehead? It’s certainly possible, but it’s important to remember that the commissioner of baseball was only created when the game was in legitimate jeopardy of complete collapse after the 1919 Black Sox scandal and the veracity of the competition itself was called into question. Naming Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was a desperate attempt to bring integrity back to the game. That “integrity”, of course, included keeping black players out of the majors. Landis was given extraordinary powers because he demanded it and the owners, confronted with the destruction of the sport, felt they had no alternative.

Would they do the same thing now as the game is again in jeopardy?

Does it matter?

This is all tied in together. It’s no conspiracy theory. It’s a cartel. And they’re functioning in plain sight with no one to stop them.

Since there’s nothing baseball-related to watch other than MLB itself and the Players Association bickering over how to start the season, how much money the players will get and what the playoff formula will be – its usual exercise of gnawing its own limbs off – the MLB Draft is the only game in town, so it’s drawing significant attention.

Analysis of the draft is everywhere, but to get a true gauge on the nature of the draft, it’s useful to look at an effective analogy as to its unpredictability. This is from the National Basketball Association and is relevant in the context of drafting for need or drafting the best available player.

In 1984, the Houston Rockets drafting Hakeem Olajuwon the year after they drafted Ralph Sampson made sense because Olajuwon was too good to let slip away. The Rockets chose best available over need. Ironically, as The Last Dance showed, teams will also make mistakes based on need vs. a misjudging of talent as the Portland Trail Blazers drafted Sam Bowie right after the Rockets took Olajuwon because they didn’t need a shooting guard (the best available was Michael Jordan) since they had Clyde Drexler. The same Drexler about whom Jordan took offense when he was compared to him as the Trail Blazers and Chicago Bulls were set to meet in the NBA Finals. The Rockets, had they adhered to a theory saying they wanted to draft on need, would have selected Jordan. Would Sampson/Jordan have been a championship combination? Would Olajuwon have become the all-time great he was and crafted dynasty with Drexler in Portland?

To further complicate this “what if?” labyrinth, 11 years later, Drexler won an NBA title…with the Rockets…and Olajuwon after he was traded to Houston is a desperate – and successful – attempt to defend their NBA title.

The Rockets taking the best guy on the board even though they had a guy who played his position; the Trail Blazers drafting Bowie because they had Drexler and didn’t “need” Jordan; and the Bulls getting eternally lucky essentially encapsulates the reality of any draft whether it’s baseball, basketball, football or hockey.

The only reason this question of need vs. talent is even being asked related to the recent MLB Draft is that it was repeatedly referenced regarding – who else? – the New York Mets. Not only are the Mets frequent and often justified targets of criticism, but members of the media who cover them have nuggets planted in their ears or come up with it on their own “hook” to push stories about the draft even if it makes no sense at all.

After the Mets drafted high school outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong 19th overall, tweets from writers who cover the club were as follows:

Outfield is the club’s weakest position. None of the Mets top 15 prospects are outfielders, and their No. 1 outfield prospect is 17-year-old Alexander Ramirez, who has yet to play his first pro game.

Scouts say Crow-Armstrong could be playing in the big-leagues right now.

— Deesha (@DeeshaThosar) June 11, 2020

All teams say they never draft for need, but outfield was a clear need in the Mets organization. Whether coincidence or not, it makes a lot of sense for them.

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) June 11, 2020

“Scouts say Armstrong could be playing in the big leagues right now.”

Right. At 18, he could be playing in the big leagues right now. Think about it. Think about how that never, ever happens. Then think about the hyperbole and how asinine it is.

It’s this level of categorical nonsense that renders all analysis – even that which is retrospectively accurate – ridiculous. These preposterous statements attributed to invisible “scouts” whose name won’t be attached to it since it might get them fired if any powers-that-be in an organization knew who said it happen every year with approximately every one of the first 100 players selected in the first round.

As DiComo later tweeted, teams do not draft based on need. Still, it may be beneficial to consider the concept of drafting for need vs. drafting the best available player. And there’s greater nuance with the dueling theories than conventional wisdom suggests.

For big time sports in which amateur players are acquired via the draft, MLB and the NHL have minor league systems to develop them before moving them up.

The NFL and the NBA draft players demanding that they reach the highest level immediately and contribute.

That does not mean outliers from each. The NBA and NFL might pick a guy with talent who they want to develop. The NHL and MLB might pick a player who can help soon, but not immediately.

In hockey, it is relatively common for the prodigy-type player to be drafted first or second overall at 18 and go straight to the NHL. It occurs in baseball, but it’s only for the polished college player who starred at a major program where the competition was comparable to what he would have faced in the minors. It does not happen with an 18-year-old high-schooler no matter how touted he is.

To imply that teams never draft for immediate need ignores certain cases. Prior to their gutting rebuild, the Chicago White Sox were known for drafting players who they wanted in the big leagues fast. That includes Chris Sale, Gordon Beckham and Carlos Rodon, all of whom were in the majors within a year of being drafted. The Cincinnati Reds drafted Mike Leake eighth overall in 2009 and he was in their starting rotation in 2010 after playing in the Arizona Fall League, not the minors.

“Immediate need” is relative. There are circumstances in which a team should draft a player who is coming from a college program and whose skills and production indicate that he would help by the end of the season if not sooner. Players have cobbled together solid careers without spending any time in the minor leagues beforehand. Pete Incaviglia and Bob Horner come to mind. If it is for the right reasons, then it can work. The wrong reasons can be disastrous. The 1973 Texas Rangers were on the way to losing 105 games when they drafted David Clyde first overall out of high school in Houston. They caved to pressure and the need to sell tickets, bringing him straight to the majors at 18. Despite superstar talent, Clyde was finished at 24.

Drafting the best available athlete is safest decision and the easiest to explain. The two aspects are inextricably linked even if teams deny it. In years past, few outsiders had access to the information available today and if they wanted it, it took work to get it. Baseball was insular, scouts and front offices worked in relative obscurity, and they were not subject to outside assessments on blogs and instant reactions on social media complicating their lives. Now, everyone has statistics, video clips and scouting reports to bolster their own theories, delusional though they may be.

Sure, every generation, there’s a Bryce Harper or a Stephen Strasburg sitting there at number one and there’s no debate as to which player a team should take. With Strasburg and Harper, it was the Washington Nationals who were that fortunate back-to-back. Strasburg was a college player; Harper had played at junior college, but was 17. There was no ambiguity. Every team in baseball would have made those same two picks. Not every draft is that easy.

In 2004, Justin Verlander was taken second overall behind Matt Bush. In hindsight, it looks idiotic because in hindsight, it was idiotic. Back then, the San Diego Padres had reasons for doing what they did even though it did not work out.

Bush was taken first overall because he was from San Diego and owner John Moores did not want to pay what the Scott Boras clients would cost. Bush was talented and in hindsight, the pick was a mistake. However, any pick is an educated guess with talent, finances, need, analysis and a slew of other factors playing a role.

Had Bush turned into Derek Jeter instead of having personal problems that led to washing out with the Padres and a jail sentence for drunk driving, then it was a “prescient” pick and a selection that proves the “value of scouting and intuitiveness.”

Eventually, Bush forged a career for himself with the Rangers after switching to the mound.

That unusual position switch does not often happen successfully, but it does happen and it is in direct correlation to the same athletic ability that got Bush drafted first overall as a shortstop.

That’s just one example.

The draft is such a guessing game that teams could do just as well in drafting if they had a dartboard with the names of the top 30 players in the nation and threw a dart while blindfolded. If a club is in the middle of a gutting rebuilding project, it cannot justify drafting a player who is not considered the “best,” whatever that means. It’s another subjective decision with myriad factors involved. The team situation is determinative in whether there should be a draft for need or a drafting of the best available athlete. Teams that are in a full rebuild or are not serious contenders should not draft for need. For others, it may be a wise choice.