ORANGE COUNTY 1990 : Don’t Expect Baseball Salaries to Hit the Roof in the 1990s, Agent Says

Projecting astronomical salaries for major league baseball players in the 1990s based on this year’s advent of the sport’s first $3 million men will result in overinflated guesses, according to a player agent.

Tom Reich, whose clients include Lance Parrish and Brian Downing of the Angels, said it’s unrealistic to expect that salaries will continue to increase at the pace they skyrocketed between 1988 and ‘89, because the end of collusion made this year unique. Salaries and revenues will be higher in the ‘90s, Reich predicted, but the escalation won’t proceed at a breathtaking pace.

“Nobody should project (1990s salaries) based on a percentage or proportion of the increase from last year to this (year), because this is a four-year catch-up from a price fix,” said Reich, who declined to speculate on exact salaries or averages in the coming decade. “Like after a wage or price freeze, legal or illegal, there’s a catch-up period and that’s what we’re having now. That doesn’t mean we won’t get some increases, but we’re not going to get the same kind (of escalation) like last year to this . . .

“A bankable star, whether in music, movies, TV or sports, is going to get his price and always will. The salaries of megastars will go up, but franchises will have higher value, too. What I do think we’ll see is a revenue deal, revenue sharing between the players and owners cutting up that big, fat, opulent pie. TV revenues are going to go up; the potential of pay-per-view is staggering. Could you imagine what they could get if pay-per-view sold the World Series around the world?

“There’s always been a relationship between revenues and salary since free agency. Before, the owners kept all the money. Now, the players get their cut. There’s a direct correlation between revenues and salary.”

However large the increase in salaries, baseball’s upper-echelon players are sure to benefit far more than the game’s lesser lights.

“The journeyman infielder will always be vulnerable,” Reich said.