Minor League Clawbacks

Recently, I had the good fortune of having an article published by the Saint Louis University Law Journal. The article, entitled "Deterring Opportunism Through Clawbacks: Lessons for Executive Compensation from Minor League Baseball," compares the clawbacks found in standard MiLB contracts with clawbacks in executive compensation contracts. 

So, what the heck is a clawback? Well, it's basically some verbiage in a contract that allows for money already given to a person to be taken back--or "clawed" back--if a certain event occurs. 

What the heck do clawbacks have to do with minor league baseball? As the article details on page 200 (no, the article isn't 200 pages--it begins on page 185 of the issue and goes for 30 pages), the Commissioner's office introduced "recommended" clawback language for minor league contracts in 2006. By 2007, almost all teams had adopted the language. 

The language involved signing bonuses. MLB teams had been burned in recent years by a few draftees who had taken large signing bonuses and simply walked away from the game after a year or two in the minors. For instance, Ryan Jaroncyk signed with the Mets in 1995 for $850,000, played two years in the minors, and retired from the game at the age of twenty. The Mets never recovered a dime of the bonus. 

The article details other examples: Grant Desme, who retired to become a priest; Justin Hoyman, who pocketed a $725,000 before retiring after two years in the minors; Quan Cosby, who left the minors to play football; and Tom Wilhelmsen, who retired from the game after "a lot of beer and grass." 

Most of the clawback provisions adopted by teams were identical. If a player retired prior to the expiration of his standard seven-year contract, the provision allowed the team to claw back a portion of the signing bonus. They mostly followed the same basic formula: if a player retired after a single season, the team could demand the return of 6/7 of the signing bonus; if a player retired after two seasons, the team could the return of 5/7 of the signing bonus; and so on until the end of the contract. 

I argue in my article that the clawbacks effectively deter opportunistic behavior. As the above examples demonstrate, occasionally players desire to leave their contracts very early in their careers. Jaroncyk provides an example of a player who probably never even intended to put forth a good faith effort to make it to the majors. Others intend to put forth such an effort, but minor league baseball can take a toll on a young athlete. Long bus rides, the absence of your family, the inevitable struggles and failures, and the exhaustion of playing every day can make one desire to run back home to your high school girlfriend and be a rodeo clown. 

The clawback provisions prevent players such as Jaroncyk from gaming the system. And they prevent other homesick players from leaving the game prior to giving it full consideration, which might ultimately help both the team and the player. Thus, they are an effective tool from a contractual standpoint. 

Now, this is a blog that advocates for the rights of minor league players. And one important thing about clawbacks needs to be brought to attention here: the mechanism in which these provisions were adopted was unfair.

MLB teams unilaterally included these provisions in their standard minor league contracts. While a few of the top players drafted each year may in fact have the leverage to negotiate such provisions out of their contracts, most minor leaguers do not possess such leverage. After all, the Rule 4 draft exists in order to reduce players' leverage. Players can only negotiate with a single team, and they only have one or two opportunities to do so. For those drafted after the first few rounds, the contract nearly becomes a take-it-or-leave-it instrument, such is the state of their relative bargaining power.

Thus, the unilateral inclusion of the terms was unfair, even if the provisions are both legal and useful from a contractual standpoint. This again highlights the need for a minor league union. Such a union could effectively re-balance the relative bargaining power between owners and minor leaguers. Instead of unilateral implementation, the terms of such clawback provisions could be discussed between both parties to ensure that their inclusion does not become too draconian for the player. 

As I write about separately in a forthcoming article in the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law, the big leaguers' union (the MLBPA) has a poor recent history of standing up for minor leaguers. In fact, they've recently traded away some bargaining chips with negative implications for minor leaguers in order to secure higher wages and other benefits for big leaguers. Yet in this instance, the MLBPA did the right thing. 

In the last round of bargaining, the MLBPA brought up the length of the clawback provisions. After discussions, MLB and the MLBPA agreed that clawback provisions may continue to be included in minor league contracts, but the length of the provisions must vary according to the signing bonus. For instance, longer clawback provisions may be included for bonuses above $1,000,000 than for smaller signing bonuses. In fact, for signing bonuses under $250,000, the clawback may only extend through the first three years of the standard seven-year contract. 

This makes sense. The larger bonuses should be the chief concern of the teams. Teams shouldn't be in the business of forcing a fifth-year senior college signee into staying until the end of his contract just because he doesn't want to pay back a portion of the $2500 signing bonus that he no longer has. 

In the end, then, this is a double lesson. It's a lesson in how, without a union representing them, owners can do just about whatever the heck they want with minor league contracts. And it's also a lesson in how a union can effectively re-balance the mismatched bargaining power and ensure that players are properly represented. Once this occurs, both sides often benefit. 

Now about those minor league salaries . . .

Baseball Players Can Have Imaginary Girlfriends Too

He was 23. He was a professional baseball player. He was a cool, good looking guy. He could've gotten almost any girl.

Instead, he had an imaginary, online girlfriend.

A few years back, while still kicking around the minors, a buddy from another team told me a story. Although a terrific story, I'd forgotten about it until the tide of Twitterverse nearly swept me out to sea with a tall-Te'o tale. From this Te'o swell, it all came rushing back to me. I went back to my journal from that year (yes, I'm that big of a nerd), and this is what I read.

The player met a girl online. The pictures showed a gorgeous girl with a smokin' body. He began chatting with her regularly. Before long, they were talking on the phone.

A few weeks later, he began asking her to come to a game. She kept declining. Finally, she said she would come. She never showed.

He called her after the game. "I got tied up at work," she said.

A couple weeks later, the player had an off day. He attempted to visit her in the City. She was going to meet him when he got off the train. He got off the train. He waited. And waited. And waited. He called. And called. And called.

Finally, she answered: "My grandma is sick. I can't meet you."

He became obsessed with this girl. Pictures were texted to him. He texted pictures back. They talked on the phone for an hour each night.

A month later, he talked her into coming to another game. She never showed. Again, she couldn't escape work.

He kept talking to her each night. His friends on the team--already suspicious--began asking him questions. He told them not to worry about it.

He began distancing himself from these teammates. He had been one of the cool guys. He went out with teammates, played cards, and played video games. Now he just talked on the phone every night.

The offseason came, and most teammates thought the "relationship" would end. But spring training arrived, and there the player was, talking to the girl each night.

By the time I heard the story, a year had passed. The two had never met, but they talked to each other every night. She was still his girlfriend. And he had no other girlfriends and wasn't looking. He wasn't happy, but he couldn't escape.

What does this mean? Even the best of us occasionally have trouble separating the real from the surreal. Some have more difficulty than others.

Take a person susceptible to this and remove them from their family--their support group. Put them in a dream world, in which they're either chasing a boyhood dream in the minor leagues or living a dream by playing college football at the highest level. Fans ask for autographs. Kids yell their name.
The separation between real and unreal becomes blurry.

Suddenly they meet a girl online. They go down the path, as many have done, and they like the path initially. But it begins to spin out of control. They become suspicious no doubt. But they've already gone down the path, and they're too embarrassed to fix things. And they like talking to this person.

So they keep following the path, to nowhere . . .

Their Own Hall of Shame

Many people have written a lot more about the Hall of Fame voting than I will write today. But for the most part, the expansiveness of the literature has merely muddled the dialogue. The goal of this short post is to simplify and clarify this discussion.

The first step towards such a clarification is to realize that there are really two different discussions. The question of whether certain individuals deserve to be in the Hall differs from whether certain individuals should be in the Hall. This proposition, at first glance, seems counterintuitive. But it will become clearer as we explore this further.

Do Bonds and others deserve to be in the Hall?

Bonds, Clemens, Sosa and the other known cheaters do not deserve to be in the Hall.

Getting to this point first involves a decision on whether they actually cheated. Many philosophers have argued that their behavior did not constitute cheating for a couple of reasons. First, they argue that the high level of steroid usage during their playing days diminished any unfair advantage. The lack of enforcement in the era and the high usage supports this argument. After all, advantages disappear whenever a substance is widely available. Second, some argue that there is no clear link between steroid usage and performance. Some statistical support exists for this argument, but physics and medical studies greatly contradict this argument. In short, I dismiss this argument.

As I write more thoroughly in a forthcoming law review article, this positivistic stance is unsatisfying. There must be a moral component to the approach towards cheating in baseball, and this moral component should be reflected in Hall of Fame voting. Yes, usage was rampant. Yes, the rules were not enforced. But this still involved a moral choice. Players knew that their behavior was wrong, and yet they chose to behave in such a manner anyways. And they were rewarded handsomely for this immoral choice.

Since this is a blog on life in the minors, imagine that you are a Triple-A baseball player. We'll say you are an outfielder. You have similar skills to another outfielder in the organization. You choose not to use steroids; your teammate chooses to use steroids. Your teammate suddenly hits more homeruns, steals more bases, and covers more ground in the outfield. The team promotes your teammate while you continue to languish in the minors. Your teammate makes millions of dollars, maybe makes two All-Star teams, and enjoys pension benefits for his lifetime. You go home after a couple more years in the minors and struggle to find a job to feed your family.

This was the basic moral decision that thousands of ballplayers made. The players who chose to take steroids made an immoral choice. They benefited greatly from that immoral choice over the course of their careers, and they continue to benefit from that choice.

These cheaters should not be recognized any further for their tainted greatness. They should not win any more awards. The greatest of them should not be in the Hall of Fame.

Should Bonds and the others be in the Hall?

This is a separate and more difficult question to answer. While the cheaters do not deserve to be in the Hall, it is almost impossible to separate the cheaters from the non-cheaters. Where is the line drawn? On positive tests alone? On connections to performance enhancing drugs? All of these standards have their problems.

The era was so tainted with suspicion that it is difficult to label any player. Almost any standard will result in a plethora of false positives and false negatives. Thus, it's difficult to find any workable standard.

It might be best to look at history. Again, as I discuss thoroughly in my forthcoming law review article, organized baseball has a rich history of cheating. Previous pitchers who openly doctored baseballs have been admitted into the Hall. For instance, Gaylord Perry wrote an autobiography called "Me and the Spitter," and yet writers inducted him into the Hall. He achieved his greatness through known cheating. Even though his cheating involved an external manipulation in the form of ball doctoring instead of an internal manipulation in the form of body morphication, his achievements were similarly tainted. And yet he, and other traditional cheaters, have been admitted.

History thus supports the admission of these players into the Hall, even though they don't truly deserve such admission. Moreover, the lack of a workable standard supports such an admission.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, baseball writers must make a moral choice. Those that tell them to "get off their high horse" are simply wrong. Cheating is a moral issue. The players made a moral choice when they decided to use performance enhancers. The baseball writers must assess the effects of this moral choice when making their decisions.

Are the baseball writers then judging the players? Yes, in a way they are. Would many of the baseball writers have made the same choice as the cheating players had they been players? Undeniably so. But that does not make their current decision hypocritical, as it is a hypothetical discussion. One must instead deal with realities. The baseball writers are the ones to make the choice, and it must be a moral one.

Again, Bonds and the others do not deserve to be in the Hall. Even though this would be a retroactive reaction, deterrence supports such a retroactive reaction. At a basic level, it differs only slightly from stripping Tour de France titles from a certain cyclist.

For this reason, I would be more than fine with these players not being in the Hall. But because of the history of admitting other cheaters, and because of the lack of a workable standard, these players should probably still be admitted.

Maybe we'll give them a separate wing in the Hall, where they may forever congregate in a Hall of Shame. 

Squeezing a Squeezed Lemon

The market for amateur baseball players operates as anything but a free market. Instead, the draft creates a tightly controlled and restricted market, as it only allows an amateur player to bargain with a single team. In this way, the draft squeezes the player like a lemon, and the team walks away with sweet lemonade.

The most recent CBA made changes to further squeeze this already squeezed lemon. It placed strict caps on the amount teams can spend on draft picks and instituted harsh penalties--such as the loss of subsequent draft picks--for exceeding these limits.

As I predicted in an earlier post, further restricting an already restricted market had a negative impact on spending. In fact, spending by MLB teams in this year's draft dropped 11% from the previous year.

This 11% drop resulted in teams spending $25.8 million less in 2012 than in 2011. That's an average of $860,000 less per team. Where does all this money go? Well, the CBA fails to directly answer that. But indirectly the answer is found.

The money saved will go to major league salaries, as the new CBA requires MLB minimum salaries to increase dramatically over the next few years. I talked at length in the earlier post about the MLBPA selling out minor league players. I won't bother you again with such talk, but I will make a couple of other points.

Incredibly, the $860,000 average savings per team could nearly double most minor league salaries if it were spent on minor leaguers. A first-year Double-A player makes around $7500 for the entire season. Those in lower levels make even less. While the number of minor leaguers within an organization varies greatly, a reasonable estimate can be made for the amount of players at Double-A and below. For this calculation, we'll say a team retains around 120 players at Double-A and below. While some of these players are at Double-A, most are at lower levels, so we'll assume an average salary of $6,000 per year for these 120 players. What does doubling every one of these 120 salaries require? $720,000.

Most of the minor leaguers would see their salaries doubled, and teams would still be left with an extra $140,000 in their pockets. While not all Triple-A salaries could be doubled with this leftover amount (since more minor league free agents and former major leaguers play in Triple-A), this money could easily be used to double the salaries for the Triple-A players playing under the terms of their original minor league agreements. After all, a first-year Triple-A player makes only a little more than $10,000.

Of course, none of this will happen. Minor league salaries have hardly budged in 35 years. Why would they increase now? Instead, many players will continue to live below the poverty line, and baseball's Robber Barons of the New Gilded Age will continue to profit.

(Thanks to Luke Erickson's post for the Robber Barons analogy.)  

OTHER LINKS  

A Possible NCAA/MLB Scholarship Partnership?

I recently wrote an article for Baseball America entitled "Beware MLB, NCAA Joint Venture". Here's a little snippet from it:  

I fear that baseball might be taking steps towards an NFL type of model. While this might be great for college baseball and great for the owners' bottom line, it wouldn't be great for players. It would take away players' freedom of choice, and it would shave away earning years from an athletes' short earning window. And, as stated above, there are better ways to court young athletes, chiefly through the already existing model. 
Again, I'm all for helping athletes get college degrees. But when two cartels start cooperating with one another, I'm immediately wary. Any resulting gift is most likely not what it seems. 

 Indianapolis Star Article on Minor League Unionization

James Oldham of the Indianapolis Star also wrote a very good article recently on the obstacles to unionizing the minor leagues. It's worth the read.

More on "Emancipation of the Minors"

About two months ago, a freelance journalist contacted me. She was interested in some issues affecting minor league players. I happily answered all her preliminary questions. Since she was not the first freelance journalist to contact me about minor league issues, I assumed that, like most of the others, I would never hear from her again.

About two weeks later, the freelancer called me again. She had done some more research, and she had some more questions. And they were good questions. I again happily answered them. To my surprise, she called again a couple weeks later with more questions. I could tell a story was coming into being.

Lily Rothman's article appeared on Slate last week. It was wonderful. Titled "Emancipation of the Minors," it quickly detailed the current labor status of the minor league player, as the introductory paragraph demonstrates:

"In one of America’s most fabled industries, there’s a hidden underclass of workers that has a starting salary of $1,100 a month and gets paid for only half the year. They are subject to territorial monopolies, restrictions on labor movement, and caps on salaries that are illegal in other businesses. Though not members of a union, their lives are influenced by one of the most powerful labor associations in the country, a group whose members—people who work in the same industry for the same organizations and were once in the same position—have a vested interest in keeping them down. They are minor-league baseball players."

The article contains quotes from heavyweights such as Gene Orza and Marvin Miller, and, with one exception, it's magnificent. The one problem with it comes from an unlikely source: Jim Bouton. The author of baseball's original insider memoir offered an uneducated, callous take on minor leaguers:

“[Minor leaguers] bargain for their talent in a free market like everybody else does,” he says. If you’re a believer in laissez-faire capitalism, you can argue there’s no such thing as an unfair salary in baseball. Although Bouton admits that many young players get remarkably low wages, “they don’t have to accept the team that drafted them. They can continue playing amateur baseball; they can go back to college.”

Now, I'm as big of a supporter of the free market as anyone. But you have to be an idiot if you think this is the free market at work. In fact, this is the exact opposite of the free market. This is a monopoly at work.

Baseball strictly controls the market for minor leaguers through the draft. Instead of being able to "bargain for their talent in a free market," they can only bargain with the single team that drafted them. Bouton says "they don't have to accept the team that drafted them," but this is just ridiculous. After all, a minor leaguer is chasing a childhood dream. The only team with bargaining rights to the player might offer a $1000 signing bonus and $5500 per year, and a starry-eyed twenty-one-year-old isn't going to turn it down.

To illustrate the difference between a free market at work and monopolism at work, I'll provide two quick examples. The first is familiar. In January, 2010, Aroldis Chapman reached a deal with the Cincinnati Reds for $30 million. Yes, Chapman can probably throw a baseball through a cinder block, but there was another equally talented young pitcher who signed only six months prior to Chapman. Yet Stephen Strasburg received only $15.1 million.

What was the difference? Certainly not talent. Strasburg not only throws bullets, but he also spins a breaking ball that appears as if it's going to fall off Niagara. The only difference lies in the fact that Chapman, as a Cuban defector, was able to negotiate with all thirty teams. Strasburg, on the other hand, could only bargain with the team who drafted him.

Another example occurred almost twenty years ago. In 1996, Scott Boras and other agents found a loophole in the draft process to secure free agency for four talented amateur players. By bypassing the draft, the four players could bargain on the free market with any team. Two players netted more than $10 million. The highest previous amount secured by a player who had gone through the draft paled in comparison, as the dual sport Josh Booty received only $1.6 million. (See Allan Simpson's excellent article on this and the entire history of the draft here.)

Of course, in the end Bouton's comment is not surprising. He's certainly not alone in feeling this way. I've heard similar--if not harsher--comments from many major leaguers. To all too many of them, the minor leagues are a long forgotten, repressed memory. Better to keep them out of sight, and out of mind.

Voiceless: The CBA's negative impact on minor leaguers

Around 2 a.m. the baby began crying. Elena, already with a mind of her own, decided that the middle of the night was a perfect opportunity to play.

Eventually she went back to sleep. My mind began to drift, and I wandered from the comfy confines of my bed, my Venus at my side, to the uncomfy confines of an old friend: a shoddy bus seat.

Surrounded by other guys with the moon providing the only light, the engine whirred as Ryan Adams burst through my earbuds.

“Going nuclear…nuclear…”>

The wilderness separating two working class towns passed as I glanced outside the bus window, my heart heavy but my wallet light.

“Give me an answer!!! Give me an answer!!”

And suddenly the baby was crying again.

I awoke from my travels, the memory flickering but failing to flee, as thoughts filled the slow synapses of my brain. The memory had no doubt been prompted by two emails that I received recently from former teammates. Both were upset about the recent CBA. I couldn’t sleep as I thought of these emails and the feeling of being on the road again with no money and a dream, and McDonald’s providing the fuel for each night’s game.

So at 3:47 a.m. I got up and wrote this.

As most readers know, baseball recently announced its new five-year collective bargaining agreement. As opposed to both football and basketball, MLB reps and the MLBPA bargained behind closed doors and hammered out a deal.

Yes, we should cheer. (As did this columnist.)

Yet there was just one problem with this bargaining process. The majority of professional baseball players had no voice during these negotiations.

The Major League Baseball Player’s Association represents only major league players and players on the 40-man roster. However, the vast majority of professional players under contract with MLB teams toil in the minor leagues. The player’s union does not represent these players.

Without a union and without a voice, minor league salaries have barely budged in the last 35 years. Conversely, average major league salaries have increased by almost 7000 percent. The gains derived from three decades of great prosperity in the game—including gains made in the business of the minor leagues—have been distributed only at the very top.

Each time a bargaining agreement is reached it impacts minor leaguers’ lives. For instance, the 2006 CBA made a significant change to the Rule 5 draft. One of the only vehicles for mobility once a minor leaguer is locked into his initial seven-year contract, the 2006 CBA pushed back the Rule 5 eligibility requirements by an entire year. The result was a direct, negative impact on minor leaguers. And not a single soul represented minor league players through the negotiating process.

During this year’s negotiations, MLB owners pushed for a mandatory slotting system for the amateur draft (here are some of my old thoughts on this). If implemented, players drafted in the top rounds of the draft would have been unable to negotiate signing bonuses. Since virtually all draftees first enter the minor leagues, this too would have impacted minor league players. Minor leaguers earn only between $5000 and $10,000 for an entire season of play. This makes the negotiation of the initial signing bonus very important, as many players rely on the signing bonus as a source of income throughout their minor league career. Moreover, around ninety percent of minor leaguers never reach the major leagues, so the negotiation of the initial signing bonus often represents their only chance to negotiate with a MLB team.

Thankfully, a mandatory slotting system was not instituted, but the alternative is almost as egregious. The union and owners agreed to place a cap on the amount a team can spend on the draft. While less intrusive than mandatory slotting, the change will still negatively impact minor league players, as it will likely reduce the overall amount spent on signing bonuses.

What did the union get in return for these changes? Greater wealth for players on an MLB roster. In 2006, they gained an increase in salaries for players on the MLB 40-man roster. This year, they gained a substantial increase in the minimum salary for MLB players, who will now earn at minimum $500,000 when the agreement expires in 2016. Meanwhile, the majority of professional baseball players—the minor leaguers—will probably still be earning below $10,000 in 2016. After all, their salaries have barely budged in three decades, and without representation in the bargaining process, there will be no incentive for owners to increase their salaries.

Knowing this might occur, I wrote to both MLB and MLBPA during the negotiations. I knew my efforts would most likely be futile, but just as the author of an amicus curiae feels compelled to weigh in on a Supreme Court issue, I felt the need to give my thoughts.

So yes, we should cheer baseball for reaching a new deal, but we shouldn't cheer them for leaving minor leaguers without a voice. But, hey, at least the big leaguers are seeing their lives improve.

(See the summary of the 2011 CBA here.)

Note: I'm not blaming MLBPA for the negative effects that each CBA has on minor league players. Their duty extends only towards the players that they represent. When negotiations affect minor league players, it does so because a subject of bargaining tangentially extends into the realm of minor leaguers, such as the Rule 5 draft and the Rule 4 draft. Without MLBPA bargaining over these matters, MLB could unilaterally impose whatever changes they desired without any resistance.

The system--not MLBPA--is at fault.

Tobacco and Baseball

Dip in a lip.

That’s the image that greeted me when I recently turned into a postseason thriller.

And spit.

A single close-up from the camera revealed the unmistakable tobacco bulge. A multitude of others also witnessed the brown stain on the lip. I think its time to curb these images, as MLB needs to ban the on-field usage of tobacco.

According to one study, around a third of MLB players use smokeless tobacco, and a fourth of minor leaguers use the substance. In my estimation, the true numbers are probably higher. Tobacco is legal and athletes are grown men, but a ban has nothing to do with them, even though tobacco cessation would obviously be beneficial to individuals. Instead a ban focuses on young eyes.

Research shows that teens increased their smokeless tobacco usage in recent years. Like it or not, athletes are role models (sorry, Charles Barkley), as kids emulate them. Athletes today enjoy greater exposure than ever. Consequently, their tobacco usage gains more exposure. The World Series averaged 19.4 million viewers in 2009. Though World Series ratings were lower this year, overall playoff ratings were strong. And the Internet offers seemingly endless possibilities for exposure.

Some experts think this exposure has contributed to the increase in smokeless tobacco usage by teens. Despite smoking percentages decreasing, it seems “dip in a lip” is making a strong comeback.

This is worrisome. Though less likely to cause death than cigarettes, smokeless tobacco contains 28 different carcinogens linked to numerous varieties of cancer. If you’ve ever seen a picture of a guy without a jawbone, you’ve seen its nasty capabilities.

I must admit that I am not without fault. Though never a frequent user, I tried the distasteful substance during my playing days. As a minor leaguer, my behavior broke the rules, as minor league baseball banned the usage of tobacco products in 1993.

Currently, the minor leagues impose a $500 fine for a player caught with tobacco and a $500 fine for the team’s manager. These fines, in comparison to minor league salaries, are exorbitant. One would think that they would sufficiently deter players from using. Yet they don’t.

Research shows that the likelihood of being caught is more important than the severity of punishment in deterring undesirable actions. Since very few players are ever actually caught using tobacco despite overt usage, the severe fines for minor leaguers have little deterrent effect. A system of lower fines with actual enforcement would more effectively reduce on-field tobacco usage.

Major League Baseball, as opposed to the minors, doesn’t even have a ban on tobacco usage. Players can pack an entire can of dip in their mouth and walk up to the plate with spit spilling down their chin if they so desire. No one will stop them, and millions of kids—future possible tobacco users—will witness it.

This use should be prohibited during games. MLB and the player’s union should work together on this issue and take a sensible approach: ban on-field usage of tobacco, implement a system of reasonable punishments, and actually enforce the ban with regularity.

Players will no doubt balk at such a move as an infringement upon their liberties, but if such a ban spares lives and jaws, then the policy would be worthwhile.

A couple of links for further reading:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63D4QZ20100414

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2010/04/chewing-skoal-baseball-field-ruined-life.html