Baseball Is Broken (off the field/labor relations etc.)

DJnVa · Jan 29, 2018

jon abbey said:
"Maybe we have to go on strike, to be honest with you," Jansen said at the annual Fan Fest at Dodger Stadium."

Timing!

Wingack · Jan 29, 2018

Is it broken or just course correcting right now?

santadevil · Jan 29, 2018

As we've also discussed, it's also probably time to expand.
Add a couple teams that puts more suitors in place for these players.
The other issue I see is the soft-cap for luxury tax purposes is causing this reduction in free agent spending, because it didn't keep up with the TV contracts most of these clubs have.

With your first quote about Choo, I'd always wondered about some sort of system to compensate players on a performance basis.
It would be next to impossible to implement, but baseball is a very individual sport, played with teammates.

timlinin8th · Jan 29, 2018

jon abbey said:
Also minor league players need to be paid more as we've discussed here in different threads. I think what's happening now in the FA market is entirely rational, but players need to be paid a lot more earlier in their careers and they need to be able to hit FA a year or two earlier.

The owners won’t agree to earlier FA, but I’ve often felt some step between arbitration and FA (a la a restricted free agent status) may be feasible.

That said, the expectations players have coming to FA is going to have to dial back a bit. There definitely needs to be a numbers correction, as two problems exist - the owners are controlling too large a percentage right now, but also that the portion that is going to the players is controlled by the elite minority. If a player (ANY player) makes the bigs they should be eligible for more than the pittance they get now, especially when that major league minimum is prorated for their time shuttling between the bigs and mL.

Minor league players getting better pay and accomodations is something I’d like to see as well but neither the owners or the players union are going to make any extreme concessions with them in mind... I don’t see that problem getting fixed any time soon.

wade boggs chicken dinner · Jan 29, 2018

As Passan points out, one of the biggest problems with the current system is that it puts an incredible premium on the top of the draft and fans have been sold on the idea that losing is the best way to assemble a championship team.

Once you take a substantial number of teams from trying to win - and thus trying to sign free agents - the market for free agents gets depressed. Add that to having the draft pick penalties for substantial violations of the luxury tax, and most teams just aren't incentivized to spend.

shaggydog2000 · Jan 29, 2018

wade boggs chicken dinner said:
As Passan points out, one of the biggest problems with the current system is that it puts an incredible premium on the top of the draft and fans have been sold on the idea that losing is the best way to assemble a championship team.

Once you take a substantial number of teams from trying to win - and thus trying to sign free agents - the market for free agents gets depressed. Add that to having the draft pick penalties for substantial violations of the luxury tax, and most teams just aren't incentivized to spend.

So is it teams just trying not to win, or realizing that like many other sports, free agents aren't a good way to build a team, aren't worth their contracts most of the time, draft success is the best way to build a winning team, and high draft picks are the best picks to have?

It all comes back to the majority of free agents not being worth what they get paid, and teams wising up. Certainly not tying the cap levels to league wide revenue was a huge mistake by the PA, and would have helped the free agents get paid. But the front offices have hired enough people who can do math to figure out how bad an investment a 30 year old slugger is.

DeadlySplitter · Jan 29, 2018

I think we need a salary floor. The problem is then teams would also want a salary cap, and that's a non-starter for the big boys

wade boggs chicken dinner · Jan 29, 2018

shaggydog2000 said:
So is it teams just trying not to win, or realizing that like many other sports, free agents aren't a good way to build a team, aren't worth their contracts most of the time, draft success is the best way to build a winning team, and high draft picks are the best picks to have?

I've said this in the past but I think the biggest part of the analysis is the incredible premium that is placed on the top 10 picks in the draft. Here's why.

In the past, teams used to be able to leverage their resources to attract talent. Whether it was buying a bunch of Latin American prospects or throwing money at hard signs later in the draft rounds or going through the posting route, big money teams have been able to use that money. However, the latest CBA has removed virtually every avenue for picking up talent making the teams relatively even when it comes to procuring talent.

So unless you believe that one or another team has a demonstrable skill in drafting or player development (I don't think that has been demonstrated to anyone's satisfaction), where is the only disparity remaining?

The top of the draft.

Every draft analysis says that drafting beyond the first round - actually the first 10 picks - is basically a crapshoot. I.e., other than the first 10-ish picks in the draft, all of the teams have essentially the same chances of finding premium players. I.e., teams that lose big will be the best five to seven years down the line.

I agree with you that teams realize that you can't build a team through free agency (we've discussed all of the reasons for that so there's no need to re-hash). But to me, the more important part is that a lot of teams aren't even entertaining the free agent marketplace because they don't want to win right now.

TheYaz67 · Jan 29, 2018

shaggydog2000 said:
So is it teams just trying not to win, or realizing that like many other sports, free agents aren't a good way to build a team, aren't worth their contracts most of the time, draft success is the best way to build a winning team, and high draft picks are the best picks to have?

I think it is both teams realizing just as you have said, that free agents are "not a good way to build a winning team" because they rarely "earn their contracts" (aka produce at the previous levels they put up, which were the justification for how much they asked to be paid) but also because experience has shown GM's that trying to win via a free-agent heavy approach end up often both not winning AND handcuffing their teams for years down the road.

No one wants to take those bad FA contracts off their hands so they cannot "pivot" in another direction, and often such teams (b/c of their stable of expensive free agents) are also not going to ever be bad enough to end up with the worst records - they often bumble along at around .500 each year (looking at you Angles, and similar teams) so they never have the opportunity to hit gold with a couple straight years of top 10 draft picks....

Its the worst of both worlds. At least if you are going "cheap" and relying on more youth/cost controlled players, you have a lot more flexibility to trade assets and if you suck again this year, it at least sets you up in the next draft, so each year you have multiple options available (trade, draft well/lucky, sign FAs) but the GM stuck with a maxed out budget and a bunch of aging FAs - his options to improve the next year are often much more limited...

It is hard to see how we are going to make it to 2021, but then again, the players for some reason agreed to all this....

snowmanny · Jan 29, 2018

I'm sure the Red Sox want to win now. I am not sure if they are trying to sign JDM because they think he will be worth the money and they think he will substantially improve their chances of winning now, or if they want to show their fans that they are trying to win now and they feel obligated to spend to the max they can.

I mean, you can literally blow $100,000,000 on one of these signings. After a couple of Rusneys and Crawfords and Sandovals you might think twice.

OCST · Jan 29, 2018

I wonder if the expansion of the playoffs has made a difference. When 4/26 teams made the playoffs, it was possible for mediocre teams to get a shot at the WS in a mediocre division - but the likelihood of there not being at least one very-good to great team in a 6 or 7 team division was pretty low. I know it happened sometimes but for the most part .500-ish teams were not contending.

Now, with 5-team divisions and 2 WC per league, or 10/30 making the playoffs, a sub-.500 team can get into September and still have a shot. It might be low-percentage, like 5 games back of the second WC with 4 teams in front of them, but that's a lot different from being in seventh place in the 80's-era AL East. The NL was top-heavier last year, but in the AL, on 9/1/17, only 4 out of 15 AL teams could be legitimately counted out of the postseason: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/?date=2017-09-01

If I'm running the Mariners, Rays, or Royals, to name teams that were 4-4 1/2 games out of the second wild card on 9/1/17, I can still pimp tickets for meaningful games in September, and if a couple of my extended roster callups catch fire in September and I can squeak into that second WC, who knows.

So if I'm running one of those teams, the incentives are different than if I'm running, say, the '89 Rangers, who put in a decent year at 83-79, but who were in fourth behind a 99-win juggernaut (OAK) and two more 90+ win teams (CAL and KC). https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/?year=1989&month=10&day=1

If I'm going to compete for the WS with that team I'm going to have to spend heavily in the offseason, otherwise I'm closer to seventh than first and my season is probably over in late July. If I can hope to coast around .500 and snag the second WC (the '89 Rangers were seventh in the 14-team AL that year, 4 games out of 5th), then I can save a bundle, play the kids, and hope for the best. And I think that's some of the reason why teams aren't compelled to spend now.

shaggydog2000 · Jan 29, 2018

wade boggs chicken dinner said:
I've said this in the past but I think the biggest part of the analysis is the incredible premium that is placed on the top 10 picks in the draft. Here's why.

In the past, teams used to be able to leverage their resources to attract talent. Whether it was buying a bunch of Latin American prospects or throwing money at hard signs later in the draft rounds or going through the posting route, big money teams have been able to use that money. However, the latest CBA has removed virtually every avenue for picking up talent making the teams relatively even when it comes to procuring talent.

So unless you believe that one or another team has a demonstrable skill in drafting or player development (I don't think that has been demonstrated to anyone's satisfaction), where is the only disparity remaining?

The top of the draft.

Every draft analysis says that drafting beyond the first round - actually the first 10 picks - is basically a crapshoot. I.e., other than the first 10-ish picks in the draft, all of the teams have essentially the same chances of finding premium players. I.e., teams that lose big will be the best five to seven years down the line.

I agree with you that teams realize that you can't build a team through free agency (we've discussed all of the reasons for that so there's no need to re-hash). But to me, the more important part is that a lot of teams aren't even entertaining the free agent marketplace because they don't want to win right now.

I think we're in agreement on just about everything here. Including drafting well for your given position possibly not being a reproducible skill. The system has been designed to be like most other US sports where the draft is expected to be the great equalizer, making bad teams good and ensuring every market gets to be competitive. It's what most fans and owners want. That teams now realize how bad free agent signings can be, as Yaz pointed out above, is it really fair to accuse teams of "not trying to win" like it's a terrible violation of the team-fan contract, or is it just what really trying to win looks like for a bad or mediocre team?

IdiotKicker · Jan 29, 2018

While the original premise is valid, I think part of the issue this year is that this year's class of "elite" talent isn't that good:

Arrieta has never proven he can pitch in the AL. Baltimore effectively gave up on him, and now his numbers have worsened the past two years after his outstanding 2015. So you have a lot of teams wondering if he's a good but not great pitcher who had one really good year. And he's 32 when the season starts.
Two out of Hosmer's last four years have had OPS+ numbers effectively at league-average. Why would I pay a premium for a guy who has a 50% chance of being Mitch Moreland?
Mike Moustakas has two full seasons with an OPS+ north of 100 and three with an oWAR north of 1. Why am I paying $25 million a year for him?
JD Martinez actually looks like he is the legit bat he wants to be seen as, he's smashed each of the last three years. So there's possible a real case here, and worthy of discussion.

But aside from Martinez, the other three guys just aren't that good. Maybe they are the best on the market, but the market sucks this year.

I do think their are structural issues with the game that need to be cleaned up. Here's what I'd do to loosen things up:

Shorten team control from 6 years to 4 (2 pre-arb, 2 arb). This has the effect of devaluing draft picks, and also getting players out there at age 25-27 instead of age 27-29 on average. Much more likely to see second contracts of 5-7 years handed out to a 25-year old.
Allow teams to trade draft picks up to three seasons out. This should loosen up the trade market, which should allow for more trading of high-profile talent within a season, which then means no draft pick comp because the QO is unavailable, so more high-end players can move at the end of the season.
Go to a blind one-bid silent auction with a flat amount for every team to spend. You want a player? Submit a bid to the commissioner's office for his bonus. On the date of the "draft", the bids are unveiled and you get the players you won the bidding for, up to 30 per year. Want to spend it all on one player? Great. Want to spend it on 30 equally? Cool. But give every team a chance at every player based on what they value at that time. Make teams pay for the best talent, not just suck for it.

Philip Jeff Frye · Jan 29, 2018

Couldn’t this thread have been started at almost any time in the last 40 years?

That said, the spread of the tankathon phenomenon from other sports into baseball is not a good development. The season is too long for teams to be intentionally throwing100+ loss teams out there.

hbk72777 · Jan 29, 2018

This was a mediocre class compared to next year.

That's probably the real reason. Machado over Hosmer ,Kershaw over Arrieta, Donaldson over Moustakas

The former all are better gambles than the latter

The Gray Eagle · Jan 29, 2018

LOL at Tony Clark hinting that it's collusion, instead of being the stupid agreement that he is responsible for.

Stanley Steamer · Jan 29, 2018

Good discussion, and about all there is to talk about this offseason.
It seems clear what has gotten us to this point, although less clear what the solution is.
Any solution will have to address the inequality in player pay, that making money is independent of performance. Give young, good players a bigger piece of the pie, at least once they have established themselves for a year or two. Make free agents relatively more attractive by increasing the costs of team control.
And though I have no idea how to make this work in a free market, let the fans pay less. No one wants a strike because even the players are still doing well. If the teams make too much profit, have it recycled back to the consumer, in fee reductions or even rebates. I'm sure this argument is full of holes, but jeez, I hate the cost and greed of modern sports and entertainment.

wade boggs chicken dinner · Jan 30, 2018

shaggydog2000 said:
I think we're in agreement on just about everything here. Including drafting well for your given position possibly not being a reproducible skill. The system has been designed to be like most other US sports where the draft is expected to be the great equalizer, making bad teams good and ensuring every market gets to be competitive. It's what most fans and owners want. That teams now realize how bad free agent signings can be, as Yaz pointed out above, is it really fair to accuse teams of "not trying to win" like it's a terrible violation of the team-fan contract, or is it just what really trying to win looks like for a bad or mediocre team?

Not accusing anyone of anything. If fans are OK with it - as they appear to be - not trying to won makes a ton more sense than signing virtually any FA contract.

Also, as the Astros showed with Verlander, why sign a guy to a 5, 6, or 7 year deal when it's pretty likely that teams can pick up an impact player at the trade deadline from some team that wants to dump a contract.

One thing about the draft. The draft has never been this important, Ao long as I can remember, there's always been a way for a diligent team to find young talent outside the draft. There is just no way to do it now.

Spacemans Bong · Jan 30, 2018

wade boggs chicken dinner said:
I've said this in the past but I think the biggest part of the analysis is the incredible premium that is placed on the top 10 picks in the draft. Here's why.

In the past, teams used to be able to leverage their resources to attract talent. Whether it was buying a bunch of Latin American prospects or throwing money at hard signs later in the draft rounds or going through the posting route, big money teams have been able to use that money. However, the latest CBA has removed virtually every avenue for picking up talent making the teams relatively even when it comes to procuring talent.

So unless you believe that one or another team has a demonstrable skill in drafting or player development (I don't think that has been demonstrated to anyone's satisfaction), where is the only disparity remaining?

The top of the draft.

Every draft analysis says that drafting beyond the first round - actually the first 10 picks - is basically a crapshoot. I.e., other than the first 10-ish picks in the draft, all of the teams have essentially the same chances of finding premium players. I.e., teams that lose big will be the best five to seven years down the line.

I agree with you that teams realize that you can't build a team through free agency (we've discussed all of the reasons for that so there's no need to re-hash). But to me, the more important part is that a lot of teams aren't even entertaining the free agent marketplace because they don't want to win right now.

The penalties for exceeding the tax and signing top free agents are also affecting the market. You sign somebody with a QO, you lose your 2nd and 5th highest picks with presumably the slot money involved, and lose $1 million in international pool money. Plus you get to pay up to 50 cents on the dollar for every dollar you're over the tax.

Why do that if you can avoid it? Take away those draft and international penalties and I'm pretty sure Lorenzo Cain is a Giant right now.

brs3 · Jan 30, 2018

Why do teams have 6 years of control over a draft pick? Why not get rid of this, and let prospects negotiate from the beginning? Why is arbitration a thing? My thought initially was this would prevent the Yankees from simply outbidding everyone. However, the luxury tax has been effective in eventually limiting this to a certain degree.

Why don't minor leaguers form a union?

I hope the answer to all of this is something besides 'they gotta pay their dues in the bus leagues'.

charlieoscar · Jan 30, 2018

brs3 said:
Why don't minor leaguers form a union?

They have tried but MLB says, “For the overwhelming majority of individuals, being a Minor League Baseball player is not a career but a short-term seasonal apprenticeship.”

This is not a bad read from USAToday from Jan 31, 2017.

shaggydog2000 · Jan 30, 2018

wade boggs chicken dinner said:
Not accusing anyone of anything. If fans are OK with it - as they appear to be - not trying to won makes a ton more sense than signing virtually any FA contract.

Also, as the Astros showed with Verlander, why sign a guy to a 5, 6, or 7 year deal when it's pretty likely that teams can pick up an impact player at the trade deadline from some team that wants to dump a contract.

One thing about the draft. The draft has never been this important, Ao long as I can remember, there's always been a way for a diligent team to find young talent outside the draft. There is just no way to do it now.

You may not be using it as an insult, but Boras and Tony Clark seem like they are. As part of their collusion insinuation, the "not trying to win" is the reason no one is competing to sign an expensive free agent when they're not a good team. Instead, the teams may just be smart and trying to win long term rather than be a slightly better and more expensive mediocre team.

And it's not that the draft is the only way to get talent, international signings can still work out, getting posted players, and free agents can still work out. It's just that the system has been set up so that there is no way for a single team to take advantage of those methods and spend more money than everyone else, because of the soft cap on salary and the international signing pool. The draft isn't the only way to get talent, it's just the only one where you can improve your advantage compared to other teams. By losing.

wade boggs chicken dinner · Jan 30, 2018

brs3 said:
Why do teams have 6 years of control over a draft pick? Why not get rid of this, and let prospects negotiate from the beginning? Why is arbitration a thing? My thought initially was this would prevent the Yankees from simply outbidding everyone. However, the luxury tax has been effective in eventually limiting this to a certain degree.

Why don't minor leaguers form a union?

I hope the answer to all of this is something besides 'they gotta pay their dues in the bus leagues'.

Re arbitration: the book "The Business of Baseball" by Albert Theodore Powers (there's a google books excerpt available) describes it as a compromise offered by Marvin Miller in lieu of the reserve clause. It expanded upon the owners' requirement that all disputes be resolved by arbitration. To refute the notion that sports teams' owners are successful businessmen and must make good business decisions all of the time, various people (including their lawyers) told the owners that this would be the worst financial decision they've ever made. Charles O. Finley took this one step further - not only shouldn't the owners agree to arbitration for salaries, if the players wanted free agency, then all players should be signed to a one-year contract so that every player is a free agent after every season. No telling if the players would have agreed but the owners would have saved billions if they listened to Finley.

As for your union question, there are people who are trying to organize the minor league players (see https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/09/minor-league-baseball-union for example) but I suspect most minor leaguers feel like they might have their chances to the majors jeopardized if they form a union so thus far no union efforts have been successful.

Plympton91 · Jan 30, 2018

I completely agree with the premise and several of the ideas.

I’d emphasize expansion if I were the union. It is long, long overdue. With the influx of major league talent from Cuba, Korea, and Japan there is absolutely no excuse other than greed.

You have to either get rid of the restraints on spending in the draft and international FA, or institute a minimum payroll. An argument against a minimum payroll was that a team could spend big on development rather than on major league free agents. That’s not the case anymore.

Restore arbitration for all 2nd year players and make it possible to compare to 3rd year awards.

I don’t think owners would give up the 6th year of control, but you could get players paid full value more quickly by:

Allow 5th year arb awards to be based on free agent contracts rather than just 6th year awards.

Make players eligible for FA after 5-1/2 years of service time to avoid the games like the Cubs player with Bryant.

I also think the minimum salary for a major leaguer should go to $1 million, minimum for anyone on the 40 man roster to $250,00 regardless of whether they’re in the majors or minors, and increase the current bonus and make it payable regardless of whether they stay with their signing.team for any former major leaguer (who’d be a union member) who signs a minor league FA contract if they’re sent to the minors and not recalled by May 1st.

Minor leaguers could absolutely be paid more, but it’s not clear who negotiates for them.

charlieoscar · Jan 30, 2018

The unfortunate thing for minor league is that the vast majority of them are just placeholders providing the framework for the "prospects" to develop in.

You have the Top 100 lists for all teams, the Top 25 lists for individual teams, but how many actually make clubs during a year.

Using the Play Index from bb-ref, I found 19 batters during the seasons from 2015 through 2017 who qualified as a rookie and who also qualified for the batting title. Only one, (.308) batted over .300 and only two had more than 26 home runs.

If you look at ones who qualified for leading in Won-Lost% (a minimum of 16 decisions), there were only 32 with the highest number of wins in the year being 16.

If you look at saves, you only find five pitchers with at least 10 saves in their rookie season, ranging from 11 to 20.

While it doesn't take a lot to qualify as a rookie, you basically have to be a regular to qualify for the batting title. The pitching strictures are a bit looser but all-in-all there are not a lot of players per year who become regulars in their rookie season. Some of these players may go on to become regulars or even stars but others fade back into the depths.

Gdiguy · Jan 31, 2018

While I agree with much of what's already said, I think you guys are also being a bit generous with regards to thinking it's about building a better team - the much simpler answer is that it's simply about profits.

When your primary mode of income from a team is gate receipts, there's an incentive to not tank and throw away a season - namely, your primary income will plummet as no-one wants to come to the stadium to watch a tanking team. But today I'm seeing estimates that gate receipts are down to ~30% or so of revenues, and especially for a small-market team, between revenue sharing, cuts from national broadcasts, and TV deals (which are typically signed over multi-year periods, so there isn't an immediate decrease in revenue if your team tanks one year), you can now suck for significant periods without seeing a big immediate response to your revenues. If you're having a bad season, rather than try to sign some players to boost your gate receipts and become more competitive, it's actually better to just dump anyone making any significant salary as it won't really hurt your revenue but will cut your expenses.

Don't get me wrong - I'd like to see what's described above (faster FA, increased salary scales for younger players, etc), which I think is definitely a problem. It's also colored every discussion; partly is the rise of 'everyone's a fantasy GM', but as an example from another recent thread, Granderson's contract with the Mets is widely viewed as a failure, despite him basically being worth his contract (JD Drew being another more local reference), because he's getting compared against Arb-level players who aren't getting fair market value. But I'm worried that more generally, the lack of financial incentive to actually be competitive throughout the season is a more fundamental structural problem that has to be addressed somehow.

moondog80 · Feb 2, 2018

jon abbey said:
One of the big non-Boras agents just posted this:

Rebuttal: Eric Hosmer is asking for more than a seven year deal.

shaggydog2000 · Feb 2, 2018

Players under contract sitting out spring training and possibly missing paychecks or getting fined because some other player didn't get the big contract he wanted? I'll believe that when I see it.

BoSox Rule · Feb 2, 2018

The players sold out amateur players and international professionals and in return got harsher penalties on spending than were in place before. The blame is only on them in an age where every front office is aware of aging curves, marginals wins and their cost, etc. Nobody is looking at RBI anymore.

The Gray Eagle · Feb 2, 2018

"It feels coordinated, rightly or wrongly." It "feels" that way. Rightly or wrongly. So look out, there's going to be a strike!
I'm sure public opinion will support the multimillion dollar players who refuse to go to spring training because there weren't enough Pablo Sandoval-style contracts handed out this offseason.
The joke is that there is no reason for the owners to collude because the CBA the players agreed to does the collusion for them.

OCD SS · Feb 2, 2018

MLB has seen market corrections before; I don't remember the union flipping out when Miguel Tejada didn't get a mega-deal, or that Nomar's offer from the Sox got reduced.

The primary issue the Player's Union faces is that they have worked hand in hand with the Owners to suppress the money spent on non-union talent in the draft or international free agent market, and then didn't simultaneously direct the money to their members with a salary floor, increased pre-arb salaries, or a substantial raise to the CBT thresholds. Long term deals have started looking worse because players aren't aging like they were *ahem* - Luis Gonzalez's late career performance isn't walking through that door anymore.

I think the issue with teams tanking definitely stems from revenues that don't come from the gate. Revenue sharing is like guaranteed minimum profits for owners, I see no reason why the players shouldn't get a salary floor for all 30 teams. The problem is that teams used to have many ways to spend money and try to improve their rosters, and now the only way to get good young talent is a low draft pick, so tanking is the only way to get young cost controlled talent. If there were different ways to approach team building, we'd likely see a greater diversity in free agent valuations.

Spacemans Bong · Feb 2, 2018

OCD SS said:
MLB has seen market corrections before; I don't remember the union flipping out when Miguel Tejada didn't get a mega-deal, or that Nomar's offer from the Sox got reduced.

The primary issue the Player's Union faces is that they have worked hand in hand with the Owners to suppress the money spent on non-union talent in the draft or international free agent market, and then didn't simultaneously direct the money to their members with a salary floor, increased pre-arb salaries, or a substantial raise to the CBT thresholds. Long term deals have started looking worse because players aren't aging like they were *ahem* - Luis Gonzalez's late career performance isn't walking through that door anymore.

I think the issue with teams tanking definitely stems from revenues that don't come from the gate. Revenue sharing is like guaranteed minimum profits for owners, I see no reason why the players shouldn't get a salary floor for all 30 teams. The problem is that teams used to have many ways to spend money and try to improve their rosters, and now the only way to get good young talent is a low draft pick, so tanking is the only way to get young cost controlled talent. If there were different ways to approach team building, we'd likely see a greater diversity in free agent valuations.

The players have also let MLB reduce revenue sharing more and more, which decreases the amount of shits given by John Henry and the Steinbrenners that Bob Nutting or Jeffrey Loria is pocketing money instead of spending it on payroll.

What the players should have done was eliminate free agent penalties as much as possible, along with increasing the CBT more. This might be a specifically Giants thing, but they're so desperate to improve the farm system that the FA and CBT penalties to their draft picks and bonus pools are almost certainly driving their avoidance of the FA market.

shaggydog2000 · Feb 2, 2018

Spacemans Bong said:
The players have also let MLB reduce revenue sharing more and more, which decreases the amount of shits given by John Henry and the Steinbrenners that Bob Nutting or Jeffrey Loria is pocketing money instead of spending it on payroll.

What the players should have done was eliminate free agent penalties as much as possible, along with increasing the CBT more. This might be a specifically Giants thing, but they're so desperate to improve the farm system that the FA and CBT penalties to their draft picks and bonus pools are almost certainly driving their avoidance of the FA market.

Yes. If you're a not good team, you're not giving up draft picks and all that money to get premium free agents. And if you are a team near the CBT thresholds, you have to factor in costs of draft picks and the tax into any contract you offer. A 20 mil a year free agent starts to get a lot more expensive than that when you add those costs on. The players union let free agent signings become more expensive for the teams without getting any more money in their pockets for it. They messed up big on that.

wade boggs chicken dinner · Feb 2, 2018

Also, the current system both gives teams enough cash to sign their best players and encourages players to buy out late arb / early FA years in order to take care of their financial future, so it's extremely rare that a top talent hits the FA market in his prime.

Lose Remerswaal · Feb 3, 2018

Couldn't he have become a "6 year Minor League Free Agent" a few years ago?

soxhop411 · Feb 6, 2018

So yah. I think it’s all but guaranteed we are in for a long strike

soxhop411 · Feb 6, 2018

I wouldn’t be shocked to see a season long strike.

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bubble burster

Shanghai Warrior

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Shanghai Warrior

Shanghai Warrior

heart is two sizes two small

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Shanghai Warrior

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Well-Known Member

chapeau rose

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Shanghai Warrior

Experiencing Furry Panic

Shanghai Warrior

Shanghai Warrior

news aggravator

news aggravator