Baseball Is Broken (off the field/labor relations etc.)
- Thread starter jon abbey
- Start date
Passan reported today that the qualifying offer is NOT rising this year - it's declining by 100k, basically a wash. Why? a lot of the big contracts have signing bonuses that don't go into the QO calculation.
View: https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1182756710710013953
View: https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1182759103208181760
View: https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1182756710710013953
View: https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1182759103208181760
bumping this with the Mookie trade.
every team has smartened up and is running their roster management the same way, because analytics say it's the most efficient:
-hoarding pre-arb talent, then trading said talent when it's about to get too expensive according to the analytics, they think the talent won't be worth resigning in FA so get what you can now before a pity QO draft pick, or "resetting" the roster's luxury tax line from past mistakes (Mookie trade was a combo of 2 & 3).
-the luxury tax has become basically a salary cap because the penalties are very harsh in the draft, which is the best way now to acquire good pre-arb talent
-use FA to supplement the roster, but on low-risk deals. only teams in good pre-arb talent standing can splurge (Yankees & Cole).
I read something on soxprospects that Devers produced 150x his salary last season as a pre-arb. Mookie was 70x in 2016. Obviously the $/WAR formula breaks down at the high end, but still.
We've known forever that arbitration is bullshit and players are rarely paid "correctly" for their best years. Now that every team knows this though it's created this ecosystem that I think is going to make enjoying baseball, for me, much harder. Baseball is better when teams keep their best players throughout their whole careers (or at least their primes), but this ecosystem is most efficient when you're operating like... the Tampa Bay Rays. That's where we're heading right now, 30 Rays teams.
I'd like to see a complete rehaul of the economics. Arbitration & QOs need to be completely reworked or dropped. FA is a mess due to fully guaranteed contracts - it's time to introduce some way to make players earn their salary in the most risky years.
Of course, I expect none of this to happen, and I can see my interest in baseball on a day-to-day basis dropping quite a bit this decade. But MLB should really rethink a lot, and MLBPA should be willing to concede some things too for the good of the sport.
every team has smartened up and is running their roster management the same way, because analytics say it's the most efficient:
-hoarding pre-arb talent, then trading said talent when it's about to get too expensive according to the analytics, they think the talent won't be worth resigning in FA so get what you can now before a pity QO draft pick, or "resetting" the roster's luxury tax line from past mistakes (Mookie trade was a combo of 2 & 3).
-the luxury tax has become basically a salary cap because the penalties are very harsh in the draft, which is the best way now to acquire good pre-arb talent
-use FA to supplement the roster, but on low-risk deals. only teams in good pre-arb talent standing can splurge (Yankees & Cole).
I read something on soxprospects that Devers produced 150x his salary last season as a pre-arb. Mookie was 70x in 2016. Obviously the $/WAR formula breaks down at the high end, but still.
We've known forever that arbitration is bullshit and players are rarely paid "correctly" for their best years. Now that every team knows this though it's created this ecosystem that I think is going to make enjoying baseball, for me, much harder. Baseball is better when teams keep their best players throughout their whole careers (or at least their primes), but this ecosystem is most efficient when you're operating like... the Tampa Bay Rays. That's where we're heading right now, 30 Rays teams.
I'd like to see a complete rehaul of the economics. Arbitration & QOs need to be completely reworked or dropped. FA is a mess due to fully guaranteed contracts - it's time to introduce some way to make players earn their salary in the most risky years.
Of course, I expect none of this to happen, and I can see my interest in baseball on a day-to-day basis dropping quite a bit this decade. But MLB should really rethink a lot, and MLBPA should be willing to concede some things too for the good of the sport.
I don't think MLBPA has much they can concede, but one thing is the three options per player system, since a player being unoptionable makes a roster less flexible. It shouldn't change a veteran's salary if they're sent down but if a player doesn't deserve to be on the roster, they should be optionable throughout their career IMO. This is both a giveback to owners and I think would help teams go back at least a bit more to veterans.
Free agency was the turning point. Before it came about, owners payed players whatever they wanted and having a good season did not necessarily mean a raise, and there were times players got pay cuts in spite of performing well. But generally if you were a player who was thought to bring in the fans, you got rewarded for having good years.. After free agency took hold, players began to be paid for what they might do in the future; hence, the long-term contracts.
I don't know how to resolve this dichotomy but in 1946, some very wealthy Mexican brothers decided to build the Mexican League that they hoped could directly compete with Major League Baseball and they began offering current players from those teams large salaries and other enticements so sign with them. For example, Babe Ruth was offered allegedly $1 million to be league president while Ted Williams was offered $300 thousand for a three-year deal and Stan Musial, $650 thousand for five years. Phil Rizzuto was offered $10 thousand and a Cadillac for a year. Twenty-three players accepted but the Browns' shortstop, Vern Stephens, left after two games and thus wasn't part of the banned group (5-year ban if they did not return by the imposed deadline). Danny Gardella, and others, sued MLB for reinstatement in 1949 on antitrust grounds. Rather than face opening up the reserve clause in court, MLB paid Gardella $60 thousand and lifted the ban.
I don't know how to resolve this dichotomy but in 1946, some very wealthy Mexican brothers decided to build the Mexican League that they hoped could directly compete with Major League Baseball and they began offering current players from those teams large salaries and other enticements so sign with them. For example, Babe Ruth was offered allegedly $1 million to be league president while Ted Williams was offered $300 thousand for a three-year deal and Stan Musial, $650 thousand for five years. Phil Rizzuto was offered $10 thousand and a Cadillac for a year. Twenty-three players accepted but the Browns' shortstop, Vern Stephens, left after two games and thus wasn't part of the banned group (5-year ban if they did not return by the imposed deadline). Danny Gardella, and others, sued MLB for reinstatement in 1949 on antitrust grounds. Rather than face opening up the reserve clause in court, MLB paid Gardella $60 thousand and lifted the ban.
Baseball has turned into a math project. I'm not being pejorative when I write that but it's true.
Baseball has artificially depressed the salaries of young, productive players while allowing the salaries of older players to skyrocket, making them even less valuable.
If baseball wanted to change this, they could. By math. But for whatever reason, they don't seem to want to. The owners shouldn't care whether they spend money on pre-arb or post-arb players. But the players union - I guess they just don't see what the system is doing to their members.
Jayson Stark weighs in with a good piece in The Athletic (just subscribe already) built around the example of Francisco Lindor and repeatedly using the phrase 'baseball is broken'. His idea:
And again, how is this a benefit to anyone except the 6 large market teams that can pay people millions of dollars to be a taxi squad in AAA?
Teams have all the flexibility they need to deal with unproductive veterans. It’s called “unconditional release waivers,” and “subsidized trades.”
I see no reason why the ability to have a AAA team full of Rusnay Castillo types benefits the Royals or Rays.
I’m sure the Red Sox, with their new flexibility, would love to sign 5 more middling relievers for $1 million and stash them at AAA. But, im at a loss for how that’s good for competitive balance in baseball
The players I’m talking about are marginal assets at best, them having options is often the difference between them having jobs or not. Stockpiling Luis Avilans isn't changing any team's chances much, even if it's 10 or 20 of them.
If they’re marginal assets making little more than the major league minimum, then it’s even easier to just release them and sign some other equally fungible major leaguer to a minor league deal and wait until you need him. Players like that can already be sent down if they decline free agency and report to AAA. If that were a big deal to a team they could signal their willingness during negotiations.
The only way I see your plan helps make a player more attractive is with the ability to take a guy on a multi-year multi-million contract who is in what they think is a fixable slump and they want to send him down without having to eat the money. But only large market teams who are under the salary cap are going to see that as a meaningful benefit.
The problem is the luxury tax morphing into a de facto salary cap that makes it very painful to have dead money that trips a penalty threshold regardless of whether you can waste that money at AAA or release the player.
No, this is the whole point, they can’t be sent down without giving the other 29 teams a chance to claim them.
And if they’re claimed, that means they get to stay in the major leagues. So, what’s the benefit to the players?
I absolutely see how your idea benefits the Yankees at the expense of the Royals. From the perspective of a rich team’s fan base, this makes perfect sense. It helps us out a lot.
OK, I'll try again.
An organization, rich or poor, doesn't matter, is considering two relievers, one internal with options and one 30 year old FA, to fill a spot as their 7th-10th reliever, an up and down guy. All else being relatively equal, right now they will choose the internal guy because they don't run the risk of losing him when he is sent down because they need to clear a roster spot. This is not a level playing field in terms of ability for the older guy, the younger guy has a built-in advantage because he can be optioned and still controlled. That's all I'm saying, it doesn't seem like a complex point to me.
Also so much of your macro thinking is outdated, the Yankees depth currently is almost entirely internal. Along with the Dodgers (and maybe the Rays?), they are one of the very deepest teams in MLB right now, yet the only guy currently on their 40 man who was not in the organization last year is Cole. Stockpiling fringe veterans is not a smart strategy, this would just help the borderline ones compete on a more even basis.
I disagree.
If we are talking about a fringe veteran on a 1-year, $2 million contract, a team that is below the salary cap and wants to win will sign the veteran and if the internal option takes the job they’ll release the veteran and eat the sunk cost. A team that is above the salary cap and concerned about it, won’t spend $2 million on a fringe reliever regardless of whether he has options. A team that is not trying to win won’t be spending $2 million on a fringe veteran regardless of whether he has options.
You’ve misdiagnosed the problem. For, the majority of the league, the problem is that it is either heavily penalized or pointless to spend money because winning isn’t their goal.
No, it is pointless to spend money because the players you get are usually not worth it and you can't send them to AAA to try to get them straightened out (a la Chad Green last year). Most free agents underperform their contracts, I wish you would look at the results of the guys you were mocking teams for being hesitant to sign the past few offseasons.
Don’t most AAAA relievers also prove to be negative WAR contributors though? For every Josh Taylor there are 5 guys like Ryan Weber, Josh Smith, Bobby Poyner, Trevor Kelley, and Mike Shawayrn who come up and flop.
If you say, “Why should I sign a guy like Javy Guerra, when guys like Taylor are out there?” you’re Engaging in survivorship bias. You should compare Guerra’s 4.86 ERA to the combined line of Taylor, Kelley, Smith , Poyner, Weber, and Shawaryrn—which is much worse than Guerra’s.
if you want to win, you sign Guerra as a placeholder and make someone beat him out. If you aren’t trying to win, then bringing up people more likely to fail than Guerra suits you just fine.
Maybe the MLB needs a 2 way contract. Sign a fringe guy to a 2 way contract for like 1/$1mil and it allows you to send him down to AAA as much as you want.
If you did the same exercise with the Rays, you would see much more positive results, which is why Bloom is in charge now and DD is not.
Anyway, you keep moving the topic, I was just making a very simple and obvious (to me) point. It has nothing to do with teams trying to win or lose or rich/poor teams, it is a simple fact that in today's climate, the inability to be optioned hurts non-stars because it cuts into overall roster flexibility.
COL paid Wade Davis, Bryan Shaw and Jake McGee $35M combined last year and they combined for a -0.3 bWAR. They are all under contract for this season also for another $35.5M combined.
If guys aren't a sure thing or close, it just doesn't make sense to pay them more than a minimal amount these days, which is what this entire thread has been about.
If guys aren't a sure thing or close, it just doesn't make sense to pay them more than a minimal amount these days, which is what this entire thread has been about.
And, I’m simply saying that isn’t actually worth any meaningful amount.
do you think the Rockies would have paid Wade Davis more I’d he had an option remaining?
No, but maybe they could have sent him to AAA (or even AA, given the ridiculous PCL hitting numbers last year) and gotten him straightened out. NY did this with Chad Green last year, he was horrendous early on (16.43 ERA in 10 appearances), went to AAA for three weeks and made some tweaks, and was back to great for the rest of the season (2.64 ERA in 44 games). COL did not have that possibility with their guys so they just continued to suck all season.
Bumping this thread, because all of this is connected to the issues between the owners and the players currently as they try to settle on the monetary part of 2020. The owners are claiming (dubious) financial numbers for 2020 no matter what happens, but the bigger picture is crucial. MLB has set an alltime record for revenues, three years running, and players have seen none of that because of the horrible CBA they inexplicably agreed to. This is MLB's chance to fix itself longer-term and help everyone, but of course they will not.
View: https://twitter.com/esim69/status/1263655755074301954
View: https://twitter.com/esim69/status/1263655755074301954
Could you list the reasons why you believe the current CBA is horrible? I see two main components:
1) The top free agents are receiving huge, guaranteed, long-term contracts. Normally contracts have the upside of players out performing them, but opt-out clauses take that away. Owners have repeatedly been burned by FA deals.
2) The players under team control are often grossly underpaid, but if they're allowed to receive market salaries, it will destroy the small market teams.
It doesn't seem reasonable for the MLBPA to insist on market value salaries across the board.
DId you read the thread from the start? I feel like I have posted here probably 100 times about it.
I read through it and it seemed all over the map. You're very passionate about the CBA and I'm curious as to what to whether the main issue for you is salaries for the players in the major leagues.
Like the 2020 season, it seems like salaries has to be the major reason.
Player value and salary needs to be more closely connected, which doesn't mean perfectly connected. The current situation is not only hurting the young players, it is hurting almost every player over the age of 31 or 32 if they are not a superstar.
Also if the 'small market teams' can't pay their players market value, sell the team.
Also if the 'small market teams' can't pay their players market value, sell the team.
Buying a team is an investment and the expectation is that the revenues will pay for the expenses and generate a profit. A buyer that would come out of pocket to pay $100M+ in salaries, would experience a depreciation in the value of the team. Rich guys that would treat the ownership as a hobby, rather than an investment, are going to be hard to find.
Every team's value has gone up by hundreds of millions n the last decade, every current owner has seen a huge gain (on paper obviously) in their initial investment. Meanwhile player salaries have been stagnant for the last few years while more and more players in the 30-35 range are being pushed aside earlier in their careers.
John Fisher bought the A's in 2005 for $180M and they are now worth $1.1B according to Forbes. That was just the first one I looked up, but they are all basically like that.
https://www.forbes.com/teams/oakland-athletics/#27967b6026ac
https://www.forbes.com/teams/oakland-athletics/#27967b6026ac
The increase in values is not realized, it's not written in stone that values will continue to increase or that they will even retain their values. We also don't know how accurate the current valuations are and if those prices are actually obtainable.
If the owners cover negative cash flow out of pocket or with loans, it will be lost money if the team loses value in the meantime. It also appears that loans against equity are expensive at around 8%.
The sheer scale of the increase there ($920M in 15 years) makes your points all essentially irrelevant IMO, especially when you consider that doesn't factor in whatever profit they have made additionally in those 15 years. Capital does not have an intrinsic right to appreciate in value every year, often it does, sometimes it doesn't but the big picture is what matters IMO, not 2020 in a vacuum.
Honestly, if owners are going to treat their clubs strictly like an investment, then we need to reevaluate baseball's antitrust status.
Yes, but in the interim, Fisher could have bought, who knows what for a half a billion dollars and put up part of his team ownership as collateral. Just because he hasn't sold it doesn't mean it's done nothing for him.
Posting this because I did not know the average service time number before, but this is something I have been talking about for this entire thread. Non-superstars are seeing their careers shortened because owners would rather pay young guys 1/10 or 1/20 of the salary even if they only get 80 or 90 percent of the same production. Baseball has got to figure out a way to more closely tie production to compensation, this won't be easy but they have to try.
View: https://twitter.com/Travis_Sawchik/status/1272172288230776832?s=20
View: https://twitter.com/Travis_Sawchik/status/1272172288230776832?s=20
It's not really baseball's problem, it's the MLBPA's problem. And it's the same problem the NFL and NBA have.
The players unions have been more than willing to sell out the players coming into the league for what they thought were concessions that benefit players in the league. However, the issue is that the more they depressed rookie salaries the more valuable those contracts have become. So what they have really done is (1) structure payrolls so that impact players get everything they want, and (2) for every team that isn't competing for playoffs - and including some that could be a playoff team but probably can't win a championship, those teams are incentivized to pay as little salary as they can get away with.
We've discussed this a number of times in the other thread but the biggest issue to me as a fan is that a number of teams are taking multiple seasons and not trying to win. I know there have always been teams that didn't win because they were horribly mismanaged but when a season starts and only about 1/3rd or so of the league are actually trying to win a championship, it makes the regular season hard to care about IMO.
What's the solution, though? If rookie players go right to market salaries, the small market teams will be lucky just to win 70 games.
We've talked about some solutions upthread. IMO, you have to incentivize winning and penalize multiple losing solutions. I don't have all of the answers but people have to be creative. One suggestion I had upthread was that teams that win over 75 (for example) games but don't make the playoffs get extra salary cap and teams that win less than 65 games get salary cap taken away, with repeater incentives/penalties built in. Also, MLB should definitely follow NFL and discount the salary cap hit of veterans - for example discount the salary cap hit of 10+ year veterans who make less than $5M.
I agree with the premise of the thread that the current system is broken. It doesn't take a astrophysicist to understand how much excess value a superstar on a rookie deal creates (look at Mookie Betts) and the most likely way to draft that superstar is to draft in the top 5 picks. That's not saying it's the only way but you'd have to be an idiot under the current system if your team is not competing for the playoffs, it should try to have the worst record in the league. NFL, NBA, MLB, and probably NHL (I don't follow that enough) - it is the way the system is set up. And it's terrible.
If younger players are higher paid, then free agents would be making much, much less. You'd probably see small market teams try to win with older rosters rather than younger ones.
It's an impossible task to tackle unless both sides want it and figure it out together, right now neither side seems to really get how crucial it is for the future of the sport (the owners are collectively dumber than I would have guessed thus far IMO). No one is saying pay Aaron Judge $25M for his rookie season where he almost won MVP, but guys should hit arbitration at least a year sooner for starters. Even just that one change would be big, I think.
It's in everyone's best interests for the best players to be playing the most and the more money is accurately tied to production, the closer we will get to this. I don't have a full proposal (also there would probably need to be slush funds in any transition for the guys who lose out most as the system switches), but IMO it is crucial for the sport. The stories this past week that baseball always bounces back after labor stoppages, 1994 was a long long time ago and I wouldn't be quite so cocky about it this time if I had billions invested.
It's in everyone's best interests for the best players to be playing the most and the more money is accurately tied to production, the closer we will get to this. I don't have a full proposal (also there would probably need to be slush funds in any transition for the guys who lose out most as the system switches), but IMO it is crucial for the sport. The stories this past week that baseball always bounces back after labor stoppages, 1994 was a long long time ago and I wouldn't be quite so cocky about it this time if I had billions invested.
Also from their side, players could maybe offer to make contracts 3/4 guaranteed instead of fully. So if you owe Sandoval or Ellsbury $60M and you don't want them anymore, you DFA, pay the $45M and get the $15M credit. If the released player has anything left, they can make at least some of that back from another team, theoretically even more in the right situation. Just an idea to tie production more closely to salaries, Prince Fielder being the single highest paid player now in 2020 (this is true) is not ideal for the sport.
There currently isn't a salary cap and if there were, it wouldn't help a team like the A's, which doesn't have the revenue to support a team payroll north of $100M. As a fan, I'm not going to get much utility from them winning 75 games instead of 60, during their next cycle.
Whether the owner is an idiot or not, I don't see how a team like the A's being competitive without having a core of good players under team control. Their total revenue is 43% of what the Sox generate.
Another poster suggested moving salaries from free agents to the younger players, but the MLBPA will never agree to that as they want all salaries to driven by the market which, on the surface, is a fair request. The problem is that there is minimal, or no dilution of the larger markets. Boston could easily support two teams and NY possibly four.
Under the current situation, the only way, other than tanking for a few years, a small market team can compete is for the owner to pay out of pocket or borrow, to fund a larger payroll.
Understand what you say but the CBA can drive market decisions. If the baseball universe is okay with having multiple teams tank for multiple seasons, I agree that's the only rational thing to do. But from where I sit, the regular has no interest when you kind of know which teams are going to make the playoffs even before the season starts, and the playoffs have no interest if I don't have a rooting interest. That doesn't seem to be a recipe for long-term growth/success, but what do I know?
No no no no no, payroll has less to do with winning than ever before in today's game. This is both a feature and a bug.
6 out of the last 8 years payroll has not been especially linked to wins, this guy writes an article on Fangraphs every year updating it. Last year it became more linked, but I'd argue that's in part because of the high payroll teams that have been working hard on building up their farm systems, LAD, NYY, HOU.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/in-2019-team-payroll-and-wins-are-closely-linked/
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/in-2019-team-payroll-and-wins-are-closely-linked/
This brings up something else I have mentioned here before but might as well bring up again, the ability to be optioned helps younger players and hurts older ones who can no longer be sent down. If a team is thinking about giving someone a 2/16 contract over a minimum wage guy who will be 60 or 75 percent as good, you are more likely to do so if 1) they can be optioned down if they suck, while still being paid and/or 2) as I suggested above, if they really suck, you can release them and pay 75 percent of their contract as opposed to 100 percent. These would both be major givebacks by the players but would help them overall IMO.
And sorry for four posts in a row, but the draft/tanking is not the only way to build talent back up. There is also international signings, spotting/acquiring diamonds in the rough on other teams and better developing of the guys you already have, the best teams currently do all four but for instance the Yankees are much better at the other three than they are drafting.
Tonight the o’s admitted they are tanking next year.
View: https://twitter.com/masnSteve/status/1334313678527672325
Comments like this should cause them to be stripped of draft picks.
View: https://twitter.com/masnSteve/status/1334313678527672325
View: https://twitter.com/JonMeoli/status/1334309838357209088
Comments like this should cause them to be stripped of draft picks.