But the higher the CBT, the lower the risk of flexibility issues, right? Look at the Yankees. They didn't want to go above $210m so they got Rougned Odor and a bunch of shit off the scrap heap. Raise that to $240m and there's a pretty realistic chance that Hal chooses to pay to fill out the roster better. And in the meantime, that extra WAR puts more pressure on the Rays and A's because they're competing against "better" teams.
I get your point, but I'm saying it's not so simple in reality. If the limit is $240M, maybe NY spends that extra money on Trevor Bauer which would have been about as useful as lighting it on fire.
I’m curious as to their thinking on this, but a google search on the topic turns up either articles from the 2020 pandemic season negotiations or discusses the owners’ revenue sharing scheme, not a division of revenue between the players and owners like the NBA or NFL have, do you happen to have a good article explaining their thinking on the issue?
Consistently one of the best minor baseball experiences I've seen. From a tiny stadium too - they put on a good show.
Owners have a long history of lying about how much revenue the sport is generating so they can't count on the integrity of the revenue split.
Totally agree. And of course they would take 60 or 70%. Saying no split would be acceptable doesnt make sense
It's a good question.
I'm going to go out on a fairly sturdy limb and say not a chance. The vast majority of them don't have the financial wherewithal to be able to give up their jobs and hope to continue playing baseball for a living. And I would not put it past owners to hold grudges and blackball those players in retaliation.
I don't think the issues have changed much from the players' perspective. They think that NBA-style revenue sharing is going to reduce their take. I'm not sure their thinking make sense to me but as they say, it is what it is. At any rate, does this article help: https://www.royalsreview.com/2022/2/18/22940181/what-would-an-nba-style-salary-floor-and-salary-cap-look-like-for-mlb?
As mentioned upthread, I'm not an expert on the NBA or NFL salary caps but it's my understanding that neither attempts to take into account all revenue. It just defines certain revenue as the pot being shared - primarily gate, broadcast, sponsorships, and merchandise - and then splits up that pie. There are revenues that it's my understanding (I'm sure people will correct if I'm wrong) that aren't split - like real estate development rights around stadiums.
Thanks for the link. Per Passan’s tweet it seems they don’t want any kind of cap at all, though I wonder if a true NBA style setup with a soft cap would be possible, especially since the CBT threshold function similarly to a cap anyways. It really does seem like the NBA players do well under their CBA and there is relative labor peace, probably the best owner/player relations right now.
The NBA may have a "soft cap" but the players share of basketball-related revenues is fixed at between 49% and 51%. If the players share goes over that, monies are withheld (as they were in 2019-20). If the players share goes below that, they get the difference. https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/nba-players-interested-in-negotiating-for-ownership-stakes-in-teams-in-next-cba-says-michele-roberts/
Posnanski had a pretty good breakdown on the history here. It goes back to the 1994-95 negotiations. It's paywalled but you can read the first few paragraphs. If you PM me an email address I can forward the full contents (and please consider subscribing!)
it’s leverage against those cities. If they expand into those cites they’re off the table as relocation destinations.
Back around when it was apparent that the Sox were going to trade Mookie because of the CBT, I kicked around a bunch ways to apply a franchise tag in baseball, but I couldn’t get around a couple different road blocks:
Just checking: would representing you will never agree to something and then later changing your negotiating position to say you will represent bad faith in your view?
Yes, but if they expand, they have a good shot at five hopefuls: Nashville, Las Vegas, Montreal, Portland and Charlotte. Give two of them expansion teams and you still have three options, all of which will have seemingly made their case during the expansion process.
Do we have any indication they are actually against it (a NBA/NFL type agreement) other than people extrapolating from cap proposals? The owners have never come close to proposing something like that. The cap/floor they proposed isnt close as players were not cut in on future growth of the sport - its a completely different economic deal.
Not if you are conceding things to the other party and moving towards an agreement.
There hasn't been much written on the topic because the players are dead ser against the salary cap. I mean they just went through similar negotiations 2 years ago. Here's a statement from tony clark frpm 2020: https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2020/05/11/tony-clark-a-system-that-restricts-player-pay-based-on-revenues-is-a-salary-cap-period/
Agreed on the second point and I agree that the players shit all over the owner's proposal in 2020 and made numerous strong statements against it, including the concept of a share of revenue. I just dont infer that much from that given the exact scenario that it was provided in (i.e., single year where revenues were known that they were going to be 40%off at least. It was also only offered for the 2020 season specifically rather than in perpetuity. It was a page out of the financial institutions playbook - we take the profits; society takes the losses. The share was going to result in a significant current year pay cut to the players. There's serious danger in accepting that deal - it sets a precedent of the owner's not sharing profit, but pushing losses off onto salaried players.
During tense negotiations, I prefer meetings that aren't followed by both sides spinning their stance by leaking to the press
"This should be the reminder that baseball is a book, not a sentence."
There's also this: "If you’re patient enough, you can see that baseball is a combination of chess, ballet, a classroom and cannon fire. "
The players are trying not to completely devalue the regular season, because if you can be the #7 seed at 83-79, it removes even more incentive to spend on payroll. The Korean league uses the 'ghost win' idea already:
This is basically what basketball does with the 7/10 and 8/9 games. It's an "advantaged final" to give some weight to the fact that one of the teams won more games than the other in the regular season. I kind of like it, largely because baseball is so high-variance and I dislike how little the regular season means in a 14-team scenarion.
One issue I have with it is that the teams don’t play the same schedule. Is a 92 win team from the AL Central really better than a 91 win team from the AL East?
Of course not, but the current playoff system/s have never factored that in either. The #3 seed (worst division winner) is almost always worse than the #4 seed (top wild card).
This used to bother me, but now that mediocre teams are going to be in the playoffs anyway who cares?
The difference between the #3 seed and the #4 seed under the current system is way more than a ‘ghost win’ (dumb name that’s not helping). The #3 seed makes the DS automatically, the #4 seed has to win the coin flip wild card game to get to that same position.
