Did the MLBPA screw themselves by Negotiating a defacto hard salary cap in the last CBA?

soxhop411

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For as long as baseball has been around it was a sport without salary caps. With the last CBA it seems like there is a hard salary cap for both domestic and international drafts as well as payroll. Literally every team is treating these caps (and the punishments for going over) as “hard caps” including big money teams like the Yankees and the Sox. It’s even more apparently when we see marquee FA sitting unsigned thru spring training, when that never happened in past CBA’s.
The MLBPA must be kicking themselves for what they agreed to. And I bet negotiations for the next CBA will be even uglier as players realize they are screwed. I also highly doubt that the owners will give up this defacto “hard cap”

Hopefully it doesn’t end up in a long strike. Baseball kind of recovered from the last one, i don’t think they will be as lucky now.
 

DeadlySplitter

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I don't think so? Isn't it producing the result they wanted, the big market teams' financial advantage not translating to a competitive one?
 

BJBossman

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I don't think so? Isn't it producing the result they wanted, the big market teams' financial advantage not translating to a competitive one?
Sheehan had an interesting point yesterday how baseball had more parity before selig’s competitive balance nonsense (it all about cost containment, just like it always has been) in 1993 and beyond.
 

Plympton91

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They should have traded the stringent luxury tax limits, MLBTV monetization, and expanded revenue sharing (all making market size less important) for expansion. The players are getting screwed by lack of jobs in the major leagues. Just the stronger flow from Cuba, Japan, and Korea alone could field a new major league team. The professionalization of amateur baseball accelerates development schedules, adding more talent. And population growth on top of it. It’s ridiculous that it’s been 20 years since the last time they added teams.
 

BJBossman

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They should have traded the stringent luxury tax limits, MLBTV monetization, and expanded revenue sharing (all making market size less important) for expansion. The players are getting screwed by lack of jobs in the major leagues. Just the stronger flow from Cuba, Japan, and Korea alone could field a new major league team. The professionalization of amateur baseball accelerates development schedules, adding more talent. And population growth on top of it. It’s ridiculous that it’s been 20 years since the last time they added teams.
There isn’t enough talent as their is.

Expansion and not PEDs were the number one factor of the home run explosion in the 90s and 00s.
 

Plympton91

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There isn’t enough talent as their is.

Expansion and not PEDs were the number one factor of the home run explosion in the 90s and 00s.
There’s tons of talent available. Players who had very good 2018’s went unsigned into the regular season—e.g., Gio Gonzalez. The Red Sox will likely nontender their starting CF in a season they finished well above .500. Last year the Dodgers had so much starting pitching they had to game the injured list to continue hoarding it. The Indians lost Corey Kluber for the entire season and Carlos Carrasco for more than half of it and still will win at least 92 games. The Yankees lost Andujar and Stanton for the whole season and are still close to the best team in baseball. That means those teams were able to stockpile ridiculous depth.

If you don’t think there’s enough major league talent for 2 more teams, you have an unrealistic standard.
 

brs3

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There’s tons of talent available. Players who had very good 2018’s went unsigned into the regular season—e.g., Gio Gonzalez. The Red Sox will likely nontender their starting CF in a season they finished well above .500. Last year the Dodgers had so much starting pitching they had to game the injured list to continue hoarding it. The Indians lost Corey Kluber for the entire season and Carlos Carrasco for more than half of it and still will win at least 92 games. The Yankees lost Andujar and Stanton for the whole season and are still close to the best team in baseball. That means those teams were able to stockpile ridiculous depth.

If you don’t think there’s enough major league talent for 2 more teams, you have an unrealistic standard.
Perhaps from an offensive perspective. You can build two decent pitching staffs from existing free agents?
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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For as long as baseball has been around it was a sport without salary caps. With the last CBA it seems like there is a hard salary cap for both domestic and international drafts as well as payroll. Literally every team is treating these caps (and the punishments for going over) as “hard caps” including big money teams like the Yankees and the Sox. It’s even more apparently when we see marquee FA sitting unsigned thru spring training, when that never happened in past CBA’s.
The MLBPA must be kicking themselves for what they agreed to. And I bet negotiations for the next CBA will be even uglier as players realize they are screwed. I also highly doubt that the owners will give up this defacto “hard cap”

Hopefully it doesn’t end up in a long strike. Baseball kind of recovered from the last one, i don’t think they will be as lucky now.
I said this in the other thread but the issue to me - and it's not just baseball - is that if a team isn't going to the playoffs, teams have figured out that it doesn't make any sense to try to win.

Once a league puts salary limits on draft picks - which in isolation makes sense, because who wants to pay a draft pick $100+M before he plays a game - the league increases the value of that draft picks and rewards the team who has lost the most for losing.

Maybe the theory is that the team who wins the most games but does not make the playoffs should be given the first draft pick and that teams who consistently lose need to figure out how to win a few more games?
 

Plympton91

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Perhaps from an offensive perspective. You can build two decent pitching staffs from existing free agents?
Breaking news: expansion teams lose for a few years while building up their system.

Update: They participate in an “expansion draft” where they get to pick major league players off current rosters.

“Decent pitching staffs” is relative. If there were 40 teams, then replacement level is lowered. Big deal. Everyone plays by the same rules.
 

Red Right Ankle

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We have a long thread on this in the MLB forum, and the answer is of course 'yes' but that's a symptom of the problem, not the actual problem (which is that it doesn't make sense to pay big money to FAs anymore in most cases).

https://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/baseball-is-broken-off-the-field-labor-relations-etc.22257/
They should have traded the stringent luxury tax limits, MLBTV monetization, and expanded revenue sharing (all making market size less important) for expansion. The players are getting screwed by lack of jobs in the major leagues. Just the stronger flow from Cuba, Japan, and Korea alone could field a new major league team. The professionalization of amateur baseball accelerates development schedules, adding more talent. And population growth on top of it. It’s ridiculous that it’s been 20 years since the last time they added teams.
Less years of control would also have been a good part of this trade, so that guys get to FA and get paid the big bucks earlier and to make filling rosters with pre-arb players harder.
 

mauf

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I think that @Plympton91 is right that there is enough talent to stock at least two more teams.

MLBPA‘s error has been clinging to a model that delivered a larger share of revenue to its members than athletes in other team sports received, long after that model ceased to deliver that result. If shifting to something more like the NBA model gets players to 50 percent of revenues instead of being stuck in the mid-40s, the ghost of Marvin Miller won’t object.
 

Earthbound64

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"defacto hard salary cap"

I don't think those words mean what you think they mean (even ignoring the fact that "defacto" isn't a word - rather, it should be "de facto")

Teams go over the soft salary cap. It's not hard by any means.
A team trying to get under for 1 year to reset penalties doesn't suddenly make it "hard."
 

BJBossman

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Breaking news: expansion teams lose for a few years while building up their system.

Update: They participate in an “expansion draft” where they get to pick major league players off current rosters.

“Decent pitching staffs” is relative. If there were 40 teams, then replacement level is lowered. Big deal. Everyone plays by the same rules.
Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. There aren’t enough mlb caliber arms as it is.

And, where are you putting them?

With the masn disaster and the laughably draconian territorial rights it would be hideous making it work.
 

Plympton91

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Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. There aren’t enough mlb caliber arms as it is.

And, where are you putting them?

With the masn disaster and the laughably draconian territorial rights it would be hideous making it work.
Maybe MLB should contract the A’s and merge them with the Giants, contract the Angels and merge them with the Padres, contract the Marlins, merge them with the Rays and move the team to Orlando, contract the Reds and Pirates, merging them with the Cubs. Contract Cleveland and Detroit, merge them with the White Sox. Contract the Orioles and merge them with the Phillies. Then we can have a MLB structure like today’s tech industry, where everyone who works for FaceAppleAmazoogle is rich beyond their dreams, and nobody else gets to play.

Then let’s get rid of AAA, since apparently you don’t think there’s anyone any good at all who plays there. No point in those jobs either.

And since this is the age of Trump, let’s ban all the Japanese, Korean, and Cuban players who might come over to fill out expansion rosters too. They probably suck. I’m mean look at that Ohtani guy, he’s barely replacement level. Once you get past him, there’s no point in having anyone else from there play in the majors either.

“Major League Talent” is defined by how many jobs there are in the major leagues. There’s no set of stone tablets decreeing the minimum talent level of a major leaguer. There’s no “optimal league size.”

The point of having a union is to create more jobs for your members. The way you create more jobs in baseball is to expand. The owners, of course, don’t want to expand because it isn’t profit maximizing for them. Hence the reason you negotiate.
 

Cesar Crespo

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The point of having a union is to create more jobs for your members. The way you create more jobs in baseball is to expand. The owners, of course, don’t want to expand because it isn’t profit maximizing for them. Hence the reason you negotiate.

Or they could just increase roster size, which they did. Granted those jobs aren't of the same tier but it's 30 new jobs. I guess adding 2 new teams would also add like 16 minor league teams but most of those jobs are paying less than minimum wage.
 

BJBossman

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Maybe MLB should contract the A’s and merge them with the Giants, contract the Angels and merge them with the Padres, contract the Marlins, merge them with the Rays and move the team to Orlando, contract the Reds and Pirates, merging them with the Cubs. Contract Cleveland and Detroit, merge them with the White Sox. Contract the Orioles and merge them with the Phillies. Then we can have a MLB structure like today’s tech industry, where everyone who works for FaceAppleAmazoogle is rich beyond their dreams, and nobody else gets to play.

Then let’s get rid of AAA, since apparently you don’t think there’s anyone any good at all who plays there. No point in those jobs either.

And since this is the age of Trump, let’s ban all the Japanese, Korean, and Cuban players who might come over to fill out expansion rosters too. They probably suck. I’m mean look at that Ohtani guy, he’s barely replacement level. Once you get past him, there’s no point in having anyone else from there play in the majors either.

“Major League Talent” is defined by how many jobs there are in the major leagues. There’s no set of stone tablets decreeing the minimum talent level of a major leaguer. There’s no “optimal league size.”

The point of having a union is to create more jobs for your members. The way you create more jobs in baseball is to expand. The owners, of course, don’t want to expand because it isn’t profit maximizing for them. Hence the reason you negotiate.
Way to post some completely ridiculous nonsense and then double down with igorant political garbage.

A nice double feat.
 

BJBossman

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Or they could just increase roster size, which they did. Granted those jobs aren't of the same tier but it's 30 new jobs. I guess adding 2 new teams would also add like 16 minor league teams but most of those jobs are paying less than minimum wage.
28 with a 25 man active roster would make sense m.
 

lexrageorge

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Unless you also have something that prevents them from having the inactive 3 players be the three most recent starting pitchers, that’s just a 28 man roster.
I'd actually be OK with that. They would still have more players available for each game: 25 vs. the 22 or 23 they have now.
 

brs3

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Breaking news: expansion teams lose for a few years while building up their system.

Update: They participate in an “expansion draft” where they get to pick major league players off current rosters.

“Decent pitching staffs” is relative. If there were 40 teams, then replacement level is lowered. Big deal. Everyone plays by the same rules.

We would see a greater gap in talented teams vs bottom of the barrel. We would see a decade of disparity between championship teams and teams rebuilding. It certainly wouldn't help with competitive balance.

edit: removed snark
 

Plympton91

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We would see a greater gap in talented teams vs bottom of the barrel. We would see a decade of disparity between championship teams and teams rebuilding. It certainly wouldn't help with competitive balance.

edit: removed snark
Maybe, or if teams were run properly, you should just see a bigger disparity between the best player on each team and the worst player on each team.

The “tanking” problem can be solved by removing the incentives to tank at the same time you expand. A lot of great ideas in the thread over in MLB discussion. One I’ve come up with is to say that you lose 1 spot in the draft pick order for every loss over 92. That way bad teams still get the best picks, but you can’t be “Superbad”.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Maybe, or if teams were run properly, you should just see a bigger disparity between the best player on each team and the worst player on each team.

The “tanking” problem can be solved by removing the incentives to tank at the same time you expand. A lot of great ideas in the thread over in MLB discussion. One I’ve come up with is to say that you lose 1 spot in the draft pick order for every loss over 92. That way bad teams still get the best picks, but you can’t be “Superbad”.
How would that work when multiple teams lose over 92 games? The Tigers would be drafting 23rd which isn't very good at all.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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How would that work when multiple teams lose over 92 games? The Tigers would be drafting 23rd which isn't very good at all.
I have started to come around to the theory that the value of top draft picks is so insane that leagues should stop rewarding teams that lose with these picks. I am thinking the 1st overall pick should go to the best non-playoff team, and the rest of the picks go to non-playoff teams by wins and then playoff teams by inverse wins. Here's why.

Latest figures I could find is that the present value of a 1st overall draft pick is $45.5MM. By comparison, the surplus value of the #30 draft pick is $10.1MM. (Note: those numbers do not include salary or signing bonuses as offset.) https://blogs.fangraphs.com/an-update-on-how-to-value-draft-picks/

Note that these numbers are averages, so a player who makes it is insanely valuable - i.e., Mookie, who has created 42.0 WAR while being paid a total of $32MM, so he has created hundreds of millions of surplus value depending on how one wants to value WAR.

So why should we reward teams for losing? Getting the #1 overall draft probably means more to a franchise from an economic POV than winning a World Series.

I understand that might mean teams keep ending up at the bottom of the standings. But if a team can't figure out how to win - or how to dedicate resources to winning - maybe that team should have a new owner/management team, instead of getting the single most valuable asset in all of baseball.

Maybe.
 

Plympton91

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Wouldn't a lot of these problems, including the draft, be solved by adding a floor?
I think a floor needs to happen too. I used to be against it, because theoretically you could reallocate money not spent on major leaguers to the draft and international signings. But now those are slotted and capped, respectively, so that option doesn’t exist anymore. I can’t think of any other good arguments against it.
 

The Gray Eagle

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One way the player's association completely screwed themselves was by not tying the luxury tax limits to revenues. Baseball revenues shot up, but player salaries did not, in part due to the tax limits, meaning a huge percentage of the millions that were pouring in went straight into the pockets of the owners.

Maury Brown at Forbes does a good job of explaining some of the issues:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2019/01/11/economic-data-shows-mlb-spent-less-on-player-salaries-compared-to-revenues-in-2018/#3c9fd7b39d79
"there was an approximately 4% decline in spending on big-league talent in 2018. All told, the league's owners spent
$4.5 billion on player salaries and other benefits for 2018. That was down $115.4 million compared with 2017."

When the union and owners agreed to the deal in 2016, players were getting 56.6% of revenues. In 2018, they were getting 54.2%.

The owners also pocket $2.58 billion when they sold BAMTech to Disney. The players won't be getting any of that windfall either, and it's not considered revenue, it's considered capital. But it's a lot more money in the pockets of the owners, including John Henry, who now wants the Red Sox to shed salary.

The owners will continue to rake in more money and the players won't get enough of it in part at least because of the union's stupidity in the last negotiation in not tying the tax limits to revenues.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2019/01/07/mlb-sees-record-revenues-of-10-3-billion-for-2018/#7df3286d5bea
"While growth slowed in 2018, don’t expect that to continue heading into the 2019 season. More than one lucrative sponsorship deal is on the horizon, as are new revenues from a streaming media rights deal with DAZN. In 2022, a new extension reached with FOX will kick in; it totals $5.1 billion and runs through 2028. Talks to determine whether ESPN and TBS continue to carry MLB nationally are ongoing, and those deals could kick in then as well.

Since 1992, when Bud Selig took over as commissioner on a full-time basis, league gross revenues have grown 377% when accounting for inflation."
 

BaseballJones

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Sheehan had an interesting point yesterday how baseball had more parity before selig’s competitive balance nonsense (it all about cost containment, just like it always has been) in 1993 and beyond.
Regarding competitive balance...

MLB from 2005-2018
AL East (5 teams): NY 5, Bos 5, TB 2, Bal 1, Tor 1
AL Cent (5 teams): ChW 2, Min 3, Cle 4, Det 4, KC 1
AL West (4 teams): LAA 5, Oak 3, Tex 4, Hou 2
NL East (4 teams): Atl 3, NYM 2, Phi 5, Was 4
NL Cent (4 teams): StL 6, ChC 4, Cin 2, Mil 2
NL West (4 teams): SD 2, Ari 2, LAD 8, SF 2
League Champs (17 teams): ChW 1, Hou 1, StL 3, Det 2, Bos 3, Col 1, Phi 2, TB 1, NYY 1, SF 3, Tex 2, KC 2, NYM 1, ChC 1, Cle 1, Hou 1, LAD 2
WS Champs (9 teams): ChW 1, StL 2, Bos 3, Phi 1, NYY 1, SF 3, KC 1, ChC 1, Hou 1

So out of the 30 MLB teams, 26 of them have won division titles in the last 14 seasons. Only Pit, Mia, Col, and Sea haven't. But of those four teams that haven't won a division title...

- Pit went to the playoffs 3 times (2013, 2014, 2015).
- Col went to the playoffs 4 times (2007, 2009, 2017, 2018) and went to the WS once (2007).
- Sea didn't go to the playoffs but finished 2nd in their division twice (2007, 2016).
- Mia didn't go to the playoffs but finished 2nd in their division twice (2009, 2017, though they were bad in 2017 regardless).

So really, the only two MLB franchises to not see real success in the past 14 seasons were Seattle and Miami. Everyone else has tasted the playoffs or and/or won the division. 9 different teams have won the World Series in 14 seasons. 17 teams have been to the World Series.

I know it feels like it's always NYY and LAD, and they've obviously been very good. But there's been a large amount of competitive balance in MLB, at least that's what the final results seem to show.
 

mauf

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Maybe MLB should contract the A’s and merge them with the Giants, contract the Angels and merge them with the Padres, contract the Marlins, merge them with the Rays and move the team to Orlando, contract the Reds and Pirates, merging them with the Cubs. Contract Cleveland and Detroit, merge them with the White Sox. Contract the Orioles and merge them with the Phillies. Then we can have a MLB structure like today’s tech industry, where everyone who works for FaceAppleAmazoogle is rich beyond their dreams, and nobody else gets to play.

Then let’s get rid of AAA, since apparently you don’t think there’s anyone any good at all who plays there. No point in those jobs either.

And since this is the age of Trump, let’s ban all the Japanese, Korean, and Cuban players who might come over to fill out expansion rosters too. They probably suck. I’m mean look at that Ohtani guy, he’s barely replacement level. Once you get past him, there’s no point in having anyone else from there play in the majors either.

“Major League Talent” is defined by how many jobs there are in the major leagues. There’s no set of stone tablets decreeing the minimum talent level of a major leaguer. There’s no “optimal league size.”

The point of having a union is to create more jobs for your members. The way you create more jobs in baseball is to expand. The owners, of course, don’t want to expand because it isn’t profit maximizing for them. Hence the reason you negotiate.
I would argue that the purpose of a union is to maximize the income of its current members. Most unions also give weight to the interests of former members (retirees). I don’t think many unions give weight to the interests of outsiders (prospective future members) in their decision making.

Over time, aggregate player compensation is a function of league revenues. Adding teams increases revenue but probably puts downward pressure on the average player’s salary. I think that’s a net negative for current players.

Edit: If the owners want to cut current players in on a modest slice of expansion fees, that’s a different story, but I’m assuming that’s a nonstarter.
 

BJBossman

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I would argue that the purpose of a union is to maximize the income of its current members. Most unions also give weight to the interests of former members (retirees). I don’t think many unions give weight to the interests of outsiders (prospective future members) in their decision making.

Over time, aggregate player compensation is a function of league revenues. Adding teams increases revenue but probably puts downward pressure on the average player’s salary. I think that’s a net negative for current players.

Edit: If the owners want to cut current players in on a modest slice of expansion fees, that’s a different story, but I’m assuming that’s a nonstarter.
MLBPA certainly doesn't.

They sold them out really fast.

At least previous regimes didn't because they were just so anti-cap that it meant they didn't want to get too involved in draft details. But what exactly did they get for selling out both the US and international amateur players?
 

BJBossman

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Maybe a small thing, but the MLBPA screwed up allowing the benefits to be included in the calculus as well.

That left a ton of money on the table as well.
 

reggiecleveland

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There isn’t enough talent as their is.

Expansion and not PEDs were the number one factor of the home run explosion in the 90s and 00s.
I would love to see a statistical case for the bolded. i expect new hitter freindly ball parks replacing the old cavernous astroturf dual purpose stadiums was as big as expansion. San Diego seemed to replace one pitcher's park with another, all the newer parks had less foul ground, better hitting backgrounds, and usually easier homeruns. also the bats became lighter and harder.

Also, a known fact of sports development is that the adoption of strength training and steroids are usually simultaneous. So while everyone is getting stronger, there are some getting ridiculously so. So steroids explain part of it. This dual track cause often leads to athletes that worked hard naturally also greatly exceeding the strength of previous generations and getting tarred with the steroid feather.
 
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BoSox Rule

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Yeah I’m sure it doesn’t matter. The luxury tax would just be like $15m lower if it wasn’t included.