How to Fix Baseball

Rasputin

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Let's put the argument here. I and others think it's fundamentally pretty fucked that a few rich teams can spend hundreds of millions of dollars more than other teams, mostly ignoring the luxury tax. It's profoundly unfair to compete for the same prize with radically different resources.

I'd love some kind of hardish cap and a revenue floor.

And I'm going to reiterate a relatively minor change that I think could have a lot of positive downstream benefits.

Change the way you assign draft position. Don't give the best to the worst team. Give out picks based on distance from .500.

It removes the incentive to be terrible and replaces it with an incentive to be mediocre. It's not that hard to be mediocre these days, and a mediocre team is not far from the playoffs. Rebuilding wouldn't involve losing 100 games. bad teams would be trying to improve at the trade deadline, more players will stay with their home team longer, more free agents would go to a wider variety of teams.
 

Max Power

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I've always wanted to see young players paid fairly. Anyone beyond a rookie contract should be paid what they'd get in the final year of arbitration for all the years of team control. That would mean players get paid more when they're productive and there's less dead money going to older free agents. That doesn't address the revenue imbalances in the game, but at least you're starting from a fairer point for the players. Especially when the average one never actually makes it to free agency.
 

TomRicardo

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Let's put the argument here. I and others think it's fundamentally pretty fucked that a few rich teams can spend hundreds of millions of dollars more than other teams, mostly ignoring the luxury tax. It's profoundly unfair to compete for the same prize with radically different resources.

I'd love some kind of hardish cap and a revenue floor.

And I'm going to reiterate a relatively minor change that I think could have a lot of positive downstream benefits.

Change the way you assign draft position. Don't give the best to the worst team. Give out picks based on distance from .500.

It removes the incentive to be terrible and replaces it with an incentive to be mediocre. It's not that hard to be mediocre these days, and a mediocre team is not far from the playoffs. Rebuilding wouldn't involve losing 100 games. bad teams would be trying to improve at the trade deadline, more players will stay with their home team longer, more free agents would go to a wider variety of teams.
Why would the owners or the MLBPA ever agree to this? In order to have a spending floor you would need to increase revenue sharing. MLB gets more money from local revenue than league wide revenue. Both top end teams and bottom end teams would not want this.

The players will only agree to a hard cap if you further erode the reserve system which the owners desperately don't want.

Also draft position matters the least in MLB than any other US Professional league. This isn't football or basketball where you rather largely incentivized to tank. I mean Bryce Harper was the most hyped draft pick in the last 20 years? He was good but not game changing. This isn't Peyton Manning or Victor Wembyama. You don't need to lose 100 games to rebuild. In fact it is not entirely unusual to have a competitor with a top end farm system.
 

Awesome Fossum

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And I'm going to reiterate a relatively minor change that I think could have a lot of positive downstream benefits.

Change the way you assign draft position. Don't give the best to the worst team. Give out picks based on distance from .500.

It removes the incentive to be terrible and replaces it with an incentive to be mediocre. It's not that hard to be mediocre these days, and a mediocre team is not far from the playoffs. Rebuilding wouldn't involve losing 100 games. bad teams would be trying to improve at the trade deadline, more players will stay with their home team longer, more free agents would go to a wider variety of teams.
That's a cool idea.
 

HangingW/ScottCooper

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Across the board, I think baseball has made several steps in the right direction. I think the draft changes that prohibit a larger market like the White Sox from tanking to 1-1 have helped, as does a smaller scale draft lottery. The international bonus pool approach was at least in part, intended to benefit small market teams. Unfortunately and most recently, it allowed a juggernaut to get Roki Sasaki.

I don't believe deferred money is a problem to the extent that media and doom and gloomers are saying it is. The Dodgers are still paying a boatload in penalties, and if they were paying the present day value of each of those contracts, they could still conceivably entice each and every player they've brought into the mix.

  • I think there needs to be a payroll floor. Whether that's a true salary floor (you must spend above this threshold) or penalties (i.e. no revenue sharing money, loss of draft picks, etc) is up for debate. I know this exists in some capacity but there needs to be more of it.
  • Don't allow one company to control the local broadcasting rights for a third of the league. That was pretty crippling.
  • Force the issue of relocation on smaller market teams. I understand the Athletics have a history in Oakland, but moving them will probably be the right call for the sport. The same may be true of other smaller market teams as well.
  • Stiffer penalties for repeat offenders of the Luxury tax thresholds.
As for the on the field product, I've been a big fan of most of the changes, but a few that I'd tweak:

  • Extra Inning rule: I want at least one clean inning without the runner on 2nd Base. I'd even welcome something like 10th inning, no one on, 11th inning, runner on 1st, 12th inning runner on 1st and 2nd
  • Playoffs: I think we're approaching the NBA here and I'd like to dial that back. I could see this taking a few different approaches, and one possible approach would be two divisions per league instead of three. I just don't like the idea of a division winner losing in a wild card round. Unfortunately since they've expanded to 12 teams they're not going to go back to 8 or 10.
  • I want to see the Minor League pitch challenge rule in place. Try it during Spring Training, have it ready to go on Opening Day.
 

NoXInNixon

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I've always wanted to see young players paid fairly. Anyone beyond a rookie contract should be paid what they'd get in the final year of arbitration for all the years of team control. That would mean players get paid more when they're productive and there's less dead money going to older free agents. That doesn't address the revenue imbalances in the game, but at least you're starting from a fairer point for the players. Especially when the average one never actually makes it to free agency.
That takes away almost all of the incentive for a team to develop players in their farm system. Would be very bad for the game in the long run.

What I'd like to see is the free agency clock be by age, not service time. Teams would call up their exciting young players sooner because it won't change when they become free agents, and players who take longer to break out can still hit the market during their prime.
 

Max Power

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That takes away almost all of the incentive for a team to develop players in their farm system. Would be very bad for the game in the long run.
The incentive is that you still control their rights for 6 years and can either pay them or trade them if they produce.

What I'd like to see is the free agency clock be by age, not service time. Teams would call up their exciting young players sooner because it won't change when they become free agents, and players who take longer to break out can still hit the market during their prime.
I think that's a likely first step to come out of the next CBA, but it doesn't help the pitchers who tear up their arms in their 4th season and never make it to a big payday.
 

Comfortably Lomb

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Why should the small markets be on equal footing with the big markets? NYC, LA, Boston, Chicago, Houston, etc. have more fans and generate more revenue. They should have an advantage. They're paying the league's bills. The nightmare scenario is the best teams in the league being something like Tampa, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Oakland, KC, Milwaukee, etc.

It would be nice to see younger players compensated more in line with their value (at the expense of veterans who are wildly overpaid). So maybe a salary floor and guaranteed percentage of league revenue to the players in exchange for no more guaranteed multi-year contracts. Those things are abominations.

Edit: and while we're here, this whole Dodgers and Mets ruining the sport by spending too much is very obviously just a narrative the league and owners want to see gain traction. They would looove a hard cap and to be able to pocket as much money as possible.
 
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AlNipper49

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The NBA is losing fans and following the NFL feels dirty to a lot of us. Baseball is a summer sport and is when our kids are the most captive audience.

Were I MLB commissioner I’d set out to complete two tasks - a relegation system to replace the minor leagues. It would allow for greater compensation to non-MLB players and put some urgency on MiLB games, which would in theory drive attendance.

In terms of team growth I agree we should no penalize a team for existing in larger markets. However, I would index expansion to the amount of eyes in a market. This would reward a team with the most loyal eyes rather than the amount of eyes.

Neither would be easy to do, but in the spirit of the question I figured I’d go big.
 

Salem's Lot

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The NBA is losing fans and following the NFL feels dirty to a lot of us. Baseball is a summer sport and is when our kids are the most captive audience.

Were I MLB commissioner I’d set out to complete two tasks - a relegation system to replace the minor leagues. It would allow for greater compensation to non-MLB players and put some urgency on MiLB games, which would in theory drive attendance.

In terms of team growth I agree we should no penalize a team for existing in larger markets. However, I would index expansion to the amount of eyes in a market. This would reward a team with the most loyal eyes rather than the amount of eyes.

Neither would be easy to do, but in the spirit of the question I figured I’d go big.
I love the relegation idea, but unfortunately the owners would immediately fire any commissioner that would try to push for that.
 

SuperDieHard

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Wishcasting here: The team with the worst record in each league gets to void or partially void (cut in half?, cut off up to 2 years?) one bad contract of their choice. Just a little bit of incentive for players to make themselves worth their contracts. One of the good things about the NFL is that the guaranteed money is at least more limited. Sets last place teams up for some trade leverage with teams that are stuck with underwater contracts (we’ll take Pablo Sandoval off your hands if you throw in Blake Swihart… or something of the sort).
 

simplicio

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Wishcasting here: The team with the worst record in each league gets to void or partially void (cut in half?, cut off up to 2 years?) one bad contract of their choice. Just a little bit of incentive for players to make themselves worth their contracts. One of the good things about the NFL is that the guaranteed money is at least more limited. Sets last place teams up for some trade leverage with teams that are stuck with underwater contracts (we’ll take Pablo Sandoval off your hands if you throw in Blake Swihart… or something of the sort).
You think players aren't trying to be worth their contracts?

The minors and current team control rules are absolutely an exploitation of labor. Anything that pays players less is bullshit.
 

chrisfont9

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Wishcasting here: The team with the worst record in each league gets to void or partially void (cut in half?, cut off up to 2 years?) one bad contract of their choice. Just a little bit of incentive for players to make themselves worth their contracts. One of the good things about the NFL is that the guaranteed money is at least more limited. Sets last place teams up for some trade leverage with teams that are stuck with underwater contracts (we’ll take Pablo Sandoval off your hands if you throw in Blake Swihart… or something of the sort).
I'd love to see the Mets finish last and just void Soto
 

SuperDieHard

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You think players aren't trying to be worth their contracts?

The minors and current team control rules are absolutely an exploitation of labor. Anything that pays players less is bullshit.
I think players for the most part are trying to be worth their contracts, but nevertheless the sport is littered with more albatross contracts that cause significant problems for teams than is ideal. While I wouldn‘t call it the most pressing issue in the sport, its something that hadn’t been brought up yet so felt it was worth mentioning…obviously it’s a difficult one to fairly address.
 

simplicio

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If you want to find a mechanism to help teams write off a crippling contract so it doesn't count against cap/CBT, fine, but never at the player's expense. They get every dime of the money they're owed.
 

BaseballJones

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I don’t love seeing all that talent on the Dodgers but I dont think the system is broken. You get in MLB what you’d expect. Big payroll teams are generally better than low payroll teams, because they can afford more and better talent. But it is a sport where low payroll teams definitely can compete - especially if they manage to make the playoffs, where all kinds of wild things can happen.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Royals of all teams were stringing together hugely successful seasons, including a WS championship.
 

Seels

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I don't find what the Dodgers are doing as bad as what the litany of teams who just pocket the cash from the wealthy teams. The Dodgers are a problem, sure, but not as much as the Pirates, Rays, Marlins, As, etc.

You can't enforce parity in baseball. There's just not really a mechanism for it. The salary cap idea is bad for two reasons, 1: Mlpba would never ever go for it, 2: Why should the wealthy teams continuously subsidize the rest of the league?

The current system is more or less fine, but teams should be punished for being excessively under the median spending. The As for example spent less than half what the median team spent. They should lose their ability to get a draft pick in the first round, and lose IFA rights if that's the case. If they can't spend where the rest of the league is, why be in the league at all?

At some point, much like the 2000s Yankees had to deal with realities of the payroll, the Dodgers will too. Their window is open as large as any teams ever is, but in another 4-5 years they're going to look like the 2004 Lakers as guys like Betts Freeman Ohtani Snell and Smith are all mid to late 30s.

Baseball makes me more of a capitalist than just about anything. If the tickets for the teams like the Dodgers Cubs Sox Yankees etc are going to cost what they do, and those teams are always selling 35-40k tickets a game, why the hell should we subsidize a Pirates team who struggles getting 20k to come out on any night, or the Marlins who have attendance comparable with college hockey? It would turn me off as a fan thinking my experience is expensive, while my experience also makes it so that a Royals fan can go see a game for $20, while still having competitive ways of retaining talent.
 

8slim

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Personally, there are a ton of things about the on field baseball product that I’d like to see fixed before we get to anything off the field.

The sport that I grew up loving is as boring and homogenous on the field as it’s ever been in my lifetime. 30 franchises all working off the same blueprint.
 

Rasputin

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I've always wanted to see young players paid fairly. Anyone beyond a rookie contract should be paid what they'd get in the final year of arbitration for all the years of team control. That would mean players get paid more when they're productive and there's less dead money going to older free agents. That doesn't address the revenue imbalances in the game, but at least you're starting from a fairer point for the players. Especially when the average one never actually makes it to free agency.
I have this fantasy where owners agree to open up the books and give players a fixed percentage of revenue. Players get a standard minimum contract of a couple million, and everything else is performance based.
 

kieckeredinthehead

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Require every team to open their financial books, including subsidiaries/partners/etc., i.e. all the places they're hiding revenue. It's impossible to know whether the Dodgers are the only team that can afford this, and it's therefore impossible to know how broken the system is. I think it's far, far more likely that 95% of teams are netting obscene amounts of money every year than that the Dodgers are somehow uniquely able to spend this much above the cap.

And teams, players and agents should be required to report contracts and contract offers in present day value so that lazy media members can't continue to obfuscate the actual money being handed out.

edit: what @Rasputin said
 

loneredseat

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Dec 8, 2023
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I'd start with the ticket prices. Every stadium has to make half of their seats available for $5, and another quarter of their seats available for $10 (or something like this). Mix in more afternoon games so kids can go after school. Fill the parks with kids, and make the parks financially accessible to everyone.
Sure the owners and players are going to take a salary hit, but the generational wealth guys are still going to get their generational wealth, the good players are still going to be stupid rich, and anyone making the majors is going to be making more than most of us, for playing baseball. I'd like to think that the players and owners may both be open to this (I'd love to know how many of you are laughing).
 

Lose Remerswaal

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I'd start with the ticket prices. Every stadium has to make half of their seats available for $5, and another quarter of their seats available for $10 (or something like this). Mix in more afternoon games so kids can go after school. Fill the parks with kids, and make the parks financially accessible to everyone.
Sure the owners and players are going to take a salary hit, but the generational wealth guys are still going to get their generational wealth, the good players are still going to be stupid rich, and anyone making the majors is going to be making more than most of us, for playing baseball. I'd like to think that the players and owners may both be open to this (I'd love to know how many of you are laughing).
They couldn’t possibly do that. Ticket revenue is not an insignificant part of revenue. Making 3/4 of the seats money losers would be crazy.

if you were to say 2500-5000 seats yiu might have an argument.
 

Rasputin

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Why should the small markets be on equal footing with the big markets? NYC, LA, Boston, Chicago, Houston, etc. have more fans and generate more revenue. They should have an advantage. They're paying the league's bills. The nightmare scenario is the best teams in the league being something like Tampa, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Oakland, KC, Milwaukee, etc.

It would be nice to see younger players compensated more in line with their value (at the expense of veterans who are wildly overpaid). So maybe a salary floor and guaranteed percentage of league revenue to the players in exchange for no more guaranteed multi-year contracts. Those things are abominations.

Edit: and while we're here, this whole Dodgers and Mets ruining the sport by spending too much is very obviously just a narrative the league and owners want to see gain traction. They would looove a hard cap and to be able to pocket as much money as possible.
I direct your attention to the NFL. You may know it as the most popular league in America. It has a team in fucking Green Bay. It takes steps to limit how much teams can spend because parity is good. Sometimes the teams from nowhere are good. Sometimes they're bad,

There are whole swathes of America that know their teams aren't going to remotely have a chance unless things change.
 

mauf

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Set the salary floor at the amount of pooled revenue a team receives. If you can’t make enough from ticket sales to cover stadium costs, you shouldn’t be in business.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Minor league career types need to be paid more. And I wish the crazy wealthy players would say something about this.
 

EvilEmpire

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Player rights in the NFL are shit and football is a dangerous game. MLB is fine. Plenty of middle class and below teams have done well. And the ones that haven't aren't because of team spending like the Dodgers, Mets, and Yankees.

And of course the Red Sox can play in that tier of spending if they want to. Wanting to change the economics of baseball just because they is silly.
 
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Sandy Leon Trotsky

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It should be the owners making much crazier wealth for a significantly longer period of time taking care of paying minor league players more.
Why not both

edit- honestly for it to mean something…. It’d need to be a player getting paid a crazy amount to call out the entire system. The amount owners make- the amount wealthy players make- and the relative turd minor leaguers make.
 

grimshaw

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A cap (and floor), for all its faults is the easiest fix for me. I don't particularly care about players stances even though I understand where they are coming from. Even the 10th round slot bonus for minor league players is more than I make in several years.
The offseason is a bore and a half. The same agent and processes have held everything up for years when the other 3 big sports have theirs wrapped up in 3 weeks.

I personally like a completely random draft each year - though the near .500 record one is a good idea. The incentive should always be to win if you want your fans coming back.
 

Seels

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the draft doesn't really matter enough to alter it in any meaningful way. It's the reason the Dodgers can afford to be the Dodgers. Beyond significantly changing what a team can offer for slot money, who really cares about if you get a top 10 pick or not? How many people on this very active baseball board have any idea who is projected for a top 3 pick in 25?

In football and basketball you're doing a backflip if you can move up 5 places. Unless you're getting David Price / Steven Strasburg / Arod, it's just too big a crap shoot.

Though I could get behind having reduced odds to draft in the top 5 (or whatever) in successive years, and an international draft.
 

TomRicardo

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I direct your attention to the NFL. You may know it as the most popular league in America. It has a team in fucking Green Bay. It takes steps to limit how much teams can spend because parity is good. Sometimes the teams from nowhere are good. Sometimes they're bad,

There are whole swathes of America that know their teams aren't going to remotely have a chance unless things change.
Holy shit you think NFL and MLB have the same financial model?!? NFL makes most of Its money from its national television contracts. MLB makes most of its money from home games. MLB has 10X the games of the NFL.

Also the difference between a bad baseball team and good baseball team is much smaller than a good NFL team and a bad NFL team. Almost all the baseball teams fall within .400 - .600 winning percentage. NFL teams easily can have only 1 loss or 1 win.

Finally star players in the NFL despite there being a bigger roster, have more impact on games than star MLB players. Ohtani will never touch the relative value of Tom Brady
 

grimshaw

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the draft doesn't really matter enough to alter it in any meaningful way. It's the reason the Dodgers can afford to be the Dodgers. Beyond significantly changing what a team can offer for slot money, who really cares about if you get a top 10 pick or not? How many people on this very active baseball board have any idea who is projected for a top 3 pick in 25?

In football and basketball you're doing a backflip if you can move up 5 places. Unless you're getting David Price / Steven Strasburg / Arod, it's just too big a crap shoot.

Though I could get behind having reduced odds to draft in the top 5 (or whatever) in successive years, and an international draft.
And Rutschman, Mauer, Adrian Gonzalez, Upton, Harper, Skenes, Correa etc. There isn't always an all world type pick but there is Hall of Fame talent in most drafts that you're not getting a crack at if you're earnestly trying to win each year.
International draft is a great idea.
 

TheDogMan

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That's a cool idea.
Interesting premise. You could also make a rule that no team cab pick in the tip 10 for consecutive years. No revenue sharing for any team not spending a floor dollar value. Make the penalty for going over the cap an even dollar for dollar and doubling for every consecutive year over the cap. After 4 years team loses all draft picks for the coming season.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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I direct your attention to the NFL. You may know it as the most popular league in America. It has a team in fucking Green Bay. It takes steps to limit how much teams can spend because parity is good. Sometimes the teams from nowhere are good. Sometimes they're bad,

There are whole swathes of America that know their teams aren't going to remotely have a chance unless things change.
Since 1990 19 different teams have won the Word Series and 17 different teams have won the Super Bowl. Nine franchises have won the World Series multiple times during that time. Ten different teams have won the Super Bowl multiple times since 1990.

The parity between the NFL and MLB is basically the same, with MLB having “more”parity.

The only reason this thread has been started is because people are pissed at the Dodgers for some reason instead of being angry at John Henry for not spending any money (out of 30 teams they’ve spent the 14th most, four spots behind the Sacramento A’s who needed to spend). But no one was starting this thread 20 years ago when the Sox were signing at least one big name a year per offseason or trading for a potential free agent and signing him to a big deal.

Back then the Sox were “smart” for using their money and flexing a bit—that’s what big market teams do. But now we don’t.
 

8slim

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Since 1990 19 different teams have won the Word Series and 17 different teams have won the Super Bowl. Nine franchises have won the World Series multiple times during that time. Ten different teams have won the Super Bowl multiple times since 1990.

The parity between the NFL and MLB is basically the same, with MLB having “more”parity.

The only reason this thread has been started is because people are pissed at the Dodgers for some reason instead of being angry at John Henry for not spending any money (out of 30 teams they’ve spent the 14th most, four spots behind the Sacramento A’s who needed to spend). But no one was starting this thread 20 years ago when the Sox were signing at least one big name a year per offseason or trading for a potential free agent and signing him to a big deal.

Back then the Sox were “smart” for using their money and flexing a bit—that’s what big market teams do. But now we don’t.
Hell, no one was starting this thread in 2018 when we signed Martinez. I don’t remember any “wont someone please think of the Pirates!” pleas all of 7 years ago.
 

Devizier

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This isn’t La Liga or even Premier League. The structure of the league would never allow it. But it’s worth mentioning that those leagues are pretty successful.
 

simplicio

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And of course the Red Sox can play in that tier of spending if they want to. Wanting to change the economics of baseball just because they don't want to is silly.
Nobody is saying this. Seriously.

The Dodgers problem is new. We've never seen it before. It may have been an available course of action before but it's never been utilized like this. They're following up their billion dollar winter a year ago by spending more than every team that hasn't signed Juan Soto. There is simply not a large enough talent base in baseball to effectively compete on that level no matter how much money you throw at it.

If the intent of the current CBA was to dissuade teams from going $60m+ over CBT for extended periods, that has now failed definitively. Time to fix it in the next one, and bring a floor with it.
 

8slim

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Nobody is saying this. Seriously.

The Dodgers problem is new. We've never seen it before. It may have been an available course of action before but it's never been utilized like this. They're following up their billion dollar winter a year ago by spending more than every team that hasn't signed Juan Soto. There is simply not a large enough talent base in baseball to effectively compete on that level no matter how much money you throw at it.

If the intent of the last CBA was to dissuade teams from going $60m+ over CBT for extended periods, that has now failed definitively. Time to fix it in the next one, and bring a floor with it.
How is there not enough talent base? The depth of talent in baseball right now is immense. I’m really struggling to understand this argument. The Dodgers still will have 13 position players and 13 pitchers, right?
 

loneredseat

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They couldn’t possibly do that. Ticket revenue is not an insignificant part of revenue. Making 3/4 of the seats money losers would be crazy.

if you were to say 2500-5000 seats yiu might have an argument.
So some rough math-
The Red Sox averaged 33,000 ticket sales per game this last year. The average cost of a ticket was $62. 81 home games. Totaling $167,000,000. With my model, the average cost of a ticket is say, $20. Total income $55,000,000. A difference of $112,000,000, split this between the players and the owners. Owners make 60 million less and the players take roughly a 30 % pay cut. Everyone is still getting stupid rich.
 
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simplicio

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How is there not enough talent base? The depth of talent in baseball right now is immense. I’m really struggling to understand this argument. The Dodgers still will have 13 position players and 13 pitchers, right?
There isn't enough of a talent base to sustain multiple teams electing to ignore financial disincentives as LA has been doing the last couple years, no. They've bought or traded for/extended a full rotation of #1s in the last 14 months. There just aren't a hundred more of those guys lying around for everyone to have a crack at.

This is not me being mad at LA or whining it's not fair to Boston, I'm saying the system was not designed to handle what they're doing, because the CBA underestimated some teams' willingness to consistently pay 110% taxes on the Tanner Scotts of the world in pursuit of a super team.

Does anyone defending the current situation think it's good for the sport? Why?
 

8slim

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There isn't enough of a talent base to sustain multiple teams electing to ignore financial disincentives as LA has been doing the last couple years, no. They've bought or traded for/extended a full rotation of #1s in the last 14 months. There just aren't a hundred more of those guys lying around for everyone to have a crack at.

This is not me being mad at LA or whining it's not fair to Boston, I'm saying the system was not designed to handle what they're doing, because the CBA underestimated some teams' willingness to consistently pay 110% taxes on the Tanner Scotts of the world in pursuit of a super team.

Does anyone defending the current situation think it's good for the sport? Why?
Gotcha. Thanks for explaining your POV.

Like I said upthread, I’d prefer MLB spend its time figuring out how to improve its boring, homogenous on-field product first and foremost.
 

simplicio

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 11, 2012
10,020
Gotcha. Thanks for explaining your POV.

Like I said upthread, I’d prefer MLB spend its time figuring out how to improve its boring, homogenous on-field product first and foremost.
Why not both?

I thought the pace of play changes last year were great though, along with killing the shift and more steals from the new bases. I'm curious what you're still finding lacking, but maybe that's another thread.
 

Max Power

thai good. you like shirt?
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2005
9,026
Boston, MA
Why not both?

I thought the pace of play changes last year were great though, along with killing the shift and more steals from the new bases. I'm curious what you're still finding lacking, but maybe that's another thread.
Every team is working from the same data and hires similar armies of nerds to break it down. As a result, every team builds their roster and plays the game pretty much the same way. I know you can't put the genie back in the bottle, but it was a more entertaining game when there were different styles of play in the league.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

has fancy plans, and pants to match
Dope
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2001
25,846
There isn't enough of a talent base to sustain multiple teams electing to ignore financial disincentives as LA has been doing the last couple years, no. They've bought or traded for/extended a full rotation of #1s in the last 14 months. There just aren't a hundred more of those guys lying around for everyone to have a crack at.

This is not me being mad at LA or whining it's not fair to Boston, I'm saying the system was not designed to handle what they're doing, because the CBA underestimated some teams' willingness to consistently pay 110% taxes on the Tanner Scotts of the world in pursuit of a super team.

Does anyone defending the current situation think it's good for the sport? Why?
Do you think this is a new “problem”? This has been MLB’s (and all of sports, really) MO since 1901.

It took the Phillies 100 years to win a World Series because for the better part of a century they weren’t just bad, they outright sucked. The Braves won three Word Series in 125+ season because they were just as awful. The Dodgers didn’t win a World Series until 1955. The Cubs, famously didn’t win a World Series for almost 110 years. The Reds weren’t great either.

In the National League, the Giants, Cardinals and Pirates were the only teams that were better than decent decade in and decade out until the 1970s.

In the AL it was pretty much the Yankees and every few years another team would sneak into the Series if syphilis broke out in the Bronx. From the Red Sox to the A’s to the Browns, teams would just sell their players to New York.

Ironically, baseball’s “golden age” wasn’t great for a vast majority of the 16 clubs. That was when it was problem. When some baseball teams were owned by sorta rich families and others were owned by really fucking rich families.

Today every team is playing on a much more equal footing. The problem isn’t that the Dodgers are rich. The problem is that most clubs (including the Red Sox) aren’t spending nearly as much despite having the money to do so.

Whether that’s being cheap or being frugal, excuse me financially prudent, you make the call. But it’s weird that the Sox have decided not to spend money for six offseasons and the ones that do are “crazy” or “bad for baseball”.

This thinking is hypocritical at best and abject whining at worst.
 

8slim

has trust issues
SoSH Member
Nov 6, 2001
28,987
Unreal America
Every team is working from the same data and hires similar armies of nerds to break it down. As a result, every team builds their roster and plays the game pretty much the same way. I know you can't put the genie back in the bottle, but it was a more entertaining game when there were different styles of play in the league.
Bingo. You got it. I’d never thought I’d say this, but the pervasiveness of analytics has caused tremendous harm to the game. Everything is a vast sea of sameness.
 

allmanbro

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 19, 2005
398
Portland, Maine
I am not really all that affronted by what the dodgers are doing, but I've been thinking about something like this for a while. I really hate a salary cap, because that's a huge win for the owners over the players. My "don't expect this to ever happen, but it's not impossible" plan has four main parts:

1) Replace revenue sharing with a tax or buy-in that each team pays based on the population/wealth/economy of the market that they get territorial rights over. MLB has an antitrust exemption, teams should have to pay handsomely for monopolistic rights over a market like LA (or NY). So they pay based on that rather than revenue. If you have good revenue in a small market, good for you! If you have bad revenue in a big market, sell the team to someone competent (LAAA).

2) Instead of direct payments, the sharing part comes as subsidies for contracts. Make 4-5 tiers that get different percentages based on market size, and then distinguish full FA signings from pre-FA extensions. So, say, a small market team has 10% of any FA contracts they sign paid by the league, and if they extend a new call-up, the league pays 25%. The actual numbers would need to be carefully considered, but something like that. (I've considered whether the extension bonus is only available to the team a player debuted for, so it is more clearly about teams being able to keep homegrown stars - but Glasnow type trades usually have the guy going from a smaller to a bigger market team, so maybe it wouldn't matter much).

3) Raise the minimum MLB salary a ton to something like $3 million. Enough for a substantial shift in the percentage of payrolls that go to FAs vs pre-FAs. And shorten control, so, for example, any rookie makes $3mill, then 4, then 5, then hits free agency. This is basically a salary floor. Plus, if there are more free agents to be had, at younger ages, with less money for them (because more is going to the cheapest players) it gets easier for small/mid market teams to get in the market.

4) You can keep the current "soft cap" system, with mostly (or entirely) financial penalties, if you want. Just no hard cap.
 

mikeford

woolwich!
SoSH Member
Aug 6, 2006
30,985
St John's, NL
The Dodgers are annoying and should be deleted from the league.

But the most pressing problem in baseball to me is still the free agency period that has been fucked up since the last CBA was signed. Your just below elite tier guys now just sit in free agent purgatory, sometimes until after the actual season has started! All because no one wants to surrender a draft pick for a dude who got a qualifying offer and turned it down. I don't know what the answer is. I'm tempted to say just remove that provision from the QOs or just remove the concept of the QO entirely but that probably has annoying knock-on effects I haven't bothered to consider.

But MLB free agency now completely sucks and is a bore and thats not JUST because the Red Sox never do anything during it. Spring training starts in like 3 weeks, why isn't Alex Bregman on a team? Jack Flaherty? etc.
 

bringbackburks

New Member
Jul 21, 2005
76
Baseball doesn't need 'fixing' to increase engagement. Both youth baseball numbers and league wide revenue is higher than ever. (The fact that the Dodgers are cracking a 400 million dollar a year payroll is pretty good evidence that the money is there) If the problem is a team that apparently is not bound by the same economic constraints then there's only two solutions- incentivize them to spend less on players or incentivize other teams to spend more. I think the most effective way to bring the Dodgers slightly back to the rest of the league is small movements on both sides. I would continue to increase the penalties by adding additional luxury tax tiers that makes it more and more expensive to go excessively over the initial threshold. I would also change the criteria for the distribution of that money. As I understand it, the portion of the collected luxury tax that goes to teams is earmarked for revenue sharing eligible teams that increase their local revenue. While I think it's fine to incentivize growing local revenue, I would make the criteria growth of payroll, rather than revenue. This would encourage smaller revenue clubs to spend more (they really shouldn't need an incentive to grown local revenue) and at the same time make it slightly harder to go way over the luxury tax.
 

Max Power

thai good. you like shirt?
SoSH Member
Jul 20, 2005
9,026
Boston, MA
Bingo. You got it. I’d never thought I’d say this, but the pervasiveness of analytics has caused tremendous harm to the game. Everything is a vast sea of sameness.
The old guys sitting around 25 years ago scratching their balls and complaining about how the stat guys were ruining the game were kind of right.