Originally Posted by
jpx7
I don't much disagree with you; but, at the same time, in my view, "winning" isn't the telos of sports, entertainment is—with "winning" just happening to be a substantial, but not total, component of entertainment. So for me there is value in getting to watch a guy like Albert Pujols chase legendary thresholds, even if the stats say he's been grinding along as a negative-value player the past year-plus (and even longer if you factor in salary). And I think it'd be a shame if we lose that aspect of the game.
But I don't think we will. Instead, what I think you'll eventually see is some sort of dramatic restructuring of the compensation system, so pre-FA (and especially pre-arb) guys aren't dramatically underpaid relative to production, which I think will thus shift the onus away from overpaying for post-FA (and often decline-phase) production. Then you'll see guys like Pujols paid for what their milestone chasing is actually worth, from an entertainment-value standpoint, as opposed to what they deserved when they were putting up 45 war in their first six seasons and being dramatically uncompensated for it.