Official CBA Negotiation Thread

[striker42]

I think MLB has good parity. We don't have any 3 peats or stuff like that going on.

There are teams that try to win that don't make the playoffs, at least before the stupid expansion.

I don't think MLB has a parity problem as defined by who gets into playoffs and who wins. I think they have a 25% of the league isn't trying problem.

No cap, no floor. Minimum should 1,000,000, making the floor 26 million. Then it should go up to 2,000,000 quickly. If you can't swing a 50million payroll get out.

I think the lack of 3 peats is more a result of how much of a crapshoot the playoffs are in baseball. A dominant 162 game season can be destroyed because a single reliever has a bad inning in a short series.

Baseball's problem is that the current system is set up to favor a few large market teams. There are a lot of small market teams that have to be terrible for a decade to set up a competition window of 2 years. Teams like the Dodgers and Yankees can just spend until they're good. It doesn't guarantee championships (nothing can in baseball) but it usually guarantees they're competitive.

Even if your team sports a $100 million payroll in baseball, you have teams outspending you by 2.5 times. That's a problem.

I think MLB sees expanding the playoffs as addressing it. It doesn't.

[Russ2dollas]

I think the lack of 3 peats is more a result of how much of a crapshoot the playoffs are in baseball. A dominant 162 game season can be destroyed because a single reliever has a bad inning in a short series.

Baseball's problem is that the current system is set up to favor a few large market teams. There are a lot of small market teams that have to be terrible for a decade to set up a competition window of 2 years. Teams like the Dodgers and Yankees can just spend until they're good. It doesn't guarantee championships (nothing can in baseball) but it usually guarantees they're competitive.

Even if your team sports a $100 million payroll in baseball, you have teams outspending you by 2.5 times. That's a problem.

I think MLB sees expanding the playoffs as addressing it. It doesn't.

I can't agree based on facts. The Royals won the WS in 2015. Tampa is in it all of the time. San Francisco has won multiple times without leading the league in payroll. Marlins, Cardinals have won.

Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers have had the top payroll since 2000 and they've won some, but not a million.

Dodgers have been consistently a top team, but that is a combination of money and home grown talent. It's not like their team is all free agents.

Mets, PHillies and Padres have spent a ton and won nothing. PHillies did win if you go back far enough.

A well run team can compete in the 100-150 million range now. That's not crazy given the TV money.

If you do a salary cap it's just more money to the owners. And it won't help. It will be like the NBA. Studs will still get 30+ million. It jsut means each team will have a couple of studs and a bunch of team controlled guys. It will squeeze out all of the young vets.

Baseball is great. They just need to work to make minor tweaks, repackage things for better revenues, market stars, consider expansion.

[McCann'sCans]

I can't agree based on facts. The Royals won the WS in 2015. Tampa is in it all of the time. San Francisco has won multiple times without leading the league in payroll. Marlins, Cardinals have won.

Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers have had the top payroll since 2000 and they've won some, but not a million.

Dodgers have been consistently a top team, but that is a combination of money and home grown talent. It's not like their team is all free agents.

Mets, PHillies and Padres have spent a ton and won nothing. PHillies did win if you go back far enough.

A well run team can compete in the 100-150 million range now. That's not crazy given the TV money.

If you do a salary cap it's just more money to the owners. And it won't help. It will be like the NBA. Studs will still get 30+ million. It jsut means each team will have a couple of studs and a bunch of team controlled guys. It will squeeze out all of the young vets.

Baseball is great. They just need to work to make minor tweaks, repackage things for better revenues, market stars, consider expansion.

To an extent, you're proving his point. The Royals won the WS in 2015 and the only way to pull it off was to be awful for a decade before and awful for a decade after. The Marlins are similar- they were fortunate to win a World Series each of the two times they won 90 games and made the playoffs- in their other 26 seasons they have almost never even sniffed a playoff spot.

San Francisco has had a top 10 and often times top 5 payroll in the league over the past decade, and the Cardinals are typically in the 10-12 range.

Yes, there are some anomalies like the Rays, but the correlation between payroll and winning is extremely strong. The Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers are going to be consistent contenders because they are consistent spenders. The Mets and Padres have continued to get better as they've spent more, and they might now fall in that same category. On the flip side, the Marlins, Pirates, and Royals will continue to largely have records that reflect their willingness to pay for talent.

[striker42]

I can't agree based on facts. The Royals won the WS in 2015. Tampa is in it all of the time. San Francisco has won multiple times without leading the league in payroll. Marlins, Cardinals have won.

Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers have had the top payroll since 2000 and they've won some, but not a million.

Dodgers have been consistently a top team, but that is a combination of money and home grown talent. It's not like their team is all free agents.

Mets, PHillies and Padres have spent a ton and won nothing. PHillies did win if you go back far enough.

A well run team can compete in the 100-150 million range now. That's not crazy given the TV money.

If you do a salary cap it's just more money to the owners. And it won't help. It will be like the NBA. Studs will still get 30+ million. It jsut means each team will have a couple of studs and a bunch of team controlled guys. It will squeeze out all of the young vets.

Baseball is great. They just need to work to make minor tweaks, repackage things for better revenues, market stars, consider expansion.

McCann'sCans covered most of this so I wont go over his points again.

A couple things though, a salary cap doesn't necessarily mean more money to the owners. You can figure out ways to make it work. A salary floor would offset a lot of it. Revenue sharing could offset some as well. Getting to the endpoint of the same amount of money going to the players wouldn't be the difficult part.

Also, baseball wouldn't become the NBA model because the NBA is so fundamentally different. One stud on a basketball team can turn it around. There are times where there's no better investment than paying a super-elite player. In baseball it doesn't make sense to do that. It's better to have 3 players that give you 2 WAR than one player that gives you 5 WAR and two replacement level players.

Also, baseball needs to wake up and realize that Freddie Freeman in Atlanta is worth more to the sport than Freddie Freeman in LA. Fans in Atlanta are already invested in Freeman. Fans in LA are not. When star players leave a team it can burn a lot of goodwill in the fanbase that's being left which will not be offset by increased goodwill from the fanbase they're going to. That's not good for the sport. The same is true of a lot of other stud players that have left other teams via free agency.

An elite free agent going to a new team should be the exception rather than the rule.

[Russ2dollas]

To an extent, you're proving his point. The Royals won the WS in 2015 and the only way to pull it off was to be awful for a decade before and awful for a decade after. The Marlins are similar- they were fortunate to win a World Series each of the two times they won 90 games and made the playoffs- in their other 26 seasons they have almost never even sniffed a playoff spot.

San Francisco has had a top 10 and often times top 5 payroll in the league over the past decade, and the Cardinals are typically in the 10-12 range.

Yes, there are some anomalies like the Rays, but the correlation between payroll and winning is extremely strong. The Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers are going to be consistent contenders because they are consistent spenders. The Mets and Padres have continued to get better as they've spent more, and they might now fall in that same category. On the flip side, the Marlins, Pirates, and Royals will continue to largely have records that reflect their willingness to pay for talent.

The reason they were bad is not because they could not compete. It's because they choose not to.
If you as a team are getting 100-110 million a year in revenue sharing and you are running a sub 100 million payroll....who's fault is that?

A top 10 payroll isn't that much money. This year you'd jump over that astros at 150 million. You can't pay that? 110 million in revenue sharing. All of the game revenue, advertisements, etc?

Yes the correlation between payroll and winning is strong. But I contend that is b/c the people not paying are not trying.

[Russ2dollas]

A salary gap does mean more money for the owners. It has for all time.

There is an argument that a floor/cap based on revenue would force both sides to partner to grow the game. I've made that argument. But the issues are the owners are not transparent about the revenue and all of its forms. And b/c you have a floor, does not meant you have to have a ceiling.

I just disagree the Dodgers, Mets and Yankees are the problem. Why blame them and not blame Cleveland for having a payroll under 30 million?

Disagree on the NBA point. I still think with a cap that Acuna is going to get 40 million. Bc the analytics are still going to say that having a 5+ WAR guy is the most important thing. And if that means you can only have a team of minimum guys you will. Especially in the setting of expanded playoffs. You need stars to try and limit variability in small sample sizes. Your example of 3 x 2 WAR guys won't work b/c young guys can provide 1 WAR for free.

FF leaving Atlanta is not about a salary cap. FF and/or his agents tried to gouge the Braves b/c they didn't think they had the balls to say no. If he acted like Chipper and just 90% of the money he thought he'd get as a FA it would be done.

[NYCBrave]

This is certainly an interesting conversation. I always find one aspect that gets overlooked is how much an organization is spending on all other aspects of the organization. For example, player development. When was the last time the Pirates even developed a good player? Certain teams like the Dodgers and Yankees seem to understand what it takes, but it's probably not cheap to get to that point, by employing whoever they need to in order to facilitate. Another aspect is how some of these teams have tons of "assistant GM's", who also don't come cheap. So you have payroll, and then you have all of these other expenses that go into an organization. I'm sure teams like the Dodgers and Yankees are top spenders in both aspects. But my point is, it just proves that the gap between the Pirates and Dodgers is even wider than just indicated by payroll.

[Russ2dollas]

This is certainly an interesting conversation. I always find one aspect that gets overlooked is how much an organization is spending on all other aspects of the organization. For example, player development. When was the last time the Pirates even developed a good player? Certain teams like the Dodgers and Yankees seem to understand what it takes, but it's probably not cheap to get to that point, by employing whoever they need to in order to facilitate. Another aspect is how some of these teams have tons of "assistant GM's", who also don't come cheap. So you have payroll, and then you have all of these other expenses that go into an organization. I'm sure teams like the Dodgers and Yankees are top spenders in both aspects. But my point is, it just proves that the gap between the Pirates and Dodgers is even wider than just indicated by payroll.

Great point.

Just have to figure it out. No idea if this is true but there are some sites saying avg MLB team makes 4 million a game from tickets plus other stuff.

81 home games x 2 million to make it low end. 162 million.

110 million for revenue sharing: 273 million.

So if you have a 150 million dollar payroll and spend another 100 million on coaches, front office, development, scouting, international free agents, etc.....You'd still have 23 million dollar profit as the owner. Plus all the merchandise you sell on line and any other activities you have (restaurants around the stadium, concerts at the stadium, etc).

[NYCBrave]

Great point.

Just have to figure it out. No idea if this is true but there are some sites saying avg MLB team makes 4 million a game from tickets plus other stuff.

81 home games x 2 million to make it low end. 162 million.

110 million for revenue sharing: 273 million.

So if you have a 150 million dollar payroll and spend another 100 million on coaches, front office, development, scouting, international free agents, etc.....You'd still have 23 million dollar profit as the owner. Plus all the merchandise you sell on line and any other activities you have (restaurants around the stadium, concerts at the stadium, etc).

Is that 4 mil a game gross or pure profit? Because don't forget, it's very expensive to operate a stadium and also staff it. Plus many of the teams around the league are in debt from having to still pay off their stadiums. Alot of factors we will never have insight into since owners refuse to make their financials public (which I'm sure there is a reason for)

[clvclv]

Great point.

Just have to figure it out. No idea if this is true but there are some sites saying avg MLB team makes 4 million a game from tickets plus other stuff.

81 home games x 2 million to make it low end. 162 million.

110 million for revenue sharing: 273 million.

So if you have a 150 million dollar payroll and spend another 100 million on coaches, front office, development, scouting, international free agents, etc.....You'd still have 23 million dollar profit as the owner. Plus all the merchandise you sell on line and any other activities you have (restaurants around the stadium, concerts at the stadium, etc).

Right.

Because Georgia Power supplies the utilities at the park and in the team offices for free, Delta flies the team and its equipment all over the country as a favor, bus services in all the other cities are happy to shuttle teams back and forth from their hotels to the parks in those cities for the opportunity to meet the players, the hotels enjoy comping all the rooms because they like being known as the place MLB teams stay (and their housekeepers clean all the rooms for free because they love looking at all the cute young guys), team doctors and their staffs are just kind-hearted people with nothing better to do with their time off from their other jobs than treating big kids when they scuff their knees playing outside, and so on.

That doesn't even begin to get into salaries for club executives and their staffs plus health and 401K benefits for them and ANY of the same expenses involved in running multiple minor league teams.

Running a professional franchise is incredibly complicated and expensive - don't kid yourself.

[Southcack77]

I don't care too much about who spends money and who doesn't. Or who puts it in their pockets. Teams are businesses not public trusts.

If every team spent money it would inflate salaries but I doubt it would do much for parity. A cap? Maybe. But there are so many moving parts unlike other sports- development for instance.

I don't particularly care which group gets the money. It's an odd thing to have a rooting interest in but all things considered I'd rather the franchise was healthy than a player get paid. Sorry.

[Russ2dollas]

Right.

Because Georgia Power supplies the utilities at the park and in the team offices for free, Delta flies the team and its equipment all over the country as a favor, bus services in all the other cities are happy to shuttle teams back and forth from their hotels to the parks in those cities for the opportunity to meet the players, the hotels enjoy comping all the rooms because they like being known as the place MLB teams stay (and their housekeepers clean all the rooms for free because they love looking at all the cute young guys), team doctors and their staffs are just kind-hearted people with nothing better to do with their time off from their other jobs than treating big kids when they scuff their knees playing outside, and so on.

That doesn't even begin to get into salaries for club executives and their staffs plus health and 401K benefits for them and ANY of the same expenses involved in running multiple minor league teams.

Running a professional franchise is incredibly complicated and expensive - don't kid yourself.

Everyone knows that.

People act like business is so hard. Spreadsheets do most of this **** for you. I'm in charge of 143-211 million a year in costs business. I get how costs work.

I didn't take the 4 million figure as gospel. I just stated it was out there. And I used 2 million. And I used 100 million for the rest.

The point is that teams with a salary under 100 million are not trying to win. And if they cannot make money they should be out. This talk of a cap is silly when very few team are spending anywhere near what a cap would be. Meanwhile a ton of teams are spending nothing.

I do not get why people carry water for these owners. They have a to of revenue streams. They are now going to get to sell adverts on the players and that is going to be more money. But teams are still have 10% of the league UNDER 40 MILLION. How can you do that, not make money and call yourself a business man?

[clvclv]

Everyone knows that.

People act like business is so hard. Spreadsheets do most of this **** for you. I'm in charge of 143-211 million a year in costs business. I get how costs work.

I didn't take the 4 million figure as gospel. I just stated it was out there. And I used 2 million. And I used 100 million for the rest.

The point is that teams with a salary under 100 million are not trying to win. And if they cannot make money they should be out. This talk of a cap is silly when very few team are spending anywhere near what a cap would be. Meanwhile a ton of teams are spending nothing.

I do not get why people carry water for these owners. They have a to of revenue streams. They are now going to get to sell adverts on the players and that is going to be more money. But teams are still have 10% of the league UNDER 40 MILLION. How can you do that, not make money and call yourself a business man?

The fact that I pointed out that it's a whole lot more complicated than you're making it out to be is so far from "carrying water for the owners" it's comical.

If "spreadsheets do most of this *hit for you", why on earth is your employer paying your salary?

[Russ2dollas]

The fact that I pointed out that it's a whole lot more complicated than you're making it out to be is so far from "carrying water for the owners" it's comical.

If "spreadsheets do most of this *hit for you", why on earth is your employer paying your salary?

Because that's not my job. I have to manage the several hundred employees. I have come up with millions in efficiency savings per year. I have to hire and train new employees. I have to work with customers.

I have software that monitors my budget and productivity.

With the amount of revenue sharing there is no excuse for running a sub 50 million payroll. None.

If people want to argue where the cut off should be, fine. But with 100 million in revenue sharing just from TV, the line isn't 50.

[clvclv]

Because that's not my job. I have to manage the several hundred employees. I have come up with millions in efficiency savings per year. I have to hire and train new employees. I have to work with customers.

I have software that monitors my budget and productivity.

With the amount of revenue sharing there is no excuse for running a sub 50 million payroll. None.

If people want to argue where the cut off should be, fine. But with 100 million in revenue sharing just from TV, the line isn't 50.

I don't think anybody disagrees with that.

Where I think that falls apart on the ownership side is that - as strange as it seems - the haves don't mind subsidizing the have nots in this situation. You can pretty well argue that it's cheaper for the big market teams to continue the current revenue sharing set up as is - without a floor. Their excuse for not significantly raising the salaries for young and 0-3 players was that it would cripple small market teams, but they're giving those small market teams enough money to stay afloat (and in most cases show a little profit) while allowing them to carry bargain basement payrolls. None of them other than the Rays are typically threats to share in postseason revenues, so the big market clubs are able to pay their revenue sharing out of playoff gates without actually having to account for it in their main budget. Yankees ownership can pocket all the ticket/parking/concession revenue from 81 home sell-outs every season and just sign their playoff money over to all the teams they beat up on during the regular season to get that money.

If ALL teams start having to pay market rates for 1-3 win players AND they implement a salary floor the big money clubs will have to start sharing a lot more money with the have nots because those have nots will become more competitive for the services of guys like Duvall/Rosario/Pederson/etc. and there will be a lot fewer of them available as bench pieces/platoon guys for contending clubs. How much more competitive might teams like the Pirates be if they had Rosario/McCutchen/Pederson/Pham on the corners or at 1B, Josh Harrison or Jonathon Villar at an infield spot, and Michael Pineda and Rich Hill in their rotation instead of Bryse Wilson and Mitch Keller?