2025-2026 offseason thread

Dude killed the Braves in 22 if I remember.. somehow catching everything hit his way and getting like 47 RBI's.

Hell, it might have been 23.. maybe booth. He sucked unless it was against the Braves.
 
Last edited:
It doesn’t need to mean players make less money, but that’s clearly the owners’ intention here.
I have no doubt that’s their intent. They of course are negotiating with their own best interests at heart. But if the players position is no salary cap structure vs the owners version of a salary cap, then I’m going to side with the owners version.

If the players want to offer an alternative salary cup structure that’s player friendly (ie higher revenue split) then I’ll support that. I’m going to take the side that leads to more parity
 
The MLBPA cares about players getting huge contracts. The owners care about their team values going up. Neither of those things require any sort of salary cap, or floor. Neither side cares about “parity”.

I think the narrative this labor dispute will be drawn out is way overblown.
 
I think he's trying to work a trade but it's gonna be hard this close to ST. I doubt he ever had interest in Bassitt if the financial numbers are real.
I won’t belabor the point that he shouldn’t have committed so much money to two closers when he openly acknowledged he needed another starter if that was actually an issue, but I don’t care how hard it is. He needs to get it done.
 
Player’s Association is at real risk of losing the PR war. Every baseball fan I know is disgusted with the payroll disparity (both at the top and bottom end).

A salary cap system doesn’t need to mean players make less money. Align on the revenue split and peg the cap and floor accordingly.
Pretty much does mean that.
 
Even hypothetically speaking, salary cap is a complete nonstarter unless it pegged to a specific percentage of league revenues equal to or greater than what the players get currently. That is only feasible if owners all open their books to such a degree that MLBPA can’t argue that they are playing games with the numbers. I am fairly doubtful about how eager the MLB owners are to do that.
 
Player’s Association is at real risk of losing the PR war. Every baseball fan I know is disgusted with the payroll disparity (both at the top and bottom end).

A salary cap system doesn’t need to mean players make less money. Align on the revenue split and peg the cap and floor accordingly.

Crazy conspiracy theory. MLB has been funneling money to the Dodgers to sign players for several years in preparation for this collective bargaining agreement. By throwing the economics of baseball out of balance they hope to get a salary cap in place. They hope the current system making over half the league have no hope of winning will get players worried about baseball's health.
 
If nothing else the current luxury tax penalties need to be made far more severe. Spending at the Dodgers level needs to be franchise crippling. A Glutton Tax along the lines of teams with payrolls over 350 million for multiple years will have their full payroll taxed at a 200% rate and will also be penalized with a loss of their top 3 draft picks and associated funds an International Bonus Pool cut by 90% and will neither be allowed to offer a QO or sign players with a QO for every year they are over the threshold.
 
Also make it so that while teams can defer money a team can only reduce their luxury tax calculation by 20 million a year using deferrals. All other deferred money will be calculated as if it was paid on standard per year pay schedule.
 
If nothing else the current luxury tax penalties need to be made far more severe. Spending at the Dodgers level needs to be franchise crippling. A Glutton Tax along the lines of teams with payrolls over 350 million for multiple years will have their full payroll taxed at a 200% rate and will also be penalized with a loss of their top 3 draft picks and associated funds an International Bonus Pool cut by 90% and will neither be allowed to offer a QO or sign players with a QO for every year they are over the threshold.
Actually 350 million is too much of a hard cap. Make the Glutton Tax = (Luxury Tax 4 + (Luxury Tax 4 - Luxury Tax 1)) in consecutive years
 
The MLBPA cares about players getting huge contracts. The owners care about their team values going up. Neither of those things require any sort of salary cap, or floor. Neither side cares about “parity”.

I think the narrative this labor dispute will be drawn out is way overblown.
And you can't even say the sport is in trouble, because fans continue to show up and attendence is strong. I just don't believe there is any vision for the long term health of the game though. This type of uneven playing field doesn't seem sustainable. It's only been made worse since the collapse or the RSNs.
 
a fair salary cap is not going to penalize super stars. They will just get paid by other teams instead of one team horsing them all. A salary floor helps the bob smiths of the game. The players don’t care about the bob smiths. They only want to protect the elite players. But those guys will still make significantly more than the bobs. The canners to be high and based on league revenue and the floor needs to be also high 150+ at least
 
Imo any salary cap should give a lower cap tp the Dodgers/Mets/Yankees since spending doesnt equal winning. Let them prove it by winning with the disadvantage they claim doesnt matter.
 
Back
Top