2025-2026 offseason thread

Untangling the current system will be hard but you can give teams 3-5 years to get under cap while still paying tax penalties until they do. And 1-2 years for teams to get over the floor.
 
The owners need to also concede the whole players control and arb crap. Guys should sign contracts when drafted. Or something likethat
Certainly 6 yrs of control is a bit much. Especially for college drafted players. Many of them won't be eligible for their first FA contract until after they turn 30, which is ridiculous.

Also, I think arbitration eligibility should be forfeited if a player is released from the team that drafted/signed them. Someone like Grant Holmes should not be forced to have 6 years of team control and to go through arbitration. He's 29 and on his 3rd team. If he were a FA right now, he wouldn't get a huge deal or anything, but he would absolutely make more than the league minimum he's currently getting paid.
 
If there’s really a demand for a salary cap, QO penalties and team control are big trade chips to work from. At least 27 teams should be in favor of a cap, and every player should be in favor of removing QO penalties and some team control.

The issue has always been that so many of the current players have finished their team control years that an improvement there wouldn’t impact them.
 
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.
Don't even let them do that much. Let them defer money if it makes sense for the player or for current cash flow, but make the AAV of the contract count towards whatever luxury tax or cap structure they settle upon in negotiations.
 
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.

Uneven playing field has nothing to do with an agreement between the players and owners. That disagreement is between the owners. As long as the players and owners agree with the percentage of money going to players, there’s no need for a protracted labor dispute.

The MLBPA does not care about who pays the players, only that they are paid. If the owners care about who gets to pay star players they can argue amongst themselves. I’m guessing owners are making so much money they don’t care about “parity”. That’s mostly a fan talking point, and labor disputes aren’t fought over fan perception.
 
Saw on twitter that supposedly AA is saying that Sale, Strider, Lopez, and Holmes are 4 of the teams 5 starters going into the season. There being an open competition for the 5th spot.....

If that is the case, this is a MASSIVE fail on his part.
 
this weakens the BP and pretty much locks in that Holmes and Lopez will be out by the second half..

then the boot lickers will say, you can't injury proof the whole staff... Elder/Waldrep/any inning eater should be starting with both Holmes and Lopez in the pen to reduce their work load.
 
Don't even let them do that much. Let them defer money if it makes sense for the player or for current cash flow, but make the AAV of the contract count towards whatever luxury tax or cap structure they settle upon in negotiations.
I get where you’re coming from but im not totally against using deferred money to manage a roster there just needs to be limits. I’m more interested in preventing and coming down hard on Ohtani type deferrals rather than preventing players from getting a little more in FA or from teams being able to handle a Rendon type situation to make their roster more competitive.
 
this weakens the BP and pretty much locks in that Holmes and Lopez will be out by the second half..

then the boot lickers will say, you can't injury proof the whole staff... Elder/Waldrep/any inning eater should be starting with both Holmes and Lopez in the pen to reduce their work load.

Lopez and Holmes in the bullpen would have been ideal and made our bullpen elite.

I would have been okay with a Giolito/Buehler signing to go along with Waldrep/Fuentes/Elder/etc. competing for the final spot. But we are doubling down on this rotation giving us a fighting chance in the playoffs. Not going to happen. Since AA has been here, the rotation has been the weakest point of the team
 
As long as the players and owners agree with the percentage of money going to players, there’s no need for a protracted labor dispute.
100% agreed

Every other sport achieves this via a cap structure and the revenue split is agreed about in collective bargaining.

I am genuinely asking this out of curiosity. How do you accomplish guaranteeing a revenue split without a cap structure?
 
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