Of course there is a finite pool of resources.
Every company budgets to ensure that they are profitable and can continue to grow.
Official CBA Negotiation Thread
- Thread starter bravesfanforlife88
- Start date
Of course there is a finite pool of resources.
Every company budgets to ensure that they are profitable and can continue to grow.
Because they know its something that wouldn't gain any traction. But I think if the players were truly serious about those criminally underpaid they should also care about those that are criminally overpaid and taking away resources from those that 'deserve' it.
DirkPiggler
Well-known member
I somewhat disagree. There is always a finite pool of labor funding...by percentage of revenue. At least that's how the two sides should view it.
Which gets into another question I have for the players' side. Suppose the two sides agree that player salaries will be a fixed percentage of revenues each year, with the difference between contracted salaries and the percentage being paid out as bonuses to pre-arb players. That seems reasonable to me. But would the players be willing to give back part of their pay in the event that revenue declines, such as in the pandemic year?
In your business or mine, if revenue declines, we have the option of cutting staff to meet our budgets. MLB can't do that. They can't arbitrarily cut rosters from 26 back to 25 or 24 if revenue doesn't meet projections. Their only recourse under the current system is to cut the middle-tier older players...high salary players on guaranteed contracts aren't going anywhere, and cutting back pre-arb players doesn't solve anything.
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Russ2dollas
10 yr, $185 million Extension
Yes but what is your budget based on? Your profit margin on Coca Cola is not your profit margin on a hospital.
Teams are capping how much they will pay. I'm only counting baseball revenue as money made during a baseball game. I'm taking out all of my investments, my bad decisions on administration, my sexual harrasment settlements, etc. I'm not counting my parking revenues, my real estate around the stadium that only exists because of baseball, my event revenue when the stadium in not in use etc.
And then of that "revenue" what percentage goes to the players? When do you invest in your product to grow the product?
If the CBT grew at the same rate as revenues it would be 297 million pre covid. It is 206.
The pool is not finite. That is communist thinking. The pool is growing. Owners just aren't willing to share or spend it with the product that makes the revenue.
Russ2dollas
10 yr, $185 million Extension
see pool below. It is not finite. The pool should grow.
The point is the funding is NOT growing with revenues.
You can't agree on a revenue sharing process when the owners refuse to share their books.
I would 100% support a process that is based off of revenues. It the owners will be honest about the revenues and expenses and then split the profits 50/50, that would be great. But they don't want to do that. They want to hold down labor costs and pocket the gains. Then if there is a problem (COVID best example) they want to cry poverty and ask for everyone else to help them.
The pool is absolutely finite on an annual basis because that is how a business is ran. I mean - I suppose if an owner wanted they could spend 200% of their revenue but they'd lose their team real fast from being bankrupt.
I don't get whats the issue with CBT. It impacts a handful of teams and there aren't a series of others that are knocking on the door spending in that area. Its because those teams can't and stay profitable.
What about what the players are making on their non-baseball deals?
Should that be considered part of the revenue pool to allocate?
Hudson2
Well-known member
The mention the Covid year in which players still got paid but there were no fans so the owners lost out big time in that season. As for the rookies coming up there could be a performance based deal where the better they play the more they get early on.
The value of these clubs have gone up exponentially over the last couple of decades. So it isn't as simple as profit margins either.
That one side also profited greatly on the backs of that same talent when they were dirt cheap. You can't bitch and moan about bad contracts when you're paying guys like Vlad Guerrero Jr. 550k.
I don't know what restrictions owners may be under to use their franchise as collateral for a loan so I won't speak to that.
Part of the reason the franchises are worth more, other than regular inflation, is that they have been run well as a partnership with all other franchises. Marketing spend / Youth involvement / Focus gropus / etc....
They are benefitting from their management of the business. Top end players are making stupid money now and a lot of those contracts end up being trash for the team and huge drains.
Just make it like football so a young player can demand a contract earlier and that you have to perform to ensure your future earnings are realized.
That's one of the big negotiating points right now.
They are trying to set a pre-arbitration pool for the top 30 pre-arb players based on WAR, and awards voting like mvp and cy young. So the top really young players have a chance to earn extra based on performance. Right now I believe the owners are offering 30 million for the pool while the MLBPA wants 85 million.
To me, that's a bigger deal than the CBT being raised. The MLBPA has pretty much already won on the minimum salary being raised. If this was like the NFL where virtually every team is hitting the limit on payroll then I could understand being adamant about the CBT being raised to what they want. But that's not the case. A salary floor would be much more beneficial to them. The pre-arb pool though addresses a big issue with young players being paid essentially peanuts for what could be some of their best years. I support a much larger pool than the 30 million.
Even in the NFL, players tend to be drastically underpaid during the time when they are worth the most. Most players are under their rookie contracts during their prime seasons. And if you are drafted outside of the first 2 rounds, you're not making much more than an MLB player over the same first 4 years of your career.
Make it a larger pool but also implement a mechanism for voiding contracts for severely underperforming players. Imagine giving the cumulative contracts of Pujols/C Davis and allocating that amongst the top 20 young players?
Or imagine having a future HOFer under team control for 6 years paying him barely 30 million dollars over that time frame? Even some sort of pre-arb pool would likely barely him 50-60 million max over what is likely his best years of his career.
I'm 100% in favor of paying the young guys more.
The problem is that the owners aren't. Even in the NFL, that was a critical part of the CBA in the early 2010's. They were paying rookies who hadn't played a down an exorbitant amount of money while aging vets were not seeing an increase in salary. So the aging vets made the decision to allow a rookie cap so that the vets could get more in FA.
Good, young, cheap players are the cash cows of these owners. And they will fight tooth and nail to keep that.
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I think if the MLBPA was smart they'd offer some form of hedge against bad contracts for ageing players but the people the run the union (the best/highest paid players) WOULD NEVER ALLOW THAT.
But that isn't smart at all. For one, there is no guarantee the owners will use that saved money. Secondly, the players would be risking their own money. Why would you agree to a deal that stands for you to lose money? Even if you're making a little more now, you are giving up more money later.
Lastly, there is currently nothing stopping owners from spending that money now, rather than paying aging vets later. Sign all your young talent to long term contracts at cheaper rates through their prime years. The problem is, they don't want to do that, because it's riskier and because having a ton of cheap talent is the best way to win.