THE GORILLA IN THE ROOM

[Mark76]

I am not sure who to blame but I think everyone agrees Manfred is the worst. I would like to see him gone.

 

[swish54_99]

Pirates had a couple decent teams in the early 90s, but regardless your point is extremely valid. There are some teams that don't seem to be overly concerned with putting a winner on the field. They are content with putting together a lousy product under the guise of a rebuild because history shows fans will still show up and the owners will make a profit. In other cases some teams are actually trying and due to injuries, poor decisions or just plain bad luck they are consistently bad.
Right now I hate both sides, but at the very least I feel the players all generally want the same things, the owners however are certainly divided on the direction they want to go which I agree is not helping matters.
I have two ideas that I've heard from various places that I love the idea of but doubt they will ever happen 1- make a salary floor for teams, your payroll can't be beneath X number. 2- as far as the draft is concerned, the team with the best record to miss the playoffs gets first pick in the draft. First round or two could be different. Let's say they settle on 12 teams in the playoffs. So teams 13-30 draft in order best to worst then work in the playoff teams. Then after a round or two do plain old reverse order or whatever. Teams out of contention might scrap a lot harder for positioning in a system similar to that.

That's an interesting draft proposal. Out of the box thinking, I like it! I had heard another way and thought it was interesting too....The top 4 worst teams do a best of 3 bracket style to determine the seeding. They could play during the first round of the playoffs, at like noon, so they don't play when the actual playoffs are playing.

 

[gt2590]

Things are rough enough and the players are ticked enough that the usually quiet, non-controversial Trout has spoken out…

 

[WizardofOz1982]

Things are rough enough and the players are ticked enough that the usually quiet, non-controversial Trout has spoken out…

Lots of guys who have historically been quiet types are speaking up. That says a lot to me.

Pirates had a couple decent teams in the early 90s, but regardless your point is extremely valid. There are some teams that don't seem to be overly concerned with putting a winner on the field. They are content with putting together a lousy product under the guise of a rebuild because history shows fans will still show up and the owners will make a profit. In other cases some teams are actually trying and due to injuries, poor decisions or just plain bad luck they are consistently bad.
Right now I hate both sides, but at the very least I feel the players all generally want the same things, the owners however are certainly divided on the direction they want to go which I agree is not helping matters.
I have two ideas that I've heard from various places that I love the idea of but doubt they will ever happen 1- make a salary floor for teams, your payroll can't be beneath X number. 2- as far as the draft is concerned, the team with the best record to miss the playoffs gets first pick in the draft. First round or two could be different. Let's say they settle on 12 teams in the playoffs. So teams 13-30 draft in order best to worst then work in the playoff teams. Then after a round or two do plain old reverse order or whatever. Teams out of contention might scrap a lot harder for positioning in a system similar to that.

The players have tried to put a salary floor in their proposal several times in conjunction with the cap the owners want but the owners haven't been receptive. If they follow the model of the NBA or NFL caps, that the owners have touted as so successful, then the floor would be 89% or 90% respectively. The owners have proposed a 220 million cap to start with and slowly going up. That would mean teams would have a salary floor of $195.8-198 million. I can't ever see the owner's approving a floor that's over 10x the Marlins 26 man roster payroll last year. Only 4 teams in baseball would have been above the salary floor in 2021 if that was the case. I've seen the idea of a $100 million floor thrown around but even that is $20 million under the revenue sharing check that each team has gotten the last five years (2020 prorated of course).

Even if the players were dumb enough to let the owners set it at 50% of the cap, only 11 of 30 teams would have been above that floor last year. Baseball revenues are at an all time high but player salaries have decreased almost 10% over the last 5 years. I don't blame the players for wanting a bigger piece of the pie.

The draft lottery idea is interesting but I honestly think just putting in a spending floor would solve most of the issue because it makes tanking much more difficult.

 

[joey12508]

no matter how this works out the owners win in the end. hockey went out twice players lost big time.
the games that are missed wont be made up. i feel if the players dont meet what the owners want, its a loss for the players. not taking sides, it just plain sucks.

 

[bstanwood]

In sort of a "lose-lose" situation they could approach the cap/floor situation like this, cap- just like they do now, luxury tax but none of the convoluted only pay if your over it multiple years. If the line is set at 220 and you are over this year you get taxed. Floor, there is no hard salary floor but if you don't spend X amount on salaries for your roster you don't get your revenue sharing check. Essentially there is no cap or floor, but there's consequences for spending too much or not enough.

 

[joey12508]

Jeff Passan had a report today that MLB owners are angling for a 48-game season

 

[WizardofOz1982]

In sort of a "lose-lose" situation they could approach the cap/floor situation like this, cap- just like they do now, luxury tax but none of the convoluted only pay if your over it multiple years. If the line is set at 220 and you are over this year you get taxed. Floor, there is no hard salary floor but if you don't spend X amount on salaries for your roster you don't get your revenue sharing check. Essentially there is no cap or floor, but there's consequences for spending too much or not enough.

That makes sense to us as fans and honestly seems equitable to both sides but I don't know that either players or owners would go for that at this point. Honestly I doubt the players would have at any point.

The owners, or at least a subset of them, seem determined to be able to keep baseball as a cash cow for their ownership groups and the rest of the owners are already willing enough to pay salaries that neither proposal would affect them much unless it was an 89% of cap floor situation. The players seem pretty committed to a hard salary floor of at least the value of revenue sharing every year.

 

[bstanwood]

That makes sense to us as fans and honestly seems equitable to both sides but I don't know that either players or owners would go for that at this point. Honestly I doubt the players would have at any point.

The owners, or at least a subset of them, seem determined to be able to keep baseball as a cash cow for their ownership groups and the rest of the owners are already willing enough to pay salaries that neither proposal would affect them much unless it was an 89% of cap floor situation. The players seem pretty committed to a hard salary floor of at least the value of revenue sharing every year.

Yup, that's why I called it a lose lose, because to people on the outside it seems like a fair compromise but both sides inside would hate it.
To your point about the owners we forget that almost all owners in all sports are business people first, yes this is a game, entertainment for the masses but to them it's an investment so to that end they typically want to spend the least amount of money while bringing in the most. Yes to some degree you may argue a winning team will make more money but the cost benefit analysis of spending more to *possibly* make more might not be worth it to some owners, and that's where it sucks to be a fan of a team with an ownership like that.

 

[nosterbor]

So, both sides will not budge. Instead of a quick compromise to get back to playing baseball so the fans can get their minds off of a possibility of WW3 and getting nuked by vlad the nuker. They are worried about money. What the hell good is money if everyone and everything gets vaporized? Sad very sad.

 

[WizardofOz1982]

Yup, that's why I called it a lose lose, because to people on the outside it seems like a fair compromise but both sides inside would hate it.
To your point about the owners we forget that almost all owners in all sports are business people first, yes this is a game, entertainment for the masses but to them it's an investment so to that end they typically want to spend the least amount of money while bringing in the most. Yes to some degree you may argue a winning team will make more money but the cost benefit analysis of spending more to *possibly* make more might not be worth it to some owners, and that's where it sucks to be a fan of a team with an ownership like that.

Absolutely. It also makes teams like the Marlins crying poor pretty pathetic though. Any one who halfway pays attention knows that owning a sports team is one of the safest investments there is. Unless the league disappears it's basically printing money long term. Even a terrible team like the Marlins is worth a billion dollars.

Loria bought the team in 2002 for ~150 million and sold it 15 years later for $1.2 Billion. There are very few investments with that kind of return.

 

[joey12508]

Yada,yada,yada.

MLB canceled more games. But the sides are still talking after international draft rift

Another marathon push to end the lockout has stalled as MLB cancels more games.

sports.yahoo.com

 

[gt2590]

Lockout reportedly over.

Deal agreed to but not ratified.

No details on it yet...

 

[WizardofOz1982]

Should be ratified this afternoon. Full season coming starting April 7th.

 

[swish54_99]

FINALLY!!!

 

[joey12508]

Unlocked: MLB, players strike labor deal that will enable full 2022 baseball season

There will be a baseball season, and a full, 162-game one at that.

sports.yahoo.com

 

[dano7]

Love that the DH (will be playing the same game in both leagues0 and that they did away with the runner on second for extra innings (no softball rules)

 

[MrMet2.0]

So it’s a universal DH? Not a fan, but figured it was coming…

What other rules did they add or take away this year (I saw the 9inning double headers and no more runner on second rule)


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[joey12508]

So it’s a universal DH? Not a fan, but figured it was coming…

What other rules did they add or take away this year (I saw the 9inning double headers and no more runner on second rule)


Sent from my iPhone using Freedom Card Board mobile app

batting order will be done in alphabetical order,service dogs allowed. friday is dress down day.

 

[MrMet2.0]

batting order will be done in alphabetical order,service dogs allowed. friday is dress down day.

That doesn’t seem right…but I haven’t looked…so I guess it must be


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