MLB’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement contains a previously unknown detail that could potentially affect teams that spend heavily, Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper writes. In addition to the luxury tax, the CBA includes two surcharge thresholds that could cost big spenders extra money and that could even lower their top draft picks.
The financial details of the surcharge thresholds were previously known. If a team spends above $217MM in 2018, it will receive an extra 12% tax in addition to the usual 20%, 30% or 50% luxury tax. If a team spends over $237MM, it will receive an extra 42.5% or 45% surcharge tax.
Beginning in 2018, there will be an extra penalty for teams in that second category, Cooper notes. A team that spends above $237MM will also have its top draft pick lowered ten spots, unless that pick is in the top six, in which case the team’s second pick will be lowered ten spots.
As Cooper points out, the new rule could be a significant deterrent to teams hoping to be among baseball’s biggest spenders, since teams are generally quite protective of early-round draft picks. The Dodgers, for example, have had payrolls above $237MM for the past several seasons. Under the new system, they would pay a very significant penalty for spending so heavily. Cooper notes that a $260MM payroll in 2018 would cost the Dodgers over $50MM in luxury tax, plus the lowered draft pick.
Good. Now just have one draft for all players like other sports then we’re talking fair.
No team will care still just continue to dump all their money into free agents and international talent lol
To those who say MLB isn’t a salary cap sport, MLB is a salary cap sport.
With this information, re-assess the Justin Verlander trade possibilities.
Have a great Saturday.
The “cap” is so high that it still leaves a huge difference between your large and small market teams.
The problem has always been the (lack of) revenue sharing, not the need for a cap. It’s getting closer to where it needs to be, but it’s still far behind the other major sports.
So your actually saying that this plan below is not working?….
Under its current iteration, MLB’s revenue sharing program looks something like this:
● Every team in the majors pays in 31% of their net local revenue, and then that money is divided up and equally distributed to every team. Since large-market teams will have much greater local revenues than small market teams, this already puts small market teams in the black.
● On top of this, a large chunk of MLB’s central fund (which are acquired through things like national broadcasts) is set aside to be allocated to teams based on their revenues.
● By 2016, the fifteen teams in the largest markets in baseball will be disqualified from receiving revenue sharing. This feature is being phased in over the coming years. The disqualified clubs will receive a refund for the amount that they would have received in revenue sharing, although teams that have exceeded the Luxury Tax threshold in recent years will not receive a full refund. (MLB.com)
Money in baseball’s central fund including digital media like MLB.tv is distributed equally, not according to team revenue. The Dodgers and Marlins received the same $30 million or so last season.
Still far behind the other major sports?! You realize the point of a salary cap is parity, right? And you also realize that baseball is the best sport at parity? Basketball is an absolute joke, same finals three years and counting, hockey just crowned back to back champs, and football is a joke too. The entire AFC is New England, Denver, Pittsburgh, Baltimore. Sometimes Indy. NFC is better, but AFC usually wins anyway
Each sport has dynasty’s and in the NFL currently it’s arguably the Patriots. The NFL is the one sport where the draft can immediately impact a team,and turn seasons around quickly. An NFL team can indeed go from the bottom rung to the playoffs and the history of the league shows that. With no guaranteed contracts and the cap it turns profits,ratings,interest,and yes parity. Take a look at the percentage of teams in the NFL who’ve made it to the playoffs without extended time periods and MLB teams waiting extended years. There is a reason the NFL is Americas passion,even training camps and the draft get huge ratings.
It’s apples and oranges comparing the NFL to MLB. I roll my eyes every time I see some joker try to do it. There is almost nothing alike or even comparable
In either sport.
Quit watching baseball if you don’t like it. Nobody wants to hear your whining.
Baseball is incredibly profitable without a salary cap. Plenty of baseball teams go from bad to good. And baseball actually takes care of its players with guaranteed contracts. Football has a jokke for a player’s union that does literally nothing to protect its players financially, and notice the complete crickets from the NFLPA after the newest CTE results?
I’m guessing that he’s talking about the obvious differences between the 2 sports not baseball’s inferiority to football. That’s my take anyway.
Parity isn’t about championships. And at least Championship appearances. And AFC hasn’t had parity in an adults lifetime. Seriously go back and look at the last 30 years and those 5 teams are like 34 of those 60 teams in the AFC championship. NFL parity is an absolute lie. It’s awful.
That was supposed to be IS about Championships
The NFL is a business and guaranteed contracts and cap promote parity. MLB teams that you say go from bad do so usually over longer periods of time. Calling out the NFL players union on the CTE issue is true,but guaranteed contracts are difficult due to many factors,one being the average NFL players career in years. The MLPA can also be called out for steroids,and yes I know it’s nothing close to CTE. Financially NFL players have a pension. Just because I bring up these points doesn’t mean I’m not a baseball fan,or am I saying the NFL is better. Whenever someone brings up these different points it’s..stop watching baseball then,or other.
“The NFL is the one sport where the draft can immediately impact a team” You forget about the NBA? Did you see what happened to Cle after they drafted Lebron?
Actually, the biggest factor in parity is players, not payroll. New England is good because of Brady. LeBron has been to 7 straight finals because he’s the best. The Penguins are always in contention because of Crosby. Baseball is different because the best hitters get four chances to affect a game, and the best pitchers either give way to another lesser pitcher in the late stages of the game, or they only come in late in the game if it’s close. Makes it hard for the really good players to make a big impact.
The worst value in sports is the mid tier free agent. Half the production of a superstar, 80% of the price. Baseball is littered with those guys.
Or the Lakers after they drafted the Dodgers part owner.
Few and far between on once in a generation player.
Not really every year another two different teams it seems appears in the playoffs yes it still has a dominant team in the Patriots but to be fair the Patriots happen to have one of the best QB to ever play the game. But this next coming football season we will see a couple of more contenders rise while a couple of teams sink that is called parity.
Actually I would argue that normally the worst deal are Superstars, think about your value and return on large
And backloaded contacts, you essentially only have a window normally in a contract of a couple of years of solid production and the rest of the contract it’s just sunk money, this is why the dodgers have succeeded, they purchased a lot of contracts and have the funding to cut out and continue to eat money while they purchase new contracts, that is a huge difference between the rich teams and poor ones. Poo teams are forced to rebuild rich ones aren’t.
That’s it exactly. You can’t reason with seam heads and unfortunately that’s why Baseball is stuck and has slipped to third in popularity of the major sports.
Bill Belicheck is on line one.
Sports fans watch more then baseball.stfu
Revenue sharing. Baseball’s answer to socialism? Needs more? You have piqued OAK & MIA’s interest.
OAK is getting phased out of revenue sharing iirc
They are in one of the largest TV DMA’s and their TV contract pays them $48 million per year. That is in the top 15 and they should not be receiving revenue sharing according to the CBA.
The problem with revenue sharing is that it deincentivizes teams like the Marlins to actually try. They can be incompetent, put a bad product out, draw few fans, and still make money.
I don’t think increased revenue sharing would solve anything, at least not without causing other problems.
BS. Total BS. The Marlins are run by a weasel of a man that chose to put that money in his pocket instead of on the field. A man that sues season ticket holders after he fails to fulfill his end of the contract. Its an anomaly, not the norm. Most teams that receive revenue sharing spend it on the field.
Here is what should happen, but never will. It’s what all other sports do, but baseball won’t.
ALL teams share their TV/Media revenue 50-50 with the visiting team. The Dodgers or Yankees can’t play a game and earn their massive TV contracts without teams like the Marlins and Rays, so they should have to give half of that revenue to those teams. Then ALL teams should have a minimum active payroll. Since revenue would be much closer to equal, let the teams spend as much as they see fit, but put a floor on player payroll.
I always liked the idea of a pay floor more than a cap. I would like to see one other thing taken from the NBA added to in max contracts. It has become less common recently but because they are guaranteed contracts so it should be limited on the number of years you can be signed for with a max salary .and there would be less “bad contracts”. Limit it to like 5 years for players under 30 and 3 years over 30 to reduce the risks. Sure they could still do extensions but having to resign your players would most likely generate a bigger free agent market and would allow smaller market teams to take more risks on players at their prime age because they don’t have to worry about being locked in for a long period if the player regressed substantially. And with a max salary per year it becomes less which team gives the biggest deal and more about player preferences on where they play.
The players union would never agree to something like this of course.
Why should teams that can draw fans and sell merchandise with teams with crappy fan bases and teams nobody cares about. These teams still don’t spend the money anyway.
What if you have a pick that’s 20-30 would that mean ur first round pick turn into a 2nd ?
Yes
Probably not. Most likely itll kick you to the end of the 1st round and you’ll be positioned by how much over you are.
So what if said team wins it all. Their 1st round pick would then drop past comp round and be #10 of the second round?
Only if they went over $237.
MLB is a cap league as of this morning.
It was before. It’s simply tougher to deny now.
It’s more of a soft cap though unlike the NFL, which had a hard cap
This means teams with big tv and other revenue sources still won’t care. They will consider it the price of winning. Teams such as Dodgers, Yankees and Cubs have big time revenue streams.
There’s NO chance the MLBPA will ever agree to a salary cap just like the NFL/NBA will never agree to abolish theirs. As much as everyone who purely loves the sport wants to believe salary caps help “protect competitive balance” all they do is limit how much billionaire owners have to spend on player salaries. I have no problem with teams spending as much or as little as they can. (Spoiler most big money contracts past 30 don’t work out)
They……. uhhhhhhh….. kinda already did.
Not “exactly like”, but “like” the others.
Never say never. One thing that might get the MLBPA to agree to some sort of a salary cap would be job increases for the players with expanded rosters from the current 25 to perhaps 27. Another way to create jobs would be expansion which sounds fairly imminent once MLB settles the stadium issues with the Rays and A’s. I’d be in favor of both measures. which would mean an extra 114 new roster spots for players, perhaps in time for the next CBA.
The other measure to get the MLBPA to agree to a cap might be what Marvin Miller feared most when he was the the union head…that owners would grant free agency to most all players simultaneously at some fixed point in time which would create a truer market and theoretically cut down on overall spending.
I’ve said for a while that the new CBA creates a de facto salary cap and that Tony Clark got rolled. Looks like it’s truer than we knew.
Having said that, this system only works if these penalties are, in fact, punitive enough to keep teams under the thresholds. If a few teams decide to go past them, MLB could turn into the NBA where only 4-5 teams can even dream of winning a title.
Teams that draw fans and market their teams correctly as well as have owners willing to spend shouldn’t be penalized. The cheap owners get rewarded for so called parity. Let’s face it all the MLB are extremely rich that’s not the issue. It’s their profit margin which we would all want more of. But if your refuse to invest your dollars in your team that’s on the owner don’t penalize ones that put money into the team.
All of these rules to deter the large market teams from spending money is very confusing and difficult to follow. I think they should do what Charles Finley wanted to do 40 years ago. Make all the players free every year, only 1 year contracts and these issues would all disappear.
If the opposite were true, The Pirates would end up with a Top 5 pick every year?
/s
The backlash from the attorneys should be fairly interesting.
Just My Take…….But It Sure doesn’t seem right that they could implement a rule, that will affect a teams future draft picks, but also penalizes them for “What They Did Before The Rule Was In Place”. Teams that “made payroll decisions” based on the previous set of rules, are now subject to the New Rule??? Contracts that were signed, considering the previous guidelines as a base, will suddenly have a serious negative affect going forward?
Would the D-Backs have signed Greinke if they knew this was coming?
Would the Orioles signed Davis? The Marlins – Stanton? Reds Votto? Heyward? Verlander? Scherzer?….etc, etc…..
Maybe I missed something about a grandfather clause, or an exemption for contracts currently in place???
Major changes in the Rules should be required to take existing situations into consideration, and not punish teams for what “wasn’t wrong before”. It’s similar to the hypothetical “MLB Outlaws Coffee Before/During Games”……Guys that drank coffee before the game for years shouldn’t be penalized…….unless they continue to do that after the Rule goes into effect.
I find these rule changes ridiculous, but why would any team get to be “grandfathered in” where stuff doesn’t count? It doesn’t start until 2018. The Dodgers have about $160M guaranteed for 2018 as it stands now…so they can spend about $70M on payroll before penalty. What did Arizona think when it gave Grienke the largest single-season salary in history? The teams agreed to this rule, they get to live with it.
The Dodgers have $177.7 million guaranteed to 11 players. Total including estimated arbitration contracts, players who are not arbitration eligible yet, and options, their 2018 payroll sits at $252 million.
Some of the $26 million in options will not be exercised so they may have small savings there, but it’s as likely that they will add free agents in the offseason that more than spend that savings.
None of those teams are even close to the surcharge thresholds. And no it wouldnt stop the Yankees, Dodgers or Cubs. And I am a Yankee fan. Its a one year penalty. Teams sacrifice draft picks to sign free agents. Dip below the cap for one year and you reset the penalty.
23 of 30 owners supported it. At the very least.
It would definitely stop the Cubs. They do not have even 1/3 the TV revenue of the Dodgers or Yankees. Currently, their TV revenue is $200 plus million less than either the Dodgers or Yankees.
The team only resets the 1st part of the penalties. The additional penalties for going over $217 million and $237 million remain as does the lowered draft pick.
No. Just no. The teams negotiated this CBA so if they wanted that sort of protection, they could have fought for it.
Why would it be grandfathered in? That only rewards those teams. So some teams could still spend more then others for years? Makes no sense to do that.
Think about this, the Dodgers currently have a payroll over $251 million. That’s $100 million over the league average payroll $151 million and $115 million more than the Houston Astros (who have a record almost as good as the Dodgers).
Teams like that deserve to have their draft picks moved back. In fact I’d go as far to suggest that any team who passes the luxury tax should have their first draft pick moved back 10 spots.
Why punish a team like the Dodgers? You wrote it yourself, there are teams that compete with the Dodgers which are doing every bit as well while spending less to do it.. Isn’t spending 100+ million more for the same outcome punishment enough?
No. Because this argument is concerning one year. In time if the Dogs continue with their $251M and the Astros with their $136M, the money will eventually even out, and the Dodgers will win more. The two franchises are currently being run by two drastically different strategies. Paying $251M, or at the top of the league will keep you competitive almost all years. Paying like the Astros for the talent they have is a product of their tear down/build up strategy. The Astros will be bad again, in time, more often than not. You can’t sustain that production for that price forever. You’ll see.
Not a good example unless you are wanting to make the case against tanking on purpose. The Houston Astros are a major market team they can afford a payroll of 200 mil plus and it remains to be seen if they go this route by way of retention of they’re young and talented core. Teams like the twins,padres,rays and marlins etc cannot so even if they get lucky with youthful players they can never retain them with the current structure of baseball and more likely than not remain in the cellar. Note there are many like the above teams included.
I like it, although I would still prefer a comprehensive salary cap that includes both a maximum spending ceiling as well as a minimum floor threshold to help with competitive balance in MLB. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a hard cap like in the other professional leagues and might retain many of the existing penalties for any team over or under spending.
Only way a minimum floor could be instituted or a max cap is by MLB taking over all TV contracts and distributing that money equally like they do in every other major sport including NFL, NBA and NHL. Alternatively, home teams would have to distribute 50% of all TV revenue to visiting teams.
Doesn’t MLB already split many revenues like national TV money fairly equally between the clubs and the players? Tweaking the revenues that are not equally divided like local broadcasting rights would certainly seem attainable to reach a cap agreement and also be in the best interest of the game.
It seems to me that a compromise could be reached since it’s in nobody’s interest for this great game to fall further behind the other sports, particularly the NFL. MLB has one huge advantage over the NFL in that it is played in far more countries around the world, perhaps even being the #1 team sport in many of the Caribbean island nations as well as Japan and South Korea where American football is a non-factor.
If you distribute to revenue to visiting teams you would have to do it per game to make it fair. This puts teams in the al east and nl west at a substantial advantage over teams in other divisions.
You are right about that. The AL East has three teams in the top 10, Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays and the NL West has 2 teams in the top 10, Dodgers and Giants.
There has to be an equitable way to distribute that local TV money and to provide both minimum and maximum salary caps.
A minimum of $100 million starting next season and a hard cap of $237 million with both going up 3-5% per season.
I’ve been following all the changes in the last twenty year — changes that have been put in-place to promote more fairness. It seems to me every one of these backfires or, at the very least, has consequences that do not play-out as intended and reveals a flaw. Maybe these people that think-up all this crap should start removing some of these rules and let well-run teams continue to deliver for their fans and poorly run teams piss their fans off until the team becomes unprofitable, gets sold, and has new ownership to try again. It may be more destructive in the short-term but in the end we’d probably get more fairness…whatever the hell fairness is supposed to mean.
that’s how it always used to be, business is cutthroat, but nowadays we have to bail out the losers so they can keep losing. just look at the auto industry
Who cares . I get Bryce Harper and Clayton Kershaw and I drop 10 spots? I’ll try and remember that when I’m collecting my World Series trophies.
Forget the season just give everyone a trophy.
The Union took their eyes off the ball. They allowed themselves to be distracted by the QO situation, which adversely impacted only a relative few players, and let MLB clean their clocks on this and a number of other issues.
In the real world we call this income redistribution…..aka socialism.
In the real world we have a lot more to care about than who wins at the end of the season.
It should work both ways. For teams ALWAYS seemingly drafting near the top of the draft, that doesnt happen anymore.. Teams like the Pirates at one time ALWAYS drafting near the top. Phillies now . Marlins and on and on. You draft in the top 5 overall say this year, you go too the bottom 5 in round 1 next year. That prevents these teams from this joke called tanking. You want to punish teams that can spend, punish teams that don’t and keep gaining by losing.
ALL MLB teams are taking in hundreds of millions of dollars. How about we penalize the cheap-Azz teams that are just pocketing money rather then spending it inputting the best product on the field for their fans??? I’m looking at you Miami…
Just to be clear, the teams do not “receive” the tax, they pay the tax. The receiver of the tax is MLB. The meaning of what was written here is just the opposite of what will actually happen, presumably.
Since there is definitely a direct correlation between spending and winning, why are the teams that spend the ones punished? The teams that refuse to spend are the ones that, long term, hurt the brand. Punish the ones that refuse to invest in the product.
There is no direct correlation of MLB payroll spending to winning. The top spending team is rarely the WS winner. In fact, the WS only rarely has even one of the top two spending teams playing in it. Teams can’t buy championships.
It isn’t about willingness to spend, it’s about having the ability to spend. Take a look at the dollars.
The Dodgers annual TV revenue is $325 plus million. $8.35 billion deal over 25 years escalating to a top dollar figure of $425 million and this doesn’t include ad revenue since the Dodgers are 100% owners of their TV channel. The Yankees TV revenues are $300 million. The next highest team is the Angels at $125 million. The Marlins and Rays annual TV revenue is $20 million.
Even if they draw 3 million fans at the MLB average ticket price of $31, the Marlins and Rays would get ticket revenue of $93 million. They would still only have TV and ticket revenue of around $113 million overall. Throw in the $60 million in revenue sharing the low revenue teams receive and those two teams are still under $180 million in total revenue.
By comparison, the Dodgers and Yankees have over $100 million in ticket sales per season along with their $300 plus million TV revenues. Even after paying into the revenue sharing system, the Dodgers and Yankees still have more than $350 million in TV and ticket revenue.
I am sure that the lower tier teams would love to spend $200-250 million on payroll like the Dodgers and Yankees, but they simply do not have the money to do so. You can’t spend what you don’t have.
But it is not the point of if the dodgers win a pennant or not the point is how do you promote parity and fill the seats of the smaller market teams. Baseball as is cannot last for long when only lets say 8 teams have a real chance at winning. Some others get lucky but overall the the top markets have so much of an advantage over the league in General. This is not healthy for baseball it needs to continue rising not lowering it fan base to the point of half the country can care less about whom wins a pennant.
Who were the playoff teams last season?
Dodgers – large market, largest revenue
Cubs – large market, medium revenue (for now)
Nationals – medium market, medium revenue
Mets – large market, medium revenue
Giants – large market, large revenue
Indians – small market, small revenue
Blue Jays – large market, large revenue
Orioles – medium market, medium revenue
Red Sox – large market, large revenue
Rangers – large market, large revenue
There’s been plenty of ink spilled over this topic. Here’s the one that I believe is the best. Also, I never said winning the World Series. I said winning. Consistently, year in and year out.
google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/features/dont…
Here, I did the legwork for you.
While it seems like draconian measures, these penalties will really only affect 2 teams.
The Dodgers are in their 4th year over the luxury tax threshold and at $245 million in payroll before any penalties. What does that mean their penalties will be?
From what I read in that article, it sounds to me that if they spend that much in 2018, which looks likely given the $252 million they have on the books for 2018 including arbitration eligible players and options, in addition to the 50% penalty for each dollar over the luxury tax threshold, the Dodgers will also pay an additional 45%.
The regular luxury tax on $252 million is 50% of each dollar over $197 million. $55 million over would mean a $27.5 million penalty.
Then there is the next level of penalties for being over $217 million. That would be another 12% or $6.6 million in this case.
Then you have the big daddy penalty for going over $237 million which is an additional 45% or an additional $24.75 million.
The way I understand it, the Dodgers will pay penalties totaling $58.85 million on a $252 million payroll in 2018. A 23.35% tax on their payroll that brings their total player expenses to $310.85 million.
If a team, like the Dodgers who will make the playoffs this season, has one of the last picks in the 1st round, does that mean its pick will fall into the actual 2nd round or just 10 places into the compensatory picks and competitive balance A picks?
From reading Cooper’s article, it seems that if the Dodgers win the World Series they would pick after the 10th pick in the 2nd round. In 2017 that was the 47th overall pick.
That type of expenditures is clearly not a problem for the Dodgers which have $325 million per year in revenue from TV contracts alone. The Yankees with total TV revenues of $300 million per year also should not have much of a problem with it, although they seem committed to keeping their payroll expenditures at a much lower level. Those two teams have annual TV revenues 50% plus higher than any other team.
For the 2nd tier teams like the Red Sox, Cubs, Phillies, Angels, and Giants there is simply no way they can spend into those penalty ranges with TV revenues of under $150 million per season.
These penalties were put in place to keep just two teams from spending outrageous amounts on player payrolls.
A good analysis. As you point out, revenue is heavily dependent on media contracts. The Dodgers have one of the richest, not because they are in the largest media market, but because their media contract is relatively recent and they’ve been inflating like crazy. I don’t know where the media contracts stand for some of the other teams you mention, but I see no reason to assume that some of them could not approach or even exceed the Dodgers media revenue in the future (the Angels for example are in the same media market). That could make them future spenders over the penalty limits as well.
As for outrageous spending by the fortunate few teams, the owners could fix this have-have not problem by pooling more revenue, rather than invent such a convoluted penalty system. I suspect that is where they will end up, eventually.
The Marlins comes up for renegotiation in 2020. Not sure about the Rays. The Padres have a relatively new contract and because they are in the 27th largest DMA, their TV deal averages only $60 million and its not at that level yet.
The Dodgers are in the 2nd largest TV market, which is what TV contracts are based on. The Angels signed their contract a few years before and got a deal that delivers only an AAV of $125 million.
I agree that by pooling the TV revenue more effectively it would help all teams compete and then convoluted rules like this would not be necessary. A rising tide lifts all boats should be the rule.
When you have 30 billionaires arguing points like this with hundreds of millionaires, it’s no wonder it devolved into rules like this one.
True story. I don’t know why the Angels got less than half the AAV than the Dodgers because they are in the same media market, but it’s also the case that on the sale of the Dodgers the value of their media rights were grossly underestimated seemingly by everyone but Guggenheim. Many scoffed at the $2.1B they paid for the team, then they turned right around and signed that mammoth media contract and proved the doubters wrong.
The Padres and all of the other small-market teams are in a bad place and will stay in that bad place for as long as the revenue sharing rules don’t change to divide the pool more equitably. The current system stinks. And I say this as a fan of the biggest spending team. If was a fan of the Padres, or any of those others, I’d be livid.
Revenue sharing in this sport is a joke.
Why?!?!?! Are we trying to create a cap system? Owners are getting as creative as possible to limit spending, since the players won’t allow a cap system.
This is ridiculous and unnecessary.
It was necessary enough for the owners and MLBPA to vote it in.
Even I love me some wild-eyed union rhetoric from time to time, but it takes a particularly blind MLBPA acolyte to spin trying to put teams on more even footing into suppressing pay.
Big market teams obviously have no issue at all paying players, and the rest of the league would if they could.
There’s two teams that this will ever have any long-term concern with this limit so the assertion that we’re suddenly a salary cap league is ridiculous. Go look at the luxury tax and who it has ever actually affected. LAD and NYY and then the occasional team that splurged for a very short time. All this draft pick adjustment does is possibly limit the extent at which the Yankees and Dodgers obscenely blow past everybody else.
MLB’s parity is smoke and mirrors. The smaller market teams that find success did so because they had to get very smart and very lucky with their scouting and development and still have trouble sustaining it for more than a couple years. If they miss on a big FA signing or a big extension it can handcuff the team for years.
Honestly, MLB’s financial system’s disparities are less about the usual big market suspects signing the mega FA or extensions as it is their ability to give anybody a big contract whether they earn it or not. Most of the league cannot afford to fail on big contracts. Those types of signings are a nuisance to big market teams, but for a good portion of the league an underperforming big money player can become a long-term crisis that ruins their chance to compete.
The Twins have had a lot of problems other than Mauer’s $23m/yr and his underwhelming performance the last few years, but that contract seriously affects the types of players the Twins can obtain to supplement the roster.
Big market teams have that sort of situation with an underperforming contract all the time because they’re perfectly OK accepting sunk costs and moving on. They don’t need to hit on all their signings because, as annoying as it may be to have a flop like Sandoval, they can afford it and compete anyway.
Yes, and offer more years, in full knowledge that the out-years stand a good chance to being a total write-off.
I don’t see parity as smoke and mirrors, because nobody is really trying to deceive anyone here. It’s a plain-sight system to provide clear competitive advantages to large-market teams, with a few tweaks around the margins to keep the small market team owners swimming in enough gravy to avoid a revolt.
Agreed.
If there’s one thing that’s hidden and hard to see directly, it’s that the smaller market disadvantage isn’t so much not being able to throw $400m at premier free agents but rather that they DO have to overspend on guys ranging from mediocre to decent in order to pry open their contention window.
If you’re saying that the lopsided spending inflates salaries, I’d have to say that isn’t really the case. It’s the flood of revenue into the game overall that driving salaries. How it’s divvied up between the teams really doesn’t matter to that calculation.
I think we’re basically saying the same thing in somewhat different contexts. The revenue the league’s getting these days is essentially what’s giving the big market guys their extra money, and the end result is the guys at the bottom of the food chain get priced out of the market.
There’s a lot that could be done to work on that, but I don’t see anything major happening on the horizon. The top owners don’t want to subsidize the bottom half of the league, and the rest of the owners don’t want to relinquish control of the revue New that they do have. Maybe as the league slowly starts seeing more investment groups own teams rather than “traditional” billionaire owners and their families, the league’s attitude might shift.
thats why baseball is not popular with younger people. besides like 8 or so teams the rest of the league can only afford to contended for a small window every few years. so during the rebuild years by june the team has no chance and its not competitive. no point to go see games or follow them when they have no chance at the playoffs and are playing against far superior teams. it also doesnt help that teams cant keep there young star marketable players with out giving 25% of the payroll to one player and be handcuffed for 6-10 years so they just trade them away and the rebuilding process starts all over again
A related issue is how little league ball is collapsing in this country. Fast forward a few years, and let’s see if kids watch tons of MLB ball when they grew up running cross-country and playing lacrosse and soccer because baseball was a pay-to-play specialized sport starting in late elementary school. All this could be moot eventually.
what would really help baseball would be to make baseball payroll a hard cap but also put a hard cap floor. there would be less in revenue sharing but the season would be a lot more competitive. say a floor of around 100 million with a cap of `175. would make everything much more competitive would wouldnt have talent gaps like the padres ( 70 million) and the dodger (240 million). that is why baseball is failing with younger fans casue already 6 teams are completely out of the playoffs and another 5 are almost out of it
Your right on point this should be about preserving the integrity and health of the league in general. Although they could limit the high cap at what 200 mil and promote some sort of a minor revenue share to bolster the smaller market teams. Parity is the ticket to success.
Your ceiling is too low for a hard cap with all the new revenue in the game as a whole. While the Dodgers have $325 million in TV revenue this year plus $100 million in ticket sales, they have total revenue of well over $500 million.
BAMTech and MLBAM are adding $1 billion per season in income for MLB and are valued at $3.5 billion and $12.5 billion respectively.
A hard max cap around that $237 million number in the rule this thread is discussing that rises 3-5% per season seems reasonable as long as the distribution of revenues becomes more equitable.
Equitable revenue distribution would also clear the way for a minimum salary cap. $100 million as a floor seems like a good starting place, but it might have to be higher if revenue is shared equally.
that just feels like way to big of a gap. what hurts baseball most is mid market and lower teams cant afford to keep there young marketable star players and they go to the teams that can offer them 25 million a year for ten years.and it is only 1/8th of there teams payroll. if they do resign them they are giving up 1/4 of there payroll for 1 player and its hard to be competitive every year.like that so they just trade them away and the process starts all over again.
This is a step in the right direction but they still need to consider a cap of sorts. The major market teams sure they will be profitable but to promote parity and revenue and over all league health something needs to be done. To fill the empty seats around the entire baseball league the fans need to be able to believe that their teams have a shot at a pennant or else eventually the league will be reduced as the have nots will go belly up. Big market fans yes it is good for them as it is currently now. But if you find yourself with only a little of a dozen teams in the future how is that going to be enjoyable?
Institute a cap, and a floor. Teams are penalized for being a percentage over or under. The lines can be somewhat soft so that teams can get some exemptions or wiggle room to go over when they’re clearly splurging on a window of contention, and the inverse for a team that’s rebuilding. Lots of ways this could work, and it could be interesting letting teams include cap space for a particular year in trades. A competing team could basically “buy” cap room by sending prospects away to rebuilding teams who will be nowhere near the cap.
There can also be cap exemptions for resigning your own players, so that the hometown team can offer more to their impending FA.
Arbitration goes away. First three years are hard steps rather than renewals. Fourth year and beyond is restricted FA – if the team doesn’t offer a player a qualifying amount for a 4th and 5th year guy, other teams can offer them something if they want.
Teams have a “franchise tag” qualifying offer they can use on sufficiently amazing first-time FA that lets them gain one more year of control before free agency.
There. Kris Bryant et al wouldn’t get stashed in AAA because of service time concerns. Gerrit Cole wouldn’t get skimpy raises. Mid level players will get an opportunity to make money and move around. Teams with tons of talent in the 3-5 year range will have to make tougher decisions on who to keep, allowing other teams chances talented controllable players. Lots of formulas could allow situational cap/floor violations.
Lots of things like this work just fine in other sports and similar concepts work just fine in all kinds of other industries. MLB and MLBPA are both so invested in the status quo, though.
so you want it like the NBA? i like that setup way better but baseball will be long gone before something like that will get approved
Because there’s got to be well over 10 times more players in the MLB/MiLB system than the NBA, obviously not everything is going to carry over. Basketball is far simpler than baseball in terms of roster construction. But, the idea of a system that forces the dollars around a bit while still allowing the players to make truckloads of money… NBA seems to have some ideas to that end, anyway. At least they try.