:rolleyes: Soccer doesn't come close, nor does any other sport, to American Football in entertainment value.

You surely aren't equating this to baseball. The New England Patriots are the only reason that is skewed, they traded star players and draft picks for more draft picks and fit inside a salary cap each year, which is the opposite of big market dominant teams in the MLB. As much as I love the Chiefs and hate the Pats, this defied all odds and will likely never come close to repeating due to the structure of the league.

A lot of that is the product of poor management or teams having an elite QB. It is not because some teams have a financial advantage over others.

I think both a cap and a floor are great ideas. I am not sure if it's being discussed or not, but the MLBPA should be fighting for better pay for minor league players.

Here's an AP Article outlining the respective positions of the parties on the main issues:

https://apnews.com/article/mlb-sport...e134f034bd2d5b

This is going to get done. There are hree where there's any meaningful divide:

These two would likely be taken out a single shot - i.e. significantly expanding what qualifies as an season of service time for arbitration purposes. I think it presently requires 172 days on the roster (season is 187 days long). Make that 120 days with a maximium amount of years earned in a single season being 1 (so someone can't earn 4 seasons in 3, for instance). It would do a lot to prevent service time manipulation. Make it 90 if need be; that would require teams to wait until the ASB essentially to call up guys and that's a big ask if a player is truly ready to play. Most teams wouldn't do it.

Get guys to arb more frequently and easier and the players won't dig their heels in on the compensation once they get there.

I don't expect there's universal agreement on the salary floor but in the end, if the owners have to scrap the floor and eliminate the non-tax penalties (which are just used to fund the revenue sharing FOR the floor) and give a little bit on the starting luxury tax threshold, they'll do that. Enough wealthy teams would be fine with an increase and enough cheap teams will be fine not having to navigate a floor.

And again, this is posturing by PA, IMO - they'd ultimately be fine with that non-tax penalty being put in if it just creates a pool for the 'poorer' teams to spend from. Sooner or later the middle class of MLB FAs is going to get squeezed out and a situation like this will help them get paid. This would help more players than eliminating it would, even if the alternative would help the high end of the market get paid more. At some point the PA will understand this.

There is way more parity in baseball than the NFL and NBA. NFL the teams with the superstar QBs win. NBA the superstar player wins. It pretty much proves out. The only dynasty in baseball has been San Francisco ****ing Giants in the last 20 years.

Most teams at the bottom are ran piss poor and do shitty drafting. Most big free agency signings are just so fans and agents can get hand jobs and feel good. They generally back fire on the teams.

That's a function of QB. No salary cap would be the same - just those teams would all be in big markets. Forget about Chiefs keeping Mahomes or Indy keeping Manning after their rookie deals.

Awesome more Mike Leake type signings is just what the sport needs.

That's because the variance on an MLB game and even 7-game playoff series is so high. Look at which teams make the playoffs every year and tell me there's parity.

It's extremely easy for inferior teams to get hot and win the WS, once they make the playoffs. But the 162-game regular season is a huge barrier that separates out the contenders.

I went to George Brett's last game. I flew back to KC for Hos, Esky, Cain and Moose's last game. I'll be there for Salvy's last game. Rooting for homegrown stars means a lot to fans. Rooting for homegrown players who stay to make the HOF means a lot. If the Royals had lost Brett in 1979 or whatever I'd have lost a lot of my fandom.

14 of the 15 American League teams have won their division since 2014.

Actually only 2 teams haven't made the playoffs since 2014 - Mariners and Phillies. Padres, Marlins, and Reds are the others but they made it because of the 2020 expanded playoffs.

A large reason for this is because of team's ability to "tank" to get better picks and the ability to hold on to them longer. The MLBPA, from what I have seen, despises both of those.

{shrug}

I'm over pretending to give a shit about the owners pocketbooks. These teams are making money hand over fist.

And it shouldn't impact teams that are already fielding competitive salaries and/or intelligent front offices. If anything it will occasionally save them from themselves. If the Pirates were forced to go spend some damn money, maybe it would've offered Leake enough for the gap between him and someone like Scherzer to be insignificant enough that a team like STL would just go get Scherzer instead.

The fact that teams like the Cardinals can half-ass an off-season because they know that 1/3 of the league isn't going to bother to try and that should get them enough wins to sneak out a winning season even in a down year is a problem. Competitive balance is a good thing for MLB. Teams like the Pirates are not.

If the Royals are in the playoffs then it’s Baseball>Golf>Soccer
If they are not in the playoffs it’s Golf>Soccer>Baseball

I just don't think paying a bunch of turds just to say you spent money is any better. Remember how many bench turds got paid when the NBA salary cap jumped. Didn't really change the competitive balance of the league.

Baseball has to figure out a way in that six year window for team control to pay the guys who deserve to be paid their WAR and not have to rely on bloated contracts in their 30s.

They have that. I've gone over the math on this before, but any player out there can approach their team and exchange top dollar for guaranteed money.

Tatis did it. Franco just did it. We know teams are willing to discuss it. It's an open market and if players would be willing to allow a couple of team option years after the they reach FA eligibility, teams would be willing to pay them more at the front end of those years. It's the guaranteed nature of contracts in MLB that make teams reticent to spend that kind of AAV over those kinds of term. To an extent, the young players are (again) being sacrificed at the alters of the older, more established guys.

And I still maintain that the players position back in 1994 (and since) has been penny wise and pound foolish all along. The owners proposed to allow unrestricted free agency after 4 years back in 1994 in exchange for a salary cap.

The owners have offered a revenue split in exchange for a cap in the past.

Both have been met with hard 'noes' from the MLBPA and it's just a dogmatic refusal at this point. More players will be better off with the creation of a cap and a defined revenue split than they would be under this bizarre-ass model.

The only people that would be truly hurt by it are the uber-stars. And in a league that is so dependent on overall team construction, why shouldn't that be the case? Mike Trout's the best player in a generation and he's never led a single post-season inning. He's made it to October once. Last year's MVPs didn't make the post-season. Once CY winner missed and the other went down with a whimper.

Star players just don't matter as much in baseball. A single great player can't drag a team into contention like in the other major sports. So why should it bother me that the star salaries may be compressed a bit in the name of everyone else getting more? And with a cap and defined revenue split, that's exactly what's happened.

To this day, it’s what I love about the game.