Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
That's wildly overstating things.
If Mike Moustakas would accept a 4 year, $28 million dollar deal, literally every single team in baseball would be willing to sign him. The damn Marlins would sign on at that figure. And he'd never have to work again a day in his life.
That's absolutely a 'big payday'. But what baseball's middle class is failing to recognize is a completely new understanding of baseball's present aging curves. We see things much differently now than we used to when it comes to how players perform as they age. We used to think guys could be counted on to improve in their early 20s until they peak around 27, stay relatively stable until 31 and then decline a bit annually until around 35 when they fall off a cliff.
Recent trends (about the last 10 years or so) suggest that just isn't the case anymore. For whatever reason, players are getting to the majors far more fully formed and when they get there they don't improve substantially. Additionally, they tend to start declining sooner than we realize and with a more inexorable fall-off. Most metrics suggest that players now reach their peak levels at something like 25/26 years old and then they start to fall off a bit every year from that point forward.
Owners have come to realize this. As the article notes, it's silly to pay a 28/29 year old for what he's done when we have mountains of evidence to suggest that the guy is going to decline literally every season of that long-term contract. Obviously baseball is a game of individuals so there are exceptions and outliers, but over large numbers that's just the way things go right now.
Ballplayers and agents are clinging to this asinine '$8 million/WAR' calculus as though that's 'fair' just because that's what owners have been foolishly willing to pay. But consider a basic thought exercise - what if multi-year contracts were completely banned and every year the entirety of MLB came up as FAs? Eliminate the luxury tax as well. Anyone that spent, I dunno, 6 weeks on an MLB 40 man (not even the 25) is going to be considered a FA and can be signed for a single year.
I suspect you'd see some players like Trout get $45-$50 million deals. A guy like Correa would be able to get paid immediately what he's worth as well. But when all is said and done, what would you suspect a 'competitive' payroll in that environment would be? I think you'd be looking in the neighborhood of $150-$160 million. Some teams would go to the $220-$240 range, others would sit far far less. But I'm betting any team that was looking to actually win a championship would probably be in the $160 million or so range.
A 'replacement level' team wins 48 games. 88 makes you likely to make the post-season. So that $160 million buys you an additional 40 wins; that's the baseline for 'competitive'. The true worth of a win in a free market becomes something nearer $4 million/yr.
Now baseball can never get that bell unrung; they'll never drive it down that far again. But if the baseball world could convince the middle-class free agents to take deals that would likely pay them in the 4-5 million/WAR neighborhood for the lengths of their deals, they'd get signed. Because that's a true barometer of a player's worth rather than the artificially inflated figures that owners were foolishly operating under for years.
$8 million/WAR would never hold in a true free market - teams wouldn't pay $320 million to field a competitive ballclub in a true free for all. So we know that number is bullshit. And more and more executives and front offices are realizing that.
The MLBPA can either adjust back or continue to bitch and moan about not being able to provide summer homes for their children's children after managing to be slightly above average players for 3-4 years.
It's not collusion - it's sanity. I'm not going to cry for any of these guys and act like they just can't find work. Sure they can - they just don't want to take $30-$40 million because far dumber organizations were giving up 2 and 3 times that not terribly long ago.
|
I don't disagree with you, necessarily. You make good points about teams wising up and making better long-term investments. And I don't feel sorry for Eric Hosmer that he may only get 7/140 when he thought he would get 10/230.
From a logistics standpoint, I do think it's better for all involved if team-controlled players are rewarded more for their first few years in the majors than they currently are. Especially if the outlay on players as they get older goes down that's what I was saying, really.
If this imbalance leads to players in years 1-6 being paid more closely to what they're actually worth, and minor league players getting a little more (based on the average week for a minor league player, they're paid the equivalent of about $2 an hour).
I'm not bemoaning the loss of paydays for vets as much as I'm trying to predict how the PA will respond. I think it will be by trying to balance things out more for young guys... so the overall player pay pool doesn't drop off a cliff.