Baseball

[pdub]

Then every super rich person should donate 66 percent of their property/possessions/holdings, right now, to good causes.

It isn’t going to happen.
You can blame the owners all day and night—but as you can see, it’s not changing.

A good start would be for taxpayers to quit subsidizing billionaire owners (by way of everything from stadium handouts to tax breaks to the antitrust exemption baseball enjoys).

Owning a baseball team should cost what it costs.

I agree with this.

[jfish26]

Then every super rich person should donate 66 percent of their property/possessions/holdings, right now, to good causes.

It isn’t going to happen.
You can blame the owners all day and night—but as you can see, it’s not changing.

A good start would be for taxpayers to quit subsidizing billionaire owners (by way of everything from stadium handouts to tax breaks to the antitrust exemption baseball enjoys).

Owning a baseball team should cost what it costs.

I agree with this.

And of course, who knows what would flow from that.

My hope would be that if a baseball team (for example) cost what it costs, then it would be a less attractive investment for people/groups who do not really care about baseball (or its role in their community).

In other words, if a baseball team (for example) was not both (1) a baseball team AND (2) a one-of-thirty license to unaccountably print money off taxpayer generosity, then the baseball team part would be what draws super-wealthy people to want to buy, own and operate one.

You would think that would result, collectively, in ownership that is interested in the long term health of the sport itself. Rising tide, etc.

But I could also see this going haywire in any number of ways. Lord knows I’ve been overly optimistic before.

[pdub]

I didn't know this but apparently the Royals 'checked in' with Soto regarding his free agency.
The general response from the casual to the extreme MLB fan is the same, "lolz, ok."
And that's the problem.

[pdub]

Soto 765 million.

[jfish26]

Soto 765 million.

This is pointed at me as much as you: confirmation bias will inform how one interprets the data here.

To me, half the league spending <50% of revenue on players is a strong argument against a cap; owners should be expected to try.

I also recognize that, looked at in a different light, the figures demonstrate the issue that you claim: the Royals’ player expense is dwarfed by teams spending lower percentages of their revenue on players.

I’d be in favor of all sorts of mechanisms that reward teams (like the Royals) for trying. And those mechanisms need to come at least significantly at the expense of teams with revenue advantages the Royals don’t have.

But ownership groups that hoard cash should be last in line to get help.

[pdub]

Salary floor and cap.

[jfish26]

Just squeezes money upward. No thanks. There are ways to narrow the gaps without doing that.

[pdub]

Again, the end goal of baseball isn't to make sure the millionaires get paid more just so the billionaires are sure to pay their share.

It's to prevent the massive gap in salary and talent from team A to team B.
A salary floor and cap would do that.

[jfish26]

Again, the end goal of baseball isn't to make sure the millionaires get paid more just so the billionaires are sure to pay their share.

It's to prevent the massive gap in salary and talent from team A to team B.
A salary floor and cap would do that.

I did learn the other day - which was news to me - that the CBA actually does have something of a soft floor.

The players' union is permitted to bring grievances in the case that it feels a team is abusing revenue-share money.

In that grievance process, if the team spends less than 150% of its revenue-sharing money on payroll, then the team, and not the union, bears the burden of proving that it used revenue-sharing dollars properly.

That is why you see the A's doing this:

https://www.justbaseball.com/mlb/athlet ... ee-agency/

[jfish26]

2024 Luxury Tax Bills

Dodgers $103mm
Mets $97.1mm
Yankees $62.5mm
Phillies $14.4mm
Braves $14mm
Rangers $10.8mm
Astros $6.5mm
Giants $2.4mm
Cubs $560k

Dodgers, Mets, Yankees and Phillies pay the highest rate of tax given that they've all been over the tax threshold for three straight years.

[Sparko]

A cap would keep financially stupid contracts down. Soto will probably slip on a bar of soap before the regular season begins.

[pdub]

While luxury tax does help players as a whole it doesn’t make teams more competitive as the money distributed to teams ( well under half the money - I think less than a third ) isn’t mandated for player salaries.

[jfish26]

While luxury tax does help players as a whole it doesn’t make teams more competitive as the money distributed to teams ( well under half the money - I think less than a third ) isn’t mandated for player salaries.

Sort of - it's all quite complex.

Apparently if you are a luxury tax payee, and you do not spend 150% of your luxury tax take on payroll, the union can file a grievance. Which, apparently, is why the Sacramento A's hilariously overpaid Luis Severino to anchor their rotation in their AAA park.

[pdub]

Totally fine and fair.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/434 ... ources-say

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

Totally fine and fair.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/434 ... ources-say

(212) 931-7800

[jfish26]

Totally fine and fair.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/434 ... ources-say

(212) 931-7800

Right.

The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball is really functionally equivalent to the NCAA. It is responsive to (and a heat shield for) the owners comprising Major League Baseball (in the way that the NCAA is responsive to the schools comprising the NCAA).

If there was actually will, among ownership groups, to change the system for the benefit of the sport, the fans, and (in a big-picture, long-view way) even the owners themselves...then the system would change.

But, just like how the schools comprising the NCAA sort of individually (and, thus, collectively) chose to benefit from the system right up until it bent to the point of breaking...there are simply lots and lots of ownership groups who are perfectly happy to benefit from the status quo (while at the same time crying crocodile tears over it).