Baseball

[Shirley]

[NewtonHawk11]

Baseball is running into a big problem if the RED SOX can’t afford to keep a generational type of player in Betts

Traded to Dodgers with David Price in 3 team deal.

[Sparko]

Needed a cap for 30-years. Stealing signs was another alternative I guess

[jfish26]

Baseball is running into a big problem if the RED SOX can’t afford to keep a generational type of player in Betts

Traded to Dodgers with David Price in 3 team deal.

"Can't" is the false part of this entire story. Red Sox fans should be purple with rage.

[CrimsonNBlue]

Your pal Bill with a heck of a headline:

[jfish26]

I would say that all the criticism of the Dodgers' penury was justified. And now silenced.

[NewtonHawk11]

Baseball is running into a big problem if the RED SOX can’t afford to keep a generational type of player in Betts

Traded to Dodgers with David Price in 3 team deal.

"Can't" is the false part of this entire story. Red Sox fans should be purple with rage.

Well true. But to be fair, a 10yr/$300M contract is a really good offer. He's not going to get Trout money. He would have averaged more per year than Harper.

Red Sox might have jumped out in front of this thing and traded him before losing him for nothing (Outside of a Comp Pick)

[jfish26]

But, it’s just money. The Red Sox could have, but chose not to, pay whatever it would have cost.

Everything else is just noise.

[Sparko]

But, it’s just money. The Red Sox could have, but chose not to, pay whatever it would have cost.

Everything else is just noise.

It would be nice if “just $300m” or so could be spread around the cities a bit more. The balance sheet is out of whack to me

[CrimsonNBlue]

But, it’s just money. The Red Sox could have, but chose not to, pay whatever it would have cost.

Everything else is just noise.

It would be nice if “just $300m” or so could be spread around the cities a bit more. The balance sheet is out of whack to me

Is this a "The Royals are poor and it's unfair" post? Let's not do that.

[NewtonHawk11]

Long post alert..


Jeff Passan (KC native with ESPN) was on quite a bit of shows yesterday.

Mentioned that teams are going to stop paying out long term money to players. Teams are realizing that the Miguel Cabrera's, Albert Pujols', etc contracts just hurt a team so much. Teams like Yankees, Dodgers, Angels will always pay high price, but teams like Red Sox, Mets, Giants, Cubs just aren't going to do that as much as they were. Just doesn't make sense for the teams.

I get Mookie is a great player, but if teams offer a 10 year contract. He'll be 37, and lots of what makes him great will be gone by 33/34.

It's not worth all the extra money over that last 4 years or so.

Baseball would be better if they got teams to go on a salary cap. I get that it would be hard to do, but here's a point Passan made as well. Teams like KC, San Fran, etc mortgaged their entire future to get a ring or 2 and have success. But then they either lose their guys for basically nothing, or they overpay and really bring down their entire roster because the teams can't afford to go much higher on salaries.

Baseball keeps losing popularity. And you know what would help with that? Getting a salary cap and having those high salary teams to actually have to do a good job and build up their farm system, and not just rely on high priced signings and outbidding everyone.

Players should go for those really high contracts over 3-4 years. They'll get paid per year more than they likely will on deals of 10 years or whatever. Moose is kind of a good example. Nobody was going to pay high price for him. He signs back with KC for somewhat cheap at $8M. Then goes to Milwaukee and kills it there for like $15M over 2 years, and is now on a 4 year $64M deal with the Reds. He kept his contracts short, he tried for the long term deals, but kept short term and is now on track to make $100M for his career. Not bad.

[NewtonHawk11]

But, it’s just money. The Red Sox could have, but chose not to, pay whatever it would have cost.

Everything else is just noise.

It would be nice if “just $300m” or so could be spread around the cities a bit more. The balance sheet is out of whack to me

Is this a "The Royals are poor and it's unfair" post? Let's not do that.

Don't think it's that. But as I stated in my unintentional long ass post, I think MLB needs some sort of cap. It's just not good business for the way the contracts are going. And as Jeff Passan stated, baseball contracts have likely hit their absolute peak with Harper/Trout contracts, and will start to come back down.

[CrimsonNBlue]

I get Mookie is a great player, but if teams offer a 10 year contract. He'll be 37, and lots of what makes him great will be gone by 33/34.

It's not worth all the extra money over that last 4 years or so.

I don't think I agree with this premise.

[NewtonHawk11]

That's fine. But let's look at another athletic outfielder in Lorenzo Cain. Granted, Mookie a better hitter, but I'd argue Cain has been equal at most everything else.

Cain had his worst WAR of his career since becoming a full time major leaguer last year. At age 33. Played second highest total of games in a season last year.

And he was not good. The year they hit 33 is about the time they start struggling. Big time.

Sure the first 5 years are great. But will it make up for how bad they will be over the last 4 years? I don't know.

[Deleted User 141]

The baseball labor model is horrible.

Wonder where MLB will be in 10 years. TV contracts in general are all going to change, I think.

[CrimsonNBlue]

It seems to me that the market is correcting itself as these outlier contracts are becoming nooses. Houston showed that smart spending and development (and cheating!) can create a mini-dynasty. The Royals were a couple of bad moves from having really good teams for the better part of a decade. Even the Yankees are looking to homegrow players now.

Is there really more parity in the NBA than MLB? It looks to me they are about the same, and the stars end up going to the same exact cities in both leagues.

[NewtonHawk11]

Is there really more parity in the NBA than MLB? It looks to me they are about the same, and the stars end up going to the same exact cities in both leagues.

I mean, I think so. You've had teams like Golden State (Oakland isn't the biggest destination spot) Milwaukee, Orlando, Detroit, Toronto, San Antonio all showing continued success the last 15 years or so.

Those aren't LA, NY, Boston, Dallas, etc.

Those are smaller market teams doing successful things.

[Deleted User 141]

Players may still funnel to specific markets if MLB were to have some kind of cap, sure.

But what it would seemingly prevent, is roster dumping en masse.

Of course, the Dolphins NFL experiment might discredit that opinion to a point.

But, for leagues that are not at all fair market, having safety nets that guarantee a specific financial viability seems to be a generally good idea. In principle.

[Deleted User 141]

Have to note, too, that comparisons across leagues is a bit folly, as they have different structures to their caps and roster salary requirements.

[jfish26]

You all are making interesting points so I can't pick one to quote+respond.

Generally, my issue with a cap is that it would almost certainly be a mechanism to shift more money toward the owners.

I do think that tanking represents a significant threat to baseball's long-term viability. Six months and 81 home games (162 TV nights) is long-ass time if you know your team is just actively disinterested in being any good. Something has to be done.

Some people say the answer is a salary floor. That doesn't do much for me, but perhaps that's because I'm a Royals fan with PTSD over signing medium-priced, shitty old dudes just for the sake of saying you did something.

A salary cap would certainly have the effect of dispersing talent, but I'm predisposed against it as described above, and also because I think it would be inherently favorable to smaller-market teams in good weather cities.

I also generally prefer rules that encourage good conduct, instead of punishing bad conduct.

I would really like to explore the Wild Card being broken into first-half and second-half winners (obviously if you win the first half and end up winning your division, the first-half Wild Card would go to the next eligible team). I think this is great for the beginning of the season (you have a reason to get your best guys up early, and then there's a race in June), and the end (if you have great young guys and suck ass in the first half, you're not out of it in the second half).