0D2B2A3D2B3B480 wrote:
I think a cap would be more effective in baseball than it would with any other sport. And there wouldn't be a cap without a floor. They'd HAVE to spend to the floor, which wouldn't be all that lower than the cap.
The rosters in hockey and basketball are small. If you get Lebron on your team odds are high you'll be making multiple trips to the finals.
Football meanwhile is a quarterback league. If you have a franchise quarterback you've got a good chance at going to the Super Bowl regardless of the rest of the roster. There was a good 15-year period there where the only quarterbacks representing the AFC were named Brady, Manning, or Roethlisberger.
Baseball meanwhile has big rosters and there's no single player that's going to tip the scales in one direction or the other. You could say a dominant starting pitcher but then they're not even on the field four out of five days.
Yeah, sure the Rays happened last year but give it a few years. The Yankees and Dodgers won't win it all every year but at least they have a chance to compete every year. That's what a cap would mean for the Pirates, they'd either be good or not based on the decisions of the front office, rather than the spending of the owner.
Good post, Davis. I agree that the cap and floor would have to be close, like just a few million dollars apart. Then the onus, as you pointed out, would fall on the GM, his staff, the development group, and the coaches. In other words, the baseball personnel, which is how it should be.
the thing about a cap is it is not going to be lower than what the Dodgers and Yankees are paying now and probably will need to be higher. Lets say the cap is 250 million and floor is 135 million, that would help the Pirates some.
There would be some way of measuring the cap based on revenues too so that the cap would change and the mlb players get a certain percentage. The players might go for a cap and floor if the percentage of revenue spent on MLB salaries was higher than it is now (and probably need to be significantly higher, maybe 10 or 15% for the players to go along with it.
For this to work, baseball would need to pool more revenue generated by teams than it does now. Without increased revenue the Bucs are not going to be able to spend $175 million on payroll.
There are enough franchises that a floor at $175 million wouldn't be possible year after year. Revenue sharing would have to increase to a point that the big franchises would refuse to agree. And the gap between $250 and $175, to me, is far too wide. The difference needs to be no greater than $5-10 million.
If the owners are committed to a cap/floor, I think a strike will result. And if it does, the owners have to outlast the players. If the players force the owners to cave, I can see the long term impact being some franchises either being contracted or folding.
This link has payrolls for 2021 and 7 are 175 million or higher with Dodgers and Yankees leading the way with 247 million and 200 million.
https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/
the average payroll for 2021 is 128 million with previous big spenders Rockies, Rangers, Tigers, Mariners under the average and 15 teams more than average.
Miami, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cleveland are only ones lower than 69 million.
For players to get the same amount of revenue as they are this year the average for next year would need to be $128 million.
For the players to want to change that, perhaps the average would need to be $150 million with annual increases depending upon total revenue.
I wonder if $22 million more per team is sufficient? Plus it would cause disruption for ten teams that are over the $150 million now.
The Cubs were 220 million in 2019 and are only 151 million this year.
I wonder if players would say, well Cleveland had this payroll in x year so they can be way above average again?
It just seems like implementing a salary cap of any kind is going to be difficult even if players and teams agree there should be one.
Without more revenue sharing if the cap was $160 million and the floor $150 million would the Pirates have the revenue to pay it?
Good information. The disparity between franchises is so great that perhaps a major event has to occur in order to create the change needed to reach equity. Like a players strike or a lockout by the owners. I'm in favor of it if it changes the system for the good.
As for the Pirates affording $150 million, I think we all agree the franchise can likely afford more than what was spent during the 2013-15 seasons, which was a bit over $100 million. We'll never know how much, though, but it seems a stretch they could routinely spend $150 million without receiving an increase in revenue sharing.
But are the wealthy owners interested in sharing more? I wouldn't think they would be. They like the fact they face less competition on the field because of the low spending by a third of the other owners.
For us fans of the "poor" franchises, the system needs to change in the direction of the other three major sports leagues but, with the money being made by everyone, I don't see it happening.