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A Salary Cap Might Be In MLBPA's Favor


crawdad

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If you look at the NHL or NBA . . . the players get about 55% of the revenue. In MLB it is less than half. so, in a free market . . . the owners are doing better than in a capped market. Why are the players not clamoring for a payroll cap to force revenue sharing?

The place where this seems to really hooking players is in the arbitration market. The free agent market keeps exploding, but the brakes are set pretty well in increasing player salaries via arbitration. Players are forced to accept below market salaries that are in line with a slowly changing award system. It seems a cap could rearrange this by trading out arbitration and speeding up time to free agency. I imagine forcing international players into a draft would also correct this as well as this would put more money in play for athletes from established systems.

Thoughts on the salary disparity?

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If you look at the NHL or NBA . . . the players get about 55% of the revenue. In MLB it is less than half. so, in a free market . . . the owners are doing better than in a capped market. Why are the players not clamoring for a payroll cap to force revenue sharing?

Well, the NFL shares all the TV money from one big shared pile. MLB has all the teams making their own TV deals, which is a huge part of why the MFY's and BOS are so rich. So, 55% of the total MFY revenue is huge, while for PIT or KC or TB, it's not. I'm not big on a salary cap for various reasons (mainly because I don't think that's the problem, it's just a symptom), but if I pretend that I was in favor of it, I don't see how MLB could emulate the NFL unless they got most of the money into the same pile. That would require all the non-rich teams ganging up on the rich ones, and the owners would rather stick together and blame everything on the players.

(I don't know squat about the NBA, and I pretty much wanna keep it that way ;-)

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Well, the NFL shares all the TV money from one big shared pile. MLB has all the teams making their own TV deals, which is a huge part of why the MFY's and BOS are so rich. So, 55% of the total MFY revenue is huge, while for PIT or KC or TB, it's not.

My gut feeling is for the salary cap (and floor.) But the above quote is why I'm not. We now have our own network, and a unique network at that... the only one with exclusive broadcasting rights to two MLB teams.

It's still in the startup phase, but has the potential to really make the O's a POWER in the league, financially.

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My gut feeling is for the salary cap (and floor.) But the above quote is why I'm not. We now have our own network, and a unique network at that... the only one with exclusive broadcasting rights to two MLB teams.

It's still in the startup phase, but has the potential to really make the O's a POWER in the league, financially.

Unless MASN can start collecting twice (for MASN and MASN2) from every cable/sat subscriber regardless of whether or not they want the product I'm not so sure that having the second team isn't a disadvantage.

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I'd do a soft cap, like the NBA...where teams that want to re-sign their own players can go above the cap.

One thing I hate about the NFL is that you rarely see players stay with one team for their entire careers. I can think of Darrell Green, Brett Favre and Ray Lewis off the top of my head.

I loved rooting for the Skins as a kid cause I knew the core group of players would always be there, for the most part. Now that's not the case. I'd hate to see the same thing happen with baseball...even now, it's rare for a player to stay in one city his entire career.

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I'd do a soft cap, like the NBA...where teams that want to re-sign their own players can go above the cap.

One thing I hate about the NFL is that you rarely see players stay with one team for their entire careers. I can think of Darrell Green, Brett Favre and Ray Lewis off the top of my head.

I loved rooting for the Skins as a kid cause I knew the core group of players would always be there, for the most part. Now that's not the case. I'd hate to see the same thing happen with baseball...even now, it's rare for a player to stay in one city his entire career.

Is there really any less player movement in the NBA than there is in the NFL? It doesn't seem like there is to me. It seems to me that baseball in the current system already has vastly more player movement than either the NFL or NBA.

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Is there really any less player movement in the NBA than there is in the NFL? It doesn't seem like there is to me. It seems to me that baseball in the current system already has vastly more player movement than either the NFL or NBA.

Good question.

I think the NFL has the most player movement. The NBA has a great deal, too, despite the soft cap. However I think the NBA has the biggest blockbuster trades while the NFL and MLB have the biggest blockbuster free agent signings.

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Good question.

I think the NFL has the most player movement. The NBA has a great deal, too, despite the soft cap. However I think the NBA has the biggest blockbuster trades while the NFL and MLB have the biggest blockbuster free agent signings.

The big name free agent signings in the NFL are usually guys that the team losing the player isn't all that keen on keeping as there are tools under the NFL system to prevent player movement such as the franchise tag. I am not a big NBA fan and don't follow it closely but in the comparison between football and baseball I suspect there are more FA signings/player movement in MLB than there is in the NFL even though the NFL rosters are twice the size. I look at my favorite teams in the NFL (Colts) and MLB (Orioles) and there is very little to no player movement w/the NFL team and quite a bit w/the MLB team.

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Here's one thing I always wondered, and it doesn't really have much to do with a cap.

Instead of certain teams (i.e Yanks, BOS) paying a luxury tax to be split among all MLB teams, why doesn't MLB keep that money in the division? Split that money between the Jays, O's and Rays. I mean, it's the rest of the AL East that suffers the most from their overspending. I would imagine parity eventually would develop in these divisions.

It's not like they would be changing the amount the Yanks pay in luxury tax, just the recepient.

Doesn't that make more sense? Am I wrong here?

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Here's one thing I always wondered, and it doesn't really have much to do with a cap.

Instead of certain teams (i.e Yanks, BOS) paying a luxury tax to be split among all MLB teams, why doesn't MLB keep that money in the division? Split that money between the Jays, O's and Rays. I mean, it's the rest of the AL East that suffers the most from their overspending. I would imagine parity eventually would develop in these divisions.

It's not like they would be changing the amount the Yanks pay in luxury tax, just the recepient.

Doesn't that make more sense? Am I wrong here?

The other divisions would just love that...

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If you look at the NHL or NBA . . . the players get about 55% of the revenue. In MLB it is less than half. so, in a free market . . . the owners are doing better than in a capped market. Why are the players not clamoring for a payroll cap to force revenue sharing?

The place where this seems to really hooking players is in the arbitration market. The free agent market keeps exploding, but the brakes are set pretty well in increasing player salaries via arbitration. Players are forced to accept below market salaries that are in line with a slowly changing award system. It seems a cap could rearrange this by trading out arbitration and speeding up time to free agency. I imagine forcing international players into a draft would also correct this as well as this would put more money in play for athletes from established systems.

Thoughts on the salary disparity?

What salary disparity?

MLB couldn't match the 55% of revenue to salary that the NFL does because MLB's costs are very different. No other sport maintains the extensive minor league player development system that baseball does, nor does any other sport play as many games. All of that drives up baseball's infrastructure costs higher than those of other sports.

According to Forbes estimates, NFL franchises provide about triple the return on investment that MLB franchises do. NFL teams only have 10 home games per season (2 exhibition and 8 regular season) unless they make the playoffs, so they can charge higher ticket prices than baseball teams who have to entice fans out to fill their venues 81 times per season. However, the costs per event probably aren't that much different. Because NFL teams have fewer home events, they need fewer full time employees.

If MLB and the players association were to adopt my compensation system which would pay players from a consolidated payroll fund for their actual production, then MLB and the PA could negotiate a fixed portion of revenue which would go into that consolidated fund.

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What salary disparity?

MLB couldn't match the 55% of revenue to salary that the NFL does because MLB's costs are very different. No other sport maintains the extensive minor league player development system that baseball does, nor does any other sport play as many games. All of that drives up baseball's infrastructure costs higher than those of other sports.

According to Forbes estimates, NFL franchises provide about triple the return on investment that MLB franchises do. NFL teams only have 10 home games per season (2 exhibition and 8 regular season) unless they make the playoffs, so they can charge higher ticket prices than baseball teams who have to entice fans out to fill their venues 81 times per season. However, the costs per event probably aren't that much different. Because NFL teams have fewer home events, they need fewer full time employees.

If MLB and the players association were to adopt my compensation system which would pay players from a consolidated payroll fund for their actual production, then MLB and the PA could negotiate a fixed portion of revenue which would go into that consolidated fund.

I don't really think infrastructure issues is something that should worry the MLBPA. It would be the owners who would worry about it. I'm not saying it is unimportant, I'm saying that it would be to the player's benefit. The question is not what is best for the game, but why can't the players leverage that. A salary cap would be perceived as something of a treat to owners even though it isn't. In return, players would reach free agency sooner.

The current system really does a disservice to guys like George Sherrill, Luke Scott, Aubrey Huff, Jeremy Guthrie, etc. These are guys who didn't establish themselves in the Majors until a late date. Then they have to wait for their arbitration clocks to be done with. Then at a relatively old age, for a ballplayer, they are trying to get the value they lost as underpaid renewal and arb players. The system doesnt work for the older prospect. Most guys are older prospects. This system also doesn't work for most 2B, SS, CF, and C because their value is pretty much highest in their first 6 years. It seems the current system only works for guys who make it to the majors early, establish a high level of success, and do not get injured.

We are beginning to see players get upset over this. We see it with Prince Fielder, Ryan Howard, and Nick Markakis. This is a new phenomenon. I thought at first it was just a whiny ball player, but looking more closely at it. The renewal and arb figures are not growing at the same rate as free agency dollars even though the league is getting deeper and deeper pockets. I think the main issue is that MLBPA representatives are either veterans (those who won't be helped from any chances and will most likely be hurt if cash redirects to the youngsters) or guys who are enamored with the idea of no dedicated spending (people are suspicious of constraints even when it helps them). The younger guys do not have the cash or the seniority to get their message across.

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