A Salary Cap Might Be In MLBPA's Favor

[Mad Mark]

MLB's money-distribution problem must be attacked on the revenue side first.

I've long felt that 75% of a team's total revenues should be put into the common pot, and then split among all 30 teams. The Yankee$ (and other teams in large media markets) still have more money to play with than everyone else...they just don't have massively more money than everyone else.

Second, the current schedule is a joke. I would do away with the unbalanced schedule and interleague play. Hell, I might even do away with division winners. Best four records in each league go to the playoffs. First round is 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3. Best record is home team. Winners meet in second round under same conditions. Winners of second round meet in World Series under same conditions. If the four best teams in the AL (or the NL) all happen to be in the same division...so be it.

[crawdad]

MLB's money-distribution problem must be attacked on the revenue side first.

I've long felt that 75% of a team's total revenues should be put into the common pot, and then split among all 30 teams. The Yankee$ (and other teams in large media markets) still have more money to play with than everyone else...they just don't have massively more money than everyone else.

Second, the current schedule is a joke. I would do away with the unbalanced schedule and interleague play. Hell, I might even do away with division winners. Best four records in each league go to the playoffs. First round is 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3. Best record is home team. Winners meet in second round under same conditions. Winners of second round meet in World Series under same conditions. If the four best teams in the AL (or the NL) all happen to be in the same division...so be it.

No offense intended, but try to stay on target. If the schedule has something to do with salary caps . . . good. If not, another thread might be a good idea.

[Fan4Life]

MLB is growing in attendance, radio and tv viewership.

There have been 7 different teams win the World Series in the last 8 years.

The team with the highest payroll hasn't won the WS since 2000.

I don't think they'll see a problem with the current state of things. The best changes they can make now are in the drafting area IMO. Anything that can be done to help the lower / middle revenue teams acquire the better / cheaper young talent, the better baseball will be. This alone could bring salaries down.

[Birds08]

I think baseball needs a salary cap, but more importantly, I think draft positions need to have slotted salaries. Its ridiculous that non-loaded teams like Pittsburgh can't draft the best player with the first pick due to signability. Its ridiculous that top 15 players still fall to the Yanks and Red Sox drafting in the late 20s. I think this more than anything else has destroyed the competitive balance in the game.

[RShack]

I think baseball needs a salary cap, but more importantly, I think draft positions need to have slotted salaries. Its ridiculous that non-loaded teams like Pittsburgh can't draft the best player with the first pick due to signability. Its ridiculous that top 15 players still fall to the Yanks and Red Sox drafting in the late 20s. I think this more than anything else has destroyed the competitive balance in the game.

AFAIK, a salary cap won't fix anything.

When AM's Daddy made the O's the best organization, one of his big tools was the lack of a draft. The O's weren't the richest, but they had great scouting, so they just went out and did a better job of signing players and developing them once they had them. Now, there's lots of shared scouting info and a draft that makes everybody take turns and share. If those rules were in place then, then Lee MacPhail couldn't have done what he did. The lack of an even playing field about signing players is a big part of how the un-rich O's got to be great.

The whole reason for slotted salaries to help the owners keep more money and prevent ballplayers from getting it. That's one of the main reasons the NFL and AFL merged, thus creating the mega-NFL of today: The owners didn't want 2 leagues competing for talent, they wanted one big monopoly. Why should the owners legislate how much a player should make? That's goofy and unfair. The problem is the disparity among team wealth. If the MFY's had to split their money with the teams they play, that'd fix it right there. But they don't. If nobody played the MFY's, they wouldn't be worth 10 cents. Sharing the money with who you play is both fair and a great solution. But it won't happen because the owners don't want strife in their little club, they'd rather blame the players.

[BaltimoreTerp]

AFAIK, a salary cap won't fix anything.

When AM's Daddy made the O's the best organization, one of his big tools was the lack of a draft. The O's weren't the richest, but they had great scouting, so they just went out and did a better job of signing players and developing them once they had them. Now, there's lots of shared scouting info and a draft that makes everybody take turns and share. If those rules were in place then, then Lee MacPhail couldn't have done what he did. The lack of an even playing field about signing players is a big part of how the un-rich O's got to be great.

The whole reason for slotted salaries to help the owners keep more money and prevent ballplayers from getting it.

Not true; it would keep players from getting big money before they earn it.

Take the NFL draft as a very extreme example: the first overall pick this year is going to get $30-35 million guaranteed money. Is it fair that he gets that money instead of a player who has earned it?

That's one of the main reasons the NFL and AFL merged, thus creating the mega-NFL of today: The owners didn't want 2 leagues competing for talent, they wanted one big monopoly. Why should the owners legislate how much a player should make? That's goofy and unfair. The problem is the disparity among team wealth. If the MFY's had to split their money with the teams they play, that'd fix it right there. But they don't. If nobody played the MFY's, they wouldn't be worth 10 cents. Sharing the money with who you play is both fair and a great solution. But it won't happen because the owners don't want strife in their little club, they'd rather blame the players.

It wouldn't be legislating how much a player makes: it would be legislating how much each team spends.

That is why you tie it in with revenue sharing. I like the idea of all media revenue in one pot, with each team getting a share, and setting both a salary floor (at whatever that share of the pot is) and a cap (at twice that).

That way, teams can keep ticket revenue and concessions and merchandising and other revenues to spend, and owners can spend more if they have the cash. Small-market teams can compete more with the bigger teams. All teams will have to spend a certain amount on players, so that brings them more money.

Unless one wants to go to the European systems (or back to 1880 in the US), with no/limited restrictions, the system has to go in this direction.

[Mad Mark]

No offense intended, but try to stay on target. If the schedule has something to do with salary caps . . . good. If not, another thread might be a good idea.

Revenue distribution is a competitive balance issue, as is straightening out the schedule. Having teams with wildly disparate revenue streams playing different schedules stretches the concept of "sports league" farther than I think it ought to be stretched.

[crawdad]

Revenue distribution is a competitive balance issue, as is straightening out the schedule. Having teams with wildly disparate revenue streams playing different schedules stretches the concept of "sports league" farther than I think it ought to be stretched.

No they are not the same. There are components to each argument that deal with each other, but they are not the same. The way in which you commented on them was heavily in the competitive balance tangent. You are correct that an unbalanced schedule does put some shift in revenue to certain teams and that is part of the problem that needs to be dealt with, but I think you are on step 9 or 10 when we are just basically trying to figure out why there is a difference in revenue sharing between the players and owners. Does that make sense?

[DrungoHazewood]

Salary caps have always and will always be all about payroll restraint. They're a tool to keep the owners from spending money. All the other arguments are window dressing.

If you really wanted to change the league so that everyone is competitive you need a revenue cap. If all you do is cap payroll the Yanks will just go spend money on player development and facilities and scouting and analysis.

The real solution has been and always will be competition - free the minors, eliminate territorial restrictions, and restrictions on franchise movement. The market will eventually sort itself out into relatively equal markets.

[crawdad]

Salary caps have always and will always be all about payroll restraint. They're a tool to keep the owners from spending money. All the other arguments are window dressing.

If you really wanted to change the league so that everyone is competitive you need a revenue cap. If all you do is cap payroll the Yanks will just go spend money on player development and facilities and scouting and analysis.

The real solution has been and always will be competition - free the minors, eliminate territorial restrictions, and restrictions on franchise movement. The market will eventually sort itself out into relatively equal markets.

Well, wheels were all about transportation. Then they figured out they could be used as cogs in machinery. Just because something has an initial and predominant use does not mean it can be used for something else. Salary caps have been used for payroll restraint, but they can also be used to insure fair revenue distribution between owners and players.

Anyway, I don't think a no holds barred system would work well. It sure didn't for the mortgage market or the power companies before then. Yes, markets straighten themselves out, but with so much money at play . . . foolish moves could severely hurt several industries.

[DrungoHazewood]

Well, wheels were all about transportation. Then they figured out they could be used as cogs in machinery. Just because something has an initial and predominant use does not mean it can be used for something else. Salary caps have been used for payroll restraint, but they can also be used to insure fair revenue distribution between owners and players.

Anyway, I don't think a no holds barred system would work well. It sure didn't for the mortgage market or the power companies before then. Yes, markets straighten themselves out, but with so much money at play . . . foolish moves could severely hurt several industries.

Nobody said things wouldn't be messy. But usually when a higher power tries to grab a market and manipulate it "better" than natural supply and demand things squish out between the fingers of the hands doing the grabbing.

I don't think letting teams figure out their most advantageous place in terms of level of play, geographic location, and payroll would be any worse than a complex labyrinth of salary caps, territorial restrictions, franchise rules, and proclamations made by the whims of 30 owners and Bud Selig.

[RShack]

The whole reason for slotted salaries to help the owners keep more money and prevent ballplayers from getting it.

Not true; it would keep players from getting big money before they earn it.

Beans. The only reason players get a lot of money before they earn it is because the owners give it to them. Nobody's holding a gun to their head.

Then, after the owners collectively act like idiots, they wanna legislate salaries to stop themselves from acting like idiots. It's a perfect example of people blaming somebody else for problems they create themselves. And then, they somehow con fans into thinking that the owners should get to keep even more of the money, just to stop ballplayers from getting it. The only ones who don't deserve crazy money more than the ballplayers don't deserve it are the owners. They run a monopoly that's making billions, and they complain about the problems they've created for themselves... and the only ones who fall for it are fans... who are the only ones in this whole story who aren't rich. It's pretty amazing, actually...

[crawdad]

Nobody said things wouldn't be messy. But usually when a higher power tries to grab a market and manipulate it "better" than natural supply and demand things squish out between the fingers of the hands doing the grabbing.

I don't think letting teams figure out their most advantageous place in terms of level of play, geographic location, and payroll would be any worse than a complex labyrinth of salary caps, territorial restrictions, franchise rules, and proclamations made by the whims of 30 owners and Bud Selig.

I don't know. The thing is with a completely open system . . . can 30 or so teams exist in that market? Will it collapse down to a few major teams taking in everything like a coke or pepsi? To assume that 30 teams could exist and have an equal opportunity is somewhat naive. Some teams will have better footing established in prime markets (read: Yanks, Mets, BoSox, Dodgers, Angels) than those in subprime markets (read: Tampa). The question is: What makes good baseball? Is it a completely capitalistic affair that fans want to see? Is it to generate an equal playing field and bring on competition? Where is the money coming from? Is New York not tapped enough in terms of baseball?

It is nice to say that a free market will make things simpler and strengthen the game, but I doubt it would strengthen it in practice.

[DrungoHazewood]

I don't know. The thing is with a completely open system . . . can 30 or so teams exist in that market? Will it collapse down to a few major teams taking in everything like a coke or pepsi? To assume that 30 teams could exist and have an equal opportunity is somewhat naive. Some teams will have better footing established in prime markets (read: Yanks, Mets, BoSox, Dodgers, Angels) than those in subprime markets (read: Tampa). The question is: What makes good baseball? Is it a completely capitalistic affair that fans want to see? Is it to generate an equal playing field and bring on competition? Where is the money coming from? Is New York not tapped enough in terms of baseball?

It is nice to say that a free market will make things simpler and strengthen the game, but I doubt it would strengthen it in practice.

There are lots of open systems that exist today.

NCAA sports are largely open systems, and there are a lot more popular, competitive college football and basketball teams in the country than there are NBA or NFL teams. The NCAA has partially open scheduling, so a school like Akron or Middle Tennessee State can play the best teams in the country. It has a policy of letting any school that meets some minimum qualifications join. And the result is tiny schools in backwater towns in Arkansas can draw sellout crowds and have rabid followings.

Most European soccer leagues are open to a large extent. The EPL and associated lower leagues have over 100 professional teams. 20 play in the highest tier, similar numbers in lower tiers, and with promotion/relegation probably 30 or more teams have played at the highest level in the last decade. You can form a team at the lowest level, and you can get promoted all the way to playing in Old Trafford in front of 70,000 fans. Most of the biggest soccer leagues, with open formats, have revenues into the $billions.

The open vs. closed system debate coming down on the side of closed in North American pro sports was just a thing of chance and environment and circumstance. It's not a rule that you have to have a closed league to succeed.

[RShack]

It is nice to say that a free market will make things simpler and strengthen the game, but I doubt it would strengthen it in practice.

It's like anything else, really... you need the right combination of free competition and sane regulation. The idea that a free market will fix things is just a theory, an ideology. There's zero evidence to support it, and there's a lot of evidence against it. Same exact thing with regulation too, they're like mirror images of each other. AFAIK, all the evidence shows that if you don't have the right practical combination of free competition and sane regulation, things get screwy. It happens every time, and the nature of the screwy-ness is entirely predictable, based on which way it's out-of-balance. The problem is that getting the right practical balance is just a hard problem to solve. There's no easy formula for it, simply because reality is complicated, things have unintended consequences, etc., so it's normal to get wrong solutions based on a perfectly reasonable try at a perfectly reasonable goal.

It's almost guaranteed that the first couple tries won't be right, even if they're thoroughly designed (which they usually aren't). Even with a good design, a key thing is debugging it until you eventually get a good solution. In general, one of the main problems is that the debugging part doesn't get done properly, so the flawed 1st- or 2nd-tries just sit there, keeping on being flawed. What happens a lot is that either you dig in and live with a flawed arrangement (which is bad to do), or else you tear it up and start completely over (which is also usually bad to do). The debugging part isn't sexy or fun (too many details for most people to follow) but it's really, really important. Too bad it doesn't happen enough.