Are Free Agent Contracts Worth It?

[ChuckS]

6 minutes ago, El Gordo said:

The people who are talking are the evaluaters and the ones familiar with the market. Barring injury it will be at least 400M+

It's nothing but speculation until we see a deal made.  Sure, players and agents want to have that put out there.  It's to their benefits.  It's something for sports writers and people like us to debate as well.  I just don't see it.  It could happen I suppose.  

I wouldn't be surprised to see opt-outs involved as well.  May bring the total dollars down.  

[oriole]

4 minutes ago, 25 Nuggets said:

It's fair question in my mind.  Where is the saturation point for baseball revenue?  The NHL reached something similar a while ago leading to the lockout and major financial changes.  It was a necessary evil and now the league is doing OK (btw revenue is up from 2.27 billion in 2005/06 to 4.1 billion in 2015-16).

Major League Baseball though is not a regional sport like hockey is in the northern US and Canada -- it's gone global.  IMO Baseball and Basketball have brighter long-term futures than "american football" because of this, though the NFL sees this and is trying REALLY HARD to shove their product down other countries' throats.  We may actually see a BILLION dollar contract before saturation hits.

Do you think there reaches a point that the type of money being thrown around has a negative impact on the integrity of the game? 

One could argue that that may never happen as we, as fans of a sport, already passively accept the exuberance of the contracts being handed out. We have a nice stadium paying athletes millions of dollars right down the street from neighborhoods where most houses are boarded up or condemned. As of now, most baseball fans that I know will say "yea, it's crazy" and not think much further or let it bother of them as its just the nature of the beast. Eventually when it comes to players getting $40+ million a year do you think people will start to sour on the game? I don't know, mostly just a rhetorical question.

Baseball obviously makes a lot of money and it seems every year players of generally equal value to free agents in prior years are looking for that "record deal" and it seems to climb every year and I think when Manny and Harper get to FA we will see some mind numbing numbers, I just can't help but feel like it's not sustainable. It's gotta come back down at some point and it's not because the teams won't be able to afford it necessarily but it might start driving fans away. Then again, it hasn't yet so who knows? 

[El Gordo]

9 minutes ago, ChuckS said:

It's nothing but speculation until we see a deal made.  Sure, players and agents want to have that put out there.  It's to their benefits.  It's something for sports writers and people like us to debate as well.  I just don't see it.  It could happen I suppose.  

I wouldn't be surprised to see opt-outs involved as well.  May bring the total dollars down.  

Arod's 250 M is worth 361.5 M n todays dollars and Boras is Harper's agent. http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/bryce-harper-500-million-man/