MLB Lockout Thread

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Tony-OH said:

You can certainly disagree. What is wrong with it? What tells you the players care about anything other than making the most money possible, even at the cost of competitiveness for all teams.

Perhaps I missed something. I'm always willing to take more information in and change my mind based on the new evidence, but all you have to do is listen to ultra rich elitist Scherzer to know what the players want.

Well, in their eyes if you pay more for the middling guys, you will be better and if you remove the incentives for tanking, there will be more competitiveness as well.  
 

So, I think they do care about it but I think they only care about it for the means of money…but so do the owners.  That’s what all of this is about on both sides.  To act as if one side is caring more about the fans is incorrect imo.  

[Tony-OH]

Just now, Frobby said:

It depends how low the floor is.   Last year in the NFL the highest payroll was $205 mm and the lowest was $172 mm.   I’d love to see baseball have that narrow a payroll spread, but it’s never going to happen.  

We'd all love that, but of course, the NFL can do that because all of their TV revenue comes from National broadcasts vs regional like in baseball.

As long as the big market teams have their cash cow regional networks, it will be hard for MLB to ever create system where things are competitive across the board without some kind of salary cap, luxury tax, or something. 

Making the small markets pay more with a floor won't help competitiveness unless of course you mean winning 68 games a year vs 55 makes a team "more competitive". 

 

[Moose Milligan]

4 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

You can certainly disagree. What is wrong with it? What tells you the players care about anything other than making the most money possible, even at the cost of competitiveness for all teams.

Perhaps I missed something. I'm always willing to take more information in and change my mind based on the new evidence, but all you have to do is listen to ultra rich elitist Scherzer to know what the players want.

Players want more money.  Owners don't want to give it.  

 

[Frobby]

Just now, Tony-OH said:

We'd all love that, but of course, the NFL can do that because all of their TV revenue comes from National broadcasts vs regional like in baseball.

As long as the big market teams have their cash cow regional networks, it will be hard for MLB to ever create system where things are competitive across the board without some kind of salary cap, luxury tax, or something. 

Making the small markets pay more with a floor won't help competitiveness unless of course you mean winning 68 games a year vs 55 makes a team "more competitive". 

 

I agree with your post and especially the last paragraph.   And that may mean you eliminate tanking but end up with perpetually sub-.500 teams like the 1998-2011 Orioles.  

[DrungoHazewood]

14 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Of course a team can catch lightening in a bottle for a season or two before having to pay the big contracts, but for the most part, having an above average pay significantly improves your chances of making the playoffs on a consistent basis.

The Yanks have had a winning record every year since 1993.  The Dodgers have had one season under a .494 winning percentage this century.  That's not because they're always smarter than everyone else and don't make mistakes.  It's because they made reasonably good decisions and are smart, but they also can pick up an average player making $15M a year in a salary dump whenever they want, while the Pirates or the Orioles couldn't sign that level of player as their one targeted free agent for the offseason.

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Players want more money.  Owners don't want to give it.  

 

And the owners are making more money than ever before (taking 2020 out of the equation).  

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Making the small markets pay more with a floor won't help competitiveness unless of course you mean winning 68 games a year vs 55 makes a team "more competitive".

The main impact of a floor is to cut into the profits of small market teams, and raise the salaries of some players tied to those smaller teams.

[Tony-OH]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well, in their eyes if you pay more for the middling guys, you will be better and if you remove the incentives for tanking, there will be more competitiveness as well.  
 

So, I think they do care about it but I think they only care about it for the means of money…but so do the owners.  That’s what all of this is about on both sides.  To act as if one side is caring more about the fans is incorrect imo.  

Well if you think winning 71 games  a year instead of 55 makes you more competitive, then sure. 

As for caring about the fans, the owners do a bit more because that's how they make their money. Players don't care whether ten fans show up or 50,000, they get paid the same. 

So do the owners care about the fans happiness out of some kind love in their heart for the common family, hell no, its all about the Benjamins of course.

As I've said before, this is a Billionaire vs Millionaire fight. The only reason the fans matter even a little bit is that the owners are trying to figure out how to drain them of as much money as possible and to do that, they need to keep them interested.

The players have shown nothing in their negotiations that take the fans into consideration at all. That's their right of course and God bless them for trying to get more of the owners money, but at some point they have to realize what their demands does for competitiveness across all 30 teams. They seem to have no concern over that. They look at 30 teams as 30 employers and how do they make those employers give them as much money as possible. 

To hell with any fan interest lost. They still get their money.

 

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

And the owners are making more money than ever before (taking 2020 out of the equation).  

This is true.  

But they're not out there like Scherzer making comments.  I'm not sure if that's strategy on their part or that they don't have someone shoving a mic in any of their faces to make a mistake like that.

 

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

 

As for caring about the fans, the owners do a bit more because that's how they make their money. Players don't care whether ten fans show up or 50,000, they get paid the same. 

 

 

K, I don't believe that's how every owner makes all their money.  These guys are loaded before and after they were MLB owners.  I don't particularly know if they care about the fans either but I don't believe the fans are how they make their money.

Angelos made his in asbestos lawsuits, we know that.  Lerner made his, IIRC, in real estate.  None of these guys make their main income off owning a baseball team.  

[Sports Guy]

13 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

The problem is that the intelligence floor has come up tremendously the last 10-15 years.  There are no more Syd Thrifts.  Every front office is very smart.  I think there's a much wider spread in revenues than in intelligence. 

Ehh, I disagree with this.  It’s not that I don’t think teams are smarter than ever before but I still think a lot of them continuously do dumb things and don’t learn from past mistakes.

[Tony-OH]

11 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I agree with your post and especially the last paragraph.   And that may mean you eliminate tanking but end up with perpetually sub-.500 teams like the 1998-2011 Orioles.  

Exactly. The reason why I support "tanking" as an option is because we suffered through an organization that kept middling pay rolls and ended up with sub .500 records. 

Would I rather lose a 110 games a season and get the 1st overall pick vs winning 71 games and getting the 9th overall pick, absolutely. 

You have to hope that the means are worth the end. Now I get watching a team lose 110 games a year and be uncompetitive for 3 or 4 year in a row stinks, it does. But, if Elias can build a sustainable team that can be competitive year in a year out because of that tanking, than the tanking was worth it.

If the Orioles were forced to have a floor, then maybe they end up winning 68 or 71 games and maybe they end up with the 8th or 9th overall pick.

All I know is that the system looks a lot better with Rutschman and Coswer in it and really you can say Mayo too, because without the money saved on Kjerstad with #2 over pick, they would not have been able to afford Mayo and he would be in college right now looking like the #1 overall pick in 2023. 

[Sports Guy]

9 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Well if you think winning 71 games  a year instead of 55 makes you more competitive, then sure. 

As for caring about the fans, the owners do a bit more because that's how they make their money. Players don't care whether ten fans show up or 50,000, they get paid the same. 

So do the owners care about the fans happiness out of some kind love in their heart for the common family, hell no, its all about the Benjamins of course.

As I've said before, this is a Billionaire vs Millionaire fight. The only reason the fans matter even a little bit is that the owners are trying to figure out how to drain them of as much money as possible and to do that, they need to keep them interested.

The players have shown nothing in their negotiations that take the fans into consideration at all. That's their right of course and God bless them for trying to get more of the owners money, but at some point they have to realize what their demands does for competitiveness across all 30 teams. They seem to have no concern over that. They look at 30 teams as 30 employers and how do they make those employers give them as much money as possible. 

To hell with any fan interest lost. They still get their money.

 

Well yea..it’s a CBa negotiation.  Fans are never considered, in any sport.  That’s not new.  It’s like any other labor negotiation.  What matters is money and power.

[Tony-OH]

5 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

 

K, I don't believe that's how every owner makes all their money.  These guys are loaded before and after they were MLB owners.  I don't particularly know if they care about the fans either but I don't believe the fans are how they make their money.

Angelos made his in asbestos lawsuits, we know that.  Lerner made his, IIRC, in real estate.  None of these guys make their main income off owning a baseball team.  

I don't know if that's true at all. Of course owners were rich before they bought their teams, that's why they were able to buy the teams, but no one buys a team to lose money.

But if you think fans aren't how the owners make money, then how do they make money? Without ratings, those big money TV contracts aren't coming in. Who creates the ratings? Fans.

Gate receipts, merchandising (huge cash cow), concessions, advertising within the stadium are all revenue streams driven by fans.

So how else do the owners make money if not from the fans. Are you suggesting that a team could have no fans and no interest and still turn a profit?

[Tony-OH]

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well yea..it’s a CBa negotiation.  Fans are never considered, in any sport.  That’s not new.  It’s like any other labor negotiation.  What matters is money and power.

Agreed, which is why I find it so laughable when I see people defending the players like they are some underpaid coal minor who is making $8 an hour doing back breaking work while the CEO of the company has 20 houses around the world.

The average major league salary is over a million a year and the guy who is spokeman make over $40 million a year. Cry me a river over that unfairness. lol