MLB economics

Pity the fans who have to deal with dumb contracts that handcuff their favorite team.

I am not sympathetic to the owners for any number of reasons, but seeing someone like Jansen talk strike because of the slow offseason seems unfair. Free agent contracts have gotten so risky that it makes total sense to think twice. The only guy this off season I would be happy for the Sox to get is JDM. Or, to revise... I might almost be content to sign someone like Lucroy to a 1-year deal as a DH. But the Sox are wallowing in bad contracts. Who thinks a 5-year deal for Darvish, for example, doesn’t have at least a year or two of really bad value?


Edit: or Hosmer? I cannot imagine year 5 of his contract.

Less than what?

Agreed and besides, are we supposed to feel bad for the players because they're underpaid? They're really not, you could make a point that minor leaguers and rookies and borderline players are underpaid, but not that Mookie Betts is not going to make enough money. I'm legit confused every time I see people talking about owners as these greed filled monsters and players as badass rebels who are sticking it to the man, you could argue that perhaps owners could have smaller profit margins for whatever bolshevik fever dream inspired reasons, but why couldn't the players? Let's all make a deal, owners make less money, do away with guaranteed contracts and players get less and fans have to pay less in order to see the games. Everyone wins and we're officially back to the 1920s! If I should demand that owners pay more to give me a thing I want, why shouldn't I demand that there's less money involved in the whole equation making my hobby cheaper and my life happier? I like money as well, I don't like the idea of having to pay for $50 hot dogs because Betts is good at hitting a ball.

This narrative about the players being the poor working class and the owners being exploitative a**holes is so goddamn tired and so unreal in today's world. Mookie Betts won't make a ridiculous amount of money because he's so good at baseball OMG, he will because he's so good at baseball and people care and watch the games. It's not his divine right to make that money, so if contract discussions ever reach a point where it becomes detrimental to the enjoyment of the game causing people to maybe stop caring so much, and we're probably getting close to that, something like a hard max salary (mutually agreed to of course) would ideally be a good solution. Or they could strike and become the NHL.

Here's the revenue for every MLB team in 2016. There's a defensible stance that some franchises could have a higher payroll based on how much money they generate, but you could also argue that in 2016 the Dodgers had a higher payroll than 7 teams had for total revenue. If you're going to increase the salary of each team to ridiculous amounts because Albert Pujols could have 2 space rockets instead of 1, why even have teams that can't compete financially? It would lessen the interest in the league overall, leading to less fans watching the game which in turn would lead to Pablo Sandoval having to purchase an exotic island in the indian ocean instead of the pacific. Not sure how he would survive.

Ticket Prices and Fenway Franks!!!

It handcuffs teams from adding talent, I look at it from a standpoint like the Cleveland Cavaliers, Lebron cries every year about them not having enough talent, but wants max contract, if max was more, no telling what he would want then add a bunch of guys get old and have no trade pieces...Thats why someone like Pedy taking a team friendly discount is huge.

As it stands, the Dodgers spent more money on payroll than 7 teams in the league had for total revenue. If you want to increase that chasm, what's the point of having those teams?

Isn't that's kind of what is happening, though? Guys running the FO these days are ivy league SABR types, and they know that free agency is a losing proposition, so those offers are going away. Agents like Boras don't seem to understand that times are now different and team executives no longer are willing to make such stupid mistakes anymore, but Boras keeps acting like his clients are entitled to these stupid deals because they've been so spoiled over the years with so many executives making such bad decisions (which at times are also made on the ownership level).

Then the players cry, "Collusion"

Guess the only way to avoid that cry is to hand out stupid contracts.

The system is so broken. Honestly I feel no sympathy for either side. I don't care to see owners pocket ridiculous profits. Players make so much money that the average working man/woman can't relate to them. We are definitely headed for a showdown and that will further fan apathy for the game.

Quick, call Vince McMahon and make your pitch for the XLB!

I hope you never had kids who had professional sports aspirations.  Or would you buy them the steroids so they can compete?  C'mon.

Well we're discussing how fans suffer from this.  Either the team is stupid or they lose all their good players to stupid teams.  And yeah, I'm saying this as a fan of the Red Sox which will be facing these horrible decisions that are coming up in the next 2 years.  They can either re-sign their great young core to stupid contracts or lose them without any help coming from the farm system.