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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2018 18:42:22 GMT -5
Is this the roster building thread or the bodybuilding thread?
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Feb 1, 2018 23:24:24 GMT -5
In your first sentence, you are literally describing how a free market works. If there are multiple bidders, you set how much you are willing to pay for a player. If another team wants to pay that player more, it's their problem because you have judged the player to not be worth that much money. Again, that is not stupid. That is how demand for a scarce commodity works in a free market. If the Red Sox deem their players to all be getting more money than they're worth and let them walk, then that's their decision regarding evaluations of each players. That's not a problem with the system. 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. What you are describing is fans suffering from front office incompetence. I do not believe that what you are describing is a systematic problem with MLB that needs to be addressed in the CBA.
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Post by Don Caballero on Feb 2, 2018 0:13:20 GMT -5
In your first sentence, you are literally describing how a free market works. If there are multiple bidders, you set how much you are willing to pay for a player. If another team wants to pay that player more, it's their problem because you have judged the player to not be worth that much money. Again, that is not stupid. That is how demand for a scarce commodity works in a free market. If the Red Sox deem their players to all be getting more money than they're worth and let them walk, then that's their decision regarding evaluations of each players. That's not a problem with the system. I get your point and I would normally agree, however there are a lot of dynamics mainly in the 4 big American sports leagues that go just a bit against the free market idea due to competitive reasons. Being an entertainment venue of sorts, you have to account for the desires of a lot of fans of a lot of teams in a lot of cities and while you could punt the economical differences that will exist in this scenario, it's tough to do that without a relegation system while maintaining relevance in those places. I like the idea of a salary cap for competitive reasons, it just works better than the alternative. Let me give you an example: People complain about Durant signing with the Warriors being overkill, but that took a masterpiece in terms of cap manipulation and just brilliant planning to pull it off. It was awesome. They deserved Durant because they could sign him and that makes it better thanks to their incredible strategic ability. Imagine if they could sign him anyway because there's not cap. Just write a big check and welcome him. People complain now, how would they react then? And seriously, how is that more fun than having people mess around with money figures like they're in a Scorsese movie? I'm obviously a free market advocate as well, but when it comes to sports I think putting in place a hard salary cap (and a max salary to boot) add an extra layer to the job and it makes it way more interesting than just sheer brute forcing ridiculous contracts. Unrelated to the point above, but to expand on my earlier posts about how athletes are not underpaid. In 2016, the Cincinnati Reds, a storied franchise that is one of the most traditional and recognizable in the sport, earned just 3 times more money than Lebron James did in the same year. Imagine how many people are employed by the Reds and compare that to how many people are employed by Lebron on his quest of not being as good as Michael Jordan. If you exclude the 6 bodyguards he sent to mess around Delonte when he slept with his mom, does he even break double digits?
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Post by rjp313jr on Feb 2, 2018 7:55:25 GMT -5
Not to delve into the Warriors but they weren’t genius to have max cap space for Durant they were smart and very lucky. They had Curry blow out his knee before he was extension eligible and a super star so they extended him on an Avery Bradley type deal. They had Green on his rookie wage scale and the salary Cap ballooned. Yes they made great draft picks and built a great roster but they only reason all those things were in place and they were able to have cap room is because of the fortunate timing of when they were bad (well before anyone knew the Cap would explode), the Curry injury (best thing that ever happened to that franchise) and then the exploding cap. It’s a great organization and you put yourself in position to capitalize when luck presents itself but it wasn’t this master plan thought out well in advance. Lots of things had to happen.
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Post by rjp313jr on Feb 2, 2018 8:04:26 GMT -5
So I believe strongly in the free market and capitalism etc but Major League Baseball and other sports leagues don’t fit into the greater free market. They are outliers. They are private closed off “industries” or “clubs” or “businesses” whatever you want to call them. It’s a bunch of rich people who created a league which they own and control and they can set whatever parameters they want on their Clubs. The fact they’ve let the players union stay so strong is baffling to me. These are people with basically no other skill set that can earn them even a decent fraction of what they can get playing baseball and there are very few alternatives. Back in the day that was different but now with the explosion in player salaries the owners should be able to basically get what they want while keeping the players rich.
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Post by James Dunne on Feb 2, 2018 8:58:13 GMT -5
Gross.
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Post by Don Caballero on Feb 2, 2018 9:35:06 GMT -5
Not to delve into the Warriors but they weren’t genius to have max cap space for Durant they were smart and very lucky. They had Curry blow out his knee before he was extension eligible and a super star so they extended him on an Avery Bradley type deal. They had Green on his rookie wage scale and the salary Cap ballooned. Yes they made great draft picks and built a great roster but they only reason all those things were in place and they were able to have cap room is because of the fortunate timing of when they were bad (well before anyone knew the Cap would explode), the Curry injury (best thing that ever happened to that franchise) and then the exploding cap. It’s a great organization and you put yourself in position to capitalize when luck presents itself but it wasn’t this master plan thought out well in advance. Lots of things had to happen. The Curry extension wasn't exactly lucky, it was risky as heck and it worked out. Even then, there were other small moves that created the space and frankly I thought it was a beautiful strategic move. When you watch guys like Bob Myers and Danny do their job, I can't help but remember great generals solemnly looking around the battlefield for who's better at shooting a basketball mixed with a quantum theory physicist writing stuff on a board. They're rockstars. Now compare that to someone just being able to write a check for as high a number as they can think of.
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Post by jimed14 on Feb 2, 2018 10:03:52 GMT -5
I can't think of anything more annoying than NBA economics where you have to have a degree in something to figure out if trading Mookie Betts and Chris Sale for some career minor leaguer was a good trade because of cap reasons.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Feb 2, 2018 10:34:38 GMT -5
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Feb 2, 2018 10:37:15 GMT -5
Not quite the same. The better equivalent would be if a team, say the Red Sox, traded a mediocre MLB starting pitcher to a team out of contention for like, a mediocre minor league middle infie... oh crap you're right.
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Post by Don Caballero on Feb 2, 2018 11:15:20 GMT -5
I can't think of anything more annoying than NBA economics where you have to have a degree in something to figure out if trading Mookie Betts and Chris Sale for some career minor leaguer was a good trade because of cap reasons. Mookie Betts or Chris Sale are superstars that make you trade someone else in order to clear cap space to sign them, you don't trade them for that purpose once you got them. Even if you don't like that, how is that not better than having no cap at all? Let's say you like soccer and you like spanish soccer and you're a Mallorca fan, why would you watch any game when you know your team has 0 shot of winning anything because Barcelona can come in and use all their human trafficking money to rejuvenate Pele?
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Post by jimed14 on Feb 2, 2018 11:20:45 GMT -5
I can't think of anything more annoying than NBA economics where you have to have a degree in something to figure out if trading Mookie Betts and Chris Sale for some career minor leaguer was a good trade because of cap reasons. Mookie Betts or Chris Sale are superstars that make you trade someone else in order to clear cap space to sign them, you don't trade them for that purpose once you got them. Even if you don't like that, how is that not better than having no cap at all? Let's say you like soccer and you like spanish soccer and you're a Mallorca fan, why would you watch any game when you know your team has 0 shot of winning anything because Barcelona can come in and use all their human trafficking money to rejuvenate Pele? My example wasn't great. Maybe if I included Pablo it would have been better. And baseball cannot do anything that gives teams a bigger incentive to tank like they have in the NBA. I mean they could, but I would probably lose interest really quickly.
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Post by Don Caballero on Feb 2, 2018 11:30:14 GMT -5
My example wasn't great. Maybe if I included Pablo it would have been better. And baseball cannot do anything that gives teams a bigger incentive to tank like they have in the NBA. I mean they could, but I would probably lose interest really quickly. I get you and part of me agrees with you and Chris on this one, but the alternative is having no cap and that IMO is much worse for the level of competition. The NFL probably has the best formula. No fully guaranteed contracts, a sh*tload of talent influx in every draft class if your FO is not run by morons and a strong emphasis on the coaching aspect. It led to an all timer in the Patriots because the coach is a man above his peers, the QB is a legendary dragon slayer and everyone on the team knows they're there to win games and if you're not in, then you're gone. To me that is much more beautiful than the money laundering oblivion monster that is european soccer.
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Post by James Dunne on Feb 2, 2018 12:00:37 GMT -5
Getting rid of guaranteed contracts is the worst option, by far. Puts all of the risk onto the players, teams can sign players to absurd funny-money deals with little-to-no consequence of holding up their end. I'd much rather the teams take the risk and weigh the consequences, and not be able to cut a productive player without penalty because they over-promised and a slightly more productive player is available.
I think the previous CBA's struck a better balance. Luxury tax penalty for going over the soft cap, set at a place that was a much higher percentage of the average team value. Competition was high, players did well, salaries grew (at a lower rate than before, but still very well), and owners made out.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Feb 2, 2018 12:28:55 GMT -5
I do think the rise in arbitration valuations offers up a (partial) solution. Paying Betts $10.5 million is a lot closer to his actual value, below it by a factor of three or four, than the order of magnitude difference he faced before arb. That narrows the gap and could be used in the negotiations to argue for more pay equity.
The problem is that there have been expectations raised for players who are just now reaching free agency. That's the aggrieved class of individuals who will need to be treated separately, perhaps on a one time basis. It's also where the agents have made their living, so they will probably use all their political capital in resisting. But it's become obvious that the system could stand some rationalization.
That's just one issue. There are others.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Feb 2, 2018 12:42:30 GMT -5
Mookie Betts or Chris Sale are superstars that make you trade someone else in order to clear cap space to sign them, you don't trade them for that purpose once you got them. Even if you don't like that, how is that not better than having no cap at all? Let's say you like soccer and you like spanish soccer and you're a Mallorca fan, why would you watch any game when you know your team has 0 shot of winning anything because Barcelona can come in and use all their human trafficking money to rejuvenate Pele? My example wasn't great. Maybe if I included Pablo it would have been better. And baseball cannot do anything that gives teams a bigger incentive to tank like they have in the NBA. I mean they could, but I would probably lose interest really quickly. Teams in MLB are already tanking. That's what people aren't seeing. Jerry Dipoto has already been quoted in saying this off-season- "You can make a case that there's more teams fighting for the number one draft pick then there is teams fighting for a world series." Don is right. The NBA is the best system. I pointed that out in the Boras thread a month ago. Limit the contract sizes. Cut the years of control by one or two years. Bring in restricted free agency. Maybe you need a cap, maybe you don't. The luxury tax threshold is doing a good job at keeping competitive balance.
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Post by jimed14 on Feb 2, 2018 12:50:18 GMT -5
My example wasn't great. Maybe if I included Pablo it would have been better. And baseball cannot do anything that gives teams a bigger incentive to tank like they have in the NBA. I mean they could, but I would probably lose interest really quickly. Teams in MLB are already tanking. That's what people aren't seeing. Jerry Dipoto has already been quoted in saying this off-season- "You can make a case that there's more teams fighting for the number one draft pick then there is teams fighting for a world series." Don is right. The NBA is the best system. I pointed that out in the Boras thread a month ago. Limit the contract sizes. Cut the years of control by one or two years. Bring in restricted free agency. Maybe you need a cap, maybe you don't. The luxury tax threshold is doing a good job at keeping competitive balance. They aren't tanking like in the NBA. Well, the Marlins are, but they won't have any competition.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Feb 2, 2018 13:05:52 GMT -5
Teams in MLB are already tanking. That's what people aren't seeing. Jerry Dipoto has already been quoted in saying this off-season- "You can make a case that there's more teams fighting for the number one draft pick then there is teams fighting for a world series." Don is right. The NBA is the best system. I pointed that out in the Boras thread a month ago. Limit the contract sizes. Cut the years of control by one or two years. Bring in restricted free agency. Maybe you need a cap, maybe you don't. The luxury tax threshold is doing a good job at keeping competitive balance. They aren't tanking like in the NBA. Well, the Marlins are, but they won't have any competition. I really don't think it'll ever get as bad as the NBA though. The reason why teams tank in the NBA is because one player can change the entire franchise and make them great again instantly. Jordan, LeBron, Kobe, Tim Duncan. It's just not like that in baseball. One player can make a really great impact, but it takes years to develop them and the rosters are much larger with more players making a impact all over the field.
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Post by Don Caballero on Feb 2, 2018 13:35:47 GMT -5
Getting rid of guaranteed contracts is the worst option, by far. Puts all of the risk onto the players, teams can sign players to absurd funny-money deals with little-to-no consequence of holding up their end. I'd much rather the teams take the risk and weigh the consequences, and not be able to cut a productive player without penalty because they over-promised and a slightly more productive player is available. I think the previous CBA's struck a better balance. Luxury tax penalty for going over the soft cap, set at a place that was a much higher percentage of the average team value. Competition was high, players did well, salaries grew (at a lower rate than before, but still very well), and owners made out. Yeah it would put some risk on the players, but why should it be solely on the team? Theoretically non guaranteed contracts would lead to shorter rebuilds and more roster flexibility leading to a better experience overall. You don't need to make it entirely not guaranteed, do it like the NFL with some guaranteed money and some the player would have to earn based on present performance instead of past performance.
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Post by James Dunne on Feb 2, 2018 13:49:44 GMT -5
That would be totally fair if a player could opt out of a contract at any time as well.
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Post by Don Caballero on Feb 2, 2018 13:56:22 GMT -5
That would be totally fair if a player could opt out of a contract at any time as well. I agree with that, why should any professional be forced to remain somewhere he's miserable in? Conversely, why should any company retain an employee that no longer performs at a reasonable level? Make some kind of mechanism where the owner should pay insurance money (with a value that's agreed to upon signing the contract) in case the player is cut due to injury and not have that money count towards the cap and you're really golden. At the very least mutually voidable contracts would lead to less idiotic trades.
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Post by jimed14 on Feb 2, 2018 14:40:15 GMT -5
That would be totally fair if a player could opt out of a contract at any time as well. I agree with that, why should any professional be forced to remain somewhere he's miserable in? Conversely, why should any company retain an employee that no longer performs at a reasonable level? Make some kind of mechanism where the owner should pay insurance money (with a value that's agreed to upon signing the contract) in case the player is cut due to injury and not have that money count towards the cap and you're really golden. At the very least mutually voidable contracts would lead to less idiotic trades. It would also make it so that every player would be making what they're worth, well at least year to year. Another option: A limited number of 80% buyouts that would not count against luxury tax calculations. The player gets 80% of the deal they signed and are free to sign elsewhere, making up that lost 20% or more in most cases. There would probably be pushback from smaller market teams though.
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Post by manfred on Feb 2, 2018 15:49:30 GMT -5
It’s impossible to compare sports because roster management is so different. The NBA can cycle bench cheerers through 3-4 spots. I mean, you want to talk about screwed: a servicable but unexceptional NBA player prices out quickly — it is so easy to get someone new on minimum contracts.
There really isn’t that kind of deadweight on an MLB roster. So the Sox can’t just, say, trade Holt for a bag of balls, and find some minimum wage 22-year old to sit. They need something productive at each roster spot.
I’m not sure it is fair to say teams are tanking, either. Marlins... always. But teams like the Pirates and Royals are likely taking better of two not great options, and they might not even be worse in the next year or two. It is not a bad time to bail on Moustakas, Hosmer, Cutch. The Cole trade might’ve been a bit harder to justify. Still, those don’t seem like moves made with the intention of being worse. They seem like easily justified best-case decisions.
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mobaz
Veteran
Posts: 2,795
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Post by mobaz on Feb 2, 2018 16:00:13 GMT -5
Haven't done the math, but my guess is that baseball is driven even more by local revenue than the NBA, which makes having some level of quality imperative (though with more recent revenue sharing rules that gets hazier. Jeter's Project Wolverine was banking on national payouts and revenue sharing).
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Post by swingingbunt on Feb 2, 2018 16:04:40 GMT -5
Many NBA players also become restricted free agents before most MLB players reach the majors. It's silly to try to compare parts of a league's structure without taking everything into consideration.
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