it's so annoying how the other leagues worked out the competitive-balance stuff decades ago -- salary cap, salary floor, rookie scale, max contracts -- but the MLBPA keeps rejecting all of that as if every centerfielder were getting juan soto money.
but no one's making the marlins/pirates/white sox spend money, owners manipulate service time and collude against free agents, the minor leagues get cut. so the baseball suffers _and_ players get screwed; even the yankees and red sox claim poverty and let guys walk over what amounts to a rounding error.
i do think the MLBPA undermines its own leverage, but when the lowest payroll in the league can win 85 games it's kind of a baseball problem. i wish more fans would take a stand, like when hal steinbrenner says it's time for austerity measures everyone needs to be like actually no fuck you.
Yeah unfortunately I think the MLBPA is about to give up a ton of the labor-side wins they’ve collected the last three decades because the system has rewarded the top 10% of players so well. I do think the median journeyman in the MLB is in a much better position than a similar one in the NBA (shorter careers / fewer players) and NFL (*much* shorter careers / non-guaranteed contracts) but the whole underclass of minor leaguers and pre-FA pros is in a bad position. I think a salary cap is anti-labor generally, but if it makes owners of smaller teams have to spend money in order to be part of rev sharing then I’m fine with it as a compromise.
yeah the revenue-sharing thing is a worst-of-possible-worlds at this point -- it's supposed to be like, the pirates receive money from the dodgers and then compete for the same free agents, but instead the pirates pocket the money so the dodgers can roll over them. if MLB is determined to give bob nutting welfare dollars there ought to be some strings attached?
it's so annoying how the other leagues worked out the competitive-balance stuff decades ago -- salary cap, salary floor, rookie scale, max contracts -- but the MLBPA keeps rejecting all of that as if every centerfielder were getting juan soto money.
but no one's making the marlins/pirates/white sox spend money, owners manipulate service time and collude against free agents, the minor leagues get cut. so the baseball suffers _and_ players get screwed; even the yankees and red sox claim poverty and let guys walk over what amounts to a rounding error.
i do think the MLBPA undermines its own leverage, but when the lowest payroll in the league can win 85 games it's kind of a baseball problem. i wish more fans would take a stand, like when hal steinbrenner says it's time for austerity measures everyone needs to be like actually no fuck you.
Yeah unfortunately I think the MLBPA is about to give up a ton of the labor-side wins they’ve collected the last three decades because the system has rewarded the top 10% of players so well. I do think the median journeyman in the MLB is in a much better position than a similar one in the NBA (shorter careers / fewer players) and NFL (*much* shorter careers / non-guaranteed contracts) but the whole underclass of minor leaguers and pre-FA pros is in a bad position. I think a salary cap is anti-labor generally, but if it makes owners of smaller teams have to spend money in order to be part of rev sharing then I’m fine with it as a compromise.
yeah the revenue-sharing thing is a worst-of-possible-worlds at this point -- it's supposed to be like, the pirates receive money from the dodgers and then compete for the same free agents, but instead the pirates pocket the money so the dodgers can roll over them. if MLB is determined to give bob nutting welfare dollars there ought to be some strings attached?
So if the Dodgers win the WS again it's because the baseball playoffs are "notoriously random", right?
Are you disagreeing with the premise that baseball playoffs are more prone to randomness than other sports?