Interesting you'd say that instead of their on the field accomplishments. Rational people would point to Jason Lane squeezing the final out against the Cardinals in the 2005 NLCS. #2 would be the day Drayton sold the team.
I hate to go back here also, but I have to point out, that's a tough statement as well. Say the Astros were "right" and that he had an 80% chance of getting hurt (or something like that)...if that was true and if he still doesn't get hurt, that doesn't suddenly mean Aiken was right. There's just no way to know at this point. I have to just assume that everyone acted in good (or decent) faith.. or I guess if people hate Crane, they can assume he was being a huge a-hole
Why do you do this ****? Why? You obviously know a thing or two about a thing or two, but this is what you throw out there...I don't get it.
I'm sure you could get one too - if you agreed to a salary cap as well. As much as the Astros have done spending cuts, some other teams (like the Dodgers) have done crazy spending sprees too.
I think MLBPA could get the floor without too much trouble. Cap might happen, but it won't come in exchange for a floor.
Just about every major league team will place just about every player on waivers since they can all be recalled from waivers. They do this to see if anyone is interested and then try to work out a trade.
Competitive Balance. Owners losing money when historically bad teams come to town. The cap is not the only thing the owners want. As long as the floor is low enough that it doesn't affect small market teams, I don't see it being too hard a sell. It would only affect teams like the Astros that basically sold every player with over 5-6 years experience.
Floors should only be implemented based on performance. For example, if a team is below the floor, yet still finishes with a .500 or better record, why should they be punished for managing their finances and being an above average team?
If a team was competitive below the floor, I could see that. Also to achieve similar result as a floor, a team could be moved back in the first round of draft one spot for every loss over 100.
Owners aren't losing money when historically bad teams come to town, unless they themselves are a bad team as well. A salary floor in the NBA hasn't come close to stopping historically bad teams, and I don't think it would in MLB. What a floor would do is potentially increase player salaries, which owners would be opposed to. And lets be honest, the owners aren't going to "give" anything to the PA without something in return, even if they wanted what the PA was asking for.
On the NBA, the "floor" has no consequences for going under it. The NBA is actually looking at changing the draft because Philly's losing so many games impacted the other owners revenues. I know the Astros are one of the worst teams attended on the road so I expect the Astros are causing other teams to lose money (granted NBA revenue sharing probably makes the impact worse from Philly). I am not saying the owners wouldn't want to get something from the players. I don't see the cap happening. I do see MLB at least discussing ways to prevent a team from being as bad as the Astros have been in recent years. Floor might not be the best mechanism, but it is easy to implement.
The flipside is that if the Astros are required to spend an extra $30MM, they are going to be bidding on players that signed with other teams - that means other teams have to pay more to get those players. You'd be increasing player demand without increasing supply, so it would drive up salaries. So while the Astros might reduce other teams' revenues, they also reduce their expenses.
