Player Max without a salary cap would keep NBA type of stuff from happening. Plus, in NBA they just want 3 studs and fill in around them, that would never work in baseball
The salary cap is not the issue. Max deals with or without a salary cap still have fundamental problems and help the major market teams by letting them get those max players at under market value. Instead of having to pay more than other teams, the best teams can just sell "win here" since the player would get paid the same everywhere - basically, the Durant effect. Teams like the White Sox or Philly wouldn't be able to offer a Harper or Machado anything that NY/BOS/LA couldn't.
Haven't read everything here on this topic, and I certainly couldn't pretend to fix MLB's financial structure myself, but: what's wrong with a payroll floor and the existing lux tax rules? With tweaking of course. Hell, they might even find some money left over to feed the minor leaguers.
But even there you are mentioning a team in the second largest city in America and another with the ability to have a huge payroll. Our own Astros can’t really get involved much less teams that are tanking. I think a lot of teams are reaching their payroll limit, and with the top salaries going where they are that takes up a huge amount of the pie. The difference in a 30 million a year player and anyone I could replace him with is huge, the difference in a cheaper Diaz and Marwin isn’t. As someone mentioned earlier, the difference in Gattis and a guy like JD Davis isn’t likey that big so why pay Gattis I’m also not sure a floor makes teams pay guys like Marwin and Gattis and Keuchel, if in Florida and there is a floor, I just keep Stanton
A salary floor would be very beneficial. They could really kill 2 birds with one stone by instituting a minimum and increasing team controlled salaries. The real issue for the union is that their overall slice of the pie is shrinking because they stupidly negotiated themselves into this corner. If the players have any common sense whatsoever they will focus all of their efforts on getting players paid more in the team controlled years, and less on what they make afterwards. The 250 million dollar contracts are gone and never coming back. If i were a betting man I would venture that A-Rod's 2nd deal will remain the largest ever for a long time. Agreeing to a maximum length in contracts is one of the few concessions the players can make.
It wouldn't help Marwin or Keuchel, but it might help Gattis. I don't think the Keuchel's and Marwins need help. MLB free agents make too much and MLB players on club control and minor leaguers don't make enough. If players want to keep making between 53-57% of MLB revenues, the CBA is going to need to change to ensure players under club control get more money (and minors). As a result, there will be less money for free agents, but it will take less money in free agency to buy wins (i.e., it will increase teams motivation to spend a little more as it will go farther). Caveat: MLBPA doesn't represent minor league players, but is willing to bargain away what a drafted player can make and bargain away a drafted player's ability to sign a MLB contract. MLBPA should let minor leaguers in as junior members or keep draft/international signing rules out of their CBA with MLB.
I think teams like the Astros *could* - but we already have our own high-priced players in Verlander and Altuve, plus we're expecting to deal with major incoming extensions. Philly and White Sox don't have those. No cap helps distribute those top tier players. Another way to think of it is this - the way to win in MLB is finding "value": places you can get WAR for less than the average cost. Right now, that's with club-controlled players. So all the good teams have a core of cheap, club-controlled players. Max contracts do the same on the top-end - you get discounts on the stars. Thus, the way to win becomes discount club-controlled players, and discount-max players, putting even less value in the middle ground. I think we're seeing form of this in the NBA too, and probably will even more so now that the cap has stabilized so no one's overpaying mediocrity. Several cap-max stars and then fill in rosters with cheap players around them. The teams that win are the ones that get the $50MM-value Lebrons or Durants for $30MM, rather than the ones that get the $32MM player for $30MM. The NBA solution would be getting rid of the max contract - it forces the team with Lebron to pay market price, making it harder to sign others. I think that's critical to any system if we want any kind of parity.
There’s really not that many MLB teams that year-in/year-out would be in violation of a salary floor limit. Last year, the median payroll was $147 million. 5 teams spent less than $100 million, and one of them was the Brewers who were a game away from the WS. Even the Marlins, as bad as they were trying to be, paid out $103 million in contracts. Now, it could be a bigger problem going forward, as some non-contending teams like the Padres and Twins get out of some previous big deals, but I still think requiring teams to pay more for the club controlled years is the way to try and appease the players, while still encouraging teams to build successful homegrown cores.
Padres supposedly paid down a significant portion of old debt recently, and have essentially told fans that payroll will increase in either 2020 or 2021.
Player maxes were the worst thing that ever happened to the NBA. Please keep them away from baseball.
It's not my money, but hell yes. I have no way of knowing this, but I would guess that a 2nd World Series (and all the trappings that come along with that) would more than justify the $34M/year you would be paying Bryce.
Can’t compare the two In basketball three max players gives you a chance 3 “max” in baseball and a bunch of role players gives you no shot. I’m not saying that would be the answer, but anyone comparing the nba to what it would look like in mlb isn’t making a good comparison. Baseball takes a 25 man roster just to get started. and
Not to get the same conversation that I had going in the other thread here But it would depend on how I felt about signing Springer and Correa long term. If I’m Luhnow and I feel we can legitimately get them to extend at some point, I wouldn’t. If I think it’s unlikely they both re-up, I sign Harper to that in a heartbeat I think Harper either gets 7-8 years, or tries to get as much guaranteed money by 2021 as he can. Like Merrifield did, I think we may see contracts front loaded for players wanting their guaranteed money before a potential work stoppage
Why would an MLB team stop at 3? Either the max is going to be low enough that the Big market teams can fill their non-club controlled rosters with Max Contracts or it will be high enough that it doesn't effectively matter. The max contract is meant to help a team. Teams don't need any help.
