2020-21 Baseball Offseason Thread

Pay teams $1.0 mil for every game they win and set a salary floor and cap, or do relegation.

 

You realize that’s $2.4 billion, right?

 

In Major League Baseball, 48% of local revenues are subject to revenue sharing and are distributed equally among all 30 teams, with each team receiving 3.3% of the total sum generated. As a result, in 2018, each team received $118 million from this pot. Teams also receive a share of national revenues, which were estimated to be $91 million per team, also in 2018.
Revenue sharing - BR Bullpen

Correct me if my math is wrong, but revenue sharing is just north of $6.0 billion. Fuck, maybe $2.0 mil per win.
Someone correct me if my math is wrong or how I understand this is wrong.

OK, so $200 million divided by 81 is about $2.5 million. So the difference between winning 70 or 90 games is $50 million. The difference between 60 and 100 would be $100 million.

These revenue sharing numbers do not seem right in my mind, but if this amount of money is being thrown around, fuck, play to win.

 

The extra-inning runner on second is back, and so are the seven-inning doubleheader games.

But the NL DH is out.

MLB renews some rules in agreement with union

 

So would it be in lieu of revenue sharing or on top of it? You cutting teams’ money or asking baseball to pony up $8.4 billion?

 

Make them earn the revenue with wins. Not adding to it, but distributing it differently.

 

Bauer apologizes for trolling Mets fans, blames his marketing team.

 

Eh, I'm kind of against that, because there *are* legitimate reasons to play younger guys or AAAA guys, to see if they could be the answer for the future, as opposed to just signing mediocrities to man the spots. Russillo had Jeff Passan on the other day, and they were batting around an idea about letting players get to true free agency earlier. I'd be more in favor of something like that. We know that most players "peak" around 24 to 28, but plenty of them still don't hit free agency until later.

 

Pecota doesn't like the Braves (82.4 wins) or ChiSox (83.1),

PECOTA Standings - Baseball Prospectus

 

That would only exacerbate the issue we're talking about.

I'm not reinventing the wheel here, but make the floor operate similar to the luxury tax. Force MLB teams to spend $100M of their revenue sharing money on player salaries alone. Teams are allowed one year under that $100M at no cost, giving them a chance to decide not to overpay marginal talent just to fill out their roster in a particular year. Consecutive years under the $100M cost them an ever-increasing chunk of their revenue-sharing money. Keep the luxury tax in place.

This allows teams to operate how they see fit, but there is a cost to underpaying or overpaying talent. It incentivizes organizations to operate within a general salary range and it increases player salaries overall, which should make it amenable to the MLBPA. One downside for MLBPA I can think of is that teams may reduce the lengths of contracts, perhaps overpaying a player to meet that $100M threshold, but only offering a one-year contract. That might be enough to derail it, but I think it's feasible.

 

My older brother just got a job with the Greenville Drive, working at whatever the heck they tell him to do on gamedays. Usher, grounds crew, parking, whatever. Sounds like a perfect retirement job.

 

How so? Part of the problem with MLB free agency is that plenty of teams with good management act pretty reasonably. Meaning - They use the multiple mechanisms available to make sure players don't ever hit free agency in their prime, and they don't give big contracts to older players unless they're legitimate playoff contenders. Looking at this year's class, nobody under the age of 30 made $10M+ per year, except for Profar, who's 28 and is at exactly $10m. I think one of baseball's problems, moreso than other sports, is that players don't usually get that monster deal until they're 30.

If you make more players eligible for free agency sooner and expand the pool of available players, it helps out smaller market teams, because they have another way to access players in their prime. More player movement usually means more competition in pretty much every sport.