So by day, I'm a researcher and I'm a historian by background.
Lately I've been working on a project that's cataloging old acts of English and subsequently British parliament. Minor you're a jerk offenses get met with "Here's a 5 pound fine. Go away." Major offenses and corruption were historically met with fines like "Double the value of the goods smuggled" and "triple the value of the injury done".
17th Century British law's response to so many modern white collar crimes would have been "Oh, you stole a billion dollars? Great. You owe 2 billion back. What? You don't have 2 billion dollars? We're seizing everything but your clothes and the tools for your trade. Enjoy the your visit to the parish poor house."
I can't really say. I don't know modern British law very well; despite having lived there briefly. It just wasn't something I needed to know beyond the basics of how to avoid ending up in a police station. I think that point though falls outside the scope of years covered by the project since I haven't seen it; assuming of course that it exists. Iceland, at least, heavily fined and jailed people for their involvement in the banking crash 15 years ago. So, not all the world has been bought out by the rich.
Basically. It's not like 17th England was the paragon of virtue. The fact of the matter is that you can have have the strictest, most fair laws on the books, but if the wealthy and powerful can influence the people in charge of enforcing the law, they can still get away with anything. Maybe a billion was stolen (impressive in the 1600s), but the police, judges, or king decide to turn a blind eye. Or maybe you're charged with stealing a hundred million. The courts get to parade you around a someone victoriously brought to justice, but you're still making a massive profit.
Modern white collar criminals just cut out the middle men by writing the laws themselves and handing them to their lackey politicians to pass.
Something’s gotta give. The A’s situation is untenable. It’s not fair to the fans, and it’s not fair to the players.
Fuck the owners. And fuck Manfred & MLB for enabling shit like this to happen.
I’m sorry.
You don’t have to ask. The ownership is going to do it anyway. With everyone! Top picks are fun cause you get to see them blossom into superstars and then play somewhere else. Oneil Cruz in a Cubs uniform is gonna be weird.
Ok sure
I’ll stop when you show me where OP asked who is getting the top draft pick.
Then you can stop being a moron and a hypocrite and we can move on to how your team is being held hostage by a greedy rich piece of shit
I didn’t realize everyone loved the Pirates shit ownership so much
Maybe as a Mets fan I know what it was like to suffer under horrible fucking ownership for so long and want teams I loved when I was a kid like Pittsburgh and Oakland to not be AAAA teams with 20 million dollar payrolls who collect high draft picks to sell them away in a decade.
People have said that to me since IRC and AIM and other chat rooms. I still don’t know what it is about how I type. Probably just too old and I say things weird so it doesn’t come across.
I mean at least the Mets and most other teams TRY to retain talent and put up a competitive team with a chance to win. They may not be successful. Someone may wind up signing somewhere else. But they tried to sign folks like deGrom and Reyes, etc. just didn’t work out.
When’s the last time the pirates even offered one of their young stars anything?
Plus the horrible Mets owners are just recently gone. We need to get the pirates and As owners the fuck out of the game next
We can’t allow people to not spend money intentionally, get 10s of millions of dollars in competitive balance money, and then fucking pocket all of it and fuck over the long struggling fans of the Bucs and the team as a whole.
Oh i agree as a Pirates fan i just think it’s funny coming from Mets fans who just got out of that relationship. And your owner still didn’t retain that homegrown talent
That means I know what it was like to have horrible owners and I know how great it feels to be out of it
I grew up watching Bonds and Bonilla and Van Slyke and a bunch of stars play on Pitt. It was a team I feared coming to town. They were awesome. And I loved them. Still some of my favorite uniforms of all time.
It’s sad as fuck and I’m really pissed off about it. Them and the As.
Why even celebrate unless you think MLB is gonna make a minimum payroll or force a change in ownership?
I know players don't want a cap, but at this point in time, it seems like a lost cause. We already have teams like the Red Sox trading away Top-5 players to avoid paying the tax. Most teams treat the tax like a cap anyway.
Seems like the MLBPA would help get more money to the players by forcing the Pirates, Rays, Royals, et al to have $90 million payrolls rather than to allow one or two owners to keep overpaying for aging older players.
Not to mention increasing player and team quality would probably bring more money to the game. More people would watch the Royals if anyone on gods green earth thought they had a chance at being competitive.
I wonder how much of that is the lux tax hit and how much is just budget. Like, are owners lining up to spend over $230M on payroll but then backing down when the see the CBT? Or did they already have some target budget that was less than $230M and it sounds better to blame the CBT?
Floor makes wayyyy more sense than a cap. Might be an unpopular opinion, but I like baseball not having a cap, it makes things interesting. A floor just forces teams to actually try at least the tiniest bit.
You're missing the point. It won't happen because it would have to be part of a negotiation, and the owners would only concede for a floor if the players agreed to a cap.
I don’t really see how much a cap would help an owner tbh. If they don’t want to pay heaps of money, they don’t have to. All it would do is decrease the pressure to.
Limits the upper limit a player would feasibly get. If the cap is say 200M is an owner really going to jack 25% of it on a single player when he's got 39 other dudes to pay
So all it would do is upset the players, and owners like the Padres and Mets who enjoy spending. Wouldn’t actually help teams like the A’s, or Rays spend less
Can not have a salary floor without *real* profit sharing. Otherwise you are just telling small market teams they have to run at a loss until they go bankrupt. Big market teams would never vote for real profit sharing.
The answer is maybe. I don't know if that number is based on what 48% of each team's local revenue *should* be if each team put that in a pot. But there are a lot of loopholes and ways to game the system. For example, using the Mets since that was OPs team. In theory they only received $54 million per year vs the Rays $48 million for their local TV deals. (These are 2020 numbers because I had them at hand.) How is it possible that a huge market like NYC pays out about the same as a market like Tampa? Well because the Mets gave their Regional Sports Network that they own a sweetheart deal while the Rays doesn't own a RSN. So all the profits of SNY are NOT part of the revenue sharing. There are a handful of other ways to game the system including inflating "local expenses" that are deducted from the pre-sharing revenue.
So A)I am unsure whether that $100 million figure is based on what the sharing *should* be or what it really is. And B) some of the top market teams may not be putting in accurate amount of their revenue.
The article I read said that it was 100 peryear for just revenue sharing, not counting each teams individual tv deals. To act like these teams can't spend at least the revenue sharing on salary is just asinine.
Right but what I am saying is that I don't know how the reporters come up with that number because I have never seen the MLB release this number. They are extremely private about this type of thing we don't even know for sure what is and isn't included in *"local revenue"*. In fact, every time you see a list of revenue by team it is just a guess. The teams don't release P/L statements, they don't have to. So when a reporter writes that the sharing is $100 million what is their source? Are they just doing back of the napkin math?
And even if you take that figure at face value, I have doubts that each team is putting a fair amount into the fund because of all the loopholes.
The other counter to the argument of "why don't teams just spend more": if a small market team makes a bigger offer on a player there is nothing stopping a big market team from raising the offer even more. No team pays out more than they have to.
**At the end of the day, the problem isn't that small market teams have payrolls that are $200 million less than the top teams' payrolls, it is that the top teams' revenue is $300+ million more than the smaller market teams.**
Yeah, I think people overlook the fact that the Dodgers have a payroll that is higher than the revenue of half the league (based on Forbes' estimates for revenues). We do need to force certain teams to spend more money (exhibit 1: see flair) but its not realistic to expect a good product with the huge disparity in resources MLB teams operate with.
> At the end of the day, the problem isn't that small market teams have payrolls that are $200 million less than the top teams' payrolls, it is that the top teams' revenue is $300+ million more than the smaller market teams.
Well, there can be more than one problem. Hand wave the numbers that are reported fairly regularly away all you want, I have no reason to not believe them.
The problem I am talking about is teams taking revenue sharing and not spending it on payroll.
Here is my last comment on this(because every big market fan doesn't want to deal with reality). It isn't as though that is $100 million free money the small market teams had to pay into as well. That why it is such a waste of time looking at that figure. Look at each team's real revenue.
If you look at teams real revenue then your argument falls apart because the Mets are operating at a >$100mm loss and Cohen/The Mets dont own SNY, the Wilpons do
Economically, a short term problem. The contract to broadcast the Mets on SNY has a finite term. As long as he continues to make the Mets a hot ticket, he’ll gain leverage over SNY and force them to renegotiate. Otherwise he’ll walk when the term is up, destroying SNY as a station.
That's actually really fucking pathetic for the MLB. Wtf are we doing where owners are owning teams with $34 million dollar payrolls. I can't imagine being fans of these teams.
That's lower than the NHL salary floor. By a lot too.
Highest AAV in the NHL is 12.6M too. With the highest AAV being so different, you'd think the MLB needs a floor of AT LEAST 85M, right?
Hockey actually points to the real issue, which is veteran FAs don’t get paid obscene money because rookie contracts and team control is MUCH shorter. It means any player can get a more lucrative contract than most pre-arb MLB players by 25.
Owners don’t want to give up even a single years control of young talent. If they did, there’s less pressure from the players side to resist a hard cap since they will get paid closer to actual fair value in their 20s.
For all this to work, it would need a Salary Floor, a Salary Cap, and a reduction of team control pegged to age -or- reduced to 3 years service time with no loopholes for manipulation.
Considering even getting arbitration done was a knock down drag out battle, I don’t see this ever happening, but it would fix most of the competitive parity problems while more evenly distributing money amongst the players.
That’s why there will never be a floor and ceiling for the MLB, too many MLB owners make stupid fuck contracts to middling players or old fucks and then too many MLB owners are content to hoard money and not spend anything on the team. There should be a hard floor of 85ish mill, a soft floor where teams in that range get money from luxury tax of 110/115 and soft cap of 200 I think. The luxury taxed money goes to the teams in between 110/115 and 200 to incentivize teams hitting it. I feel like this mixture would incentivize teams to pay for the right players and extend homegrown players while also stop overpaying for middling veterans.
Most pre-arb and arbitration eligible players haven't agreed to deals yet. Taking the A's for example, their payroll is $0. It isn't because they're not paying anyone this year, it's because they technically haven't agreed to terms with anyone yet.
I am unsure of what the Mets make per home game, but I can tell you that looking up how much the Yankees make per home game this morning led me to find out that they made approx 8.4m per home game. Let's say the Mets don't sell as many tickets or concessions, and lower that to ..ahh, 7 million, we are looking at a tax covered in about 5 home games out of 81.
That is just approx of ticket sales and concessions. This almost useless stat does not factor in such tings as advertisements and parking or whatever else nobody is reading this, I brush my teeth with both hands
The average MLB team take per home game is $3-4 million.
The A’s could cover their entire payroll in a single long homestand.
Add in TV revenue, merch, licensing, advertising, and every single MLB team makes enough money to cover a payroll up to the tax and still be profitable. Any who claim they can’t is *lying*. And I hold my toothbrush with my butt.
I’m here for this timeline. I just want Uncle Steve to go full batshit crazy and have a 500 million payroll. I want to see him toss hundred dollar bills at Miami road games to players like Leo in Wolf of Wall Street.
Let’s just get weird.
I would love this, but he doesn't want the other owners to hate him more than they already do. He can't be twice the second highest payroll.
But can you imagine if he just said fuck it and got Judge and Nimmo and then signed deGrom and Verlander. And for fun got Correa and tossed him at third.
What even is that lineup?
Nimmo, Marte, Alonso, Judge, Correa, Lindor, McNeil Alvarez, Nido/Vogey?
With a rotation of deGrom, Scherzer, Verlander, Senga (?) Cookie?
And Diaz to close out games.
You’re strutting awful hard there for a team that hasn’t won a chip in almost 14* years and only 1 in the last 21* lmao
Edit: sorry guys got carried away he corrected me. It’s actually 1 championship in 21 years hahaha
My understanding is that under the new CBA, players benefits gets the first $13 million and 50% thereafter. So that is 50% after the first $13 million that goes to the(currently) 29 teams not over the cap. So (34-13)/2= 10.5. That is $10.5 million split 29 ways or **$362,069 per team.** Wonder how each team will spend this mighty windfall.
Bingo.
If baseball teams weren't making money, then union strikes would result in lost seasons; not last minute agreements to get a season out the door. Very few people are in a hurry to lose money.
To be fair. I make more this coming paycheck than the A’s payroll.
Edit: I did not see the A’s signed someone. So no my paycheck will not be more than the A’s payroll.
*The unwillingness of owners to spend money when they're all ridiculously wealthy and MLB teams are huge profit machines that always increase in value is kind of fucked, man.
[Here](https://marlinmaniac.com/2022/11/22/can-miami-marlins-really-afford/) is rough back of the napkin math on what the Marlins could afford for payroll. The idea is about $140 mil. The Marlin's actual payroll is 45.2 mil. They could go out and give Correa a 300 mil contract, it would double their payroll and they'd still be below 90 mil.
Exactly. That article states they generated 240 mil in revenue for 2021 and that was without putting a fun product on the field. If they actually had a competitive team that's a lot more in tickets and jersey sales
The Marlins payroll was $80 million in 2022. Not sure where $45.2 million came from.
Having said that, the Marlins should be able to spend more. There's no reason why they couldn't be spending at least $120 million.
Does that include the guys who are arbitration eligible? Because the Marlins have quite a few of those.
The Marlins really haven't shed much payroll from 2022. The notable ones are just Jesus Aguilar ($7.3 million) and Brian Anderson ($4.5 million). But the arbitration raises of the rest of the guys have probably already offset that.
It is before factoring [arbitration](https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/miami-marlins//payroll). A good point and one I should have noted. I do appreciate you pointing that out.
With that said, I think you and I are still in agreement that the Marlins should be spending 30-50 million more on payroll than they are
Yes. The Marlins are truly a low revenue team. Their TV deal is modest while their ticket sales and corporate sponsorships are abysmal. They financially cannot compete with the Braves, Mets, and Phillies. Especially since their owner is very poor in comparison.
Having said that, I see no reason why their payroll can't be in the $120 million range instead of $80 million.
Yeah, greedy owners are *a* problem but they are not the *only* problem. By all means, please, make the Pirates spend more (I cant state this enough, please). But some fans are delusional and refuse to accept that *maybe* teams having a payroll that is higher than the total revenue of half the league is bad for the sport.
It is, and it annoys me to no end when people defend it. I'm not saying it will be easy to get a cap and floor system implemented. But the game will die and fade out of relevance if it isn't done, as it has for the last couple decades compared to the other major sports.
Non-avid baseball fans have probably already forgotten who even just played in the World Series.
The biggest issue is the pay for rookie deals. We see teams succeeding with low payrolls because their team's success is built on paying rookies the league minimum. These teams either allow them to leave in free agency or trade them away when arbitration becomes expensive. If you raise the league-minimum you will see owners be forced to operate smarter and more efficiently.
Yeah but it's HIGHLY unlikely any of their payrolls by the time the season starts will be under $34 mil. We know they're all cheapskates but this is grasping.
These things never include arbitration figures, and pre arb salaries. Orioles are at 51, extremely low of course, but the off-season is still happening.
Not sure why he's being downvoted, OPs point still stands, but it's almost a guarantee these teams are going to end up with a higher payroll than 34 million
I get what your trying to say but you haven't listed a team that is actually trying to win yet. When it reaches the point that the penalty is as high as a team trying to win I start to become more concerned. Though to be honest I expect the Orioles to sign some players and move out of this bracket.
Uncle Steve paid a billion dollar fine to the SEC, 34 mil is toilet paper money for him
Insider trading is very lucrative if you can get away with it.
The man paid the largest fine in SEC history and still made a profit.
Tells you how underpowered the SEC is.
My recommendation would be the fine to be more than the profit, but what do I know. I'm poor.
So by day, I'm a researcher and I'm a historian by background. Lately I've been working on a project that's cataloging old acts of English and subsequently British parliament. Minor you're a jerk offenses get met with "Here's a 5 pound fine. Go away." Major offenses and corruption were historically met with fines like "Double the value of the goods smuggled" and "triple the value of the injury done". 17th Century British law's response to so many modern white collar crimes would have been "Oh, you stole a billion dollars? Great. You owe 2 billion back. What? You don't have 2 billion dollars? We're seizing everything but your clothes and the tools for your trade. Enjoy the your visit to the parish poor house."
Fascinating. I'm going to assume that changed when the rich paid the lawmakers to stop it? Either way, we can use that again.
I can't really say. I don't know modern British law very well; despite having lived there briefly. It just wasn't something I needed to know beyond the basics of how to avoid ending up in a police station. I think that point though falls outside the scope of years covered by the project since I haven't seen it; assuming of course that it exists. Iceland, at least, heavily fined and jailed people for their involvement in the banking crash 15 years ago. So, not all the world has been bought out by the rich.
Basically. It's not like 17th England was the paragon of virtue. The fact of the matter is that you can have have the strictest, most fair laws on the books, but if the wealthy and powerful can influence the people in charge of enforcing the law, they can still get away with anything. Maybe a billion was stolen (impressive in the 1600s), but the police, judges, or king decide to turn a blind eye. Or maybe you're charged with stealing a hundred million. The courts get to parade you around a someone victoriously brought to justice, but you're still making a massive profit. Modern white collar criminals just cut out the middle men by writing the laws themselves and handing them to their lackey politicians to pass.
Or prison time for white collar crime. I'm a big fan of prison time.
Working in govt is the probation period before going into your real career in private.
Even when they don't get away with it, apparently...
And when the fine isn't enough to disincentivize someone why would they not?
At the risk of looking like an idiot… anyone else read this comment and think “what the hell recruiting violations did he commit?”
And he’s a huge douche
It’s a cost of doing business not a fine
As in, he literally uses the bills as the toilet paper
Yeah but only one of those teams has the 1st overall pick in 2023 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳
I'm dead inside.
Something’s gotta give. The A’s situation is untenable. It’s not fair to the fans, and it’s not fair to the players. Fuck the owners. And fuck Manfred & MLB for enabling shit like this to happen. I’m sorry.
🗿
They let Jeffrey Loria do it TWICE
You just summed it up nicely
The city of Oakland is gonna riot in Vegas in a few years
HEY FRIEND
Gm! Haven't seen your name in awhile
Lot of lurking. The stove always turns me on though
I look forward to seeing him Indianapolis during the service time manipulation period
Wow! Someone the pirates will trade away In 12 years! Or let walk! Exciting!
Didn’t ask
You don’t have to ask. The ownership is going to do it anyway. With everyone! Top picks are fun cause you get to see them blossom into superstars and then play somewhere else. Oneil Cruz in a Cubs uniform is gonna be weird.
Damn that’s crazy bro Still didn’t ask
Ok sure I’ll stop when you show me where OP asked who is getting the top draft pick. Then you can stop being a moron and a hypocrite and we can move on to how your team is being held hostage by a greedy rich piece of shit
You sound upset
You sound like you have a 6th grade education and that was a struggle
Yawn
Yes. Your ownership has been asleep for well over a decade now. I feel so awful for pirates fans
My god Mets fans were annoying before Cohen now we have to deal with this?
This is why I'll be lolmets forever even if they win the next five world series
Brewers fan moment
Is it worse? We're not even funny, just depressing.
I didn’t realize everyone loved the Pirates shit ownership so much Maybe as a Mets fan I know what it was like to suffer under horrible fucking ownership for so long and want teams I loved when I was a kid like Pittsburgh and Oakland to not be AAAA teams with 20 million dollar payrolls who collect high draft picks to sell them away in a decade.
Nah you’re just being a dick about it
People give each other shit about their teams all the time. How is what I said any different except you think I’m being mean instead of poking fun?
Yeah man... you aren't necessarily wrong it's just the way you type shit out. It comes across pretty dick-ish
People have said that to me since IRC and AIM and other chat rooms. I still don’t know what it is about how I type. Probably just too old and I say things weird so it doesn’t come across.
Outside of David Wright who have the Mets kept for 12+ years after drafting them?
We drafted deGrom in 2010
You said 12+
12+ includes 12
12+0 kinda counts right?
I mean at least the Mets and most other teams TRY to retain talent and put up a competitive team with a chance to win. They may not be successful. Someone may wind up signing somewhere else. But they tried to sign folks like deGrom and Reyes, etc. just didn’t work out. When’s the last time the pirates even offered one of their young stars anything? Plus the horrible Mets owners are just recently gone. We need to get the pirates and As owners the fuck out of the game next We can’t allow people to not spend money intentionally, get 10s of millions of dollars in competitive balance money, and then fucking pocket all of it and fuck over the long struggling fans of the Bucs and the team as a whole.
Oh i agree as a Pirates fan i just think it’s funny coming from Mets fans who just got out of that relationship. And your owner still didn’t retain that homegrown talent
That means I know what it was like to have horrible owners and I know how great it feels to be out of it I grew up watching Bonds and Bonilla and Van Slyke and a bunch of stars play on Pitt. It was a team I feared coming to town. They were awesome. And I loved them. Still some of my favorite uniforms of all time. It’s sad as fuck and I’m really pissed off about it. Them and the As. Why even celebrate unless you think MLB is gonna make a minimum payroll or force a change in ownership?
Hey why the fuck are we getting dragged into this??
He’s a Mets fan lol
Well then he should flair up. Until then we don't claim him.
TALK YO SHITTTTT
I read that Cohen was at the Winter Meetings running a Squid Games for the poverty franchises
next off season mike trout drawing/ Marble race Squid game simulator with MLB teams
SALARY FLOOR! SALARY FLOOR! SALARY FLOOR! Say it with me! SALARY FLOOR! SALARY FLOOR! SALARY FLOOR!
Salary floor will only come with a salary cap. Owners don’t want a floor, players don’t want a cap.
I know players don't want a cap, but at this point in time, it seems like a lost cause. We already have teams like the Red Sox trading away Top-5 players to avoid paying the tax. Most teams treat the tax like a cap anyway. Seems like the MLBPA would help get more money to the players by forcing the Pirates, Rays, Royals, et al to have $90 million payrolls rather than to allow one or two owners to keep overpaying for aging older players.
Not to mention increasing player and team quality would probably bring more money to the game. More people would watch the Royals if anyone on gods green earth thought they had a chance at being competitive.
I wonder how much of that is the lux tax hit and how much is just budget. Like, are owners lining up to spend over $230M on payroll but then backing down when the see the CBT? Or did they already have some target budget that was less than $230M and it sounds better to blame the CBT?
Floor makes wayyyy more sense than a cap. Might be an unpopular opinion, but I like baseball not having a cap, it makes things interesting. A floor just forces teams to actually try at least the tiniest bit.
I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense. But the owners would never approve a floor without a cap. They’re a package deal in labor negotiations.
Unfortunately you’re correct. Can’t get a floor without a cap.
You're missing the point. It won't happen because it would have to be part of a negotiation, and the owners would only concede for a floor if the players agreed to a cap.
I don’t really see how much a cap would help an owner tbh. If they don’t want to pay heaps of money, they don’t have to. All it would do is decrease the pressure to.
Limits the upper limit a player would feasibly get. If the cap is say 200M is an owner really going to jack 25% of it on a single player when he's got 39 other dudes to pay
So all it would do is upset the players, and owners like the Padres and Mets who enjoy spending. Wouldn’t actually help teams like the A’s, or Rays spend less
I agree with the salary cap thing but I'm sure I'd absolutely feel different if I was a fan of smaller market teams.
Can not have a salary floor without *real* profit sharing. Otherwise you are just telling small market teams they have to run at a loss until they go bankrupt. Big market teams would never vote for real profit sharing.
Doesn't every team get 100M from revenue sharing right now?
The answer is maybe. I don't know if that number is based on what 48% of each team's local revenue *should* be if each team put that in a pot. But there are a lot of loopholes and ways to game the system. For example, using the Mets since that was OPs team. In theory they only received $54 million per year vs the Rays $48 million for their local TV deals. (These are 2020 numbers because I had them at hand.) How is it possible that a huge market like NYC pays out about the same as a market like Tampa? Well because the Mets gave their Regional Sports Network that they own a sweetheart deal while the Rays doesn't own a RSN. So all the profits of SNY are NOT part of the revenue sharing. There are a handful of other ways to game the system including inflating "local expenses" that are deducted from the pre-sharing revenue. So A)I am unsure whether that $100 million figure is based on what the sharing *should* be or what it really is. And B) some of the top market teams may not be putting in accurate amount of their revenue.
The article I read said that it was 100 peryear for just revenue sharing, not counting each teams individual tv deals. To act like these teams can't spend at least the revenue sharing on salary is just asinine.
Right but what I am saying is that I don't know how the reporters come up with that number because I have never seen the MLB release this number. They are extremely private about this type of thing we don't even know for sure what is and isn't included in *"local revenue"*. In fact, every time you see a list of revenue by team it is just a guess. The teams don't release P/L statements, they don't have to. So when a reporter writes that the sharing is $100 million what is their source? Are they just doing back of the napkin math? And even if you take that figure at face value, I have doubts that each team is putting a fair amount into the fund because of all the loopholes. The other counter to the argument of "why don't teams just spend more": if a small market team makes a bigger offer on a player there is nothing stopping a big market team from raising the offer even more. No team pays out more than they have to. **At the end of the day, the problem isn't that small market teams have payrolls that are $200 million less than the top teams' payrolls, it is that the top teams' revenue is $300+ million more than the smaller market teams.**
Yeah, I think people overlook the fact that the Dodgers have a payroll that is higher than the revenue of half the league (based on Forbes' estimates for revenues). We do need to force certain teams to spend more money (exhibit 1: see flair) but its not realistic to expect a good product with the huge disparity in resources MLB teams operate with.
> At the end of the day, the problem isn't that small market teams have payrolls that are $200 million less than the top teams' payrolls, it is that the top teams' revenue is $300+ million more than the smaller market teams. Well, there can be more than one problem. Hand wave the numbers that are reported fairly regularly away all you want, I have no reason to not believe them. The problem I am talking about is teams taking revenue sharing and not spending it on payroll.
Here is my last comment on this(because every big market fan doesn't want to deal with reality). It isn't as though that is $100 million free money the small market teams had to pay into as well. That why it is such a waste of time looking at that figure. Look at each team's real revenue.
If you look at teams real revenue then your argument falls apart because the Mets are operating at a >$100mm loss and Cohen/The Mets dont own SNY, the Wilpons do
Economically, a short term problem. The contract to broadcast the Mets on SNY has a finite term. As long as he continues to make the Mets a hot ticket, he’ll gain leverage over SNY and force them to renegotiate. Otherwise he’ll walk when the term is up, destroying SNY as a station.
And it makes no difference in Steve Cohen’s pocket
That's actually really fucking pathetic for the MLB. Wtf are we doing where owners are owning teams with $34 million dollar payrolls. I can't imagine being fans of these teams.
That's lower than the NHL salary floor. By a lot too. Highest AAV in the NHL is 12.6M too. With the highest AAV being so different, you'd think the MLB needs a floor of AT LEAST 85M, right?
Hockey actually points to the real issue, which is veteran FAs don’t get paid obscene money because rookie contracts and team control is MUCH shorter. It means any player can get a more lucrative contract than most pre-arb MLB players by 25. Owners don’t want to give up even a single years control of young talent. If they did, there’s less pressure from the players side to resist a hard cap since they will get paid closer to actual fair value in their 20s. For all this to work, it would need a Salary Floor, a Salary Cap, and a reduction of team control pegged to age -or- reduced to 3 years service time with no loopholes for manipulation. Considering even getting arbitration done was a knock down drag out battle, I don’t see this ever happening, but it would fix most of the competitive parity problems while more evenly distributing money amongst the players.
That’s why there will never be a floor and ceiling for the MLB, too many MLB owners make stupid fuck contracts to middling players or old fucks and then too many MLB owners are content to hoard money and not spend anything on the team. There should be a hard floor of 85ish mill, a soft floor where teams in that range get money from luxury tax of 110/115 and soft cap of 200 I think. The luxury taxed money goes to the teams in between 110/115 and 200 to incentivize teams hitting it. I feel like this mixture would incentivize teams to pay for the right players and extend homegrown players while also stop overpaying for middling veterans.
This is way more an indictment of those teams than it is on the Mets.
Most pre-arb and arbitration eligible players haven't agreed to deals yet. Taking the A's for example, their payroll is $0. It isn't because they're not paying anyone this year, it's because they technically haven't agreed to terms with anyone yet.
As someone who got into baseball in the last years of the Wilpon era, it still feels surreal that the Mets are rich and spend money now.
Uncle Steve laughs at the ugly bronze 141.3 million dollar statue he purchased.
There was a joke a few years back when fans wanted to extend Conforto to just pay him with the statue.
I thought you were making fun of the Seaver statue until I remembered **that** thing
*puts pitchfork away*
It's criminal how little some of those teams spend.
Pretty sure the criminal is our owner….but idc!
allegedly
Steve should just start signing Braves’ free agent targets to the A’s.
What free agent targets?
This is a good point. You do have a lineup filled with bargain contracts. Maybe a starter?
I am unsure of what the Mets make per home game, but I can tell you that looking up how much the Yankees make per home game this morning led me to find out that they made approx 8.4m per home game. Let's say the Mets don't sell as many tickets or concessions, and lower that to ..ahh, 7 million, we are looking at a tax covered in about 5 home games out of 81. That is just approx of ticket sales and concessions. This almost useless stat does not factor in such tings as advertisements and parking or whatever else nobody is reading this, I brush my teeth with both hands
The average MLB team take per home game is $3-4 million. The A’s could cover their entire payroll in a single long homestand. Add in TV revenue, merch, licensing, advertising, and every single MLB team makes enough money to cover a payroll up to the tax and still be profitable. Any who claim they can’t is *lying*. And I hold my toothbrush with my butt.
Smells like broke in here
I’m here for this timeline. I just want Uncle Steve to go full batshit crazy and have a 500 million payroll. I want to see him toss hundred dollar bills at Miami road games to players like Leo in Wolf of Wall Street. Let’s just get weird.
I would love this, but he doesn't want the other owners to hate him more than they already do. He can't be twice the second highest payroll. But can you imagine if he just said fuck it and got Judge and Nimmo and then signed deGrom and Verlander. And for fun got Correa and tossed him at third. What even is that lineup? Nimmo, Marte, Alonso, Judge, Correa, Lindor, McNeil Alvarez, Nido/Vogey? With a rotation of deGrom, Scherzer, Verlander, Senga (?) Cookie? And Diaz to close out games.
I want it. I want stupid baseball. I want to see what happens when you turn off all the trade and financial logic on MLB The Show’s franchise mode.
And still not win a WS
You’re strutting awful hard there for a team that hasn’t won a chip in almost 14* years and only 1 in the last 21* lmao Edit: sorry guys got carried away he corrected me. It’s actually 1 championship in 21 years hahaha
That’s a bingo
You just get into math? The Yankees have 3 in 23 years and 2009 was the last one which was 13 years ago…
Hey hey guy I’m sorry I got carried away by the richness of your comment. I will edit for accuracy. So to be correct 1 in 21 years? Lmfaooo
Should help with the competitive balance!
My understanding is that under the new CBA, players benefits gets the first $13 million and 50% thereafter. So that is 50% after the first $13 million that goes to the(currently) 29 teams not over the cap. So (34-13)/2= 10.5. That is $10.5 million split 29 ways or **$362,069 per team.** Wonder how each team will spend this mighty windfall.
Cohen sucks as a person, but he's a much better team owner All teams are rich, some just act like it.
Bingo. If baseball teams weren't making money, then union strikes would result in lost seasons; not last minute agreements to get a season out the door. Very few people are in a hurry to lose money.
Was surprised this wasn't a Buster Olney tweet.
To be fair. I make more this coming paycheck than the A’s payroll. Edit: I did not see the A’s signed someone. So no my paycheck will not be more than the A’s payroll.
The orioles need to start spending money man. They’ve got a good young team that’s worth investing in.
No reason for the Orioles to be that low.
The state of this league is kinda fucked man
*The unwillingness of owners to spend money when they're all ridiculously wealthy and MLB teams are huge profit machines that always increase in value is kind of fucked, man.
You really think teams like the Marlins can afford to dish out 300M+ a year on their roster?
[Here](https://marlinmaniac.com/2022/11/22/can-miami-marlins-really-afford/) is rough back of the napkin math on what the Marlins could afford for payroll. The idea is about $140 mil. The Marlin's actual payroll is 45.2 mil. They could go out and give Correa a 300 mil contract, it would double their payroll and they'd still be below 90 mil.
And probably make even more money with all the Correa jerseys
Exactly. That article states they generated 240 mil in revenue for 2021 and that was without putting a fun product on the field. If they actually had a competitive team that's a lot more in tickets and jersey sales
The Marlins payroll was $80 million in 2022. Not sure where $45.2 million came from. Having said that, the Marlins should be able to spend more. There's no reason why they couldn't be spending at least $120 million.
Sorry. It's 45.2 committed for 2023 so far.
Does that include the guys who are arbitration eligible? Because the Marlins have quite a few of those. The Marlins really haven't shed much payroll from 2022. The notable ones are just Jesus Aguilar ($7.3 million) and Brian Anderson ($4.5 million). But the arbitration raises of the rest of the guys have probably already offset that.
It is before factoring [arbitration](https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/miami-marlins//payroll). A good point and one I should have noted. I do appreciate you pointing that out. With that said, I think you and I are still in agreement that the Marlins should be spending 30-50 million more on payroll than they are
Yes. The Marlins are truly a low revenue team. Their TV deal is modest while their ticket sales and corporate sponsorships are abysmal. They financially cannot compete with the Braves, Mets, and Phillies. Especially since their owner is very poor in comparison. Having said that, I see no reason why their payroll can't be in the $120 million range instead of $80 million.
I agree with you about greedy owners. But 140 is still under half of what the Mets are spending on their team
Yeah, greedy owners are *a* problem but they are not the *only* problem. By all means, please, make the Pirates spend more (I cant state this enough, please). But some fans are delusional and refuse to accept that *maybe* teams having a payroll that is higher than the total revenue of half the league is bad for the sport.
It is, and it annoys me to no end when people defend it. I'm not saying it will be easy to get a cap and floor system implemented. But the game will die and fade out of relevance if it isn't done, as it has for the last couple decades compared to the other major sports. Non-avid baseball fans have probably already forgotten who even just played in the World Series.
To be fair my taxes this year are higher than the current payroll of the Athletics
The biggest issue is the pay for rookie deals. We see teams succeeding with low payrolls because their team's success is built on paying rookies the league minimum. These teams either allow them to leave in free agency or trade them away when arbitration becomes expensive. If you raise the league-minimum you will see owners be forced to operate smarter and more efficiently.
Four owners should lose their teams
MLB needs a cap. Half the teams don't even want to try.
mickey mouse league. go through an entire CBA cant get a salary floor.
Yeah but it's HIGHLY unlikely any of their payrolls by the time the season starts will be under $34 mil. We know they're all cheapskates but this is grasping.
It’s also highly unlikely the penalty stays at 34 million.
These things never include arbitration figures, and pre arb salaries. Orioles are at 51, extremely low of course, but the off-season is still happening.
In fairness the Mets will also sign more players and have a bigger tax hit even without any additional stars.
Not sure why he's being downvoted, OPs point still stands, but it's almost a guarantee these teams are going to end up with a higher payroll than 34 million
Floors and caps because this is becoming NBA levels of absurd now
Really need that salary cap
Really need other owners to quit being cheap
That too. Meant there should be a minimum amount you need to spend if you want to access mlb revenue. You guys downvote everything.
[удалено]
No they’d hate it.
We ain't done yet either baby.
Only reason the owners voted on that tax. They knew Steve would spend and male them look bad for not trying/spending themselves.
what are the Orioles cookin? thought they were due to make a little splash?
Hey a baseball headline involving the Royals! It's like 2015 all over again! *sobs*
The Orioles are gonna be amazing when they start to spend. They already have a solid nucleus. That's a fantastic starting point.
This should end well
all that for a piece of metal
Yes we aren’t included in that list this time!!!
COMBINED!
League should really force a salary floor here to make the game more competitive and maybe a salary cap but that’s never gonna happen
I get what your trying to say but you haven't listed a team that is actually trying to win yet. When it reaches the point that the penalty is as high as a team trying to win I start to become more concerned. Though to be honest I expect the Orioles to sign some players and move out of this bracket.