[Drellich] MLB owners enraged by Kyle Tucker-Dodgers deal, will push for salary cap ‘no matter what’
The conspiracy theorist in me says the Dodgers are spending like this so everyone can go “omg look at their money we need a cap ASAP”.
As if the owners got together and were like “someone needs to go nuts so most fans agree with us, lookin at you LA”
I mean the Rangers did it for the NHL. Literally needed them to bail themselves out through a salary cap.
You mean the red wings, right
It was both; the Flyers were also an issue.
Wings and Rangers had near 80M, and after the lockout, it was 40ish
Not our fault they sent our guys $29M offer sheets to break up the dynasty and it spiraled from there hahaha
That was the Federov one right? Or was there another one?
Fedorov is the one I meant, from Carolina
Wasn’t that a $25M bonus if they made the finals? Man, Detroit was pissed
Not even finals. Conference finals and it was \(12 million. He earned \)28 million total for that season (43 games).
It’ll be at least another decade before we see a player make that much.
You should see some poison pills in past NFL contracts too LOL
In 2005, Steve Hutchinson was a Seattle Seahawk, and Seattle wanted to re-sign him. They couldn’t reach a deal before free agency, so they slapped a transition tag on him, giving them the right of first refusal on any contract offered to him.
The Minnesota Vikings then took advantage of the fact that Seattle would have to match / beat whatever contract was being offered to Hutchinson in order to keep him. Not just a similar figure, but the EXACT contract.
So the Vikings slipped in a little “poison pill” clause into Hutchinson’s contract. It stated that the contract would be fully guaranteed (7 years, $49 million) if he wasn’t the highest-paid lineman on the team.
This would not be an issue for the Vikings. On the other hand, the Seahawks had just signed Walter Jones to a huge contract, so the clause would be easily activated if Hutchinson went back to Seattle. The Seahawks were unwilling to match the deal the Vikings had made, which allowed Minnesota to sign Hutchinson without fully guaranteeing the contract, since he was their highest-paid lineman. The poison pill never came into play for Hutchinson’s tenure on the Vikings.
But then, next season, the Seahawks got back at the Vikings during some player contract negotiations, with a couple of WAY more oddly specific contract poison pills.
Seattle signed receiver Nate Burleson to the same deal that Hutchinson got (7 years, $49 million), with not one, but TWO poison pills.
The 1st poison pill stated that the entire contract would be guaranteed if Burleson was paid more on average per year than all of his team’s running backs combined. At the time of the signing, the averages of the Minnesota’s running backs was well below the \(7 million average of the Burleson offer sheet. However in Seattle, Shaun Alexander had a contract that was worth just over \)7 million per year
The 2nd poison pill was a bit more of a bluntly directed “fuck you” at the Vikings, because it stated the entire contract would be guaranteed if Burleson played more than five games in the state of Minnesota, in any year of the contract. Obviously impossible to activate for a player on the Seahawks, but easily activated by a player on the Vikings.
The reason why we don’t see clauses like these anymore is because after the Hutchinson / Burleson shenanigans, the NFL stepped in, and said “No more poison pill clauses in contracts”.
Best player in Powerplay 96.
Love that we retired Fedorov’s number against Carolina, probably because of exactly that
The salary cap essentially ruined the Flyers. They’ve never figured out how to be an organization without just outspending everyone. 2007 and 2010 were fun but other than that its pretty much just been misery being a Flyers fan the last 20 plus years.
Them too, but I remember the Rags having more trouble since they also sucked big time and had nothing to show for the high salaried roster.
Some things never change huh
You mean the Penguins right?
No they were further down the list.
Red Wings and Rangers.
Then a mix of the Flyers, Stars, Avalanche, Leafs and Blues
Penguins were lower third of the league by the lockout.
The Penguins were bankrupt and on the verge of moving before they got Crosby, iirc
Don’t forget the Bruins
Jesus Christ, we’re already at like half the NHL!
Bunch of cheapos!
They were 18th in payroll
And the Leafs, though you’d never know it by results.
Oh yep, one of Ballard’s and the Teacher’s Pension Fund’s many crimes alas
Only one team gave Bobby Holik that contract.
It was really funny - Sather said he’d win 10 cups with the Rangers without a cap and instead signed a bunch of old players. For some reason, Dolan keeps him. After the cap is installed, the Rangers blow it up, briefly bottom out, and then become one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference for a decade.
And even if that’s not the case, they’re absolutely spinning this as hard as they can in order to push for a cap.
Only reason this falls apart for me is that this was the fear when Cohen bought the Mets, they put in the “Cohen tax”. You’d think they’d let him go wild to prove the point if that’s what they were after
Part of the problem is that the Mets in the last few years have been so unlucky and spent some of their money so badly that they’re the example people point to to go “See, spending $ doesn’t guarantee you a World Series!”
Yeah……..
If we lean into that conspiracy theory as someone who is not American. My only pushback is the size of the market, no matter how big the Mets are, they’re not as big as the Yankees in their own City while the dodgers make sense. I think its easier to argue for a salary cap when it’s the number one team in a big market
Mets owner is a lot richer than Yankees. Yankees owner is more cautious with what he goes after
Richer but not as big. I’m in Japan and see tons of Yankees and Dodgers branded items, but never see Mets or my own teams merch. Yankees are a global brand.
If the owners are breathing, they’re attempting to collude.
If the breathe is exuding, they are colluding.
“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
It’s like Adam Smith foresaw MLB.
The two things that will do more to drive up a Dodgers valuation are a salary cap and winning.
If the Dodgers ownership can get a cap without having to revenue share RSNs while still holding the team until Shohei gets to his age 37-38 season they can probably 5x their initial investment and still be heroes to the city.
If I were Guggenheim and I wanted to drive towards an exit, I would also try to get a cap
Guggenheim partners bought the team for \(2 billion dollars, I think they could absolutely get \)10 billion right now especially if the sport goes with a salary cap
No chance they keep the current TV sharing deal
This is silly. The Dodgers can spend because there’s no cap on the price their wealthy clientele will spend on tickets if it is to see a winner.
Yeah, I think a lot of people miss this point. There is a huge gap between what someone will spend in the larger markets vs a town like KC or PITT when the teams are good.
The larger market teams work off the cruise ship model of trying to always make sure that you have the capacity to capture every dollar you’re wealthiest fan is willing to spend. Funny thing is, these wealthy fans like the ambiance of being in a packed stadium. When you pay \(200 to sit in the cheapest seat at a playoff game and have 2 \)15 beers, youre kinda part of the product that the team is selling to the guy who paid 100x more for their seat than you paid for yours
But when if theyre entering the playoffs with 100 wins after winning last year’s WS, there’s only so much the Pirates will be able to get out of their wealthiest fans
Like how MSG will always be sold out no matter how ass the Knicks are.
A lot of people there are not there to watch the games. They could really not give a shit. Big reason as to why the NFL loves having the SB in cities like Vegas, Miami, LA. The rich and wannabe influencers go to these games to take pictures so they can tell their friends they went. You don’t want delco dickheads filling up those seats. They want bimbos and rich businessmen/athletes in the crowds/boxes so they can pan the cameras towards so the NFL seems relatable to the average joe/josephine.
Once you realize the “entertainment” part of sports, you realize that me and you are not the demographic they want to sell to.
Look at gacha games. Whales are the reason why these games are free to play. They subsidize everyone else.
Part of the fun of skipping the lines at an amusement park is getting to the see the size of the line you skipped
The owners don’t make the big bucks off team revenue. The actual purpose of owning a team is to see the valuation grow. The profit made from selling a team for a $10B profit over 20 years of investment vastly outweighs the profits from revenue over that period. Plus in the meantime, you can borrow against the ever increasing valuation to access the liquidity without a tax hit. A salary cap would increase the value of the Dodgers more than they could hope to gain from increasing ticket revenue from wealthy fans.
The Dodgers’ TV contract is worth more annually than at least a third of teams’ total revenue streams. Before a ticket or beer is sold, the Dodgers have made more than the Pirates will all year. That’s the real problem.
We have one of the biggest stadiums left. We were making bank when weren’t winning champs back when we got Adrian Gonzalez and took on bad contracts like Beckett and Price, and used farm system to get players.
We just need to be not bad. The Ohtani experience is just insane though. When Japanese companies are advertising on our road games.. that’s saying something.
Hmmm let’s pick someone to win all the World Series for this decade
It’s just a piece of metal ForsakenRacism, what could it cost, $10?
My god I read this as ForeskinRacism and wondered how damaged this dude was
I think the dodgers know this is all gonna piss everyone off and know it will result in a cap, so why not get everything on the books right now before that happens to give themselves the edge over every team. As much as I hate it, I see the play for them to do it, given that their owners seemingly have unlimited money to play with
The Dodgers’ ownership would be the only people benefiting from the salary cap since they get to keep that sweet $200 million in their pockets.
yeah paying all that luxury tax money will show em
MLB fans are enraged by blackout rules.
That definitely needs to change
One of the upsides of moving away from my hometown is I get to watch every game on MLB TV as long as they’re not playing where I’m living now. But it took me moving 300 miles to make that happen. It’s asinine that somebody can literally be 5 miles away from their home Ballpark and can’t see the game on TV because if dumbass blackout rules.
You can’t even count on that anymore because when your team appears on any other platform like Apple, ESPN, or whoever is willing to fork over enough money to MLB to carry the game, you can’t see it.
Canadians are blacked out from the entire playoffs because Sportsnet here carries the games, but MLBtv still costs the same.
MLBtv in the states also doesn’t carry the playoff. U have to go to cable to get.
Best thing for Cubs fans is to move out of Chicago, so they can watch the Cubs play on TV.
Offseason lockout, lose some spring training games, play all 162, no hard cap. Book it.
Yea probably very likely lol
The people freaking out and thinking we will have no 2027 season are overreacting hard.
I think your scenario is way more likely.
If you’re correct I will virtually shake your hand and buy you a virtual beer.
Don’t forget rescheduling a few games and getting a couple of scheduled doubles headers.
Owners won’t lose the playoff TV money.
Definitely. No one in a position of strength would be talking about their one ask openly and aggressively so much. It’ll be the thing they oh so magnanimously back down on in exchange for something else.
Could definitely happen if they just adjust the luxury tax thresholds and/or make the penalties more severe like the NBA did
MLBPA doesn’t go for that unless owners give meaningful change on the other side, like reducing years of team control. NBA stars can get paid after four years, MLB stars wait six… and that doesn’t take into account time in the MiLB system.
A player who gets drafted at 21 and spends the median 4 years in the minor leagues begins pre-arb at 25 and is FA eligible at 31. The entire system is set up to underpay controllable talent with the promise of a payday after six years of MLB service.
The MLBPA doesn’t welcome a significant reduction of demand on FA contracts without something significant in return.
I think it would be accepted alongside increased revenue sharing, with a requirement that all (or at least a significant percentage of) money received from revenue sharing be spent on player salaries. Right now, it’s estimated teams get ~$200 million from revenue sharing.
If that shared amount went up to \(250 million, and the rule was only half of it had to be spent on players (with any unspent money at the end of the year returned into a pool for player benefits like the luxury tax does). Last season, 10 teams had a payroll under \)125 million. Making the top teams less willing to spend but forcing the bottom teams to spend more would probably fly with the players. And I think most owners would end up fine with it because they’re still getting more money.
Any more severe penalties and it’s basically a soft cap, which the union will resist. 110% tax partially distributed to your competitors is already insane.
Yup. I think there’s more likely to be games lost in 2032. By then the national and local rights will be taken care of, and owners will have more guaranteed revenue to come back to if they ever had to miss a season. Doing it now and then going to Netflix in 2028 and saying “hey guys, how many millions you want to spend for the HR Derby that didn’t happen last year?” would be a level of tone deafness that I don’t think even MLB owners would have. They are billionaires for a reason.
I hope you’re right, the MLB cannot afford to waste Judge and Shohei’s prime, nor do I wanna miss any of it
Most likely, people are goanna be shock when the lockout doesn’t go the way they think it is
Don’t forget the salary floor of $75m
Owners proposed a floor of 100 million last cba
that is way too low needs to be 85% of the cap/luxury tax.
90% floor to the cap. Make owners spend.
Exactly like it is in the NFL
The Marlins or Pirates are not spending 90% of a cap. Let’s say a Cap of \(300M and they’re going to be forced to spend \)270M? Is that what you mean?
I don’t want to be rude but if the Marlins and Pirates are not going to spend the money then force new owners. If no new owners want to operate in the city then move the teams
Y’all are insanely out of touch with the economics of baseball if you think small market teams can run a \(270M payroll and not be WILDLY in the red. The Brewers run a \)155M payroll and are only estimated to be ~$30M in the black after a franchise best season.
Isn’t the point of the revenue sharing system mean that even if they go into the red the well performing teams would share some of their revenue with them?
It’d have to be a vast sum of money to make them spend $250M+ on payroll
Mets and Dodgers have a payroll of what 400 million…I’m sure the vast sum of money is there from the big market teams.
They will hate you for speaking the truth.
I would guess a cap will be around \(200 mil, floor would be \)180 mil. I think smaller market teams would be willing to spend that much because they know there will be return. At this point smaller market teams need to way overspend to get quality free agents to come. Part of the reason is these teams are absolutely cheap. However, why spend a ton of money on 3rd and 4th tier FAs when you can get similar production out of rookies and cheap players.
Players would never agree to that. It’d cap their earnings too mhch
they’d have to get rid of the service years and arbitration. The issue is you can’t get market value until you’re 28-30 then you get overpaid. if they’re allowed to make more money when they’re 20-26, they’ll be better. There’s also got to be more revenue sharing, like the NFL as well.
Yea with a cap comes a 50⁄50 revenue split IMO.
I don’t think I’d make the band quite that narrow but regardless, the idea would be to design it such that the total amount spent on players would be roughly the same, and it would disproportionately benefit many mid-teir players instead of maximizing salaries for the top 10-20 guys, which you’d think the union would want. Most importantly it would make the sport more competitive.
But apparently there’s so little trust between the sides, this is just completely impossible.
There is zero chance your smaller market teams are spending 80⁄90% of the cap. Lucky to get to 50%. There’s just too big of a gap between BIG city markets and small ones. And they don’t have the same revenue sharing setup that the NFL does.
Well the revenue sharing structure would be a huge part of the negotiation as well
I also don’t think the BIG market teams who make big money on their local tv deals want to subsidize their crappy low budget owners. It might be interesting seeing not only players vs owners, but even infighting within the ownership group.
They’ll blow a season and ruin all the goodwill and momentum they have going now. Manfred is inept to do anything about it.
Then a cap is not going to happen. A cap has to be 75 to 90% of the cap for the players to budge.
You need better revenue sharing for this to work
For a cap to work all media deals should be negotiated by the league and mlbpa for all teams. YES and Dodger media money go into a large pot with everyone else’s, revenue sharing splits can be address within the CBA much like the NFLs cap fluctuating yearly based on X.
Point is, if the owners want a cap that bad they’re gonna have to give on stuffing their pockets.
this is how the NFL works and one of the reasons it smokes viewership for anything else on tv. It’s how the packers are able to be competitive year after year.
It smokes viewership because it has the least amount of events for the major sports and there’s a massive media ecosystem marketing them 24/7/365.
That’s exactly what the league has set up to happen in 2028. The current ESPN/NBC/Netflix deal expires then, at which point all teams will be up for renewal and the MLB will be negotiated in a bulk package without RSNs.
Why is it starting to feel like the Dodgers are a controlled effort to make a salary cap happen?
I feel it’s more like they know it’s happening no matter what they do so they might as well go balls out with deferrals now – it’s the only time they will be able to.
The nba didn’t have a real salary cap until like 3 years ago and it’s absolutely nuked the landscape. Their “cap” before was just vibes now if you go into the 2nd apron for too long you’re severely limited and punished.
Guys that used to get max deals are now complete negative assets to their team.
The 2nd apron is effectively a hard cap but it isn’t, just no teams besides the Cavs has justified a move to go into the 2nd apron. This is partially because picks are TOO risky to move… if you’re good its fine, but its way harder to get out of the ditch with this salary cap.
People think this parity era is happening because of the apron, but if you watch it’s way more a result of faster playstyle, injury luck & trade inflexibility. Too volatile for a dynasty
In the MLB the flexibility matters way more. It’d even the playing field but also make it roster building for dummies. I think I’d make the salary cap unaffected by “minimum deals”, that way teams can maintain flexibility for moving around the edges unlike NBA teams.
It’s also because free agency is dead.
Star NBA players cannot move teams on their own volition without severely depressing their earning potential. It also nullifies the usual benefit a large market like NY or LA would have over a small market team given equal contracts.
And the apron has a big impact. Role players leave for paydays from every championship team. The Celtics blew it up when in years past, it might have made sense to keep the team intact until Tatum returns from injury.
Guys who get max deals and play subpar are negative assets. Guys who get max deals and live up to their contracta are still valuable
Yup, even if it wasn’t a salary cap necessarily, I think the writing was on the wall that something was going to change next year. May as well ball out one more time to chase the threepeat before that.
I think it’s partly that, partly the rare chance for a three-peat, partly because the free-agent class in the next couple years looks weaker, and partly just because they can.
I’ve been starting to get that vibe
I’ve been saying this. It’s weird asf how the dodgers always beat out other teams by a small amount like 5 mil. Happens suspiciously often
It appears that players just want to go to the Dodgers and just use other teams to bid them up. Supposedly Diaz, Yamamoto and Tucker just took the Mets offers to the Dodgers, let them beat it, and never even let the Mets even try to top it.
I mean, not joining the Mets seems a smart decision to be fair.
What’s the downside. Get paid more and maybe win a ring or…. Mets?
Juan Soto: 🤨
“why nobody tell me this what I suppose to do?”
Yeah I mean I don’t think it’s exactly a conspiracy theory to think that players might want to join the reigning champs AND make more money.
And hey, LA weather doesn’t hurt either
Well, point is players seem like they aren’t actually trying to get the most money, they’re trying to get the most money they can to play specifically for the Dodgers. Mets offer for Tucker was actually higher in present day value.
Would you rather get paid more money and win or less money and lose? Thats before the Los Angeles part.
Yeah I don’t understand how people don’t get that part. If you’re a player, and you can get the most money AND go to the best team possible? It’s a no brainer
USUALLY, players have to choose one or the other, but signing with the Dodgers gives you both. Add on that it’s one of the top cities to live in for a rich young multimillionaire, signing with the Dodgers is the easiest no brainer right now. And that’s probably why we’re gonna get a salary cap 100% for sure too
Precisely. It’s a system issue not a player issue. Honestly you’d WANT players to make that choice, just to reward teams who are successful; it’s just that with a cap it’s very difficult to have a dominant team AND enough free money to sign a megastar, so you don’t see it happen in other capped sports unless the stars align like with Kevin Durant and the Warriors.
Yup. The cap is needed because I genuinely don’t think there’s any reason for top free agents to sign anywhere else. The salary cap mitigates the advantage of big market teams by a little bit. The GM’s actually need to do more math and fill out their roster with a limited budget, instead of just signing a check for any top free agent.
No hate to the Dodgers too, I’d love it if the Yankees did this. But I think the salary cap is happening just for the sake of keeping competition, because without it Skenes, Skubal and any of the top free agents in the upcoming years should be guaranteed to go to:
The Dodgers 98% of the time, the Mets 1% of the time, the Blue Jays 0.8% of the time and the Yankees 0.2% of the time
I mean, wouldn’t you want to take the offer with the team that is
It’s not really weird at all, players want to be in LA with the most talented team in the league
It’s called bidding…
It’s not, but the owners definitely knew the direction of this upcoming lockout and decided to go “eh fuck it, let’s go all in, win another one, make history and then let them do their changes”.
Who woulda guessed 5 years ago it would be a KYLE TUCKER signing that brought in a Salary Cap
Especially after the second half he had last year.
And the billionaires have got baseball fans lobbying on their behalf
It’s possible for people to have overlapping interests. 29 fanbases want a competitive game that’s interesting to watch. That has some strategy, and bold plays.
1 fanbase wants the game of baseball to be decided by who can buy up the most top free agents.
Yes, I acknowledge that the owners want a salary cap. But that’s where negotiations through the players union comes in. They can hammer out the details, like a corresponding salary floor, and yearly increases for both, etc
Its also possible some of us dont give a single flying fuck about the “struggles” of millionaire athletes.
DING DING DING DING Manfred is practically salivating when the Dodgers sign anyone. This is going to be his “legacy”. He’s such a shit stain
If the owners don’t open up the books, I’ll believe this lol
because the internet has absolutely rotted your minds
Because it is.
They can directly talk to Mark Walter, he’s literally part of their group.
Like the Eagles and banning the tush push
Because the league won’t back out on the sweetheart media deal they got for years of neglect
Yeah I kinda feel like a conspiracy theorist on this, but since playoffs are a crapshoot, their farm system is great, and they’ve already won it back-to-back, I don’t think (if the CBA were to remain the same) the Dodgers FA spending maximizes their profits. I think it maximizes the likelihood of a salary cap.
If you’re the Dodgers and you want to make more money by instituting a salary cap instead of just expanding market share through winning, you’d do exactly this and keep buying as many FAs as possible in the run-up to the CBA expiring.
wow it will definitely be different than all of the other times that MLB owners pushed for a salary cap
We said that with the NHL in 04, for a looooot less money. Look how that turned out. Full year lockout. Hard salary cap.
the NHL never had 5, 6 years of forced minor league control.
The NHL wasn’t in the middle of record revenue and ratings with a new TV deal to be negotiated
This is the best point. If the fans don’t watch and viewership declines, the owners will feel compelled to push. But if not? I doubt they’ll sign up to lose money. Fans are in control. How bad do people want a hard salary cap? Don’t watch.
If you’re agnostic or whatever then watch and whatever happens happens.
A few nerds on Reddit and Twitter who don’t go to any games and watch all games via illegal streams not watching the team isn’t gonna have any impact on salary cap negotiations lol
MLB has no leverage, they’re in a 3 year TV deal with like 10 different partners. They aren’t going to cancel games that Amazon, Hulu, NBC, Apple, ESPN etc etc all purchased rights to and then come back in 3 years and say “hey you know how we fucked you guys over? now pay us more money for our games!” at the negotiating table.
It will. They have the outrage of the fans on their side now
Fans are notoriously stupid and irrational. This is not any kind of advantage.
surely the owners have never before had the outrage of the fans on their side during an MLB work stoppage
I feel like the fans have always been on the owner side for a salary cap? Have they not?
Tom Glavin got booed everywhere he went in 1995 because he was the face of the “we aren’t going to have a salary cap” take
The all-powerful fans union going to save the billionaire owners’ skins.
fans don’t have a seat at the table
Yeah, I kinda cringe at comments where people suggest either side is trying to get our support
Like that matters at all
Lol if you think reddit anger moves anything , I have two national elections to sell you
My tinfoil hat says that all the other owners wanted the dodgers to do this so they have fan support in a lockout.
the red sox had been rumored to be pushing for this for years since they’ve bought into other capped leagues
it would explain them dramatically cutting spending
Im not entirely onboard with the conspiracy theory that this is an owner-led push to implement a salary cap. I legitimately believe that Mark Walter and Guggenheim are making more money than ever and have realized that if they keep spending they’ll just make it all back AND more.
They’re competing for fans/viewers in one of the most saturated sports markets in the country/world, so they can’t afford to not keep spending big. The Lakers, Rams, Chargers, Kings, Galaxy, LAFC, etc are all in essence fighting each other for the same fans dollars, and you can’t say the Dodgers aren’t putting the best product out of any of those teams on the field.
The conspiracy theory is ridiculous. Ohtani signed this contract with the promise that the front office and ownership would go ham like this.
And now they are firing on all cylinders. Raking in money, spending it mostly wisely, best farm system, good trades, stable coaching and front office. So not only are they spending, but players want to come here and not just for the dollars and guarenteed postseason appearances.
Don’t the Dodgers have an insanely favorable TV contract compared to other big market teams?
Forged in the aftermath of the McCourt divorce fiasco
Theyre competing in USA but also have a monopoly on Japan, which probably has more baseball fans than USA.
Here’s how this will go
Owners: “We want a salary cap”
Players: “Don’t you need us on TV to generate ratings for your upcoming national media rights negotiations?”
Owners: “OK no salary cap. Good talk everyone.”
Their media rights are totally fucked. The system only worked because all these people that didn’t watch any baseball were forced to pay for it
They just did record viewership numbers for the Postseason and World Series, 2nd year in a row they’ve seen major increases for that
I think the bigger problem with ESPN specifically is they were spreading around the coverage and trying to get every team (except the Jays) on SNB throughout the season. The logic was that this would platform the league as a whole but all it did was hurt ratings as you weren’t always getting the big drawing stars on television.
They need to do what the NBA does and focus the national telecasts on teams with stars people will tune in to see
The national deals are whatever, but the RSN situation for like half the teams in the league is fucked. The cable package subsidies have ended and not many people want to pay $20/month just to watch one team.
yeah but then we get 5,000 “YANKEES/RED SOX AGAIN????????” comments every weekend during sunday night baseball
Manfred has put some effort into fixing this, but I’m not sure how much power he has to compel the Dodgers and Yankees to give up their RSNs, which is the biggest obstacle.
It’s not fixable. The only solution is us paying what the actual cost is and everyone is gonna freak out. I’d mlb.tv went no blackout it would be like 300 dollars minimum
Dodgers are a false flag!
Dodgers are an op set up by Gladio and other stay-behind programs
It’s me, the guy who believes the owners wouldn’t do this if the Dodgers hadn’t signed Tucker.
it’s crazy how we’re inches in game 7 away from this narrative being totally different
I saw plenty of people talking about how a lockout was for sure going to happen before the WS even happened last year. Makes sense the Dodgers are dropping ungodly amounts of money if owners thought a lockout was a sure thing no matter of they spent this off season or not
Mainly because the Dodgers swept the Brewers in the playoffs even though they lost the regular season series 6-0.
Reminds me of the cfb playoff talk around letting G5 schools in: JMU getting beaten by Oregon = Flawed system that needs to stop letting undeserved schools in. Alabama getting blasted by Indiana = That’s just college football for you
Bullshit, they were going after cap no matter what. I guess there wont be a 2027 season
Wow, I can’t believe something convinced the owners to push for the salary cap they have always wanted!!!
I’ll believe it when I see it. Not much can be said past that.
A cap and a floor is necessary.
Yeah, I really don’t see the MLBPA agreeing to a cap without a reasonable floor.
And I don’t see owners agreeing to a reasonable floor.
Will they go for a soft floor?
Like no/limited revenue sharing under a certain threshold and maybe much harsher luxury tax penalties (tax at 200-300% at some point, lose draft picks, significantly reduce international signing money)?
At a certain point players may start getting disgruntled. If the Dodgers keep winning and spending like this it mostly benefits a small handful of players. As nice as it is to get the Tucker contract, not many players are ever going to get that opportunity. I could see a scenario where things get better for the majority (a salary floor, less team control, higher minimum salaries, increased revenue sharing for both teams and players, etc.) and the majority of the players end up agreeing to a salary cap.
I’m cool with a cap and floor if the numbers are high and close together, like the nba and nfl. If it’s a 220 mil cap and a 200 mil floor, that’s great. If it’s a 200 mil cap and 100 mil floor, that’s just the lazy owners trying to punish the ambitious teams
You have MLBPA as your flair and think a cap is necessary? That’s embarrassing as hell.
Do they understand that the Mets were actually offering more money than the dodgers for how this deal is likely to go?
Let the billionaires spend their money, while we are at it, make them pay for their own stadiums
Major League Baseball owners are “raging” in the wake of Kyle Tucker’s free agency agreement with the Los Angeles Dodgers and it is now “a 100 percent certainty” that the owners will push for a salary cap, one person briefed on ownership conversations who was not authorized to speak publicly told The Athletic. “These guys are going to go for a cap no matter what it takes,” the source said.
Major League Baseball owners are “raging” in the wake of Kyle Tucker’s free agency agreement with the Los Angeles Dodgers and it is now “a 100 percent certainty” that the owners will push for a salary cap, one person briefed on ownership conversations who was not authorized to speak publicly told The Athletic.
“These guys are going to go for a cap no matter what it takes,” the source said.
Other pieces of nuance from the article
The hardline stance is probably not as universal as the headline implies:
Two other ownership sources took a softer approach, positioning the Tucker deal as validation of their longstanding positions: that revenue and payroll disparity in baseball need change.
A cap proposal would be tied to a floor:
Owners still have to determine what salary floor and ceiling they’re comfortable proposing, a discussion that’s expected to be a topic at next month’s regularly scheduled owners meeting. The floor, in particular, could be a contentious issue for smaller-market teams, some of which might stand to make more money on an operational basis in the current system. The value of all 30 franchises would instantly rise if a cap is introduced, however
Actually in Support of this. I hope we get a cap, but the PA better negotiate a good floor so teams can actually spend some money for once
The union will not negotiate on a cap. They won’t even entertain it.
Fake outrage. They all want a salary cap. Funny though they haven’t said a thing about a salary minimum which really needs to be put in place too (with something similar to the NBA minimum cap were they have to spend 90% every year)
“Boo hoo, I’m a billionaire MLB owner who owns a franchise that makes me tens of millions of dollars a year while we lose every year because I care more about the money than winning. I want a salary cap of around \(200 million so that when I only spend \)87 million on my team, I won’t look as bad. Waaah.”
Yes, there are problems in baseball, but a salary cap does very little to solve them and the owners themselves are to blame. The old business adage, “You have to spend money to make money” really applies.
Statistically, the Miami Marlins should be one of the biggest market teams in baseball, but instead, they have one of the smallest real markets and amongst the lowest attendances in the league. Is that because the Dodgers are spending $300+ million on their payroll, or is it because whenever you have any good players you trade them instead of paying them to keep them around and try to win, thus perpetually being a losing franchise? Hmmm, I wonder if winning a World Series and then trading away the entire team helped you to continue growing your new fanbase, or if it made your fans permanently lose any trust in you before you had a chance to truly secure it?
It’s truly a shame that the Pittsburgh Pirates can’t match the financial muscle of the Blue Jays, Astros, Red Sox, Yankees, or Phillies. It’s almost like you could operate on a boom-bust cycle where you spend 10 years sucking, getting good draft picks, and building a young talented core while pocketing the hundreds of millions that you’ve saved, then spending some of the saved money to try and build on top of your core of talented players. That would be absurd, wouldn’t it? That definitely wouldn’t get the fans to be interested or invested in the team and sell out stadiums, not to mention the extra broadcast and merchandise revenue that you’d get from a playoff run. That’s preposterous!
Is it me who is wrong?
No, clearly the Dodgers are the problem.
“Ownership source says that ownership are united and willing to play hardball more than a year before they could possibly face any risk for playing hardball”.
See you in 2028!
I dont understand…I was there I the early 2000s with the yankees, who were far worse in simply signing all the talent and everything was fine. Why do people act like this is unprecedented? Blue Jay’s should have won game 7, do we still have this conversation then?
Just absolute hysteria. There are plenty of equalisation measures - expanded playoffs, luxury tax, compensation picks. Not to mention the fact that free agency (as demonstrated by Tuckers contract being almost mathematically impossible to be anything like value) is in itself a very dangerous game for spending teams
Leave the game alone!
Thank god for this reasonable response. This is no different than what was happening with the Yankees back then. If the Dodgers win six or seven in a row, then maybe we can all talk about a potential problem, but until then, everyone needs to chill the fuck out and stop carrying water for billionaires.
Baseball is still the only sport without strict revenue sharing with the players.
I’d be surprised if they gave that up for a salary cap
Huh, now the owners care about competitive balance among the 10ish teams trying to win Manfred’s piece of metal.
Something has to be done. MLB has a competitive balance problem it desperately needs to fix.
I really feel like the extra wild card is a much bigger deal than the Dodgers because it’s curbed spending and teams are fine just sneaking into the playoffs.
Being the 1 seed means nothing. There’s not much of a difference between winning your division and sneaking into via wild card.
There’s just not a huge incentive to spend a ton and think the Red Sox and Nationals found out when they won with teams that just got hot.
MLB OWNERS ENRAGED
No they aren’t. The only people actually “raging” are right here on Reddit.
I remember when the Athletic was a, maybe the, respectable sporting publication. This sounds more like late Molly Knight era Athletic reporting, sadly
Key part to me was Evan’s point about how some small market teams actually make more money in this system then they would under a cap/floor. Ive always been saying 1⁄3 of the teams in this league have no interest in being competitive. It doesn’t matter if the dodgers are paying \(500M or \)100M in salary. They’re perfectly happy cashing their welfare checks from the luxury tax and putting out mediocre 60M payrolls. Now if there’s a cap/floor not only are they going to have to spend up to 100M on payroll yearly (most of which will be overpaying mediocre talent cuz good players still aren’t going to want to go to the As Rockies Marlins Etc.) but they’re welfare checks from the luxury tax are gonna stop coming in as well when the dodgers and Mets and blue jays and Yankees can’t just spend anymore. Why would they vote for that system? I can see a coalition of the top 5 dogs and the top 5 puppies preventing the salary cap/ floor from happening.
Say what you will about Bud Selig’s tenure as permanent commissioner, but after the strike we had 27 years of uninterrupted and unprecedented labor peace with not so much as a day long lockout. 4 new CBAs during that time before the previous ones expired.
(Yes I am aware he was acting commissioner during the strike. I am referring to when he was the permanent commissioner)
Does “no matter what” include opening the books?