The Broken Business of Baseball (AKA never side with management)

[Cubswin11]

Lots of ideas here about how to spend other people's money. Any change that results in higher pay for the players will result in higher prices for tickets, parking etc. The owners are not going to make less money. They just aren't. Debate all you want how much that sucks but that's how it's always going to be. But here's an idea: have a relegation system whereby every 5 years, the 3 owners with the fewest wins have to sell their teams to someone else.

 

Are far as avoiding tanking, a draft lottery among non playoff teams would help that. Make it the same chance for all non playoff teams to get the number one pick. There would be no incentive to tank. Such a system would not punish mediocrity the way the current system does. Then let teams trade draft picks. The NFL draft is more exciting because teams move up and down and collect picks.

 

Wait, is the relegation idea sarcastically over-the-top or do you honestly think that's more realistic than the other ideas in this thread?

I don’t see any possible issues with forcing 3 billionaires every 5 years to sell their teams and also finding 3 billionaires every 5 years willing and able to buy teams.

[Bluescale]

I don’t see any possible issues with forcing 3 billionaires every 5 years to sell their teams and also finding 3 billionaires every 5 years willing and able to buy teams.

 

They can just sell them to each other. Problem solved!

[biittner77]

Lots of ideas here about how to spend other people's money.

 

Bootlicker alert

 

Clever. I'm at a loss for words. That such an eloquent turn of phrase should be constructed on my behalf...

 

I don't care how much owners make or don't make. They've been crying poverty for years. Nobody really believes it. That's not even the point. Of course he has the money, of course he could afford it. I'd love for him to spend it. I just don't expect him to do it without considering the return on his investment.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

 

I don't care how much owners make or don't make. They've been crying poverty for years. Nobody really believes it. That's not even the point. Of course he has the money, of course he could afford it. I'd love for him to spend it. I just don't expect him to do it without considering the return on his investment.

This is nothing at all like what we piled on you for. This statement is almost completely unrelated to what you said earlier.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

That’s not how supply/demand works.

[CubinNY]

I want to talk about these shitty owners some more.

[CyHawk_Cub]

I want to talk about these horsefeathers owners some more.

 

That's "do-gooder'ing, risk-taking, job-creators" to you, pal.

 

 

/sarcasm font

[Sammy Sofa]

https://deadspin.com/baseball-doesnt-need-collusion-to-turn-off-the-hot-stov-1831644811

 

The baseball panic is rising. With every additional day that Bryce Harper and Manny Machado go unsigned—and Dallas Keuchel and Mike Moustakas and A.J. Pollock and Craig Kimbrel—the drumbeat strengthens: Something is wrong here. After all, as has been pointed out here, every team could use a Manny Machado and none of them would go bankrupt by signing him, while Ben Lindbergh at The Ringer notes that team GMs are increasingly dragging their feet on signings; already, we’re seeing the C-word emerge, just as it did after a similarly slow free-agent winter last year.

 

Certainly, there are reasons to be suspicious. MLB owners are rolling in dough—league-wide revenues hit a staggering $10.3 billion last year, nearly quintupling since 1992 even after accounting for inflation. Yet owners are not, by and large, spending that windfall on player salaries as you might expect: The average MLB salary actually dropped in 2018, for only the fourth time in 50 years.

 

And then, of course, it’s reasonable to assume collusion when this is a league whose owners have been caught colluding before. (One of those four years of falling average salaries, in fact, was 1987, the year that Expos outfielder Andre Dawson, frustrated at remaining unsigned through March, gave in and signed a blank contract with the Cubs, ultimately turning in an MVP season at the bargain price of $500,000.) So: Owners raking in tons of money, players getting lowballed on contract offers, a league with a history of illegal labor actions, and it all adds up to dirty business, right?

 

There is, it turns out, a far simpler explanation for the hot stove league’s long night, and it has less to do with outright collusion than with a mismatch in two key ways of defining what a player is worth to a team. Baseball players, it turns out, are simultaneously over- and underpaid, thanks to the magic of microeconomics.

[CubinNY]

https://deadspin.com/baseball-doesnt-need-collusion-to-turn-off-the-hot-stov-1831644811

 

The baseball panic is rising. With every additional day that Bryce Harper and Manny Machado go unsigned—and Dallas Keuchel and Mike Moustakas and A.J. Pollock and Craig Kimbrel—the drumbeat strengthens: Something is wrong here. After all, as has been pointed out here, every team could use a Manny Machado and none of them would go bankrupt by signing him, while Ben Lindbergh at The Ringer notes that team GMs are increasingly dragging their feet on signings; already, we’re seeing the C-word emerge, just as it did after a similarly slow free-agent winter last year.

 

Certainly, there are reasons to be suspicious. MLB owners are rolling in dough—league-wide revenues hit a staggering $10.3 billion last year, nearly quintupling since 1992 even after accounting for inflation. Yet owners are not, by and large, spending that windfall on player salaries as you might expect: The average MLB salary actually dropped in 2018, for only the fourth time in 50 years.

 

And then, of course, it’s reasonable to assume collusion when this is a league whose owners have been caught colluding before. (One of those four years of falling average salaries, in fact, was 1987, the year that Expos outfielder Andre Dawson, frustrated at remaining unsigned through March, gave in and signed a blank contract with the Cubs, ultimately turning in an MVP season at the bargain price of $500,000.) So: Owners raking in tons of money, players getting lowballed on contract offers, a league with a history of illegal labor actions, and it all adds up to dirty business, right?

 

There is, it turns out, a far simpler explanation for the hot stove league’s long night, and it has less to do with outright collusion than with a mismatch in two key ways of defining what a player is worth to a team. Baseball players, it turns out, are simultaneously over- and underpaid, thanks to the magic of microeconomics.

They had me until the last paragraph.

[Derwood]

He's not entirely wrong, though. Young, in-their-prime players are grossly underpaid, and as such, expect to be grossly overpaid in their later career to compensate for it. Without a work stoppage, its the dumb system we're stuck with

[Sammy Sofa]

https://deadspin.com/baseball-doesnt-need-collusion-to-turn-off-the-hot-stov-1831644811

 

The baseball panic is rising. With every additional day that Bryce Harper and Manny Machado go unsigned—and Dallas Keuchel and Mike Moustakas and A.J. Pollock and Craig Kimbrel—the drumbeat strengthens: Something is wrong here. After all, as has been pointed out here, every team could use a Manny Machado and none of them would go bankrupt by signing him, while Ben Lindbergh at The Ringer notes that team GMs are increasingly dragging their feet on signings; already, we’re seeing the C-word emerge, just as it did after a similarly slow free-agent winter last year.

 

Certainly, there are reasons to be suspicious. MLB owners are rolling in dough—league-wide revenues hit a staggering $10.3 billion last year, nearly quintupling since 1992 even after accounting for inflation. Yet owners are not, by and large, spending that windfall on player salaries as you might expect: The average MLB salary actually dropped in 2018, for only the fourth time in 50 years.

 

And then, of course, it’s reasonable to assume collusion when this is a league whose owners have been caught colluding before. (One of those four years of falling average salaries, in fact, was 1987, the year that Expos outfielder Andre Dawson, frustrated at remaining unsigned through March, gave in and signed a blank contract with the Cubs, ultimately turning in an MVP season at the bargain price of $500,000.) So: Owners raking in tons of money, players getting lowballed on contract offers, a league with a history of illegal labor actions, and it all adds up to dirty business, right?

 

There is, it turns out, a far simpler explanation for the hot stove league’s long night, and it has less to do with outright collusion than with a mismatch in two key ways of defining what a player is worth to a team. Baseball players, it turns out, are simultaneously over- and underpaid, thanks to the magic of microeconomics.

They had me until the last paragraph.

 

Then read on, young squire.

[imb]

He's not entirely wrong, though. Young, in-their-prime players are grossly underpaid, and as such, expect to be grossly overpaid in their later career to compensate for it. Without a work stoppage, its the dumb system we're stuck with

 

im not going to read it but i assume what they're talking about is how by baseball economics, the players deserve a much larger cut and the owners are sitting on money they should be investing into the team.

 

on the other hand, no one deserves to make 300 million dollars when you have so many people in poverty

[minnesotacubsfan]

He's not entirely wrong, though. Young, in-their-prime players are grossly underpaid, and as such, expect to be grossly overpaid in their later career to compensate for it. Without a work stoppage, its the dumb system we're stuck with

 

im not going to read it but i assume what they're talking about is how by baseball economics, the players deserve a much larger cut and the owners are sitting on money they should be investing into the team.

 

on the other hand, no one deserves to make 300 million dollars when you have so many people in poverty

 

 

Most economists would disagree with your assessment. However, most socialists or communitsts would agree with it. A window into your worldview.....

[Sammy Sofa]

OH horsefeathers YOU GOT FOUND OUT IMB

[Cubfanintheknow]

im not going to read it but i assume what they're talking about is how by baseball economics, the players deserve a much larger cut and the owners are sitting on money they should be investing into the team.

 

on the other hand, no one deserves to make 300 million dollars when you have so many people in poverty

 

I suggest you read it.

[minnesotacubsfan]

OH horsefeathers YOU GOT FOUND OUT IMB

 

 

I know. I was stunned. I always thought I was the resident commie. instead, we have so much in common.

[champaignchris]

Collusion requires some behind the scenes agreement. I don’t think there is that. It’s all right there in the CBA. The players got took at the negotiating table. The owners’s greed Is a given. The players’ representatives’ incompetence isn’t.

 

I think the players are going to have to bite the bullet over the next couple years, but then they need to be way more militant next time around. If I were representing the owners, I’d be reading the tea leaves and beginning to work with the players’ union now.

[CubinNY]

I just read it. It’s a [expletive] article. It makes no account for context. As IMB wrote a few pages back, baseball isn’t a business, it’s a closed economy that’s allowed to make its own operating rules. If every owner was a Jeff Loria or the Rays shitty owner group the club would cease to exist. Also, there are far more lucrative investments these people could make. But the main return is the value of team. Edited January 16, 2019 by CubinNY

[Sammy Sofa]

It's basically saying that teams HAVE technically often "overpaid," but mostly for middle tier players. It's dumb for them to try and course correct with the top tier FA's instead of with, y'know, the horsefeathering mid-level contracts (and just lame for them to try and "fix" things that way, period).

[Sammy Sofa]

It's a week to go until February, and 2 26-year old players with a cumulative 61 fWAR split almost equally between them are still unsigned.

 

Baseball is broken.

[Brian]

thead

 

[tweet]

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[tweet]https://twitter.com/a_weyman/status/1088040863010340865[/tweet]

[Sammy Sofa]

One of the most common arguments trotted out against things like raising the minimum wage.

 

"Why should fast food workers make as much/almost as much/more than EMT's?!?" Not that their problem isn't with salaries in general being far too low/stagnant, and that this means that, yes, EMT's should be making money...no, what makes more sense to them is that since Group A has it bad, that means Group B MUST have it worse. THAT'S what makes sense to them, as opposed to, y'know, people being paid better.

[Proven Veteran]

Multiple good takes from Chicago sportswriters in the last week. That's some crazy horsefeathers, man.

[Sammy Sofa]

In the future people will just be rooting for their favorite billionaires because we're horsefeathering doomed.

[Banedon]

In the future people will just be rooting for their favorite billionaires because we're horsefeathering doomed.

 

Mr Bezos, will you sign my trading card?