All The Owners Are So Bad In Multiple Ways - Work Stoppage 2027 Style

[We Got The Whole 9]

[Stratos]

8 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

you are a horsefeathers idiot. 

Cry harder.

[CubinNY]

10 minutes ago, Stratos said:

Cry harder.

I'm not crying, you horsefeathers idiot. I'm merely pointing out that you are a horsefeathers idiot. 

[Stratos]

4 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

I'm not crying, you horsefeathers idiot. I'm merely pointing out that you are a horsefeathers idiot. 

 Don't make me tap the sign....

[Tryptamine]

1 hour ago, Stratos said:

This is exactly right.

The fans should be interested in their own interests.  Which means what is good for their team and the game (their product).

A work stoppage is bad for the fans and the game.

The Dodgers buying championships is bad for every fan of every other team, including Cubs fans.  The system needs some reform, i couldn't care less who that hurts or benefits between players or owners.  Ideally a fair deal is reached where players don't lose any piece of the pie but the pie is more evenly distributed between players on different teams.

Taking the viewpoint of, as far as I'm concerned everyone else can get horsefeathered, as long as I enjoy myself is not an exactly enlightened way to watch baseball.

[Outshined_One]

When the hell did a bunch of billionaires become communists whinging about payroll disparity?

Oh, right, because it means more money for them while screwing over labor and the fans.

[Andy]

9 minutes ago, Outshined_One said:

When the hell did a bunch of billionaires become communists whinging about payroll disparity?

Oh, right, because it means more money for them while screwing over labor and the fans.

I've pointed out elsewhere that there is literally nothing stopping owners from enacting aggressive revenue sharing among themselves. It would require zero input from the players. But the owners want to take from them to facilitate less payroll disparity instead, for obvious reasons.

[Stratos]

12 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

Taking the viewpoint of, as far as I'm concerned everyone else can get horsefeathered, as long as I enjoy myself is not an exactly enlightened way to watch baseball.

That's not exactly my view, but that's exactly what the owners and players do.  As i said, i want a fair deal for players.

We're all paying customers and most of us are on working class incomes.  Who is looking out for our interests?  The owners and players aren't.

The status quo is screwing over fans of 29 teams so I don't see the point of losing a year of baseball to uphold that system.

[Outshined_One]

12 minutes ago, Stratos said:

The status quo is screwing over fans of 29 teams so I don't see the point of losing a year of baseball to uphold that system.

 

This isn't a strike; the owners are the ones locking out the players, and the owners could easily take a number of steps to mitigate these competition issues without player approval, be it through additional revenue sharing, increased payrolls, or otherwise.

The payroll and competitive disparities were self-inflicted by the owners. This is just a money grab under the guise of fairness.

[Rcal10]

2 hours ago, Outshined_One said:

This isn't a strike; the owners are the ones locking out the players, and the owners could easily take a number of steps to mitigate these competition issues without player approval, be it through additional revenue sharing, increased payrolls, or otherwise.

The payroll and competitive disparities were self-inflicted by the owners. This is just a money grab under the guise of fairness.

Oh, I agree with this. Whatever rules eventually come into place it is to protect owners from other owners. Which is why I think it is ridiculous for them to act like they really want a salary cap and floor. The one proposal I saw has the floor at $170M. I think 15 teams are currently under that number. Some substantially so. Those owners don’t want that. Unless they take upon themselves to share revenues equally, which will never happen, I don’t see how they will ever all agree to a floor and ceiling cap, unless it is a floor of $120M and a ceiling of $300M. And that would be hard to sell as making teams competitive. 

[CubinNY]

20 hours ago, Outshined_One said:

This isn't a strike; the owners are the ones locking out the players, and the owners could easily take a number of steps to mitigate these competition issues without player approval, be it through additional revenue sharing, increased payrolls, or otherwise.

The payroll and competitive disparities were self-inflicted by the owners. This is just a money grab under the guise of fairness.

Just to add, the payroll disparity and competitiveness issues are only tangentially related. There will always be an LA Clippers or Cleveland Browns in baseball, and likely more than one. A cap and floor only means that teams can't spend over a certain limit and must spend a minimum.  It does not mean all of a sudden that the Rockies are going to have a shot b/c the Dodgers can't spend. 

[macarthur31]

20 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

Oh, I agree with this. Whatever rules eventually come into place it is to protect owners from other owners. Which is why I think it is ridiculous for them to act like they really want a salary cap and floor. The one proposal I saw has the floor at $170M. I think 15 teams are currently under that number. Some substantially so. Those owners don’t want that. Unless they take upon themselves to share revenues equally, which will never happen, I don’t see how they will ever all agree to a floor and ceiling cap, unless it is a floor of $120M and a ceiling of $300M. And that would be hard to sell as making teams competitive. 

 

The only way that I can envision that the players defer to a salary cap (and if it does, it oughtta paired with a floor akin to what the NBA has - which is 90% of cap), then the owners should allow the MLBPA to determine what exactly entails "Baseball Related Income," and that includes review every season so that owners can't come up with new categories to stash money.

Also, I subscribe to MLB.tv to watch the Cubs, and I'm starting to be inundated with MLB's ad campaign -  "Level The Playing Field".  Deep sigh.

 

Edited Friday at 05:32 PM by macarthur31

[Rcal10]

2 hours ago, macarthur31 said:

 

The only way that I can envision that the players defer to a salary cap (and if it does, it oughtta paired with a floor akin to what the NBA has - which is 90% of cap), then the owners should allow the MLBPA to determine what exactly entails "Baseball Related Income," and that includes review every season so that owners can't come up with new categories to stash money.

Also, I subscribe to MLB.tv to watch the Cubs, and I'm starting to be inundated with MLB's ad campaign -  "Level The Playing Field".  Deep sigh.

 

If I am reading this correctly does that mean if the Cubs was $280M the floor would be $252M (90% of the cap)? If so, that is absolutely not happening. Owners would never sign off on that. Which, again, is why I think this salary cap issue they are bringing up is silly. They will never all agree on it. The floor would have to be 60% of the ceiling. And that is a hard sell when you are billing it as a way to have all teams competitive. 

[Stratos]

12 hours ago, CubinNY said:

Just to add, the payroll disparity and competitiveness issues are only tangentially related. There will always be an LA Clippers or Cleveland Browns in baseball, and likely more than one. A cap and floor only means that teams can't spend over a certain limit and must spend a minimum.  It does not mean all of a sudden that the Rockies are going to have a shot b/c the Dodgers can't spend. 

But it would mean that just being incompetent is more of the reason for a team being bad than being outspent.

Whatever the ideal system is I don't know, but a situation where some teams spend under 100m and one team spends 515m after the tax hit and just brute buys rings ridiculous.

[Stratos]

On 7/9/2026 at 5:09 PM, Rcal10 said:

 I don’t see how they will ever all agree to a floor and ceiling cap, unless it is a floor of $120M and a ceiling of $300M. And that would be hard to sell as making teams competitive. 

Under that floor/cap, in 2025 there would have been 106m less spending by the 3 teams that went over 300m and around 230m more spending by the 8 teams that spent under 120m.. do net 124m in payroll spending. 

That doesn't factor deferrals.  If they ban deferrals then maybe you raise the cap over 300m?

The argument is always "the owners should spend more".  Sure but how do we make them do that?  One solution is a floor.  That only works for low payroll teams, which makes payrolls overall more equitable, but how do you make a team like the Cubs spend more?

[javy knows my name]

On 7/9/2026 at 9:45 AM, CubinNY said:

you are a horsefeathers idiot. 

Stop stealing my lines

[macarthur31]

22 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

If I am reading this correctly does that mean if the Cubs was $280M the floor would be $252M (90% of the cap)? If so, that is absolutely not happening. Owners would never sign off on that. Which, again, is why I think this salary cap issue they are bringing up is silly. They will never all agree on it. The floor would have to be 60% of the ceiling. And that is a hard sell when you are billing it as a way to have all teams competitive. 

Both the NBA and NFL have 90% floor for salary cap - if a franchise doesn't spend the floor, then they cannot participate in revenue sharing (*gulp*).  

The NFL also sets a 90% floor, but they do that over an average of 3 seasons.  However, the penalty is less severe - in this case, the team just pays the shortfall to the NFLPA, and the union distributes that to the players who were rostered at that time.  

And, yes, salary cap is pointless without a floor.

[Rcal10]

18 hours ago, macarthur31 said:

Both the NBA and NFL have 90% floor for salary cap - if a franchise doesn't spend the floor, then they cannot participate in revenue sharing (*gulp*).  

The NFL also sets a 90% floor, but they do that over an average of 3 seasons.  However, the penalty is less severe - in this case, the team just pays the shortfall to the NFLPA, and the union distributes that to the players who were rostered at that time.  

And, yes, salary cap is pointless without a floor.

I agree with a cap there has to be a floor. Which is why I believe the owners will never follow through with their insistence on a cap. Too many low revenue teams would have to raise their teams budget. I believe the owners are just as much against a floor/ceiling cap as the players are. Even if they proposed a $260M cap with the floor being even 80% of the cap, that would raise their teams budget floor to over $200M. Several teams spend less than half that and some as little as 1/3 that amount. I also doubt large revenue teams will want to share revenues equally with the rest of the league.
Just way too many issues for the owners to really want a cap. I think they are putting that into the negotiations just so they have something they can take out to act like they are compromising. But in reality they would never all sign off on it anyway.
 

[CubinNY]

On 7/10/2026 at 10:27 PM, Stratos said:

But it would mean that just being incompetent is more of the reason for a team being bad than being outspent.

Whatever the ideal system is I don't know, but a situation where some teams spend under 100m and one team spends 515m after the tax hit and just brute buys rings ridiculous.

You almost get it. Money is not the solution to the Angles and bunch of other team’s problems. So why make the argument in the first place? 
 

A cap and floor is only good for the players  and for baseball if there is a fair and unbiased accounting of revenue. Does anyone think the owners are going to open the books for an independent audit? 
 

owners like the Ricketts use the baseball team to market non baseball revenue like concert and hotels and and a bunch of other stuff. How does that get accounted for.
 

The cap is a pretext wedge the owners are using to suppress wages and steal money from the players. Others have pointed out if they wanted to do pure revenue sharing they can do that today without the players. 
 

In the age of Trump the extremely wealthy have no shame and their cravenness is naked. 

[Rcal10]

22 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

You almost get it. Money is not the solution to the Angles and bunch of other team’s problems. So why make the argument in the first place? 
 

A cap and floor is only good for the players  and for baseball if there is a fair and unbiased accounting of revenue. Does anyone think the owners are going to open the books for an independent audit? 

The cap is a pretext wedge the owners are using to suppress wages and steal money from the players. Others have pointed out if they wanted to do pure revenue sharing they can do that today without the players. 
 

I agree with all of this. Which is why I have said the owners don’t want a cap either. I think they are using it as something to show how they compromised with the players when they take it off the table. A true “fair” cap with a floor and a ceiling would never be approved by the owners. 

[Stratos]

10 hours ago, CubinNY said:

Money is not the solution to the Angles and bunch of other team’s problems. So why make the argument in the first place?

Money is a problem for a lot of other teams, and a huge advantage for one in particular.  The Angels aren't due to a systemic problem, the Dodgers and over 25% of the league spending payroll under 120m is a systemic problem for the fans in those cities.

10 hours ago, CubinNY said:

Others have pointed out if they wanted to do pure revenue sharing they can do that today without the players.

People have stated this about revenue sharing, where are they getting this info?

Whether the owners themselves do it or the CBA does it what does it even matter?  You still need 1. revenue sharing and you need some kind of system to force them to spend it, and 2. to force teams in general to spend competitively to some minimum level. #1 is already in place in the CBA but clearly it doesn't go far enough if a bunch of teams can still just horsefeathers the bed and spend under 100m.  The players would probably be fine with deepening that system. 

But that doesn't solve the 2nd issue, or the Dodgers issue, and do the players even think the Dodgers are an issue anyways if they're paying out the big contracts?

[Rex Buckingham]

Money is not a problem for any person who owns a professional sports franchise in the United States. They are all filthy rich. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

[Rcal10]

7 hours ago, Rex Buckingham said:

Money is not a problem for any person who owns a professional sports franchise in the United States. They are all filthy rich. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

But they are not equally filthy rich. And their teams are no where close to equal in generating revenues. Sure, all teams can spend more. But some teams do have a lot more baseball money than others. 

[CubinNY]

1 hour ago, Rcal10 said:

But they are not equally filthy rich. And their teams are no where close to equal in generating revenues. Sure, all teams can spend more. But some teams do have a lot more baseball money than others. 

What's the point of this? All the owners can get together and decide to share the wealth if they want to do that. They don't need the player's permission. 

[CubinNY]

9 hours ago, Stratos said:

Money is a problem for a lot of other teams, and a huge advantage for one in particular.  The Angels aren't due to a systemic problem, the Dodgers and over 25% of the league spending payroll under 120m is a systemic problem for the fans in those cities.

People have stated this about revenue sharing, where are they getting this info?

Whether the owners themselves do it or the CBA does it what does it even matter?  You still need 1. revenue sharing and you need some kind of system to force them to spend it, and 2. to force teams in general to spend competitively to some minimum level. #1 is already in place in the CBA but clearly it doesn't go far enough if a bunch of teams can still just horsefeathers the bed and spend under 100m.  The players would probably be fine with deepening that system. 

But that doesn't solve the 2nd issue, or the Dodgers issue, and do the players even think the Dodgers are an issue anyways if they're paying out the big contracts?

You are a horsefeathers idiot. There is no Dodgers issue. You are making it up. The salary cap is NOT about revenue sharing between the owners and players. The salary cap is about cost-cutting. 

You can look at any of the other major sports that do it. It has 0 effect on competition. The other sports owners have agreed to partner with the players. That is not what the owners are doing here. 

You can't even comprehend why owners can share revenue without the players, who get $0 in profits from the owners. 

Anyway, I'm done responding to your asinine brain farts.