MLB 2020/2021 Off-Season Thread

[gunnar hendershow]

Salary caps are awful and they don't create as much parity as you'd expect. Since 1980 baseball has had at most 3 "dynasties", the Braves, the Yankees, and the Giants. The Braves are extremely iffy because while spending a decade as the NL's dominant team they won a total of 1 World Series. The Yankees were absolutely a dynasty. The Giants won 3 World Series but basically didn't contend in any other seasons.

The current system of luxury tax and revenue sharing is a better compromise. But these billionaire owners still pretend they're headed to the poorhouse if they have to spend an extra $5 million. Then they decide one year out of ten that it's time to go all-in and they give the go-ahead to make reckless signings and trades.

The NFL salary cap isn't effective at creating parity. The teams that are poorly run have been bad for the last 20 years and the teams that aren't have consistently competed and many have won Super Bowls. The people who love to talk about the parity it created point to the four year stretch of the Super Bowl being new teams each year (Super Bowls XXXIV to XXXVII). Then the Pats dynasty really got going and you had the nearly uninterrupted streak of Brady, Manning, or Roethlisberger in the Super Bowl. Some parity.

The NHL has a ton of parity but even before the salary cap it did. Detroit and New York and Toronto would spend a ton and one of those teams actually won. But before the salary cap you had the Devils win 3 Cups and almost one or two more. Then in the salary cap era and the Blackhawks and Penguins have both won 3. The Bruins have always been there, the Capitals, the Blues, so on. Not as much parity at the very top (but admittedly a ton in the middle).

The NBA has a "soft" cap which basically means a team can go above the salary cap to keep players they draft or have had for awhile (something I hate that the NFL doesn't have, essentially penalizing well-run teams and awarding the garbage teams). That doesn't matter nowadays when players have a ton of power to choose their destinations. It's a sport that doesn't really lend itself to parity because of the dominance of superstars. A LeBron or a Kawhi is inherently going to carry a team to at least the conference semifinals every season. The salary cap does help some smaller market teams make moves to become more competitive but it's still dependent on them either hitting a home run in the draft or luring a marquee free agent to town.

So, while baseball could do some things to make it a little more competitive few of those options are "hard salary cap" and most are "increased revenue sharing and making sure that the owners spend every penny". Because I do believe a team in NY or a team in LA should be somewhat subsidizing a team in Tampa Bay or Milwaukee. But those teams shouldn't be able to just bank the money they get.

[Gabriel]

I think that a salary floor is probably a more logical solution. The league could control it by making sure that the floor doesn't go above what the poorest team CAN afford with the inclusion of any revenue sharing they receive.

The biggest issue in baseball isn't that there are teams out there scoffing at the luxury tax. It's that there are teams out there, being given money from revenue sharing, who are actively choosing not to use that money to improve their ball-clubs. Then they cry foul because the other teams draw bigger crowds and sell more merchandise, so they're financially more healthy... but it's a catch-22, because if you want to sell tickets and merch, you need to give your fans a reason to give a shit. Sure, New York has a larger potential fanbase than say Arizona might, but that doesn't mean that Arizona can't draw the same revenue from ticket sales and merchandise. It just means that they need to try harder.

[gunnar hendershow]

Yeah the benefit of proper revenue sharing is that a team like the Yankees make more than they could ever actually spend on salaries since there are limited roster sizes. That money they can't spend getting distributed to the rest of the league to spend is much better than them sitting on it or doing silly things to avoid an artificial cap with the luxury tax.

[Meacon Keaton]

I’ve explained all this to him multiple times. He doesn’t get it. 

[Gabriel]

5 minutes ago, damsher hatfield said:

Yeah the benefit of proper revenue sharing is that a team like the Yankees make more than they could ever actually spend on salaries since there are limited roster sizes. That money they can't spend getting distributed to the rest of the league to spend is much better than them sitting on it or doing silly things to avoid an artificial cap with the luxury tax.

There are always going to be fans of the big market teams who don't think it's fair that the Yankees are helping to float the Athletics or Rays, and they'll argue that if those teams can't be good enough to draw crowds and bring in that revenue on their own, that maybe they shouldn't be there...

But smaller markets deserve baseball too, and their fans can be even more rabid than those from larger markets. The problem is that small market owners only want to spend money when they feel like they can guarantee October baseball. Of course, that doesn't happen often for those small markets because they won't give out what their young stars are deserving of, and so they end up leaving before the teams get good enough to spend on free agents and the cycle repeats itself.

Baseball will be healthier and the league will have more parity if those small market teams are forced to utilize the revenue sharing money that they are getting for player contracts specifically. In turn, those teams helping to "float the small market teams" will be in a better position, even if they don't have that extra however million dollars in the bank that they won't miss anyways because they're making money they could never spend anyways.

[ThrillhouseMAX]

The Padres look like they're out here playing franchise mode on MLB The Show

[Gabriel]

The Blue Jays added Robbie Ray to the rotation today, taking a bit of a risk with him. He's a free agent at the end of the season, so if it doesn't work out, they can always just walk away. They received cash along with Ray in exchange for pitching prospect Bergen, who hasn't been used all that much this season.

They are apparently still very much in on Lance Lynn, but the asking price seems to include one of Danny Jansen or Reese McGuire. If I can make it work with McGuire being that guy, I'd be really happy to do that. We've got Joseph on the taxi squad with big league experience as a catcher, and even if Jansen doesn't re-discover his bat this year, his defense is worth playing him almost every day.

That also doesn't mean that they can't go out and acquire a better hitting catcher to play alongside Jansen either. There's still an hour and a half before the deadline.

[The Buscher]

Mets bring back Todd Frazier for god knows what reason plus C Robinson Chirinos, both from the Rangers.  Also RP Miguel Castro from the Orioles.

I know that as bad as they've been they aren't far off from the 8 seed in this expanded field, but BVW really needed to sell or at least stand pat.  Giving up any assets is not worth it for this shitty team.  Hope Cohen cans him on day one.

[gunnar hendershow]

Mets needed to be sellers. This season was a perfect opportunity to get something in return for Diaz.

Anyway, it looks like the O's got the Mets' number 12 prospect for Castro which is firmly in the "eh, maybe he becomes a major leaguer" category. I'm fine with it. Overall we got decent returns with all our trades. I think if half the guys are on the major league roster in a couple years we can count this trade deadline as a successful one.

[ThrillhouseMAX]

An interesting trade deadline. Padres and Cubs killed it. Surprised to see Pillar go to the Rockies so easily. 

[DYSI]

25 minutes ago, B-li Manning said:

Mets bring back Todd Frazier for god knows what reason plus C Robinson Chirinos, both from the Rangers.  Also RP Miguel Castro from the Orioles.

I know that as bad as they've been they aren't far off from the 8 seed in this expanded field, but BVW really needed to sell or at least stand pat.  Giving up any assets is not worth it for this shitty team.  Hope Cohen cans him on day one.

You're almost free from the Wilpon Error. Just count down the days.. 

[GhostMachine]

I suppose its too much to hope that, if the Washington Re...I mean Football Team...goes up for sale, that the Wilpons use the money from the sale of the Mets to hellp buy them?

 

[Lowerdeck]

4 hours ago, El Tiburon said:

An interesting trade deadline. Padres and Cubs killed it. Surprised to see Pillar go to the Rockies so easily. 

Pillar was on a one year deal, so he wasn't gonna get much in return.

[The Buscher]

The Mets are so fucking bad. I'm just glad Cohen has deep pockets because every loss to the Marlins and Orioles just tacks on to the asking price free agents are gonna have to come to this terrible team.

[gunnar hendershow]

Lot to digest in the Rays-Yankees game last night. Aroldis threw at a Rays player and Kevin Cash has outright guaranteed retaliation because he has a "whole stable of guys who can throw 98."

[Meacon Keaton]

I’m still not 100% sure he intentionally threw at him. He’s been insanely wild in his few games he’s pitched this season.

But yeah, whatever. Tampa Bay wants to make this a rivalry which is just adorable.

[gunnar hendershow]

Cash is doing a reverse Tingler and actually motivating his players.

[Meacon Keaton]

The New York Daily News is reporting that Tom Seaver has passed away. 

[The Buscher]

FUUUUUUCK  RIP Tom Terrific 

[GhostMachine]

Apparently he died from a combination of Lewy Body Dementia (what Robin Williams was suffering from when he committed suicide) and COVID-19.