2018 MLB Thread

[Meacon Keaton]

Anybody who thinks the players don’t deserve their rightful share and a bigger slice of the pie, are probably the same people that think Trump is smart for finding a way to avoid paying his taxes.

[DMN in the House]

41 minutes ago, Lowerdeck said:

We like to think baseball players and other pro athletes as undeserving, because they're already making millions of dollars per year - but in reality, they aren't receiving a rightful share of the revenues that the sport is making thanks to them.  And what we're seeing in baseball is an extension of an economic system in which the owners of an industry are clamping down on workers rights and pay to make themselves richer.  These players are the ones who are not receiving the full value of their labor, which they should be entitled to.  As much as it would suck to go without baseball for a while, these players should strike and demand better.


If you think you should be making $20 an hour instead of $15, it's not a logical jump to think Manny Machado deserves $30M a year instead of $20M

Whenever this stuff comes up I always try to keep in mind that, despite the numbers involved, Players = Labor. They are workers, not management.

What happens is a lot of people get blinded by their loyalty to the team as a fan and expect a player to feel the same. Or forget that it's easy to value winning over more money when you aren't the one getting the money.

[The Buscher]

If MLB completely ceased operations, there is not one owner who would be struggling financially.  They are all billionaires and most of them have revenue streams coming in from other industries.

By contrast, while there are plenty of millionaire players who should be able to live comfortably without baseball, think of how many aren’t in that position.  Minor leaguers make nothing and you need three years of major league service before you can reasonably crack a million dollar salary.  Those are the guys a lockout will impact most.

Unfortunately, this is why the owners will continue to have all the leverage.  They’ll make some concessions because they still want to make more money, but they’ll never have the financial incentive to give the players a truly fair share.  It will never be that way in MLB or in NFL when that inevitable lockout comes too.

[Gabriel]

One suggestion that I've seen in regards to a Salary Cap/Floor system is that the Salary Floor would be tied to overall team revenue. Meaning that teams pulling in more revenue would be required to spend more money to reach the floor, whereas a small market team would be looking at a Salary Floor much smaller. The idea being that it would help bridge that gap between owners and players in big markets, and that small market teams would be able to point to TV revenue, attendance, etc as reasons why they can't afford to spend more... but also have that point to drive home to their fans that if they want the team to spend more money, the best way is to actually support the team, because if they make more revenue, they HAVE to spend more money the next season.

So, the Salary Cap would be a hard limit on spending... and the Salary Floor would be a percentage of your total revenue from the previous season, with an MLB/MLBPA chosen lower limit that has to be reached regardless of revenue.

Teams like the Yankees and Red Sox would have a much higher Salary Floor than a team like Tampa Bay, obviously, but that doesn't change much in regards to spending currently. The Rays don't spend a lot, but there's an argument to be made that they could probably be spending more... and maybe a Salary Floor forces them to open up the wallet and sign one of those bigger name free agents who is still waiting on a contract after the Winter Meetings... or forces them to keep a player that they otherwise would have moved because of higher dollar demands, just out of the necessity of reaching the Salary Floor.

Players would make more money, teams would be forced to field a competitive roster every night (within reason.. obviously if you have the lowest league revenue, no one is expecting you to go after a Bryce Harper), and I think it would help to open the doors for different types of off-seasons. As it stands, it seems like every year the marquee free agents land huge dollar contracts with the same group of teams, while one or two teams might sneak in due to performance from the previous season, and everyone else just kind of waits for the dust to settle or looks for those diamonds in the rough.

It's just crazy to look over the lists of top free agents available and possible destinations for them based on fit and contract demands... and see that those possible destinations are dominated by three to five teams, with the rest of the league nowhere to be seen.

[Twist]

1 hour ago, Lowerdeck said:

We like to think baseball players and other pro athletes as undeserving, because they're already making millions of dollars per year - but in reality, they aren't receiving a rightful share of the revenues that the sport is making thanks to them.  And what we're seeing in baseball is an extension of an economic system in which the owners of an industry are clamping down on workers rights and pay to make themselves richer.  These players are the ones who are not receiving the full value of their labor, which they should be entitled to.  As much as it would suck to go without baseball for a while, these players should strike and demand better.


If you think you should be making $20 an hour instead of $15, it's not a logical jump to think Manny Machado deserves $30M a year instead of $20M

This is literally capitalism. It’s how the entire world works, not just sports.

You want to fix it? Start with industries that pay their staff so little they live under the poverty line.

[Lowerdeck]

22 minutes ago, Buschie Van Wagenen said:

Minor leaguers make nothing and you need three years of major league service before you can reasonably crack a million dollar salary.  

 

The minor leaguers getting paid dirt is a serious problem that needs to be addressed also.  I can't imagine some of the guys in low level ball are making more than 30k a year, when they could easily be doing better.

[SeanDMan]

2 hours ago, Meacon said:

Anybody who thinks the players don’t deserve their rightful share and a bigger slice of the pie, are probably the same people that think Trump is smart for finding a way to avoid paying his taxes.

I'm split when it comes to athletes. On one hand, they are absurdly overpaid when you have people making $7 an hour and they want another 6 or 7 million a year or they'll stay home. On the other hand, when you look at the value of a sports franchise, the thing that draws the most money is the players. Sure, the owner takes a risk spending money assembling the team but with revenue sharing in baseball you have to be a clown or a criminal to post a loss. And I have even less sympathy for the owners because it's not like any of them are building stadiums anymore, they get the city and state to do it for them. So in terms of revenue generated, the more that goes to the players and the less that goes to the owners the better.

[Meacon Keaton]

1 minute ago, SeanDMan said:

I'm split when it comes to athletes. On one hand, they are absurdly overpaid when you have people making $7 an hour and they want another 6 or 7 million a year or they'll stay home. On the other hand, when you look at the value of a sports franchise, the thing that draws the most money is the players. Sure, the owner takes a risk spending money assembling the team but with revenue sharing in baseball you have to be a clown or a criminal to post a loss. And I have even less sympathy for the owners because it's not like any of them are building stadiums anymore, they get the city and state to do it for them. So in terms of revenue generated, the more that goes to the players and the less that goes to the owners the better.

That's what I mean. If the league and teams were losing money, sure the players deserve to be paid a lot less. But when they bring in hundreds of millions of dollars, that money has to go somewhere. It's either going to be used to pay the players for their service, or its going to go into the bank accounts of the billionaire owners.

I think this whole issue would be resolved if club finances were made public, because I don't think fans realize just how much money the owners keep. If I were a Twins fan or Pirates fan, I'd be pissed when your owner is saying "Sorry, we can't afford to pay Manny Machado $30 million this year!" yet they're bringing in $150 million. They very much can afford it, it would just mean the owner gets less money at the end of the season than if they don't sign them. 

[Draevyn]

On 31/01/2019 at 15:36, Gabriel said:

Well, if you're down for potentially two leagues, I'd love to start a Keeper league for the upcoming season.

Would anybody else be interested?

We'd do head to head with ROTO scoring. I'm not a fan of negative point values, and I would want it to be easy enough for everyone to understand, so we'd likely end up having a discussion about what stats to use for year one. I'm leaning towards no divisions, just one big league, so that the top performers are rewarded as the top performers. I'm also thinking that weekly lineup setting would be best, so that people don't game the system and add/drop starters every day for maximum impact on their pitchers.

Can someone explain a keeper league to me? And ROTO scoring!  I might be interested if I knew what it was. haha

[Gabriel]

10 minutes ago, Dazed and ConFORKed said:

Can someone explain a keeper league to me? And ROTO scoring!  I might be interested if I knew what it was. haha

A keeper league is where you draft your rosters for year one, but then for year two, you keep (hence the name) a specific number of players from the previous year, as determined by the league commissioner.

So, if I'm running it, my preference would be that each team keeps all players... but some leagues make it half your team, or five guys, or ten, or whatever they want to set it as.

Because it works like that, there's more strategy involved for everyone, as if your team falls out of contention, you can still build towards next year by trading away point producers that you don't think can repeat next season, or guys who are on the decline, but still providing better value in the present.

It also helps keep everyone engaged. Often when people fall out of contention in a fantasy league, they stop caring about their roster, or they'll make lopsided trades to help their buddies out.

ROTO scoring allows you to choose which statistics that you would like to account for points. Head to head is best for this type. Basically, if there are 10 categories awarding points, what happens is that you're judged head to head in each category. So if you win 7 of the 10 categories, you beat your opponent for that day or week 7-3. ROTO scoring makes it more important to have a balanced lineup, like in real life, as opposed to loading up on a bunch of potential 20-35 home run hitters.

For instance, if one category is home runs, you'll probably want a couple of guys who can be counted on for big power... but if another category is Strikeouts Against, it might be better to take a 15 home run guy who doesn't whiff a whole lot, as opposed to someone who is expected to hit 30 or more, but strikeout more often than they reach base.

If we do a ROTO Keeper league, I'd think that 10 or 11 categories would be best. We can keep it relatively simple to start, because even the simpler stats that we can use would require a bit of thought when building your team. Like, do you really want that closing pitcher who will pile up saves for his low scoring team, when he has a tendency to walk a lot of batters, if Saves and Pitcher Base on Balls are both categories? I love it.

[Draevyn]

Oh yeah, I definitely like the keeper part of it. I'm not much of a stats person though I am trying to get better at that for the sports I watch so I would definitely be interested in that.