MLB is Broken

[Hrbowski]

I disagree that lack of parity is the result of disparity in revenues. Sure, the Dodgers may have the best record and the largest payroll in baseball, but many of their important pieces were not originally acquired via big bucks spent in free agency. For example, Justin Turner, Chris Taylor, and Tyler Anderson were all originally picked up off the scrap heap. Other main pieces were drafted/signed and developed by the organization who were less heralded prospects as amateurs, such as Julio Urias, Walker Buehler, Gavin Lux, Cody Bellinger, Tony Gonsolin, etc. They have other main pieces such as Trea Turner and Mookie Betts that they got via trade by dealing from the depth of their excellent farm system, despite having unfavorable draft placements over the entire last decade. I would argue the disparity is instead the result of how teams are spending their revenues on player development staffs and technology, coaching, and front office employees. There are also many examples of teams that are annually competitive despite having low revenues, and teams that are hit and miss when it comes to competitiveness despite having revenues in the upper echelons, and it generally boils down to how well teams have developed their own players. Increased revenue sharing might help, but I don't think it will have as big of a result as some think as long as certain organizations are unwilling to adopt modern player development philosophies or are unable to attract the best coaches and analysts.

[Reptevia]

Welcome to End-Stage Capitalism. It pervades every aspect of US culture. Why should baseball be an exception?

[bean5302]

22 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

That's completely untrue. I'm not sure how you could both argue that they'd lose money AND that "small market" San Diego can do exactly that and the other small markets can do the same.

And if they're losing revenue on that deal, that's because the owners themselves messed up with their short sighted and impulsive handling of TV rights and marketing.

MLB's total revenues peaked at $10 billion. A salary floor of $200MM would be $6 billion in player salary (0.2B * 30 = 6B). Player salaries are about 50% of league expenditures so the league spent $5 billion in other costs.

Even assuming the leagues expenses remain at $5 billion, that means $11 billion in expenditures vs. $10 billion in revenue or every single team loses $33MM annually. Yeah. That'll work out great.

 

[Danchat]

1 hour ago, Reptevia said:

Welcome to End-Stage Capitalism. It pervades every aspect of US culture. Why should baseball be an exception?

Uh, what? The NFL, NBA, and NHL are not suffering from anything close to as bad as the lack of parity in baseball - why isn't capitalism ruining them? ?

[Doctor Gast]

Yeah. it was very visable this last Owners/ Union talks. It was all controlled by big owners & big player, the small guy had very little say in the whole thing,

[dxpavelka]

8 hours ago, Unwinder said:

This is why I'm leaving the solution to "some genius." 

It won't not be the fans.

 

[dxpavelka]

4 hours ago, Danchat said:

Uh, what? The NFL, NBA, and NHL are not suffering from anything close to as bad as the lack of parity in baseball - why isn't capitalism ruining them? ?

Because salary caps aren't capitalism.

[Bigfork Twins Guy]

On 8/10/2022 at 11:23 AM, Mike Sixel said:

It's isn't about the WS, it is about overall competitiveness. 

This conversation hasn't even touched on fixing the draft to give bad teams more early picks so they improve faster.... In the NFL and NBA, bad teams can get good fast. Not so in the current MLB structure.

That's because players in the NFL or NBA draft pretty much go directly to the team where MLB drafted players are typically 3-years or more away from helping the MLB team.  How can you get good fast through the draft that way?

[Brock Beauchamp]

6 hours ago, Hrbowski said:

I disagree that lack of parity is the result of disparity in revenues. Sure, the Dodgers may have the best record and the largest payroll in baseball, but many of their important pieces were not originally acquired via big bucks spent in free agency. For example, Justin Turner, Chris Taylor, and Tyler Anderson were all originally picked up off the scrap heap. Other main pieces were drafted/signed and developed by the organization who were less heralded prospects as amateurs, such as Julio Urias, Walker Buehler, Gavin Lux, Cody Bellinger, Tony Gonsolin, etc. They have other main pieces such as Trea Turner and Mookie Betts that they got via trade by dealing from the depth of their excellent farm system, despite having unfavorable draft placements over the entire last decade. I would argue the disparity is instead the result of how teams are spending their revenues on player development staffs and technology, coaching, and front office employees. There are also many examples of teams that are annually competitive despite having low revenues, and teams that are hit and miss when it comes to competitiveness despite having revenues in the upper echelons, and it generally boils down to how well teams have developed their own players. Increased revenue sharing might help, but I don't think it will have as big of a result as some think as long as certain organizations are unwilling to adopt modern player development philosophies or are unable to attract the best coaches and analysts.

The Dodgers’ 2022 leaders in fWAR are Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts. 

[jkcarew]

On 8/10/2022 at 1:42 PM, nicksaviking said:

If the owners offered the players a flat 200M salary floor and 220 ceiling, that adjusts seasonally based on a 50/50 revenue split I'd bet they wouldn't resist very hard.

I’m not so sure about that. But even if so, that makes this specific issue 50% the unions fault…they could offer the cap, and see if that gets them the floor. The union has never made that a priority, because union leadership has never wanted the cap…and probably rightfully so. It’s pretty easy to argue the cap hurts the bottom 80% of a roster much more than the top 20%. IMO, the union should be pressing for a way to get much more aggressive revenue sharing. (Admittedly harder to administrate/enforce).

[ChineseGandalf]

On 8/10/2022 at 12:46 PM, bean5302 said:

The NFL has parity! I keep seeing this BS, I keep thrashing it with statistics and the BS keeps getting reposted.

6 teams in the NFL had a winning percentage of .706 or higher last year. (that's 114 wins or more in a baseball season)
6 teams in the NFL had a winning percentage of .235 or lower last year. (that's 38 or fewer wins in a baseball season) 38 wins is below what would be expected if the AAA St. Paul Saints had to play the Twins' schedule. If the St. Paul Saints played the Twins' schedule, they'd be expected to finish 45-117 (.277). What do you think the record of the Golden Gophers would be if they played the Vikings schedule? I'll help you out. 0-17, with 17 blowout losses by 30pts or more.

Every year the NFL features a half dozen teams with a winning percentage lower than any MLB team and higher than any MLB team. There is only parity in player salary. There is utterly no parity in on the field results.

None of the major sports have as much turnover in the playoffs as MLB. More teams make the playoffs in MLB in a span of 5 or 10 years than any of the other major sports.
None of the major sports have fewer and shorter playoff droughts than MLB.
None of the major sports have more competitive regular season reasons as MLB.

The NFL is far, far, FAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR away from a model which should be replicated for competitive balance.
 

I think the point in parity is not so much that there are not dramatically good and bad teams, but rather that the bad teams and good teams can dramatically change from year to year. The MLB has the same few teams in the playoffs every year, and has the same buyers every single offseason. Success in the NFL is not limited to the same several big market teams, and rather has incredible turnover between the top and bottom. 

Also, I'm not sure that your other claims are correct. For instance:

Longest playoff drought in sports - MLB (Mariners - 20 seasons). This is not even close to any other professional sports. The NFL's longest drought is 10 years, I believe (Jets). This is hardly comparable. 

 

[jkcarew]

I think this “a” problem for MLB…but, IMO, doesn’t ‘break’ things all by itself. I think there are other significant issues that are hurting the game just as much or more.

[LVTwinsfan]

6 hours ago, bean5302 said:

MLB's total revenues peaked at $10 billion. A salary floor of $200MM would be $6 billion in player salary (0.2B * 30 = 6B). Player salaries are about 50% of league expenditures so the league spent $5 billion in other costs.

Even assuming the leagues expenses remain at $5 billion, that means $11 billion in expenditures vs. $10 billion in revenue or every single team loses $33MM annually. Yeah. That'll work out great.

 

Nobody said there would be math 

[Mike Sixel]

46 minutes ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

That's because players in the NFL or NBA draft pretty much go directly to the team where MLB drafted players are typically 3-years or more away from helping the MLB team.  How can you get good fast through the draft that way?

Give them more early picks as many as the good teams (one idea is to give the ten worst teams two picks before anyone else picks, for example). Consider (consider) letting the best teams only protect 30 players from the rule 5 draft. 

[jkcarew]

20 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

Give them more early picks as many as the good teams (one idea is to give the ten worst teams two picks before anyone else picks, for example). Consider (consider) letting the best teams only protect 30 players from the rule 5 draft. 

At some point you might encourage tanking…but yes, I think there’s room to tweak the drafts. The point is, there are ways to try to impact competitive balance beyond salary caps. I’d love to see a cap/floor system, but not holding my breath. Instead, drafts, maybe divisional alignments, maybe more aggressive revenue sharing…maybe a little of all of the above?

[Hrbowski]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

The Dodgers’ 2022 leaders in fWAR are Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts. 

Mookie Betts was acquired for prospects... Additionally, Freddie Freeman is the only Dodger in their top 20 fWAR who was originally acquired on a free agent contract with an AAV higher than $10,000,000.

[Unwinder]

We're pretty obviously using two very different definitions of parity here.

1. The worst teams have win percentages that are relatively close to those of the best teams. Even in the most lopsided matchups, it's not uncommon for the underdog to win a game. If you go to a game, even in an off-year, there's a reasonable chance that you'll get to see your team win.

2. Season-to-season, the standings change dramatically. Even the worst teams can be relevant within a year or two if they make the right moves. If your team sucks, there's still a reasonable chance that when you tune in next year, they'll be great. There's also a good chance that the dominant rival team you hate will be bad.

Baseball has pretty good parity under definition 1. Even if your team is very bad, they'll still beat good teams frequently enough to be entertaining. There's enough random chance in the game that you genuinely need a marathon season for the best teams to emerge.

Baseball's parity is frustrating under definition 2. And it's always going to feel that way as long as major-league teams are supported by multi-tiered minor-league systems and players are developed for years before joining the roster. It takes a long time for a bad team to rebuild. It's especially hard to take when rich teams are able to gobble up free agents and seem to stay competitive forever.

I have no idea which is better or more important. I certainly appreciate that baseball is pretty good under definition 1 though.

[Mike Sixel]

2 hours ago, Hrbowski said:

Mookie Betts was acquired for prospects... Additionally, Freddie Freeman is the only Dodger in their top 20 fWAR who was originally acquired on a free agent contract with an AAV higher than $10,000,000.

And they can sign Betts. Are we pretending they don't have a huge payroll now?

[mikelink45]

This is a subject that has no real answer - the owners, the league, the players, the fans, television, radio - they are all part of the problem.  Yes I include fans, but fans are the ones that suffer the most.  I still love the story of baseball, but paying to sit for too long in a game where we are not competitive is not something that will be tolerated by most people.  

Even losing teams can draw fans if their games are quick and efficient.  But give me a game that goes more that 2 1/2 hours and I am out of the stadium.  The NFL model that is needed is action!  Even in a game between good and bad teams there is that moment of breakaway run or catch, the dramatic interception - something exciting.  In baseball the equivalent is a meaningless HR when the team is already down 6 runs.

This year the three true outcomes are all down in numbers - is this a trend?  Has baseball learned something?

As for inequity in finances - you have billionaires who do not want to share - whether taxes, revenue sharing or any other way. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

10 hours ago, Hrbowski said:

Mookie Betts was acquired for prospects... Additionally, Freddie Freeman is the only Dodger in their top 20 fWAR who was originally acquired on a free agent contract with an AAV higher than $10,000,000.

C'mon now, the Dodgers traded for Betts knowing full well they intended to offer him a massive contract and get him to extend while they had exclusive negotiating rights. No way do they pay that price for just one year of Betts, the exclusive negotiation period was part of the package.

A mid-market team could not afford to do the same. The Dodgers traded for Betts because they had the money to sign him.

[USAFChief]

24 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

C'mon now, the Dodgers traded for Betts knowing full well they intended to offer him a massive contract and get him to extend while they had exclusive negotiating rights. No way do they pay that price for just one year of Betts, the exclusive negotiation period was part of the package.

A mid-market team could not afford to do the same. The Dodgers traded for Betts because they had the money to sign him.

They got Betts because the Boston Red Sox couldn't afford him.

The BOSTON RED SOX.

The Dodgers payroll is over $310 million. They're also paying approximately $47 million in luxury tax (which should be 10 times that amount, but let's stay on subject). That's roughly equal to the San Diego Padres and the Minnesota Twins COMBINED. And the Padres are among the Leagues higher payrolls. 

Baseball is broken. 

[DJL44]

9 hours ago, Unwinder said:

We're pretty obviously using two very different definitions of parity here.

1. The worst teams have win percentages that are relatively close to those of the best teams. Even in the most lopsided matchups, it's not uncommon for the underdog to win a game. If you go to a game, even in an off-year, there's a reasonable chance that you'll get to see your team win.

This is quite true. The NFL has teams with 3-13 records all the time. That would be like having a baseball team finish 30-132. That never happens.

The truth is MLB has never had a higher percentage of shared revenue than it has now. Revenue sharing has only made the problem worse. Teams make more profit by fielding a minimum salaried team and cashing revenue sharing checks than they do by competing.

[Steve71]

Revenue sharing may be at an all time high, but it is still not equitable revenue sharing.

Did some digging on the NFL.

For 2020 season, the NFL has $9.1B in shared revenue.  League expenses were $300M, so $8.8B was shared out by 32 teams, so $274M per team.

Individual team revenue that is not shared consists of 60% of ticket sales, concessions and parking, and local corporate partnerships (Like Twin City Ortho and the Vikings).

The range of "local", non-shared revenue ranged from the Packers at $203M and the Cowboys at $950M.

BUT, the Cowboys cannot spend more on players than the Packers.  So this added revenue goes into Jones' pocket and raises the value of that franchise should it ever be sold to new owner, but does not distort league parity.

I have zero problem if the Dodgers are the Cowboys of MLB as long as EACH TEAM shares the vast majority of revenue and can only spend the same amount for players salaries.  This eliminated the Dodgers and Yankees getting all the good, expensive players and the Rays and others simply pocketing shared revenue from other teams.

What is wrong with doing something like that?  The players can negotiate a share of the total revenue (NFL players guaranteed 48% of the pie) and that is distributed based on relative merit and value.

[Brock Beauchamp]

52 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

They got Betts because the Boston Red Sox couldn't afford him.

The BOSTON RED SOX.

The Dodgers payroll is over $310 million. They're also paying approximately $47 million in luxury tax (which should be 10 times that amount, but let's stay on subject). That's roughly equal to the San Diego Padres and the Minnesota Twins COMBINED. And the Padres are among the Leagues higher payrolls. 

Baseball is broken. 

It’s weird how the Red Sox “couldn’t afford him” as their payroll dropped from $236m in 2019 (after which Betts was traded) to $189m in 2021 and is now back up over $200m again after signing Trevor Story.

[kenbuddha]

1 hour ago, USAFChief said:

They got Betts because the Boston Red Sox couldn't afford him.

The BOSTON RED SOX.

Boston absolutely can afford him, for whatever reason they chose not to. The team is valued at $3.9B. I think someone is buying what the owners are selling.

[insagt1]

Wasn't it the Dodgers who didn;t have their games televised for the local fans? How can that happen?

In baseball almost every year there are surprises. The AL East has every team over .500. The 'awful' Orioles of the past 4 years are suddenly wildcard contenders. Great for the fans. Every year in MLB there are real bad teams. This year we have 4 teams playing under .400 baseball....The Reds, A's, Tigers and the uber awful Nats. Two division leaders might not even qualify for the post season if they played in the other 4 divisions. Division leading Yanks, Mets, Astros and Dodgers running away with their divisions. (thank goodness for the wildcards...or there would be little interest in most cities right now)

The World Series does matter.. Isn't that what you play for? For the top tier teams, anything short of that is considered a failure. For the others, making post season is a worthy goal. If the Orioles make post season it will be a wildly exciting thing for their fans, who have had nothing to cheer for in recent years. Same with Seattle.  No team in MLB has dominated winning it all like the Yankees used to do, in many many years.

I wish owners would resist handing out ridiculously long contracts, knowing full well that only 2 or 3 years of those contracts will be remotely meaningful. Giving a pitcher a 10 year contract is just plain stupid.  It would be an interesting thing if contracts were actually structured performance based. For the old timers here, you might recall that way back in the day (dark ages for the modern fan) it sorta was based on performance, and it was usually year to year.  You sat at the owners desk and he looked at your just completed season and determined whether you merited a raise or not.

Before everyone goes ballistic on me...I'm not saying that it could ever go back to that, or even should...but when a guy signs a 7 or 8 year contract for a few billion dollars, and then basically falls off the map after a year or two, I think there should be clauses in the contract.  I don't have all the answers but I think it would help. I also don't think that tanking should ever be a part of pro sports. Ever. You play to win. The fans pay money to see their team win. There should never be ANY incentive whatsoever, to lose. I can't stand even the thought of that.

OK--I'm done. My team just ended a 19 game losing streak in Rochester. Let me tell you how much fun that was!

[DJL44]

I would actually go a different direction. All the regular season TV, radio and streaming money gets shared but NONE of the local stadium revenue gets shared and NONE of the playoff TV revenue gets shared. Give teams a financial incentive to compete.

[Brock Beauchamp]

34 minutes ago, insagt1 said:

I wish owners would resist handing out ridiculously long contracts, knowing full well that only 2 or 3 years of those contracts will be remotely meaningful. Giving a pitcher a 10 year contract is just plain stupid.  It would be an interesting thing if contracts were actually structured performance based. For the old timers here, you might recall that way back in the day (dark ages for the modern fan) it sorta was based on performance, and it was usually year to year.  You sat at the owners desk and he looked at your just completed season and determined whether you merited a raise or not.

I'm not picking on you but this drives home the larger point I've been making: fans look at the end result of something and say "that needs to be fixed!" without asking "why is this the case?"

Imagine if baseball was more like one of the other major sports. Jose Miranda's rookie season would net him a really nice contract. He wouldn't be forced into the minimum year after year, then given a fraction of his value for several more seasons, only AFTER would he hit free agency and then look for a massive, long-term deal.

If Jose Miranda was paid $8m for his 2022 campaign and others were paid for early-career performance, the union wouldn't focus so much on securing this massive free agency deals because that's the only way players make competitive money in baseball.

But the A's and Pittsburgh would really struggle under the current system if Oneil Cruz is paid $12m for the 2023 season after showing such promise in his rookie campaign.

Which, AGAIN, brings us back to real revenue sharing, the scale of which only owners can agree to make happen.

Baseball is set up to wildly underpay young players, who then aggressively pursue the longest guaranteed contracts possible the moment they finally break into free agency.

The entire system needs to change; young players need to be paid and the revenue gap needs to be a lot smaller. Only AFTER those things are done can we start talking about salary caps and floors along with changing how guaranteed money works in the sport.

The union fights to pay its players, they will agree to changes if the players continue to be paid but the distribution changes. But the proposals we see - primarily from ownership - are focused on limiting how much players can be paid and decreasing the portion of revenue players receive. And the owners have actually won this battle, MLB players are paid a smaller portion of revenue than they were three decades ago, revenue has skyrocketed that much.

Put the players in your own shoes. You work at an underpaid position in a company that sees skyrocketing revenue for years and years. After several years of being underpaid in comparison to others in adjacent industries, you point to the huge revenue increases and say "I want more money, it's only fair", at which point your boss says "I'll pay you a little more than you get now but to get this, I'm going to demand a cap on company labor expenses, which will actually decrease your pay in comparison to revenue over the next five years." NO ONE would agree to that.

Oh, and your boss can also try to force you to accept those terms because the government supports the company in preventing any competition from existing.

Do you kinda get why the players have such a strong union and fight so hard to preserve it?

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, DJL44 said:

This is quite true. The NFL has teams with 3-13 records all the time. That would be like having a baseball team finish 30-132. That never happens.

The truth is MLB has never had a higher percentage of shared revenue than it has now. Revenue sharing has only made the problem worse. Teams make more profit by fielding a minimum salaried team and cashing revenue sharing checks than they do by competing.

Revenue sharing is at its highest but the revenue GAP is enormous and also rising due to TV contracts.

Again, look at the Dodgers and their $240m contract versus the Brewers and their $45m contract. 

[bean5302]

16 hours ago, LVTwinsfan said:

Nobody said there would be math 

funny, I heard that Max Scherzer was screaming that as he was drunkenly flipping tables at the player meetings with owners.