Baseballs New Contract Era

[ND-Fan]

The owners seem to have the bargaining chips now with the current labor agreement but the next labor agreement is going to be nasty and if I am correct ownership may wish to get back to where we were on paying for past performance. I can see only that labor is going to shorten the time that ownership has on young players in the future. If my guess would be from time they draft a player to where he becomes a free agent or starts getting paid significantly is going to change. Instead of having this 6 years of team control once a player reaches the major leagues I could see this being reduced to less than half of this time. Also they labor is going to force more team spending on players so teams don't tank either  through some spending minimum that's tied to teams ability to draft talent. I just see where baseball is going back to where baseball is shutdown again in labor strife. This new group of bean counters that baseball has hired is in for a education this new savings is going to come at higher price than they first calculated. When dealing with people sometimes the reactions by people may not always be as calculated as they would think. I can think of many different repercussions happening and outcomes happening in this next labor agreement but I see the winds of labor war really brewing.

[Platoon]

When regarding the risks owners take, remember the definition of the word risk. While there are huge numbers involved, and yes they could lose money on a financial statement, there is no real risk here. But in today's environment of revenue sharing and new ball parks with government funding, it's really hard to call it a risk. Plus don't forget the big issue here. Appreciation. These clubs are worth multiples of what they were before. It would take the collapse of the entire financial structure of the country for the owners to lose a dime on baseball overall. There is no "risk", simply the level of the reward. This isn't meant to mean there is no risk in business, just that there is virtually none in this one!

[gil4]

 

I think we need to see 2-3 offseason's before jumping to that conclusion. Most of the usual biggest spenders didn't make very many moves due salary cap and luxury tax considerations. Nobody should be surprised if there just wasn't enough money to spend on all of the free agents this year.

The one big thing that will cause a new contract era is a correction in local TV rights. The cable TV future is a disaster and at some point the ridiculous money getting spent on TV rights is going to dry up.

But until that happens I predict salaries will rebound in the next offseason or two.

The system, with the escalating penalties and the one-year reset mechanism, is set up to be cyclical. I'm not sure all the big spenders will be trying to reset in the same year again, but it looks like they have all identified the same penalty level as unacceptable, so they might all follow the same pattern of spend-spend-spend-reset.

[vavo]

Elite players will still get payed like elite players.

 

Teams on the bubble will be interested in picking up mid level players to fill needs.

 

Teams with almost no chance of the playoffs are no longer going to pay 50+ million for marginal value.

 

Elite teams usually don't have much use for a #3 type starter because they already have 5 who are at least that good.

 

The result of all this is relatively few teams in on the mid-tier free agents. Paying through the nose for a guy that is maybe 1 win better than someone you already have or can get cheap doesn't make sense for 90% of teams.

[Mike Sixel]

Elite players will still get payed like elite players.

 

Teams on the bubble will be interested in picking up mid level players to fill needs.

 

Teams with almost no chance of the playoffs are no longer going to pay 50+ million for marginal value.

 

Elite teams usually don't have much use for a #3 type starter because they already have 5 who are at least that good.

 

The result of all this is relatively few teams in on the mid-tier free agents. Paying through the nose for a guy that is maybe 1 win better than someone you already have or can get cheap doesn't make sense for 90% of teams.

Great post.

 

This is also largely due to the fact that attendance plays little part in profits now....