The Lockout Diaries: Week 7

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, beckmt said:

For the few good trades you have mentioned, there are several bad ones.  The Pirates got very little for Cole.  The Marlins made several bad deals, a lot of them to the Yankees, as payroll dumps.  The big market teams being able to take on payroll, have a big edge in these non baseball revenue trades.  Until you fix that you will not come close to parity,

Obviously, they don’t all work out.  The question is not do they all work out.  The question is would insisting these teams keep these players and maintain a higher payroll profile help or hinder them in building a contender?  These teams are mediocre with no chance of ever contending unless they get an influx of talent and rebuild.  

The Marlins were simply poorly run.  Let’s not forget they traded Realmuto for Sixto Sanchez and Intl bonus money.  I guess the jury is out but the point is that was a better plan than keeping Realmuto and still being under 500.
 
Oakland got Semien and Bassit for Samardzija.
Mariners got Kelenic in the Cano / Diaz trade.
Cleveland Traded Cliff Lee for Carlos Carrasco
Cleveland also got Kluber for Westbrook.  They also got Bauer for Sipp.  Sipp was not great but he was a 4yr establish player.
Atlanta got Max Fried for Justin Upton.  They are not stars but contributors.  Of course, they got Ynoa from us for Garcia.
Let’s not forget the Padres got Tatis for Sheilds.  Would teams in the  Padres position be better of if the Padres had kept Shields to meet a payroll floor?  Would their fans be better off.  What did fans here want when the Twins season was lost?  Most of us wanted players that could be part of the solution to get playing time so why do we want to force a different approach?

There are many others examples throughout history.  It’s clear moving veterans has helped teams rebuild.  Their alternative was most likely to remain a poor team.  So, would we really be improving the level of competition by enforcing a floor?  Honest question because it appears to me a salary floor would make really bad teams a little less terrible but hinder them in building an actual contender.
 

[nicksaviking]

*****Moderator Note*****

Let's stay the course on this thread please. This doesn't need to dissolve into more finger pointing and protectively guarding a pet topic. This thread was about the lock out, not justifying payrolls and market sizes.