Cap'n Piranha

On further thought, I actually do think the weather in Dec-Mar might have something to do with it. Imagine a FA has school-aged kids--do they go to school in MN Apr-Jun and then again in Sep, while regular season baseball is being played? If so, that means they're also there in Oct-Mar, when it is cold. If not, then a FA has to be ok with living in a different city than his family, essentially permanently, for those 14ish weeks a year. I could see where that would be a tough pill to swallow for some FAs. That aside, I think the recent history of the Twins works against them. 20 years since the last playoff series win, 18 since the last playoff game win. Very little track record of spending in FA, which suggests the Twins aren't particularly aggressive (this offseason seems to reinforce that); that could be read as the Twins not really wanting to bring a player in. No real track record of "pushing the chips to the middle" at the trade deadline; FA's might prefer a team that is willing to spend prospect capital to improve partway through the year. Add in players (or SOs) perhaps preferring a coast, not being aware of the assets of the Twin Cities (or if the player is single, not caring about those assets; if you're a rich, single guy in your late 20's, do you want to spend your free time in NYC, LA, Chi, etc...or Uptown?), and the greater visibility and potential for endorsements outside the MW, and I can see why MN is, on the surface, not an attractive option. Most of that can be at least addressed, if not outright fixed. The question is, how much should the Twins be trying to be players in FA. To wit, the Twins will never beat the Yankees/Dodgers/Mets/Red Sox at FA; if you can't beat someone at a game, why waste time and resources playing?

An owner might have a long leash for a bad management team if he "only" has to pay $50M-$60M. The leash will be much shorter if he has to pay $100M-$120M.

Yeah, I don't get where PW is coming from. The reason the NFL is far and away the most successful sports league in the country is precisely because of their parity. Every team gets access to stud prospects (some just screw it up a lot), every team generally gets to keep the players they want to, and free agency is available to every franchise on more or less equal footing. 2 of the 5 worst run organizations in the league are the NY teams, while the model franchises right now are located in Kansas City, Baltimore, Buffalo, Cincinnati, and GREEN FREAKIN' BAY.

The Detroit Lions have been horribly run for three decades. Prior to Belicheck and Brady, the Patriots were exactly the same, with the exception that they had made a couple of Superbowls, and lost both. The Cowboys have not been to a Superbowl for over 25 years, and unless I'm mistaken, haven't even been to a conference championship game in that time. The proof that there is parity in the NFL, and market is less important, is that this year's playoffs featured only one team from a "big" market--LAR. Teams from locales like KC, Buf, Cin, GB, TB, and Ten all secured top 4 seeds, and most of those look to be set up for years of competitiveness to come. The NFL had no one playing in LA for two decades--that's how good the parity was in the NFL; literally no team saw the second-biggest market in the country as a competitive advantage.

Actually, what's good for the fans is what's good for the game. You know what's good for the fans? Reasonably-priced tickets, the ability to watch/listen to every game they want, games held at times they can attend, entertaining play, the realistic chance for their team to be competitive on at least a semi-regular basis, and the belief that their favorite player(s) won't leave after only a few years for greener (pun intended) pastures. Both the owners and the players are putting forth proposals that ignore all of these in the aggregate. I tend to side with the owners, for the simple reason that players are far more fungible, and have invested none of their own equity (sweat equity notwithstanding). That said, if the owners broke the MLBPA, and got 100% of what they wanted, I very much doubt the result would be good for the fans.

Your logic is even more twisted. A cap is a mandatory maximum, so if 96% of the league is spending over the so-called cap, how can it be called a cap? It is a number that, quite clearly, basically every team acknowledges as the minimum they can spend. Sounds an awful lot like a floor to me, even if it is not specifically defined as such.

29 of the 30 teams are indeed over the cap. Which logically means that "the cap" is not actually the cap, and is in reality, the floor. Do you think perhaps that contributes towards the 400ish NBA players splitting $3.3B, as opposed to the 800ish MLB players splitting $4B?

Umm, no. They would have planned for that, and ensured they wouldn't get in that position. If a team is at $103M on a $100M floor, but knows they have $40M leaving in a year or two, they will have plans in place to address that in advance, like buying out arb years, extending pre-arb players, or signing a free agent or two in advance. No team will go into an offseason needing to spend that much, because it will put them at a huge disadvantage in negotiating.

At least when it comes to pitching prospects, I would rather have 6-8 Top 200 caliber guys than 2-3 Top 100 caliber guys.

Fringy average is pretty easy to understand--you're in the average range, but at the low end of it. That is, Miranda is in the average zone for 3B defense, but if he loses a step, he will go into the below average range, as opposed to a player at the top of the average zone, who could lose a step but still remain in the average zone. Put another way, if any grade of "C" is average, Miranda is a C-; any worse, and he falls into the D range, which is no longer average.

Are you saying that the Twins would not have been able to see that coming, and plan for it so as not to be forced to spend $40M on anyone with a pulse who would take the money?

He was surely good; I don't think I would say very good (but wouldn't get into an argument with something who was convinced he was). But this is the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Very Good. Getting MVP votes is not an HOF-worthy accomplishment--Brian Dozier got MVP votes for 3 consecutive seasons after all. If Baines had been top 3 in MVP for 4 consecutive seasons, that would be something (but then he also would have had more than one season above 3 WAR). He also would have had a lot more WAR had he played catcher--why should we give him credit for something he didn't do? I'm sure the White Sox didn't put him at DH simply because his bat developed; it was because he wasn't good enough to play literally the easiest defensive position in baseball. Even if we did give him that unearned defensive credit, and bump him up to 48 WAR, he's still 214th all-time in WAR; that is nowhere even close to being HOF-worthy. I agree with you that to be in the HOF a player needs a 5-8 year stretch of dominance--for me, that means minimum 5 WAR (seems a reasonable threshold, given that 19 hitters did it last year, and 3 more were at 4.9. Even in Baines best year, 1984, 22 hitters achieved 5 WAR, and he himself finished 25th in WAR for hitters). By that metric, Baines never even had a 1 year stretch of dominance. As I stated, he is in the Hall because he played for 22 years, and was therefore able to acquire significant enough counting stats, without ever being great for even one year. The fact that Baines is in, and Bonds is not (who put up more WAR in his first 6 seasons, 1986-1991, than Baines did in his entire 22 year career), is simply amazing to me.

No team will ever need to spend $40M in one offseason to hit a floor. If a floor is implemented, teams will be given time to come up to that. It's also not going to be teams signing veterans they're not interested in just to hit a floor; it will be more like teams being more open to signing their pre-arb players to multiyear deals. A team that is $20M below the floor is probably far more likely to just give their 5 most MLB-ready prospects/5 lowest paid projected starters each a 3 year, $15M contract (or if they are highly thought of, 5/6 year contracts for $25M/$30M). It also would make a difference to bar them from signing deals, if a little tweak is made--make the rule that instead of the next offseason, you're barred through the offseason AFTER the contract in question would have ended. If that's the rule, had the Twins traded Donaldson as in my scenario, the Twins would have had to sit out this year, next year, the year after that, AND the year after that (no multiyear deals until the 2025 MLB season starts). Or perhaps instead of barring them from multiyear deals, say they're barred from acquiring any player who is not placed on their 40 man roster immediately for one calendar year after the deal (and said player must also remain on the 40 man, even if injured). Essentially, the team would lose all their draft picks, would not be able to participate in the international market, and could not bolster their farm system in any way. Or say that all multiyear contracts automatically carry a full no trade clause. You'll see FAs signing shorter deals, which will give them more bites at the apple, while MLB teams will protect themselves against the megacontracts. It's not hard to stop these kind of theoretical shenanigans, you just have to take a minute to think about it.

I tend to think you need both. You have to have a 3-5 year stretch where you were legitimately one of the best in the league in that era, and you have to be an above average player for 10-12 years (unless your peak was 6-8 years, and the lack of longevity was due to retirement/injury/tragedy). For example, Sandy Koufax played 12 years, but was only above average in 7 of them, but had a 6 year run where his WAR was never below 5.7, and his average war was 7.7--that stretch was good enough on its own to make him a top 60 pitcher of all time by WAR when he retired. Harold Baines is a great example of why longevity isn't enough--he amassed over 2800 hits, almost 400 homers, 1300 runs and 1600 RBIs (47th, 67th, 128th, and 34th all time), but he never had a 5+ WAR season. In fact he only had one season above 3 WAR, and had as many seasons below 2 WAR as above. He put up nice cumulative numbers, but because he was able to play for all or part of 22 seasons, not because he was ever actually all that great of a player.

It could be something like all FA contracts come with a 12 month no trade clause. Or any team that trades a player on a multi-year deal before 50% of the total years has passed cannot sign any multiyear deals in the next offseason. So for example, when the Twins signed Josh Donaldson prior to the 2020 season, they would have to wait until after 81 games into the 2023 season (since his contract was technically for 5 years when you include the option) to trade him. They could trade him last year, but then they would be barred from signing any deals this offseason (meaning they would not have been able to extend Buxton). Also, the teams hard up against the cap, to the extent that they would be willing to trade a boatload of great prospects for cheap control of a star player, generally don't have enough top level prospects to pull that off. If I'm going to be on the hook for $25M+ and not get the MVP/CY Young level production of a player, I need at least 4-5 Top 100 prospects; there's just not that many teams that can do that, even if they wanted to.

The MLBPA's insistence on raising the CBT threshold is so short-sighted--the more you allow the coastal teams to spend, the more you keep small market teams in rebuilds, depressing wages there. I get that the MLBPA wants to eliminate as many barriers to signing FAs as possible, but reducing overall competitiveness is definitely not the way to do that.

I think that's pretty much how it already goes, for the most part. That's why I could also see something based around time since initial acquisition. Perhaps 12 years of control on international signings, 10 for HS draftees, and 7 for college draftees. That essentially is an age-based system, but will remove the potential sticking point of having to deny a player FA because he's one day too young.

Oh I'm sure it won't happen, because the owners will push for 31, and the MLBPA will push for 25, and neither side will move. But if we're ever going to get away from service time games, age-related FA (or alternatively years since initial entry to an MLB organization) will have to become the rule. Unless FA gets capped somehow (non-starter), small market teams will never allow players to hit FA before 29/30, so the only path forward is to let the owners get their way on age, but include substantial increases to the minimum salary as well.

Guerrero and Bichette could each get $15M+ the first day the lockout ended--I'm sure Toronto would be thrilled to sign them to matching 10 yr, $150M+ deals (which is less than Franco got, btw). They choose not to because they're hoping for a Seager/Lindor/Correa deal, which is their right. But it cuts to the heart of what Bean was saying earlier; for pre-FA players to be paid "what they're worth", there has to be a mechanism to allow underperforming veterans on FA deals to be paid "what they're worth". There is only so much money to go around, and until the MLBPA prioritizes the 60+% of their members who have never signed a multi-year deal (many of whom never will), young players will be (more often than not) underpaid, and old players will be (more often than not) overpaid.

Can never happen until older players agree to take less of the pie. It's one of the greatest tricks the MLBPA has managed to pull--get 800ish guys making $2M or (usually) less to vote for a system that denies them more money so 100 guys can make $15M or more. Why the owners haven't figured out a way to create and subsequently exploit a crack there is fascinating to me.

And if you think it's possible the MLBPA agrees to that without getting a look at the books, you're crazy. The point isn't that it almost happened, it's that the owners made a proposal that they had to know would result in them having to open their books to implement. Perhaps it was a bad faith proposal, but sometimes good deals start with bad faith proposals, for no other reason than it gets people talking. Edit--if the players had accepted the proposal, while saying "great! Open your books so we can all know what the number is!", and the owners responded by saying "just kidding, not gonna do that", the owners will look petty, unreasonable, and vindictive. Not a great strategy for a group trying to win a PR war.

The MLBPA alone has 1200 members...

As are most radical ideas the first time they see the light of day. Then again, since it was the owners themselves who proposed a 50/50 split in the 2020 season, you may want to check again for signs of life. Further, if a perpetual agreement of 50/50 revenue split is achieved, what reason do the teams have to keep their books closed? The only reason they do so now is to maintain leverage in negotiations, both for CBAs and individual contracts. With both of those reasons no longer a concern, open books are of no consequence to the owners.

Here's a radical thought--what if all MLB revenues are split 50/50 between owners and players, and the distribution of those revenues on the players' side is solely at their discretion. Every player is controlled by their signing/drafting/trading-for organization until the offseason after they turn 29 (offseason defined as starting on December 1--turn 29 on Dec 1? Sorry, one more year of control. Already 29 on Dec 1? Congrats, you're a free agent). Every player is therefore free to play for whomever they want from age 30 onwards, with the caveat that each team can only sign 3 players they did not control at the end of the season in which they turned 29 per offseason. All FA contracts are for 3 years, with no option years or opt outs. There would never be another work stoppage, there's no barrier to entry on the FA market for any team, all players will debut in the majors as soon as possible to maximize their contribution to the org, and there would never be contention around pay between the two sides ever again.

I am completely sure that the owners are right now planning a system to take the place of the MLBPA. Were it me in charge, it would be something like the following; All players are under team control until the offseason after they turn 29 Minimum salary starts at $1.5M, and is paid to any player on the active roster, or will be 26 at any point during the regular season Raises of 10% every year for every player on the active roster, unless they will be 27 or older at any point during the regular season All salaries for players pre-FA change every year based on 50% of revenue (example: baseball's revenues are $10B in 2021, and increase to $10.2B in 2022--increase of 2%. This means all pre-FA salaries go up 1%, meaning the minimum is now $1.515M) Arbitration based on average of WAR and WAR/game kicks in for all players turning 27, 28, or 29 during the regular season The offseason after a player turns 29, they enter free agency. They have one instance of restriction added to them, whereby the team that player is coming from can match any offer. The player can then choose which organization they want to sign with, however; if the player chooses the new team, that team must agree to surrender their next available first round pick. If they decline, the original organization must sign the player to the deal (here's an example of how that would work--say Byron Buxton is a free agent, and signs a 6 year, $100M offer from the Yankees. The Twins have the option to match that. If they do not, Buxton is signed to the Yankees. If they do, Buxton can choose to sign with the Twins or the Yankees; if he chooses the Yankees, the Yankees must agree to send the Twins their next available first round pick. If the Yankees don't want to do that, the Buxton is signed to the Twins for 6 years, $100M). No team can sign more than 2 restricted FAs in a single offseason, or more than 3 in a 3 year span of offseasons No player can sign a deal with a maximum AAV more than 60% of the payroll floor from the prior season (defined as 26 multiplied by the minimum salary) No team can have active free agent contracts worth more in maximum AAV than 250% of the payroll floor from the prior season (unless the floor decreases after all contracts have been signed) This completely eliminates service-time shenanigans, reduces the need for bitter pre-FA processes, allows teams to build up cores (and gives them some ability to retain them), levels the playing field in FA, and dramatically increases pay for the vast majority of players, while ensuring that any revenue windfalls MLB realizes are shared with the players. While losing all the premier players right now would hurt for 2-5 years, owners can soften that blow by reducing costs to the fan until the next generation of stars has taken their place.