nicksaviking

You're not wrong about the timeframe or the division. But when I started following the NFL in the mid to late 1980's Washington and the Giants were really good each year and were usually the only teams that could stop the 49ers from winning it all. The Cowboys then did get fortunate as their run of dominance started at the exact same time that Washington and the Giants got really bad. I don't think there was much overlap with all three.

Teams would be forced to pay the young players. Arb and pre-arb players get their fair share. And finally. Hopefully there isn't such a thing as arb and pre-arb players. Joe Ryan SHOULD be making 25M this year.

You need more evidence than the decreasing money from TV rights teams are getting? Or that there are 300% fewer nationally broadcast games on ESPN and the network owned companies than there were ten years ago? Or that total MLB attendance peaked in 2007 at 79M and hasn't been within 8M of that mark since 2017? Or that the NBA has passed MLB in popularity and you have to go all the way up to the 50-64 demographic to find where baseball is still ahead (but losing ground)? Or that Bobby Witt Jr could walk down main street in every American city and not get recognized? The guy with the 339M payroll thinks there's parity. B-b-b-because of the B-b-b-Brewers!!!!!! Sure, you take the Brewers to win the World Series, I get the teams with top 10 payrolls. We'll see if your once every 20 year dream comes true.

I think they are pushing for a cap because of their desire to expand. Las Vegas is going to make zero TV money, but supposedly oodles of new gambling/touristy/unknown revenue streams (I'm very skeptical). Meanwhile they want to expand into two more cities, which barely makes any sense because they'd be expanding into markets smaller than the current markets that are complaining (bogusly) that their profit margins aren't big enough any longer. BUT the two new markets will certainly see a huge spike in both TV and stadium/auxiliary income in the short and mid terms. On top of that, they'll be paying a significant expansion fee for the other owners to swim in. So I'm guessing the big market owners are now amenable to significant revenue sharing since they'll also get an immediate influx of new money from these new locations. Likely not as much to offset what they send back to the smaller markets, but it may be close enough where they can FINALLY see the long term health of the sport, in the form of parity, will help them profit more in the long run. Nothing else makes sense to me. The big market teams that try to win have NEVER wanted a cap, and now they do? They obviously know there can't be a cap without a floor within 90% of it and likely giving players somewhere between 48-55% of the gross revenue; there's no way they are successfully modeling it after anything other than what the other three major sports do. Their angle is money, as always, but if the MLBPA plays their cards right, they should come out better than ever since this cap has always been looked at as a Scarlet Letter. It's symbolically bad for the top players, but practically good for 90% of the players.

There has never been an easier thing for a fan of a NY team to say. How convenient that the deck is already stacked in your team's favor as it is. The union is more than capable of demanding and getting concessions from the owners in exchange for the cap and floor, which again, significantly benefits the lower earning players. Fewer years of service time, exponentially higher pay for arb and pre-arb players. Which are things that likely have to happen with a floor anyway. If the Twins were forced to have a 220M payroll, they'd have to be paying some pretty low-end players some pretty significant money.

It does seem like NY fans never think there is a parity problem. And how OUR billionaires benefitting from any changes is sinful while THEIR billionaires benefiting from not changing things is completely acceptable.

I'm connecting the dots, you are just obtuse. Everything will always benefit the owners all day, every day all the time. NOT having a salary cap also benefits the billionaires. Why do you think your New York and LA overlords have been against it for the last 40 years? They don't want to share their money. Now they might be interested because they can see the game is on life support. So they do the right thing now and we say, screw it, I'm watching soccer I guess. Perennial contender? We're Twins fans, we've been there done that. It means jack squat. Spend money to be an actual threat to win a championship.

And it's only the top earning players who want none of it. Bryce Harper can threaten the commissioner all he wants (which I'm good with) but he's being selfish too. Salary caps and salary floors may limit his earnings, but they would bump the low earning players on his team ten fold.

Stop with the hyperbole, you damn well know that I and 99% of the rest of this board are not cheering for owners. But just because their interest and the fans interest align on this ONE thing, doesn't mean we should kill this ONE thing. We only want the salary caps because it is the only way to get salary floors and equitable payrolls. The Brewers can be the best team all year, all they want, let's see how the World Series turns out for them. We watch these sports to see our teams win and the 2015 Royals and the 2001 Angels are the only teams that has won a World Series without having a top 10 payroll since 1991. That doesn't work for a pro sports league. I don't know a New York fan can argue this stuff when their owners were the ones who both caused and most benefited from the inequality.

No, we're cheering for parity so a mid or small market team may have a chance to win a championship more than once every three decades. This sport will die if they can't get middle America to follow baseball again, and they aren't going to follow if their team has no hope of winning. Billionaires indirectly benefit from everything this country does. There's no need to intentionally kill this one thing that WE like just to spite them.

Yeah the Twins and Pirates are passive teams, doing what the big clubs want. They would have made way more than make 200M if they would have forced the big market teams to do full revenue sharing in the 1980s or 1990s like the other pro leagues did. The players always tell the owners no. The owners ALWAYS get what they want. As evidenced by the salary caps and floors in the other three leagues.

The top three teams are loaded. But I think perception of the NFC North was higher about six months ago when Chicago hired Ben Johnson. Seems to me the the anticipation that the Bears will actually be good has waned dramatically every month. And quite dramatically after Caleb Williams and the offense still looked terrible in the preseason.

The fact that there's going to be a stoppage with the next CBA is on the Pohalds. The salary cap AND FLOOR along with revenue sharing should have been dealt with decades ago. The Pohalds are the third longest tenured ownership group in the sport behind the Steinbrenner's and Jerry Reinsdorf. As a seniority owner, the Twins should have been the franchise pushing back against the big market clubs disproportionately denying interest in the mid and smaller market teams. What the Rooneys and Steelers where to the NFL, the Pohlads and Twins should have been to the MLB. But they weren't. They have always been passive owners going along with what the big market owners told them to do.

32 players you want? I count 18. They’ll certainly protect more, but they don’t need to have any sleepless nights worrying about 22 of them.

The list of players I wouldn't bat an eye about removing from the 40 man roster is longer than the list of players I would.

Right, but the MLB players ARE forcing their hands, hardly any of them belong on the MLB roster either. Christian Vazquez hasn't deserved a spot for three years

When your last three drafts you nail seven of your defensive starters, plus Puka Nacua, Kyren Williams and your starting LG, I'm thinking you've built up enough equity to do something like this confidently. I'd say the Vikings draft reputation isn't quite there yet.

I think the only people who lump the two together are those who insist that an elite defense is the only way to play the game. Wallner, in a 'bad season' has an OPS of .823. You find room for a guy like that on any team.

Yeah, that's why I don't think you can buy a bullpen, you have to take the time to build one. Seems like routine, comfort and familiarity are too often required even for the best relief arms.

Yeah, that's the only reason. And obviously a big one, but here are the top 16 paid managers in the league (cropped because I'm sure nobody thinks the twins are paying a manager top 6 money) So despite his tenure, he can't even crack the top 16. Even the Twins will pay some nobody free agent reliever 1M this off season, eating Baldelli's pay would be a very cheap PR stunt. And bonus to the Pohlads, they can probably lock in some unqualified NEW manager for 750K to 800K per year to run a dysfunctional team nobody else will want to run.

Last year they fired two coaches who didn't deserve it to attempt to quell the riots. That didn't work and the rioters are even louder this year. Agree, Baldelli might get fired just to draw some attention away from the ownership disaster. So they won't be doing it for the right reasons, but they still might do it.

Not sure what Theilen has left in the tank, this is totally a comfort move.

I could see them nabbing him for nothing, and still looking for another WR knowing they can re-cut him.

“Truthfully, I’m watching it the same way that fans are watching it,” Baldelli admitted. “I’m used to putting signs on dictating when we do what, and right now, the players are going to have a little more openness and ability and freedom out there.” Whether it's running the bases, swinging for the fences, taking a pitch, chasing a pitch, cheating toward the line, playing in a step or trying to nail a runner at home, in real time professional athletes often have a better instinct for what to do in the moment than the guy sitting comfortably on the bench. How does it just occur now that micromanaging might have been a huge underlying problem with this team? Especially when you are micromanaging dozens of young players who are SUPPOSED to learn how and when to trust their own instincts? Managing isn't telling the players what to do at all times, it's supposed to be showing them how they can all use their own unique talents DIFFERENTLY to achieve the same goal.

Two more receivers have been cut. Dionte Johnson and Trey Palmer. I have no interest in Johnson; he's toast. I could have interest in Palmer though, even if he's pretty unheralded.