This makes me think of another discussion we should have after the season starts and all this FA period is done. The economics of baseball is an incredible story encompassing so many things. Almost of of which have no connection to reality.

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Elections have consequences.

White Sox are a good example of today's messed up MLB structure.

Essentially free stadium, concessions and parking goes to White Sox, TV deal locks in XYZ revenue.

Pirates are another good example. Had a great team and open window but owner was too cheap to pay for finishing touches during their window.

Brewers ownership has really defined themselves as the model small-medium market ownership group.

It’s really quite simple. The current deal effectively caps big spenders with a luxury tax on the idea of leveling the playing field. Instead, they need to share a percentage of league revenues with the players and have a payroll floor. The players don’t want a salary cap, but if total payroll is set as a percentage of revenue, then I think it would be fair to all.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Yeah. In the past the Brewers weren't quite doing it right eg Prince. Pirates nor anyone else has a lease/stadium deal as great as the Sox. They did not break the bank at the time they were very competitive for three years though. Correct.

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Elections have consequences.

Yeah the floor is very important. Although if not careful it can cause a couple issues eg NHL.

Anyway, my interest in the topic also includes the unnatural inflation. Keep in mind I know why this has happened and not really blaming either side at all. Actually the fan gets screwed the most.

Between TV revenues, player salaries and a host of other smaller factors like agents and arbitration etc there is a cycle of ever expanding funny money made/earned/consumed that shows no correlation to any other economic system since say 1980 or so. Think how recent (in historic terms) it was that Rickey Henderson, I think, became the first $3M dollar player.

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Elections have consequences.

In 2018 Team payrolls ranged from 68,810,167 to 227,398,860.

man...that's an awfully large gap. interesting to see how badly the Padres have been eating money the last 2 seasons...wow.

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The Giants suck, they had 208 million payroll. Milwaukee was about half that.

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The competitive balance tax was supposed to address that by penalizing the Yankees for spending and sending money to the Reds and Pirates. But the small market teams generally pocketed the money. If you want it to be fair, the NFL has the best structure for sharing the revenues and setting a cap and floor.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Isn't it too late to share TV revenue at this point? Many teams already have their own networks and deals. I never liked the idea of revenue sharing in baseball, it's easy for NFL with 26 regular season games but 162 is too difficult. I don't like rewarding ineptitude or miserly ownership.

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You’re spot on, the revenue model is completely different due to regional deals.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

They cannot address it until the next CBA. They fucked themselves when they did the luxury tax but didn't add in any kind of salary floor. Then again.....teams like the White Sox prioritize
1. Financial Balance sheet / Shareholder payout
2. Stadium favorability
3. Winning

Not unique to the White Sox.....plenty of company with other small market teams.

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Mid market team. TV, Radio and advertising revenue. They are damn lucky the product they put out isn't in Cleveland.

Why should there be a floor? Look at the Brewers.. I remember one year when Girardi had the Marlins at 81 wins with a payroll of 30 million and Arod was making like 28 million.

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The floor idea is so players and rich owners don’t lose out to the pocketing cheap owners receiving welfare.

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Elections have consequences.

Forget the floor. Teams should be able to offer bonuses based on the team making the playoffs, making the World Series, and winning the World Series.

Also, the minimum AAA salary for anybody with a year of MLB service time should be $150k/year, and there should be an additional $50k minimum for being an NRI in that situation.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal