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chasfh

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Everything posted by chasfh

  1. chasfh
    I don’t see how there is even a parity problem given the fact 24 different teams have been in the playoffs since 2016. I also don’t see the difference between parity with a CBT in place and parity without a CBT in place. If there’s parity either way, then what’s the real problem?
  2. chasfh
    Baseball evidently feels they can’t risk letting Players see whatever the reality of their financial situation is.
  3. chasfh
    First of all, where did I claim it's a good thing? I don't recall making any value judgment about it. Can you please point out where I said this so I can address it? Thanks. Secondly, how do you know exactly how much money should be in the game and at what level it tips from being a good thing to becoming a bad thing? How do you know that the owners' CBT figure of $220MM is a good thing, but the Players' $238MM CBT is a bad thing? What number in between is that tipping point?
  4. chasfh
    I don't know why people keep implying that all the union wants is to make the rich players richer at the expense of the guys on minimum when the record clearly shows that's not true. The union has been trying to bargain for a higher CBT and a substantially higher minimum salary and a high bonus pool for pre-arb players. They also wanted to expand arb to all two-year players and had to give that one away early on when they thought owners were bargaining in good faith. That looks to me like they'd like all players to get paid. I agree that rising free agent salaries do nothing immediately for guys on minimum, and I have said basically as much. I do believe rising free agent salaries help set the standard for other guys coming into free agency, and that it also helps set the market for arb-eligibles during their hearings. As for the Schoop anecdote, I can't speak to the job his own agent did in negotiating that contract, and in any event I did not say that salaries at all levels would go up in such a way as to maintain the same proportion they exist at now. I simply believe that in the case of discretionary baseball salaries, a rising tide lifts all boats, and I've explained how it might work in this instance: the more top salaries go up, the more they serve as a baseline for the salary discussions that come after it for other players, both free agency and arbitration. But if you don't believe that Rising Tide is even a thing, then that's a disconnect on a basic level, and we can just agree to disagree on this point. Unless you wanted to fight to the death on it instead? 🤼‍♂️😉
  5. chasfh
    Bunker is an unserious troll, but I know it's fun to engage him sometimes, so I'ma do that here. Biden, Zelenskyy, and the Allies are winning the world's approval. Putin and Russia are losing and have become a pariah state. Even China is treading carefully here. You misspelled "Trump" at the end there. Hey, here's something Biden did something Trump didn't do: ban Russian oil! Why didn't Trump do that? Also not for nothing, you still haven't answered my thrice-asked question about what specific actions you think any American President, no matter who that might be, could have taken to effectively prevent Putin from invading Ukraine and avoiding war. So how about? Fourth time's a charm, hey, товарищ?
  6. chasfh
  7. chasfh
    The goal is not to get every team spending at the max level of the CBT. Nobody expects that, nobody is asking for that. The goal is to move the whole discretionary market upward by raising the CBT. Big teams spend more on free agents, competitive teams need to keep up, market for free agents goes up, that brings up the market for arb-eligibles with it. Fairly simple concept. Teams who don't want to pay to keep up can choose to not pay by loading up on even more guys working on minimum and by trading guys due for big arb or free agent paydays in exchange for more guys on minimum or minor leaguers, but then that's their choice. I don't think there should be any guarantee that owning a winning baseball team should be easy and cheap.
  8. chasfh
    That might be a reason.
  9. chasfh
  10. chasfh
    It's true that Baseball is competing in a capitalist system for a limited entertainment dollar, and screwing it up badly.
  11. chasfh
    Is Steve Scalise a fool and a liar, or is he a liar who understands his constituents are fools?
  12. chasfh
    Also, to clarify, Major League Baseball is a cartel.
  13. chasfh
    There we go! Got you onto something else you'd rather talk about! 🤣 Anyhow, I said it's not communism, so, we both agree on that. 😁
  14. chasfh
    I believe there is a tie between this thinking and morality-based opposition to abortion: that women and girls who become pregnant after enjoying sex deserve the punishment of having to bear and raise a baby.
  15. chasfh
    Where is this simple math? I don't recall having seen it?
  16. chasfh
    Well, if anyone were starting a league today, it would be the USFL, where the league owns all the teams outright, have all the teams play in a single stadium despite the fiction of regional or city representation, and would compete for a second tier of players who would otherwise not have any opportunity to play professional football at all, and who would gladly do so for barely a living wage (average: $45,000/year) strictly for the chance to be noticed by the first-tier league so they can finally get good and paid. Otherwise, equality of resources to every team in order to compete neither can nor should be guaranteed. This isn't communism. But major league owners are not made up of consortia of guys who are like you or me. Even the "poorest" MLB owner has $400 million in personal net worth which, by the way, doesn't necessarily mean that is the sum of all resources he can control on behalf of the team. But even if that were the sum total of resources available to him, I don't think the game should unilaterally create an artificial obligation to hold itself back just so the few owners who have only two commas in their net worth can comfortably compete—most of whom aren't, anyway. If those owners can't keep up, they are certainly free to sell their stake in their MLB team to any one of the numerous concerns already lined up for the chance to get on that MLB gravy train themselves. Under-resourced businessmen getting run out of their business because they either can't or refuse to keep up? That's pure capitalism, baby.
  17. chasfh
    I don't see how competitive parity can be a huge issue for a league in which 24 of its 30 teams have made the playoffs since 2016. Raising the CBT won't materially affect the disparity. The disparity will be the same because teams will respond to the range the CBT creates. I simply reject any notion that suggests that raising the CBT will only cause three teams to spend right up to it, while the other 27 teams cry in the beer because they can't keep up. I believe they'll keep up at least enough to maintain the current level of payroll level deviation
  18. chasfh
    I didn't say it would be good for the league. However, since you're the one who made the explicit point that it would be either "not good" or "bad' for the league—three times by my count, just today—perhaps you can explain exactly how.
  19. chasfh
    With $10+ billion coming in to baseball owners annually through multiple sources attended to baseball, I don't see how a prediction of salary spiraling will be bad for the league. Maybe it shave a few bucks off a organization's topline. If so, then boo-hoo. If there's malfeasance, I would place it on the organizational level, because every team has the resources right now to spend more and be competitive.
  20. chasfh
    Yeah, China becoming friendlier with Russia is one thing I'm rather afraid of here.
  21. chasfh
    Yes, the point is having an interesting discussion on a sports forum board. There will always be disparity in payrolls; that's never going away, whether the CBT is at 180, 210, or 260. What Players are looking for is for greater comp across the board. That's why they want higher CBTs. Baseball wants to spend as little for players as they possibly can. That's why they want lower CBTs. Simple as it gets.
  22. chasfh
    I agree with everything in bold here.
  23. chasfh
    And no matter how many times you repeat that it isn't true, that isn't true. While the CBT number appears to serve as a restraint on the highest-spending teams in the technical, it helps keep the market lower because it defines the limit for how much a top-of-the-market team will pay for talent. It helps every other team by setting the market for them. Even the least-spending teams benefit from this. They want to keep the CBT low not because they're afraid it's going to make them lose—they're already comfortable with the losing. It's spending more for the losing that they're trying to avoid.
  24. chasfh
    I'm not an expert at football or basketball, but as far as baseball owners are concerned they, as with business owners, are responding to the incentives being offered. The revenue streams in baseball are so varied and lucrative that a team can choose to spend very little on talent, essentially choosing to punt on competing, and still make healthy profits and, as importantly, substantial capital appreciation. That's the thing that's constraining spending among so many teams: they don't have to spend or compete to make money. Is that unique to baseball versus football or basketball? Not sure. Not all 30 teams respond to those incentives in exactly the same way to not spend, since they're not automatons. The Yankees must spend because spending/competing/winning is their historical brand. Dodgers are motivated to spend because they want to dominate this era of the sport in a unique way. Mets want to spend because of their superfan owner. Those guys will spend around the cap, whether it's 210 or 260. But limited-window teams have to choose whether to compete by spending to get talent to keep up with the leaders in their division. They absolutely would like to compete, but they don't want to spend too much money to do so. That's why they want the smaller cap. That way, they can save money on competing, which suppresses free agent comp potential. And suppressing FA comp keeps the market lower for arb-eligible players as well, since high salaries set the overall market, and all that helps keep spending down even for the Pirates and Orioles when it's time for them to pony up for their arb-eligibles.
  25. chasfh
    The CBT as a soft cap doesn’t address competitive disparity—only overall spend. I don’t see how it is in a fan’s interest in competitive balance to keep spending down across the board. Richer teams have overtly worked to avoid going over the cap especially in recent seasons. It doesn’t necessarily follow that higher levels will necessarily create disparity, because that would require open-window playoff contenders to give up trying to compete with the three big spenders for talent, ceding all top talent only to them, in order to maintain payroll integrity or whatever Orwell would call it. If a team’s window opens up next year and they want to get that guy who will put them over the top, they either need to go get him and pay what the market dictates, or else risk not optimizing the window they’ve waited so long to open. And once they spend for those guys, that creates the baseline for eh other free agents in the market and, just as importantly, the arb-eligible players, whom all 30 teams eventually have to pay. That’s what teams want to avoid: having to pay for those boats lifted by the rising tide.
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