2025 MLB Thread

[Stormin]

16 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

No way do I want to lose a season.  I am too old for that.  It's going to to be fun meeting the Dodgers in the World Series some year and beating them.  

I am not a young either, but I am more inclined to have the Tigers go for it this year because a shut down of some length seems likely.  I cringe at all the items below, but the Tigers can make moves to improve the 2026 team.

• Brewers are looking for a Major League ready, young, controllable, starter in exchange for Freddy Peralta.  Tigers have Olson, Melton, and Jobe.
• Valdez comes with a lot of baggage, but at this point he is available.   Adding Peralta or Valdez to Skubal could make the Tigers rotation better than the Dodgers rotation.
• I don't know if there is a Skubal trade that makes the Tigers better in 2026.  Maybe the Tigers send Skubal to (Mets/Red Sox/ Yankees),  and the team receiving Skubal and the Tigers send prospects to the Nationals.  Could the Tiger get MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams in return?

After the Tucker signing I am more interested in the Tigers doing more to make the 2026 Tigers better because 2027 may not be fun.

[GalagaGuy]

I've seen a lot of posts pointing out that because of the luxury tax implications, Tucker's 60 million dollars a year is actually costing the Dodgers an extra $126 million.  

[chasfh]

30 minutes ago, GalagaGuy said:

I've seen a lot of posts pointing out that because of the luxury tax implications, Tucker's 60 million dollars a year is actually costing the Dodgers an extra $126 million.  

They're not the only one. MLBTR says that because of the luxury tax and a bonus he gets if he opts out (!), Bo Bichette could cost the Mets $97 million for just this season.

[buddha]

fans just want to see their favorite players stay with their team.  they want to think all teams have the same shot at free agents as the other teams.  they dont think that they do and that this is why their team loses.

theyre wrong, but that's ok.

once more from the rooftops: salary caps benefit no one but the owners.  its a brilliant way for owners to maximize their profits and get fans on their side against the greedy players.  i mean, the players ARE greedy, but so what?  its capitalism.  were all greedy.

[buddha]

23 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Not sure whether I agree or disagree with this, but this post on bluesky is beautiful.  My feeling is I don't care which side wins.  Nothing they do is going to make the game better for the fans anyway.  That sentiment is also covered in Joe's post.    

i disagree with most of that except for the part about baseball.  baseball has so many salary constraints that favor owners its ridiculous.  so many constraints that help smaller markets already.

the mets spent more money than god last year to win a total of 83 games.  only 4 more than the bottom feeding, cheap ass marlins.  the mighty market of milwaukee won 97.

yes yes yes the dodgers.  oh no!  the pirates couldnt sign a 33 year old corner outfielder with declining stats.  someone please think of the children!

if anything, the current system is TOO owner friendly.  it lets owners off the hook for not investing in their product while quietly sucking up "revenue sharing" money from teams trying to win.

i am no fan of unions, but if i'm the players here, there is no way i let them do a salary cap.  and i dont think the owners will die on that hill either.  they know they have a good thing going.  there are much more pressing issues to address than player salary constraints and growing labor coats, the players have largely lost on those issues already.

[gehringer_2]

8 minutes ago, buddha said:

i am no fan of unions, but if i'm the players here, there is no way i let them do a salary cap.  and i dont think the owners will die on that hill either. 

TBH, I don't think the small market teams want a cap either because any cap that emerged would almost certainly benefit the richest teams the most, unless those owners are just dumb - which is also possible!

I do think the players are going to push hard to reduce years of control, and I think you could get odd bedfellows between the players and the rich teams both being in favor (even if those owners would never admit it in public)  but the majority of owners being opposed.

[buddha]

59 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

TBH, I don't think the small market teams want a cap either because any cap that emerged would almost certainly benefit the richest teams the most, unless those owners are just dumb - which is also possible!

I do think the players are going to push hard to reduce years of control, and I think you could get odd bedfellows between the players and the rich teams both being in favor (even if those owners would never admit it in public)  but the majority of owners being opposed.

carve a year off of arbitration in exchange for a cap on the length of contract?

[gehringer_2]

7 minutes ago, buddha said:

carve a year off of arbitration in exchange for a cap on the length of contract?

yeah - maybe something like that.

BTW - what happened with Tony Clark? There seemed to be some kind of controversy brewing a few months ago but seems to have blown over? 

A weakened union leadership with a self-preservation agenda becomes a wild card also.

Edited 13 hours ago by gehringer_2

[4hzglory]

2 hours ago, buddha said:

fans just want to see their favorite players stay with their team.  they want to think all teams have the same shot at free agents as the other teams.  they dont think that they do and that this is why their team loses.

theyre wrong, but that's ok.

once more from the rooftops: salary caps benefit no one but the owners.  its a brilliant way for owners to maximize their profits and get fans on their side against the greedy players.  i mean, the players ARE greedy, but so what?  its capitalism.  were all greedy.

If there was true revenue sharing like the other leagues and players get a set pct of revenues, Salary cap could benefit everyone.  With the current system, it would only benefit the owners.  It depends what is wanted in sports, an equal financial playing field or complete free market.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, 4hzglory said:

If there was true revenue sharing like the other leagues and players get a set pct of revenues, Salary cap could benefit everyone.  With the current system, it would only benefit the owners.  It depends what is wanted in sports, an equal financial playing field or complete free market.

Salary cap doesn't mean anything for competition unless they have a tight salary floor along with it. After all, any salary cap wouldn't even affect something like 20 of the 30 franchises, so theoretically they could continue merrily underspending to their hearts content and just bank the loot.

[4hzglory]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Salary cap doesn't mean anything for competition unless they have a tight salary floor along with it. After all, any salary cap wouldn't even affect something like 20 of the 30 franchises, so theoretically they could continue merrily underspending to their hearts content and just bank the loot.

Yeah, I assume any cap with revenue sharing would include a floor.

[gehringer_2]

The NFL doesn't really have a cap, it has a budget the teams must spend on players, if they end up under budget on salaries, they have to make it up in payments to the NLFPA but they have to be within about 90% in direct player payments. So on every team, the players get the the negotiated cut of the team revenue. It's not really a cap or a floor, it's the player piece of team revenue. That is pretty close to an ideal construct for a sports league.

MLB can't get anywhere near there for dozens of reasons, but the 1st prerequisite to moving toward balanced team salary is balanced team revenue. Taking about caps and floors seems pretty pointless to me when it doesn't address the fundamental issue, which is team income inequality. Only movement in that direction, even if incremental, begins to rationalize the MLB system.

As Buddha pointed out, a cap added to any thing like the current system (i.e.absent real structural revenue reform) simply benefits the richest teams even more.

I suppose you could say that if they institute a meaningful floor, that means they have to institute some additional revenue sharing, otherwise a meaningful floor is an impossibility. But that is exactly why a meaningful floor is really unlikely!

Edited 7 hours ago by gehringer_2

[4hzglory]

35 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

The NFL doesn't really have a cap, it has a budget the teams must spend on players, if they end up under budget on salaries, they have to make it up in payments to the NLFPA but they have to be within about 90% in direct player payments. So on every team, the players get the the negotiated cut of the team revenue. It's not really a cap or a floor, it's the player piece of team revenue. That is pretty close to an ideal construct for a sports league.

MLB can't get anywhere near there for dozens of reasons, but the 1st prerequisite to moving toward balanced team salary is balanced team revenue. Taking about caps and floors seems pretty pointless to me when it doesn't address the fundamental issue, which is team income inequality. Only movement in that direction, even if incremental, begins to rationalize the MLB system.

As Buddha pointed out, a cap added to any thing like the current system (i.e.absent real structural revenue reform) simply benefits the richest teams even more.

I suppose you could say that if they institute a meaningful floor, that means they have to institute some additional revenue sharing, otherwise a meaningful floor is an impossibility. But that is exactly why a meaningful floor is really unlikely!

The NFL does have a firm cap.  It can be manipulated via signing bonuses, but there is a cap teams cannot go over.

[gehringer_2]

41 minutes ago, 4hzglory said:

The NFL does have a firm cap.  It can be manipulated via signing bonuses, but there is a cap teams cannot go over.

signing bonuses are the end around non-guaranteed contracts, they are still counted as salary in cap calcs. Teams can move money around and into different years (and into the future were the cap is higher) to make room for players short term, but the same total eventually gets paid to players collectively. If anything, what people regard as teams cheating or using loopholes, is actually a strength in the way the system allows teams to have some roster flexibility, and still pay the correct amount of total salaries for a given year. And it's the players that are largely in control when it comes to restructuring. And it's mostly worked, you don't hear either side in football worrying about a future strike.

Edited 6 hours ago by gehringer_2

[tiger2022]

Cheap ass owners would never agree to a salary floor.  

Also, teams already have too many years of control on players.  Think of poor Paul Skenes...by time he's FA, he'll have 15 more losses than wins in his career with a sub 2.00 ERA

Edited 6 hours ago by tiger2022

[Nate7474]

50 minutes ago, tiger2022 said:

Cheap ass owners would never agree to a salary floor.  

Also, teams already have too many years of control on players.  Think of poor Paul Skenes...by time he's FA, he'll have 15 more losses than wins in his career with a sub 2.00 ERA

Players would never agree to a salary cap/bigger soft cap penalties without a floor.  I would assume that years under control would also have to be negotiated for players to get to free agency faster.  Likely larger rosters to allow for more players to make the majors and get into the union faster. 

IMO this is going to be a nasty fight and I wouldn't be surprised if we lost an entire season.