Will Tigers Pony up for Skubal

[Shelton]

49 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

we can agree to disagree but I'm really curious as to what sense in which you think this is true. The NFL cap is $279M and every team is below it and the team furthest from the cap is $50M away, which is also drastically smaller range than across MLB teams.

The teams are below it because they do the necessary accounting and restructuring to make the numbers add up to a number that is below the cap. Then the next year the cap goes up againand everyone restructures again to the extent necessary and uses other creative accounting and, surprise, they all end up under the cap. The NFL cap is not a hard cap. There are numerous ways to get around it. It’s not stopping dynastic teams from staying together and getting their players paid.  
 

All that said, I firmly believe that MLB teams are not forced to allow guys to walk or to trade them due to an inability to pay them. I think owners like to make as much money as possible, and they don’t want to take money from their bottom line to pay for 30 year old free agents that might provide a couple marginal wins. 

[gehringer_2]

12 minutes ago, Shelton said:

The teams are below it because they do the necessary accounting and restructuring to make the numbers add up to a number that is below the cap.

No question that since the cap keeps going up it does allow teams to restructure and push cap hit out into the future. 

The smart (and fair) thing that the NFL did was agree to a fixed revenue split with the players - which is what has been driving the cap up and bought them enough labor peace the get a cap of any kind in place. Baseball owners have always refused to operate their baseball business transparently, or even pseudo-transparently, and that will continue to cost them in terms of the level of union intransigence they face.

Edited 20 hours ago by gehringer_2