The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- MLBTR’s poll asking whether fans want an MLB salary cap (0:30)
- What does parity mean? (5:25)
- Trying to assess where things stand for the next round of CBA talks (11:20)
- How much would a salary cap actually improve parity and what other paths are there? (17:40)
- What is the mentality of the players right now? (24:50)
- How baseball is not like the other major sports (28:35)
- The Dodgers trio of recent pitching additions: Roki Sasaki, Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates (31:55)
- The Blue Jays signing Anthony Santander (40:30)
Check out our past episodes!
- The Jeff Hoffman Situation, Justin Verlander, And The Marlins’ Rotation – listen here
- Brent Rooker’s Extension, Gavin Lux, And Catching Up On The Holiday Transactions – listen here
- Kyle Tucker To The Cubs, And Trades For Devin Williams And Jeffrey Springs – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
A cap AND a minimum. With profit sharing, teams should reinvest rather than keep it in their pockets.
A Salary floor is just as important !
Fine, institute a cap in exchange for getting rid of market based revenue sharing and a $100m payroll floor and 4 years of club control until free agency.
To be fair, this comment comes from pure jealousy of the Dodgers and the fact my team chooses not to spend but…baseball just isn’t as fun to watch anymore.
It can’t be good for the MLB product that 3/4 of the teams already have no shot at the playoffs and we haven’t started Spring Training. If a salary cap/floor could help level the playing field (even if for just a bit), I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.
How can 3/4 of the teams already have no shot at the playoffs when 40% of teams (12 out of 30) make the playoffs in the current format?
ROTFLMAO!!!!
Another 8 teams finished within 6 games of the playoffs, meaning 60% of the teams had a legit shot.
So we’ll round that down to 25%.
what’s the cap and who gets to set it? The big market teams are gonna throw the weight into the ring and demand 250-300 million caps which is ridiculous and still unsustainable.
Which is exactly why they’re probably won’t be a 2027 season. It’s going to be hard enough getting the owners to agree, let alone the players and the owners. It’s going to be a freaking mess.
This was disappointing. I was hoping to hear an intelligent discussion about the pros and cons of a proper cap system (all cap systems require a floor). Instead we got two union shills desperate to get validation from the national baseball media, the MLBPA, and Boras telling us they don’t want a cap and implying that two-thirds of us are stupid. Really bad job here..
I felt the sentiment of this podcast was borderline offensive regarding the attitude towards fans. No one is saying competitive balance means the dodgers to be bad.
I get you guys have to deal with a ton of bad questions and you all feel the need to defend the dodgers from people saying they are cheating. But at the same time, reasonable fans are being turned away by all of this.
An example to fix this you mentioned was allow a smaller market team to offer Sasaki 3 times as much as dodgers. Well he turned down $300M to join the dodgers a year early. That won’t fix anything.
I have seen almost no salary cap advocates lay out exactly what they think parity/competitive balance is and what specifically they want to see as the result. The salary cap is not a result; just one potential prescription. And as a lot of people have pointed out to me, a fairly unlikely one.
In terms of reasonable fans being turned away by all this, I agree. I suspected as much and did the poll for that reason.
I do think a lot of people want to hear the basic “Dodgers are ruining baseball and the sport needs a salary cap,” and no, I’m not going to say that because that’s not how I feel.
I dont think the Dodgers are ruining baseball and are certainly playing within the rules.
It’s this exact sentiment that turns readers away. Why are you so defensive?
Well, if giving an honest opinion turns readers away, I have to accept that. It’d be pretty weak to just match my opinions to the majority.
An honest opinion is not strawmaning the crux of the argument. If you don’t understand what parity is that’s on you.
No, I think the argument is good:
Salary cap advocates have not clearly laid out the result they want. If you want parity, a word that can be interpreted in broad ways, define it with specifics.
If you refuse to do that, fine, but you’re opting out of real discussion.
Plenty of comments in this very section have laid out what parity can be. You deciding to focus on people being angry over the dodgers is refusing to address the discussion
This is the difference between those in baseball media and fans.
I personally am a pretty disaffected fan that now pays attention to the whole of the league rather than a single team. I don’t really have a favorite team.
The Dodgers aren’t ruining baseball because your favorite teams chances at beating them have lessened.
Competitive balance is not having a team have winning seasons for over 30 years. Competitive balance is not having teams almost automatically be in the playoffs in January. Competitive balance is teams not being able to spend in excess of the revenue of one third of the league. Competitive balance is that dynasties come to and end at some point (look at Golden State and New England). Competitive balance is having an all time great like Sydney Crosby stay in Pittsburgh for his whole career. That is what competitive balance looks like.
Competitive balance is not having a team have winning seasons for over 30 years: which MLB teams have done this, and what is an acceptable percentage of winning seasons over 30 years? How are you defining winning?
Competitive balance is not having teams almost automatically be in the playoffs in January: what are the highest playoff odds in January for a given team that are acceptable to you?
Competitive balance is teams not being able to spend in excess of the revenue of one third of the league: that’s not competitive balance. Competitive balance has to be defined by results on the field, wins, losses, playoffs.
Competitive balance is that dynasties come to and end at some point: which MLB dynasties are you concerned about, and how do you define a dynasty?
Competitive balance is having an all time great like Sydney Crosby stay in Pittsburgh for his whole career: also not competitive balance. More an issue of player continuity
Which MLB teams have done this, and what is an acceptable percentage of winning seasons over 30 years? How are you defining winning?
The Yankees have not had a losing season since 1992. Is it that they are smarter? No – they have more money and never need to rebuild. That is not parity or competitive balance.
what are the highest playoff odds in January for a given team that are acceptable to you?
I will bet you $1,000,000 that the Dodgers make the playoffs. Will you take the bet?
Competitive balance has to be defined by results on the field, wins, losses, playoffs.
OK – the Yankees have made the playoffs in 25 of the last 30 years. The Rockies – 5 times in their 32 year existence..
which MLB dynasties are you concerned about, and how do you define a dynasty?
The Dodgers have won the NL West 11 of the last 12 years and have been a playoff team each year. That is a dynasty that will NEVER end under the current economic system.
also not competitive balance. More an issue of player continuity
Oh please – you can do better than that. Of course it has to do with money and the current economic system. A cap fixes this.
Competitive balance is I, as an Orioles fan feel like its not a waste of my money to buy my favorite players jersey because he’s gone as soon as his rookie contract is over. I am a baseball diehard, I have been a season ticket holder. I am not going to games this year because what’s the point. The guys I’m rooting for will be gone in 2-3 years because the system is so broken that we have to trade prime Gunnar Henderson for prospects because we will never resign him. Forcing half the league to operate like this disenfranchises fans. The NFL doesn’t have this problem Baltimore a “small market” was easily able to retain Lamar Jackson one of the most marketable and talented stars in football. That’s true parity.
In terms of reasonable fans being turned away by all this, I agree.
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Hasn’t this always been the case?
Weren’t fans outraged when the Padres spent $300M?
And outraged when the Mets spent $375M? Or do people not care because both teams spent poorly?
And have they forgotten the original EE? In 2005, the NYY spent $207M. My small-market RS spent the 2nd most with $117M. So the NYY spent almost twice what the RS spent.
Contextually, the Dodger spending is not that bad.
Small market teams have
-market based revenue sharing
-mlb central funds
-luxury tax revenue sharing
-draft priority if they suck
-an antitrust exemption
What do they want, the Dodgers to run their front office too?
They want the ability to sign superstar players. They want to curtail teams like the Dodgers, Mets and Yankees from having a payroll that exceeds the revenue of one-third of the league. They want a level playing field.
A good cap system benefits 90% of the players. The only ones hurt are Boras and his clients.
Yet somehow after polling his readers, Tim Dierkes thinks the fans just want the dodgers to be bad.
I don’t feel you’re participating in a good-faith debate that considers the entirety of the points made on the podcast.
And neither are you if you are summing up parity as “Dodgers should be bad”
Perhaps, but I didn’t do that, which is very clear to anyone who listens to the podcast in full. Which brings me back to:
I don’t feel you’re participating in a good-faith debate that considers the entirety of the points made on the podcast.
Tim the sentiment from the podcast was to invalidate fan’s opinions. I don’t get how you thought this would come off well. I listened to the entire podcast although it was a struggle like every week.
Then they should sign superstar players.
Build an organization players want to play in.
c’mon Matthew, you can’t be that obtuse. Could the Twins really have deferred 680million? Could the Marlins pay Juan Soto 760 million? You know they can’t, so why pretend that there is a level playing filed.
If those teams can’t keep up with being competitive in offers for superstars then they should sell the team.
Owners don’t have a Right to own a baseball team.
No owner in Minnesota, Pittsburgh or Kansas City could have signed Soto or Ohtani and you know it. Just stop it.
Owners don’t have a right, but they and their investors should have the right to own a team and expect a reasonable profit.
A good cap system will not help the owners – it will only ensure a fair economic system.
MatthewStair
If those teams can’t keep up with being competitive in offers for superstars then they should sell the team.
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That’s completely ridiculous. The LA payroll, including the CBT tax is about $500M. Last I looked, only 4 teams have $500M in revenue.
Are you suggesting a 4-team league?
@ Ghost. How do you figure that “a good cap system benefits 90% of the players?” Where does that data come from? The whole point of a cap is to suppress player salaries.
The players would get a bigger piece of baseball related income. Currently NBA and NFL players get 49% of sport related income.
It is simple math. Now the players get a certain percentage of league revenue – say its 47%. Have the cap system ensure 50%. By definition the players as a whole get more money.
Throw is other things like a faster time frame to free agency and arbitration and a higher minimum and you have a really good deal for the players.
@ Ghost. The math on caps is anything but simple. See, e.g. the NBA’s new CBA. Compared to other leagues, 47% would be a bad deal. Other leagues don’t have a reserve or arbitration system, either, mostly because they have colleges be their minor leagues. Baseball is a different sport with different circumstances. Moreover, you haven’t done the math, simple or otherwise. The assertion that 47% is a great deal is conclusory, and not backed by any math in your comment. Nor can you dispel the simple truth that the whole purpose of a cap is to suppress salaries which, btw, is not great for players.
The good idea in your plan is the shortening of the reserve clock to 4 years. Scrap arb entirely and build a few small escalators into the minimum salary structure, and get guys to FA in 4 years. That gets guys paid sooner. Ironically, that also might mean some suppression of salaries because it means less scarcity of FAs on the market. Decreased scarcity means better prices for buyers. When free agency first came into being, Marvin Miller and the union did not want everyone to be a FA every year because if that very effect. To ensure more FAs on the market each year, maybe limit lengths of contracts to, say, 6 years.
I don’t mind tweaking the system to help out small market teams, particularly on the revenue side, but these teams still are owned by billionaires who have enormous revenue and investment growth from baseball. I see no need to institute a cap for their benefit at the expense of the players, the guys you actually pay to see. A cap guarantees nothing. See, e.g., the Cleveland Browns. Further consider that the Dodgers were very different under Frank McCourt that they are under Guggenheim. The Mets are very different under the Wilpons than they are under Steve Cohen. Who owns the teams matters more than suppressing salaries. I have no desire to lend a helping hand the Fishers, Dolans, Pohlads, Nuttings, Shermans, and Morenos of the world. There’s no good reason to do so.
Usual: I think that the only realistic implementation of a cap/floor system would necessarily see earnings for most players (90% seems like a reasonable figure to me) go up, with big hits coming from the top. Otherwise it’s a complete non-starter.
But that’s also why I don’t think it will happen. The top 10% never agree to take relatively inconsequential hits to their earnings in order to markedly improve the bottom 90% anywhere else in our society, so I don’t expect baseball to trailblaze there.
Another point in favor of a cap is that it will force the owners to open the books.
I know it is not simple, but something needs to be done. As a Pirates fan, I should be able to but a Skenes jersey and not have to throw it away after 5 years.
Exactly this
The extent to which a salary cap would improve parity would in large part be determined by the level of the cap. There is such a huge revenue disparity between the richest and poorest clubs in baseball even with revenue sharing. So a salary cap of let’s say $200M would only restrain the richest clubs and outside of the Mets, Dodgers and Yankees only a little bit.. Last year 10 teams were over $200M payroll. yet half the league under $150M and 5 teams under $100M. Another 5 under $120M. The Mets payroll last year was 5 times what the A’s had. No other capped sport has the revenue and payroll disparities that exist in baseball. That makes a cap very difficult.
So unless you really drop the hammer a cap will not lead to parity. The players will never accept a cap especially a hard low cap as it would constrain their salaries. One way to seek better parity is an international draft. An item in the last CBA that they agreed to continue to discuss but never went anywhere. Give the players the elimination of the QO system. Give teams a draft pick for losing a FA similar to what they do now but signing teams don’t lose draft picks.
The problem fans have is that the parity isn’t actually there. If you are a fan of a team outside of the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, etc. you can’t actually enjoy the product. The Orioles have great players right now. Except everyone knows no way they can keep Henderson. Same with Skenes and the Pirates. So if your team isn’t able to resign the superstars you end up having to be the Rays. How’s their attendance? Baseball may not need a salary cap but they need a real way for small market teams to retain their marketable stars ie the “Bird rule” from the NBA or the Franchise tag from the NFL. its bad for Baseball that only big market teams can retain their marketable stars.
This isn’t really a parity issue, though. It’s a question of whether there is too much player movement in baseball and whether it needs to be lessened.
But the only way to lessen player movement is to address the salary disparity between teams. That’s my point fans aren’t angry about parity in terms of what team wins each year. They are angry about what kind of team wins. Since the Marlins in 03 there has not been a single team win a World Series that wasn’t a top 15 payroll. If the Yankees or Dodgers had traded a Judge or Kershaw on their rookie deals the media would flame them. However when the Orioles and Pirates do it with Henderson and Skenes it will be lauded as smart baseball. Thats because there is not parity between these teams and the small markets are forced to play a style of roster construction that is destructive and disenfranchising to their fanbases. It has to be fixed.
I think it’d be more clear to not use the term “parity,” and just say that you want much less player movement in terms of the stars.
To me, that is indeed a clear desire, and it’s easy to see why someone would want that.
I’m not sure I can think of a solution that would not result in a significant work stoppage. I’d prefer not to make that tradeoff, but I understand that some fans would.
Tim, Oxford Dictionary defines parity as “the state or condition of being equal, especially regarding status or pay.”. There is no world where you can compare the Orioles and the Dodgers and say they are in parity with one another. There is a parity issue and the rules must change to create parity. I would also like to avoid a lock out. But if that is what it takes to fix the problem so be it. I would rather that than continue to watch an imbalanced product.
One question is what has to be equal? The payroll? Each team’s chances at the playoffs?
If there is a dumb team that spends a lot of money and has player continuity and doesn’t win and another team that is the complete opposite, those don’t have parity, but it seems like letting teams spend a bunch of money poorly or in a mediocre way might be fine?
Tim – no one wants equality of outcomes, only equality of opportunity.
@ McNuggzy. There is a way the O’s can keep Gunnar. They can pay him. You cannot convince me they don’t have the resources to keep a generational player. I mean, the Boston Freaking Red Sox couldn’t afford Mookie Betts? C’mon. If the Twins can keep Mauer, the O’s can keep Henderson. Pretending teams/owners are poor doesn’t mean they’re actually poor. P.S. They also don’t need our help to build stadiums.
Mauer’s deal was in 2011. It’s annual value was 23 million. His contract is closer to what Anthony Santander just signed then it is to Juan Soto or any other generational player has signed in the last 5 years. The fact your best example is from 15 years ago also highlights this issue. The reality is once players like Henderson hit free agency they’re gone. I’m not saying these owners are poor. But when a team (Dodgers Forbes value of 5.45 Billion) is worth 3 times as much as the other (Orioles 1.75 billion) there is just factually a disparity in what each can feasibly offer and still sustain. You are right that this isn’t Amazon versus your mom and pop hardware store. But recognize that Amazon versus K-Mart still isn’t a fair fight. (I do fully agree on your stadium point)
I’m not an inflation expert, but that Mauer contract in 2010 seems like it might be something north of $250MM today. And the Mariners and Royals did find ways to lock up J-Rod and Witt.
It seems like you want to make free agency much less attractive to players. Which of course would involve an epic fight as free agency has been fairly unrestricted since it began in 1976.
I voted “yes” in the salary cap poll, but based on my idea of a reasonably-implemented salary cap system, which would almost certainly never take. Effectively, I’d like to much more of the money in baseball pooled by the league and split among orgs/owners and players in an agreed-upon manner. Players sign with teams for percentages of the player-allocated money. I doubt either side would agree to an arrangement like this, but it’s my idea of actually evening the playing field.
So, the pro-cap movement is largely based on the notion that small market teams can’t compete with large market teams because of revenue disparity. The solution to that problem is not to address revenue inequity, but rather to limit expenditures at the expense of the talent who didn’t create the revenue disparity in the first place. Why not try to address the revenue problem instead? To do otherwise is a bit like continually changing the battery in your rig even though you’re pretty sure the problem is the alternator.
“rig” and “alternator”, this man wears boots.
A Cap/floor does not reduce overall player revenue (at least a proper one would not).
Easy solution
$300m cap
$100m floor
Team control goes down to 4 years
Get rid of all market based and luxury tax revenue sharing