Bleacher Bums Forum

……..Players will eventually want to play.  There will be a fight; but in due time a compromise
Still, it's not really obvious that NBA/NFL players are doing any worse than mlb players; salary cap may not provide meaningful disadvantage?   

Craig- A few points.

(1) MLBPA doesn’t agree with Manfred about the % of revenues that players are getting under current cba. Just a week ago Bruce Meyer said [reported in The Athletic] that, “if you include all the compensation paid pursuant to the current major league CBA, the players’ share is comfortably over 50 percent.” So, depends who you’re talking to.

(2) MLB contracts are guaranteed for the most part. Very few NFL contracts are guaranteed (unless you play QB) and free agency has stuff like Restricted free agency. Very different. The NBA cba has maximum contract lengths (4 or 5 years tops) and % limits on how much of the team salary cap can go to any particular player. Notion that baseball owners are a reliable source as to whether players better off under a salary cap strikes me as being a peculiar notion.

(3) Nobody can really know, at this point, whether a salary cap “will never happen” just because players/MLBPA don’t want one. They may hate it but when you lose the fight, you agree to terms you might hate. This happens in military wars of course and collective-bargaining sometimes is—in the most bitter labor disputes—the peaceful equivalent. As a former career NLRB person, I have seen this many times. Labor disputes don’t have to end with a “reasonable compromise.” Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on bargaining power and who has it and whether roughly equivalent. And the latter can change as time goes by. One side loses solidarity and the other holds firm. That’s where the “pain” comes in. Segments on one or both sides just can’t take it anymore and want to stop the fight. NFL and NBA players have always caved before too long and both sides know that. MLB players have a different history but will that still be true of today’s players? Nobody really knows. Maybe baseball owners want to find out. Seems that way.

Doesn’t have to be that way—many bargaining relationships are fruitful to both sides or at least used to be more often when unions were more pervasive and powerful back in the day. Maybe cooler heads will prevail in baseball. Let’s hope so.

Craig- A few points.

(1) MLBPA doesn’t agree with Manfred about the % of revenues that players are getting under current cba. Just a week ago Bruce Meyer said [reported in The Athletic] that, “if you include all the compensation paid pursuant to the current major league CBA, the players’ share is comfortably over 50 percent.” So, depends who you’re talking to....

I just brilliantly pulled those 47% numbers from Google AI, not from Manfred, who I rarely read.  Glad to hear the actual % is higher.  If mlb was actually getting a disproportionately lower % than NFL/NBA, that might impact urgency to increase that, and public perception.  Not that public perceptions or fan view will impact the negotiation generals, obviously.  reb, You seem to be suggesting that Manfred is putting out numbers in which players get a much lower % of total revenue than they actually get.  Am I misunderstanding you on that?  If so, why would he want to under-represent their % of revenue?  That would seem counterproductive, to put public sentiment on players side, and make players feel undercompensated. If he is going to be falsifying, I'd think he'd be better served to falsify player-cut in the higher direction than the lower?   Or am I missing something there?   

Whether NBA gets a couple % more or less, my simpler point was that it's not intrinsically obvious that NBA guys are doing so badly, and that their union is failing them.  They've got a sport that is MUCH less popular, yet their players are doing really well.  And they've mutually built in all kinds of exceptions and exemptions that makes their salary cap very soft and fluid. 

This is tangent, and I'm sure you as a union guy hate it.  But as a dumb fan I love the NBA's max/supermax, limiting stars to 30% or 35% supermax contracts, in the $55-60 range.  It probably seems like grievous pain to you, but Giannis getting by on $54/year, that doesn't seem too painful to me or his family.  The fan in me loves it, the lover of competition loves is, and the socialist in me loves it.  I love that players other than Giannis and Curry still get paid, which I think is nice for the 95% of their union who aren't max.  Max forces $$ to flow to non-elites.  Second, the max ceiling is higher for an extension than if you jump teams.  To extend a star, you can pay him more than if he jumps, and you can fly past the soft salary "cap".  This gives stars some incentive to stay.  Imagine if Tucker had been a max/supermax, and the Dodgers couldn't pay him as much as the Cubs to retain him?  I think Pirates might like that when anticipating Skenes.  I think it's been good for NBA competitive opportunity, which obviously isn't a value for the union but it does kinda impact fans.  And I think it's been good for the rest of the players, leaving more millions to spread around to them. 

Back to mlb, and whether their %-of-revenue is a little higher or lower than NBA/NfL.  Comparing the %'s, as I was trying to do using Google AI listings, is probably silly anyway.  Each sport is unique and has it's own variability in revenue generation and in operating costs.  So the % distribution to player salary could logically reflet some that.  Should mlb be higher or lower?  I'm not sure, actually.  On one hand, as I noted, baseball has much higher operating expenses, so maybe that should necessitate smaller % cut for players?  Flip is that baseball has much higher revenue, with so many zillion games compared to NFL, and with stadiums/attendance so much larger than NBA.  So even if operating expense is much higher $$-wise, perhaps it's lower %-wise relative to revenue?  So I'm not sure whether mlb players-cut should actually be somewhat higher or lower % relative to NBA/NFL. 

Stars made out fine, I'll grant that.
Average Player Salary
2017 : $4,097,121
2025: $4,721,393 (15.2% increase)

Median Player Salary
2017: $1,500,000
2025: $1,350,000 (-10%)

MLB Revenue
2017:$9.46 billion
2025: $12.5 billion (32.1%)

If the fans care about the health and future of the game, they'll be rooting for the players, plain and simple. The owners love the kind of both-sidesism you're seeing here - plays right into their hands.

If the fans care about the health and future of the game, they'll be rooting for the players, plain and simple. The owners love the kind of both-sidesism you're seeing here - plays right into their hands.

I am rooting for the players over the owners.  That's not an issue, but you're being naive if you think those owners are going to pay more out of their pockets.  It's coming out of yours and mine.

But I think the game is more interesting with more competitive opportunity.  I know KC won as recently as 2015, and Miami in 2003; it's not impossible under the current system.  But I kinda like how Green Bay and Kansas City have bewtter, fuller competitive opportunity, Milwaukee Bucks and Oklahoma City Thunder, Pittsburgh Penguins and Minnesota Wild.  I think improving competitive opportunity is good for the game

As a fan interested in the game and competitive opportunity, I think some of the modifications the owner's want is more likely to help than what the players want.  It's not that I "like" billionaires more than millionaires; I just think competitive opportunity is more likely to improve a bit if the next CBA does something to curtail the spending disparity. 

I totally don't believe a salary cap will be accepted by the players, they are super rich and have been stacking money for the lockout for a long time.  Financially they'll be fine to hold out for a long time.  But I do wonder whether, *IF* they would consider some type of super-soft salary cap, whether they might not make a killing in getting concessions advantageous to players.  The concessions for a super-soft cap would be very high.  Shorten FA eligibiliy; arb eligibiliy.  Big boost in salary basement.  Big boost in minimum wage.  *IF* the players would actually concede some kind of capping structure, they could harvest a host of things they've wanted for the last 30 years of CBA's.  The structure of things could change ginormously.  Some of those hypothetical changes might end up being pretty disadvantageous to the Cubs. 

I was thinking more from floor side, that a large jump in floor would bring them closer to us, not that ceiling would pull us down closer to them. 

Passan did a ESPN piece and—in order to replicate current aggregate MLB payrolls—came up with a cap of $280 and a floor of $150. Not sure if that was based on CBT formula or actual Annual.

In any case, several teams currently substantially below $150 and Passan inferred that revenue sharing would have to be altered to accommodate those clubs being able to spend at that level.

I also wonder if a $280 cap might encourage Ricketts to spend closer to $280 since seems Cubs spending kind of tracks CBT level. Give him a league-wide number and maybe he’ll spend to that level.

Interesting how the Bregman signing has changed the Cubs spending narrative, almost everywhere, as in “Cubs now doing what supposed to do.”  But Cubs CBT payroll now sits at $244, only about $5 more than 2024 payroll. Cubs payroll now $12 M below Tigers—hardly a big spending club. Apparently, Cubs were willing to spend an additional $20 or so on Gallen. Too bad didn’t spend that money on bringing back Keller and signing Refsnyder to share DH.