Attanasio still pushing salary cap

[berniebrewer4life]

I'm all for a salary cap as long as it is accompanied by a floor. Level the playing field as much as possible and let the players decide it all on the field. If the Yankee's win it all next year what does that prove? That you can buy a championship in baseball? Just doesn't sound very exciting to me.

This is the key, IMO. I think putting a cap at say, 80 mil, and a floor of 40 or 50 would be ideal, as it would maintain balance on both ends.

[PKBadger]

I think the NFL parity has a lot more to do with the scheduling than the salary cap/player movement. Honestly, has the core of the Packers team changed that dramatically (besides Favre) over the past 5 years? The notable players (Driver, Kampman, Barnett, Al Harris, Clifton) have all been with the team for several years - you probably could have added Javon Walker to that list if he would have just played out his contract. The same can be said for a lot of franchises....Colts with Manning, Harrison, Wayne and Clark; Steelers with Big Ben, Hines Ward, Polamalu. The changes are mainly with the role players and roster filler - guys I used to refer to as "commons" when I collected baseball cards.

 

Same thing happens in baseball...Brewers will have a core group of guys that will be relied upon for 5 years or so (Braun, YoGa, Parra, Fielder, Hardy) and the others will be a revolving door. Just look at how much our bullpen changes from year to year.

 

One thing that I hope DOES NOT happen is a situation like the NBA's salary cap. You constantly hear about "acquiring so-and so's expiring contract" and every trade has to match up perfectly. Dumb. Plus the whole idea of having "max contracts" sickens me.

[owbc]

I think the issue with the NFL is that the teams with the worst records get the easiest schedule the following season. Miami's schedule this year was a joke--they played Arizona, San Diego, Houston, Baltimore, Denver, Seattle, Oakland, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Kansas City. Only two of those teams had winning records in 2007. No wonder they made the playoffs. A few smart moves by Detroit (which apparently requires at least some competence) and they have a chance next year. If the Packers played that non-divisional schedule, they would have been a playoff team this year.

 

Still, I agree with others here that a salary cap isn't necessarily the best or most fair option. What do you set the salary cap at? What would the minimum be? What happens to the extra revenue for teams like the Yankees?

 

Without major revenue sharing, you can't just force the lower teams to spend $60 million or so per year--and what if they are spending millions on player development and the minor leagues that doesn't go into the payroll? As for the Yankees, if you hold them at $150 million or so, do the owners just get to pocket the extra money or do you force them to put significantly more back into the pot?

 

I don't have all the answers, but I don't think a salary cap could be achieved without a long strike. This could possibly work out well if the fans feel like progress was made (like in the NHL), but if it backfires, baseball could get knocked down to the same level as hockey. I fully support Mark A. for setting this as a goal, but I would be fine with the following concessions:

 

1) Increased revenue sharing with the criteria based on net income and not payroll

2) Get foreign players in the draft

[sbrylski]

Which is why we now have to impose new rules and spend billions to bail out those companies that the free market failed. This would not be the time to use the America is based on free market principals argument.

 

Overregulation led to the collapse, especially of the housing market. Head to BF.net Political Scene if you want to discuss it.

[RightFieldCoder]

If baseball was truly a free market, Mark A could build a new ballpark across the street from the Yankee's stadium and market themselves in NY.

[AJAY]

God Bless Mark Attanasio. I am giving him a major standing ovation right this very minute. The players union and the Yankees have held this sport and this nation hostage for way too long. It's time to end the absurdity and finally level the playing field with a salary cap. It's time to give the game back to the people of America. The nonsense has gone on way too long.

 

And yes, I need to say it again. . . The players union is one of the most worthless and disgraceful organizations outside of terrorists. I want to see the union get destroyed and I will personally throw the biggest celebration in human history on the day that the players union falls hard on it's rear end.

 

If you think people celebrated hard when the Berlin Wall came crumbling down, you haven't seen anything yet.

 

GO MARK ATTANSIO !!!!

[Ennder]

I would love to have an even playing field

You do realize a salary cap wouldn't give you this at all though? It might be 'more even' but it certainly wouldn't be even.

[danzig6767]

The problem i see for anyone wanting a cap is that even if the players union shocked the world by agreeing to a cap, odds are very very high that the maximum cap number would be large enough that it really only affected the Yankees a lot and maybe teams like the Mets/Red Sox a little bit.

 

Outside of mainly teams in the AL East, it would likely do very little to prevent the gaps in payroll. I see no chance an NFL or NBA like cap would ever get through the players union, so i'm not seeing where the dramatic change in baseballs economics would come from even if a cap was passed. They aren't going to accept say a 100-120-140 million dollar maximum cap ceiling, so what's the big advantage of a cap if your team isn't in the AL East?

[razzzorsharp]

I think we should have a player draft everyyear just like I have in MVP 05.

[snyttri]

There's not much justification for a salary cap to achieve financial balance when the owners can't even agree among themselves how to equitably divide revenues. When they figure out how to get some teams from just pocketing the revenue sharing they already have and how to better even out revenues, the salary cap proposal might sound more timely.

 

Here's an article that proposes the luxury tax distribution take the form of an interest free loan instead of a donation. If a team doesn't spend the money on payroll it goes to the league office. Solving Baseball's Financial Inequities

 

Maybe Bud is the wrong commissioner to force the stingiest teams to compete. It doesn't seem that he always scoured the nation to find the best possible management for the Brewers.

 

Overregulation led to the collapse, especially of the housing market. Head to BF.net Political Scene if you want to discuss it. Also, the black is white debate.

 

Sometimes there's a tendency not to want to blame the people in charge. Who would the MLBPA even negotiate with? The Steinbrenners, Mets, Sawx, Cubs and LA teams probably don't want to lower their player expenses to what the Marlins spend if it means giving up their competitive advantage in signing players. MLB already spends less on player salaries as a percentage of revenues than other sports, down 11 per cent since 2003.

 

MLB players' share of leaguewide revenue at about 52 percent. This Sports Business Journal article also mentions that the NFL is considering giving up its salary cap.

[logan82]

MLB already spends less on player salaries as a percentage of revenues than other sports

 

There are more players than just MLB players in baseball. Baseball franchises have many more expenses with scouting and minor league teams than any other professional sport.

 

I think part of the drop in the percentage is partially because teams are starting to pay less for middling talent(fewer Suppan contracts, although that might be just this offseason) and lock up their own players much sooner for reasonable contracts.(Braun type deals)

[snyttri]

There are more players than just MLB players in baseball. Baseball franchises have many more expenses with scouting and minor league teams than any other professional sport.

 

I think part of the drop in the percentage is partially because teams are starting to pay less for middling talent(fewer Suppan contracts, although that might be just this offseason) and lock up their own players much sooner for reasonable contracts.(Braun type deals).

Even though developmental expenses are high for MLB (is NHL and NBA scouting cheap?), the problem doesn't seem to be that MLB salaries are excessive as a whole compared to revenues or compared to other sports. As your post and the trend since 2003 illustrates owners are capable of limiting MLB salaries without a cap by signing fewer excessive contracts. Baseball's record revenue season doesn't necessarily cry out for change even if a team spends the record revenue extravagantly.

[GAME05]

it won't be until New York wins three World Series' in a row before there's any significant conversation on creating further parity in baseball. a little hard to complain about New York taking advantage of everyone else after they miss the playoffs.

[logan82]

Even though developmental expenses are high for MLB (is NHL and NBA scouting cheap?)

 

MLB teams have to put much more money into development of players than other sports do. No, the scouting isn't cheap, but I would guess that there is much more scouting involved in baseball than other sports. I doubt to many of the other sports, except hockey, scout at the high school level as extensively or run player development programs in other countries.

 

There is a big difference in how the sports are run so talking about how baseball has a smaller percentage of their expenses in MLB player contracts is really misleading. If they included money for all the minor league players(including signing bonuses) then there might be a good basis for comparison.

 

Not overpaying for mediocrity is just a good business decision.

 

I have no problem with the Yankees spending their money however they want. I have a problem with the lack of revenue sharing.

 

Edit: It also doesn't seem reasonable to expect player salaries to increase with revenues when MLB is having record breaking years in attendance year after year.

 

I could be wrong, but I think the average age of players is going down as well. Something to check into. If the average age is going down it seems likely that instead of signing that aging veteran to sit on the bench, teams are opting for a young cheap player instead.

[nate82]

MLB teams have to put much more money into development of players than other sports do. No, the scouting isn't cheap, but I would guess that there is much more scouting involved in baseball than other sports. I doubt to many of the other sports, except hockey, scout at the high school level as extensively or run player development programs in other countries.

MLB and the NHL are very similar in scouting. Both go to other countries to scout players for the NHL it is Europe and in MLB it is Asia and South America. The NHL is the only sport that you could compare to MLB. The scouting and farm systems is somewhat similar MLB is deeper.

 

Revenue sharing does need to increase though. I'm hoping in the next CBA that revenue sharing will increase with the inclusion of TV contracts counting towards revenue sharing. I believe teams like the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, and Cubs should have to share some of the revenue that they get from their TV contracts.

 

There should also be a minimum team salary cap. Minimum team salary cap would be determined by adding Scouting, farm system, and player salaries together to get a minimum salary. Also all players wishing to enter MLB should have to be drafted if they are from the age of 17-26 years old. No one under the age of 17 can enter the MLB draft. I really hate it that players from Latin America and Japan get to skip the draft and sign to teams with the most money.

 

I also believe MLB needs to make its own camps in China and not let teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and other teams to set up camps there and basically get a scouting edge on every other team in MLB.

[TooLiveBrew]

Really? Donald Fehr's insistance on not having a salary cap seems to be problem caused by the players.

 

I will never understand why excessive greed on the owners' parts is almost completely tolerated by fans, but players are just scathed for it.

 

The only thing a payroll cap would really do imo is ensure that the employees most responsible for the product are paid a disproportionately lower rate, and the owners would just rake in obscene amounts of cash.

[Tbadder]

I'm a little disappointed in Mark. There's absolutely no way a salary cap is going to happen, ever. He's gonna embarrass himself. It almost like he was in somekind of denial when he bought the team. Didn't he know there was no way he could compete long term, consistently? That the best he could hope for was the occasional shot at the wild card?

[Invader3K]

I'm a little disappointed in Mark. There's absolutely no way a salary cap is going to happen, ever. He's gonna embarrass himself. It almost like he was in somekind of denial when he bought the team. Didn't he know there was no way he could compete long term, consistently? That the best he could hope for was the occasional shot at the wild card?

Come on...realistically, the Brewers could at least compete for four or five years before having to go into rebuild mode. Absolutely no one said "Well, they will be able to make the playoffs one time, and then have no chance to make the playoffs going forward."

[Invader3K]

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/a..._id=mlb&partnerId=rss_mlb

 

MLB.com story on Selig at the owner's meeting. He paints a pretty rosy picture of baseball's current situation, so that ties into why I don't think you will see any real changes right now. There's just not that much incentive for the majority of the owners to press for change when the sport is basically awash in cash.

[Thurston Fluff]

I think the issue with the NFL is that the teams with the worst records get the easiest schedule the following season.

 

That used top be the case but the new scheduleing formula make sthat pretty insignificant now. I think the issue of parity in the NFL is it prohibits teams from maintaining their depth. As soon as a tema gets good enough it gets it's roster raided and they can't rebuild it as easily because they are drafting so low every round. Then they get a few injuries and are introuble. All the NFL would have to do is snake the draft order where the last pick in the first round gets the first int he second and the well run teams would be able to maintain their edge in a competetively fair way.

 

I will never understand why excessive greed on the owners' parts is almost completely tolerated by fans, but players are just scathed for it.

 

I have a theory on that. the average fan has no idea what the owner makes so it's hard to criticize an abstract number as opposed to: A-Rod made $25 million this year and had the same numbers as player X who make half as much. The other factor is most fans sort of believe the owner making more money translates to spending more on the team. So in a weird way the fans want the owner to make the money and criticize the player for taking some of it away since that could go to pay someone they invariably believe would be better.

The only thing a payroll cap would really do imo is ensure that the employees most responsible for the product are paid a disproportionately lower rate, and the owners would just rake in obscene amounts of cash.

 

This can be negotiated. If the players get a certain % of the gross revenue there is no reason the players can't make the same or even more on average than they do now. In fact if every team could be good enough to compete I think the over all revenue would go up. If the over all revenue goes up so does the amount the players get.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

The only thing a payroll cap would really do imo is ensure that the employees most responsible for the product are paid a disproportionately lower rate, and the owners would just rake in obscene amounts of cash.

For the large market teams, sure, but Mark A. wouldn't be raking in the cash if the salary cap was around 80 million or so. There are some pretty big contracts given out in the NFL and NBA so I don't think the players would lose a whole lot in this deal. Look at Aaron Rodgers. He's worth 70 million in the Packers minds. Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett signed 100 million dollar plus deals a few years back.

 

I can't believe after an offseason like this one where the Yankees spend 400 million dollars that people can defend the current rules of baseball. There is clearly something wrong when one team can sign that many type A free agents in one offseason.

[Tbadder]

No. Realistically I am saying the Brewer organization will never be competitive, except say every 28 years or so, for a few years and then usually only for a Wild Card. The whole structure of baseball is such that small market teams really don't have long term competitive viability.

 

Unless, and this has only been done once (the Twinkies), unless they can continue to churn out major leaguers from the minors--something the Brewers haven't done on a consistent basis. It's not enough to produce a "wave" every four or five years. They need to bring people in on a yearly basis that will hold down their payroll, solidify their rotation, produce relievers, and add one or two regulars as needed. Until they do this I don't believe they will be competitive, and this is such a tall order that it probably remains a pipe dream.

 

The problem with the "wave" is that just like this year, that wave hits arby all at the same time. And as soon as the Brewers have multiple people going to arby that sops up all available monies, and they're right back at the beginning, their hands tied, hoping against hope.

 

Are they even going to be competitive next year as it stands (I realize that could change) no. No. No. No. Their rotation is a shell of its former self and they have to rely on the unreliable, they have no depth in the rotation. In short they are a five hundred team at best. Not to say they won't be interesting, or entertaining, or worth rooting for, but they won't be in the running for a playoff position unless the stars align.

[TooLiveBrew]

For the large market teams, sure, but Mark A. wouldn't be raking in the cash if the salary cap was around 80 million or so.

 

How do you figure? The money would still be there over 162 games, and if one is setting an arbitrary limit on how much a team can spend (a figure lower than or equal to the current payroll in this example), the profit margin should increase no matter the market size. Yes, the bigger markets will turn even better profits, but that's just how it is now.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

How do you figure? The money would still be there over 162 games, and if one is setting an arbitrary limit on how much a team can spend (a figure lower than or equal to the current payroll in this example), the profit margin should increase no matter the market size. Yes, the bigger markets will turn even better profits, but that's just how it is now.

Fair enough, but do you honestly think what the Yankees are doing this offseason is good for baseball and that the rules are ok the way they are now? If you do, I strongly disagree.

[sveumrules]

I can't believe after an offseason like this one where the Yankees spend 400 million dollars that people can defend the current rules of baseball. There is clearly something wrong when one team can sign that many type A free agents in one offseason.

the yankees are consistently amongst the highest offseason spenders. that they spent 400 million in one offseason is no surprise to me especially considering the amount of expiring contracts they had, that they missed the playoffs, and they are moving into a new stadium. i think i even saw somewhere that their payroll will probably end up being LOWER next year than it was last year.