Baseball Salary Cap Poll?

[AlienCraft]

Originally posted by: Saulbadguy
Also, I imagine if their was a salary cap, the players union would have none of that, and go on strike. End of baseball.

One can only hope.....

 

[Ranger X]

Originally posted by: BlinderBomber
Hard cap the game, reduce the length of the season (significantly)

The season is way too long. I agree.

 

[Nitemare]

Hard cap, looks like I will be pulling for whoever plays the Yankees next year.

 

[Linux23]

Originally posted by: BlinderBomber
Hard cap the game, reduce the length of the season (significantly)

yes, no more than 20 games.

 

[SludgeFactory]

Originally posted by: Argo
I don't think hard cap is such a great idea. Just look at NFL. 90% of the teams from previous years playoffs don't make it in next year. Teams are forced to lose their franchise players because they can't afford to keep them.

I agree, the hard cap SUCKS ASS. Being forced to cut players you want to keep and should be able to keep isn't my idea of fairness or "parity". I think an organization should benefit from its ability to judge young talent, be able to build a core of young players, and then keep most of them together as long as the team wants them.

The reason the hard cap is in place is because the NFL players' union is a joke and settled for the worst collective bargaining agreement in major sports -- despite the fact that their sport is the most popular in the country and generates an insane amount of money.

I think a soft cap is a better idea, maybe better revenue sharing scheme. And contract a couple of teams, especially the ones where owners pocket money - that should improve competetive balance.

Any cap is going to be nearly impossible to get through the players' union, but a soft cap is better than a hard cap.

Revenue sharing is the problem. There's a huge pool of money here, because of TV and fans who're willing to spend $$$$ on tickets/concessions/parking, but it's not distributed to the extent that the other sports do. They should share the local broadcast money more and force the cheap teams (many of whom are hiding behind the "small market" excuse) to spend their increased handout instead of pocketing it.

This disparity is only going to continue to get worse, every generation of broadcast technology brings in an increasing amount of revenue (radio, OTA TV, cable TV). HDTV is coming on strong now, and 10 yrs from now there will be something else that costs even more.

 

[RabidMongoose]

Originally posted by: Ladies Man
Everyone keeps yelling about this....

what team won the world series last year, and how much money did they spend?

Any team can really win the world series right now. But what team lost their starting catcher, one of their starting pitchers, one of their RF, their 1B, and two of their 'closers'? The same team that won the WS. The Marlins lost Pudge, Lee, Encarnacion, Looper, Urbina. The problem is that a small market team will have a very hard time competing over a length of time, unless they develop a miracle like the A's did in having three aces at the same time...and the A's still lost their star players.

 

[RabidMongoose]

I agree with the guys saying that an NFL revenue sharing/cap wouldnt' work for baseball. The economics of the two sports are just completely different.

They need more revenue sharing and luxury tax penalities at the very least. Having a team with a $200 million payroll (and effectively being around $230? million) is ridiculous when some teams can't even have a $50 million payroll. If revenue sharing/luxury tax could somehow bring the two closer together, then that would be a lot better.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Argo

Originally posted by: BDawg
There's a reason the NFL is the most successful of the sports. There are no Yankees to un-balance the league. Heck, there are barely any Bungles or 'Aints.

No, NFL is the most successful because:

1) They have only 16 games (people would rathe miss 1 baseball game out of 162, than 1 football game out of 16)
2) The contracts aren't guaranteed. Make a stupid signing like Rangers and Arod and you can simply release him, without having to pay for your mistake
3) Playoffs are single elimination, so that the worse team has a chance to upset a better one. Does anybody think Pats would've beaten Rams if there were playing best out of 7?
4) Draft. NFL college players are much closer to being pros than baseball. The first 5-6 picks are almost guaranteed to be a superstar, so the the team with the worst record is goign to improve vastly.
5) NFL has a much better marketting compaign and a better media contract. Just think about it - they have the whole day (Sunday) devoted to football, wherein most people don't even know what time baseball games s tart.
6) Of course, salary cap has a lot to do with it too. Teams are forced to part with their superstars because they can't keep them. Just look at Skins and Bailey for example.
7) Better management - Tagliabu is 10x smarter than Selig. Plus, MLB players union has 10x the power of NFL's, thus they can get away with a lot more crap.

So there are a lot of reasons NFL is more popular than MLB and cap is only one of them.

8) the state subsidy to the NFL is much much bigger than MLB. (basketball's is also much bigger, but not as big as the NFL's)

 

[SludgeFactory]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Argo

Originally posted by: BDawg
There's a reason the NFL is the most successful of the sports. There are no Yankees to un-balance the league. Heck, there are barely any Bungles or 'Aints.

No, NFL is the most successful because:

1) They have only 16 games (people would rathe miss 1 baseball game out of 162, than 1 football game out of 16)
2) The contracts aren't guaranteed. Make a stupid signing like Rangers and Arod and you can simply release him, without having to pay for your mistake
3) Playoffs are single elimination, so that the worse team has a chance to upset a better one. Does anybody think Pats would've beaten Rams if there were playing best out of 7?
4) Draft. NFL college players are much closer to being pros than baseball. The first 5-6 picks are almost guaranteed to be a superstar, so the the team with the worst record is goign to improve vastly.
5) NFL has a much better marketting compaign and a better media contract. Just think about it - they have the whole day (Sunday) devoted to football, wherein most people don't even know what time baseball games s tart.
6) Of course, salary cap has a lot to do with it too. Teams are forced to part with their superstars because they can't keep them. Just look at Skins and Bailey for example.
7) Better management - Tagliabu is 10x smarter than Selig. Plus, MLB players union has 10x the power of NFL's, thus they can get away with a lot more crap.

So there are a lot of reasons NFL is more popular than MLB and cap is only one of them.

8) the state subsidy to the NFL is much much bigger than MLB. (basketball's is also much bigger, but not as big as the NFL's)

9) Football translates to a TV screen better than any other sport (basketball is a nice fit too, is it coincidence that it's #2?) They play on a rectangular field, almost all the players line up inside a relatively small area that conveniently fits well inside a 4:3 TV screen (16:9 fits the field even better), and have a big ball that's easy to follow with a camera. For actually seeing the plays, a seat in front of a TV screen is better than most seats in the stands.

 

[Kelemvor]

Baseball is so nuts right now in that there are some teams that have no chance in hell to ever make it to the world series and soem power house teams that make it close every year. Until they put in some sort of cap, it'll always be that way. Football used to be like that and there were eras of certain teams dominating everything. Now it's much more even and such. Look at the difference between an almost 200million salary amoutn for one team and a 30 million for another. How the hel is one supposed to compete with the other? It's just not possible.