Look at Ray Ray Run

Lol No one show South Side sox this!

The money difference now, at least the legit legal dollars, are practically not different between current structure and the draft.

You implied the players should accept because it was better than the last deal. My point is the bar is pretty low if you're using that as your baseline.

I'm not at all defending the current system. I'm merely pointing out that the freedom to chose where to play matters much more to a player entering a culture and society that is vastly different than their own.

I think people are really underselling comfort when getting acclimated to a new culture. People now make their decision based on money AND relationships. That comfort or offerings of assistance with assimilation are huge for any international player. It's not all about baseball. I think that's the major component here.

The players got bent in the last deal leading to them losing like 3% of the total revenue share and it further destroyed the mid-level player. It also further promoted tanking and anti-competitive practices.

Who says they're bullshit. Theres a shit ton of nuance and fine print in any deal. To say something is a great deal because of a couple leaked components is laughable imo.

To think David fucking Ortiz is having significant pull on the international draft component is so ducked up. The guy is probably exploiting kids down there for MLB. Probably why he got shot.

Literally impossible for us to know how good the deal is. All you've read about is owner leaks of their own proposal.

Who gives a shit what this cheater thinks. Very few players I'm more tired from hearing from than Ortiz. Shame he has such an impact on DR players.

You can also agree in principal to the cba and the concept of the international draft and set parameters within to finalize the nitty gritty over the next few weeks.

This would be problematic for a lot of reasons.

I think the issue with drafts is that it caps earnings for players who may be worth quite a bit more and then ties up their rights for years without them actually being able to earn what they are truly work.

I'm not going to keep going back and forth on this, but a guaranteed contract that lowers average earnings by 15% league wide is not better than non-guaranteed contracts that guarantees an average salary 15% higher league wide.

Revenue splits are fixed in other leagues. So yes, players are guaranteed to get those values.

again, this completely ignores that guaranteed contracts are not more important than receiving hundreds of millions of dollars more in total compensation distributed amongst the pool of possible participants. No one is saying guarantees don't have value; they had immense value when MLB was getting 48% and other sports were getting 48%. Guarantees are not worth giving up 7-8% of guaranteed earnings. That is illogical.

As is the case in almost any industry, if the competition is paying the average player more, it's going to lift the salaries of the average player league wide. So if the CBT goes up and 5-7 teams push that threshold, then in turn it could cause the escalation of wages for the middle. This hasn't always worked in practice in baseball, but it has in other industries. Even though there's a gap between the biggest spenders and the smallest ones, in theory that gap should not continue to grow; so as those at the top spend more and more, the bottom should come up to remain competitive. This would help the middle-tier player of which the lower level teams are often "competing" for as they can't compete at the top of the market; at least they claim that, they all obviously could.

I'm not sure what you're arguing here. Guarantees are certainly nice, but at the end of the day if the players in totality are receiving 8% less of the total revenue then their avg career earnings in relation to revenue will be 8% less than it would be with non-guaranteed contracts. Is there more risk? Sure. Would the spread of wealth have greater variance? Possibly, but at the same time the middle class has been cut out of much of baseball's growth regardless. Baseball isn't exactly a high turnover industry of which you are so replaceable that non-guaranteed contracts would greatly impact the majority of individuals. Turnover may be high in relation to other industries given the short careers, but the talent pool for employees is much lower than other fields. If the pie has 1 million dollars and I give 48% to my workers but don't guarantee anyone's contract, I am still guaranteed to distribute $480,000 to my employees. That may mean I cut some bad contracts and sign some new ones, but the total distribution remains the same. If the pie has 1 million dollars and I give 40% to my workers, and guarantee contracts, then my total guaranteed distribution to players is $400,000. My turnover might be slightly lower because of the guarantee, but the average workers wages are also going to be lower. It would be more valuable to the average worker to have the opportunity to earn from the bigger piece of the pie than it would for some bad contracts to be terminated. While turnover would heighten slightly, the industry isn't flush enough with MLB talent by which my replaceability would go to a new flock; if anything, it would likely be redistributed to the middle class of the league and the other active players.

The benefits are definitely better, as is the pension plan, but it really doesn't matter if they're guaranteed or not if the total distribution of revenue is significantly lower.

honestly can't tell if this is a joke or serious.

I mean, I care because I love watching baseball in summer. I'm never really active in the baseball world as much in the off-season (on this forum and alike) because frankly I put too much time in already during the season and prepping for the season. Also because, just the way work is for me, my busiest months of the year are often October/November-February so I have other priorities like I think most here do. That said, I hope the players don't get screwed because the more power the owners get, the worse the game gets it feels like. This will sound crazy coming from me, but baseball is more fun when more teams aren't trying to operate in the most efficient way possible. Efficiencies have their place in the world, the quest to maximize them employ people like me, but as ownership continues to move more and more towards operating baseball like a portfolio, the enjoyment of the game does decline. Baseball has always been worse than other sports at marketing itself, but I think it's gotten so much worse over the past two decades it's honestly tough to even believe. They have no idea how to utilize social media and use fans to spread the game because their obsessed about maximizing property rights $'s and refuse to let highlights and etc be posted by non-affiliated sources. They have no idea how to live in the streaming world (Which is so damn ironic given that they saw it coming before any other league) as their owners care more about maximizing local TV dollars over maximizing game exposure and fan viewership. This goes hand in hand with the destruction and disrespect shown to minor leaguers who they view as an inefficient way to develop talent so they don't invest in the systems or growing the game in small towns via these franchises and teams; they want to eliminate much of this aspect of the game because in the short term it's impact is beneficial to the bottom line. With values growing so much, owners care more about their short term growth and gains over the overall growth of the product. They don't care about trying to put some fun and exciting talent on the field if the team isn't "projected" to be "good," and they view spending money on an 80 win team as a waste, so they tank away years under the guise of "building a winner." It's the entertainment industry, maximizing efficiencies tend to have a negative impact on the overall product.

The risk with wet balls is to the batter, not the pitchers. Even with a new ball every pitch the glove is wet, your hands get wet, and the ball slips. With guys throwing 100 MPH way more often no one wants to assume that risk.

Not sure how this is good news. This is also terrible negotiating by the players. If you expand playoffs to 14 teams in hopes of upping the CBT, there's really no need for owners to even push the limits of the tax because the playoffs become that much more of a crap shoot and your regular season eliteness means very little so there's not much reason to spend huge dollars to get bounced by an 83 win team in a short playoff series. This would be a horrendous miscalculation by the players union and would honestly harm the integrity of the regular season and the sport imo. I, speaking for me personally, would likely watch fewer regular season games with the expansion going that far.

The players have stated they have attempted to negotiate and meet since the lockout started but the owners have not wanted to. Hard to blame the players in that situation; takes two to meet.

I agree with this 100%. This is a good point.