Jack Parkman

You guys can thank my doomposting at 2AM on Monday for this gift.

I actually think it's Vaughn who goes, but that's just me.

My target from Oakland would be Frankie Montas. His stuff will play up in the playoffs. The Sox aren't getting a true ace unless either Cease or Kopech develop into one.

Completely agree here.

I think accepting the flat pre-arb pool is myopic from the MLBPA, but that's just me.

I feel you bro.

MLBPA has been trying to get the owners to open their books since its inception. There is no way in hell they're dropping that lawsuit. None.

I still think they need to fight for yearly increases in the pre-arb bonus pool, and I think the lawsuits should be allowed to continue. Other than that, I think the owners have a good offer.

I'd imagine Lindor is one of them, and I think he's concerned about getting traded.

I'm sorry, I'm allergic to bullshit.

MOAR ownership propaganda.

Same. Where's Howie Mandel when you need him?

Nah, too Catholic.

I think they're close enough that this should get wrapped up in the next week to 10 days. I don't think they're close enough to reach a deal today. I think the most optimistic scenario has them wrapping it up this weekend.

So they're not close to a deal. Great.

I'm sure there will be something.

Ok, for all of you armchair lawyers out there.......MLB has an anti-trust exemption. Do the others in the big 4 have one as well? If not, what protections does MLB have that the other three leagues do not? I'm pleading ignorance here.

Sure, but that is bad for both sides.

Yeah, but free agency isn't what it used to be. Unless a player is a top 25% player they are likely to be journeymen rather than have earned security.

Because of the way they were doing it. This is a non exploitative way to pay for performance. MLB's formulas were using it to suppress wages. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mike-trout-is-a-430-million-bargain/ Mike Trout was worth $79M in 2018 based on fWAR. In this system he would have gotten every penny. This is what I mean by open market WAR values. Fangraphs says "Player X was worth $50M in 2021" Player X gets paid $50M the next year. He earned it.

I'd rather hear from Tim Anderson or other above average non-superstars getting paid a lot less.

In that arrangement, they could do with an escrow type system where a certain percentage of player salaries are put into a pool and distributed according to performance. While acknowledging that MLB players should have to earn their reputation, I think that the main issue that happens now is that players don't get paid the best during their best seasons.

I don't understand why not. The only players that are helped by the status quo are the top 10%. They're throwing everyone else under the bus. A floor would do more for them than keeping the league theoretically uncapped. The other thing is that 3-5 teams are over the tax at a given time, and that's it. If 30 teams had to spend at least $100M that would do a hell of a lot more for player salaries than those few teams with incredibly high payrolls.

BTW I'd have no problem replacing arbitration with fWAR calculation if and only if the fWAR calculation was based on the open market value(in terms of $/fWAR) AND everyone with at least 162 games of experience gets paid accordingly.

I hold teams to a different standard. If they're not willing to spend to that level, if the team warrants it, ownership should not be allowed in the club. I've told you a million times that I think sports franchises are hobbies for billionaires so my view is that ownership should be willing to pour money from their personal bank account into the product on the field. They should be willing to run the teams at a modest deficit during competitive windows. They can make up their losses when the team is re-building. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that owners have an obligation to maximize a contention window when one presents itself. MLB owners are, um, completely ass backwards when it comes to the business of sports. They should be more willing to split up money in revenue sharing. They've lost the forest from the trees. The one thing that I disagree about with the MLBPA is the salary cap, and I think that a cap and floor would be good for middle tier veterans and younger players. The stars will still get theirs.