MLB FA Collusion

[Bellhorn04]

Mookie deserved to make $20M in 2017. You know how much he made that year? $1M. What if he had a catastrophic injury? These players need to make the right amount of money.

 

After amassing 20.2 fWAR in 3.5 years, he still only earned $10.5M in 2018. He was unpaid...

 

I don't disagree at all about Mookie.

 

But if we get into players getting paid strictly on what they deserve, you have to deal with the other side of it too-all the players who deserve pay cuts or termination without pay.

[Northern Star]

I don't disagree at all about Mookie.

 

But if we get into players getting paid strictly on what they deserve, you have to deal with the other side of it too-all the players who deserve pay cuts or termination without pay.

 

And we need to be careful about linking salary to stats, because it incentives them in the wrong way.

[Bellhorn04]

There's no way a performance-based pay system can work.

[Northern Star]

There's no way a performance-based pay system can work.

 

So what's this "underpaid" crap?

[Northern Star]

The average salary is now approximately $4,375,000 -- a drop of $36,000 from last season.

 

Of the more than 850 players on a roster on Opening Day this season, more than 40 percent earned close to the league minimum of $555,000, USA Today reported.

 

 

Yeah....still not feeling much sympathy for the players right now.

[Bellhorn04]

So what's this "underpaid" crap?

 

The fact that Mookie is underpaid based on performance and the fact that a performance-based pay system is not feasible are two separate things.

[Northern Star]

The fact that Mookie is underpaid based on performance and the fact that a performance-based pay system is not feasible are two separate things.

 

But how do you separate them? You can't pay them on real-time performance, agreed, but how do you devise an equitable system? Players like Mookie are killing it right out of the gate, when salaries are restricted by the terms of the CBA. So what to do? Have them arbitration eligible from year one? Give arbitrators the ability to set a figure between the two being presented by team and agent?

 

I'm not attacking you here in any way, I'm saying so many are crying about players being underpaid, yet like you say, performance based pay is unfeasible, so what are we left with, besides paying them after the fact in future contracts?

 

If, as seems highly likely, Mookie gets a longterm FA contract of $35mil per year, was he still underpaid right now when considering total career compensation? Because is his future production really "worth" $35mil if you're not paying per HR or per WAR?

 

Obviously, not all players who play well at the start of their career go on to the jackpot contract. Should they be earning more, sooner? What does that do to the economics of the game, where the price of good tickets are already the best part of, if not actually, triple digits? Is it sustainable to have an overwhelming majority of players earning north of $1million in their first or second year?

 

And I'm just throwing out questions here, I don't know the "answer" - as if there is one that will please everyone.

[Northern Star]

This is an interesting article. When salaries started ballooning I thought a rising tide would float all boats, which would be bad because mediocre players would be overpaid in relation to the salaries the top guys are getting. Nowadays, maybe that's not really true and we're seeing a hollowing out between the ultra rich and most of everyone else.

 

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26408949/huge-contracts-big-concerns-going-mlb-salaries