Question of the week: do you care more about a floor or a cap?

[BrewerFan]

5 hours ago, Thurston Fluff said:

 

It's amazing to me that there aren't more high revenue teams with great farms. When you can buy all the best players it creates a road block for all the talent on the farm. Which goes back to my belief that money stifles innovation. Certainly there will be teams like the Dodgers who do both. But for every Dodger franchise doing both there is a Mets team failing upward. 

I'll stick to my belief that necessity in the mother of invention here. Nothing is going to be 100% effective but there are ways to make it better. Simply having a floor or cap won't do it. But I think if there's going to be one or the other (which is what this the premise of this thread) I think a floor with revenue sharing is better than a cap with or without it. I base that on the idea that if all the teams make the same amount of money they'll be forced to find other ways to win than just buying the best players. I don't think it's an unreasonable belief.

I agree that if you had a preference, more revenue sharing and a floor would be preferable.

I don't think you were ever "unreasonable," I just disagreed that you stop seeing innovation if you had revenue sharing and a salary cap.

The Dodgers, Yankees, they are more likely to get a their pick among LA or Japanese players who come over. Sasaki was the #1 prospect last year. But, I was also thinking about how many players the Dodgers are locked into. It's a lot harder to break their 26 man obviously, so while they're always more aggressive on the trade block, I would think they'd have better systems in general also. The Dodgers just a couple years ago were absolutely loaded with pitching prospects. Miller, Gavin Stone, Pepiot, Sheehan... a list probably 8-9 deep of guys who threw in the upper 90s and had huge upsides, but they've traded a couple and most of the others have had injuries. So I agree there. The Dodgers do have a loaded system, but you would think the Yankees, Mets, Phillies, those other teams would also consistently have an elite system. 

 
I do see your perspective. Out limited payroll also... in a round about way kinda protects us or forces us to be creative and look into alternatives(or innovative as you said). If we had a 200M payroll or the ability to spend 200M, I'd assume Willy Adames would have been extended, perhaps Burnes for example. Do we still go out and make those trades for Priester or Kyle Harrison if we have Burnes? That's up for debate. Burnes will be back and I assume he'll be really good but nobody would prefer Burnes and his contract over Harrison at this point. 

[Trail]

13 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

I agree that if you had a preference, more revenue sharing and a floor would be preferable.

I don't think you were ever "unreasonable," I just disagreed that you stop seeing innovation if you had revenue sharing and a salary cap.

The Dodgers, Yankees, they are more likely to get a their pick among LA or Japanese players who come over. Sasaki was the #1 prospect last year. But, I was also thinking about how many players the Dodgers are locked into. It's a lot harder to break their 26 man obviously, so while they're always more aggressive on the trade block, I would think they'd have better systems in general also. The Dodgers just a couple years ago were absolutely loaded with pitching prospects. Miller, Gavin Stone, Pepiot, Sheehan... a list probably 8-9 deep of guys who threw in the upper 90s and had huge upsides, but they've traded a couple and most of the others have had injuries. So I agree there. The Dodgers do have a loaded system, but you would think the Yankees, Mets, Phillies, those other teams would also consistently have an elite system. 

 
I do see your perspective. Out limited payroll also... in a round about way kinda protects us or forces us to be creative and look into alternatives(or innovative as you said). If we had a 200M payroll or the ability to spend 200M, I'd assume Willy Adames would have been extended, perhaps Burnes for example. Do we still go out and make those trades for Priester or Kyle Harrison if we have Burnes? That's up for debate. Burnes will be back and I assume he'll be really good but nobody would prefer Burnes and his contract over Harrison at this point. 

I think you just brought up an interesting point about the Brewers position in the marketplace.  Being where they are relieves them of the need to re-sign productive, popular, but declining (or about to decline) players.  For instance...no way I'd have signed Willie to any sort of a long term deal...even if we had the payroll to do it.  (the deal he got from SF was irresponsible, IMO)  The limited payroll forces some terrible choices, but you're also not making some of the bad investments that we see.  (ya...at the end of the day I'd still rather have the money)  In a way the Brewers are freed from making emotional decisions to please the fan base? 

[Playing Catch]

I prefer neither. The game is in a good place. I actually am optimistic that they will peaceably come to an agreement that satisfies both groups w/o a cap&floor, but with continued modifications to the systems already in place. More money will go to the players in some fashion or another in exchange for enhanced revenue sharing (including streamlining and standardizing local TV/MLB.TV) to mollify middle-market shoppers in free agency.

[BrewerFan]

18 hours ago, Trail said:

I think you just brought up an interesting point about the Brewers position in the marketplace.  Being where they are relieves them of the need to re-sign productive, popular, but declining (or about to decline) players.  For instance...no way I'd have signed Willie to any sort of a long term deal...even if we had the payroll to do it.  (the deal he got from SF was irresponsible, IMO)  The limited payroll forces some terrible choices, but you're also not making some of the bad investments that we see.  (ya...at the end of the day I'd still rather have the money)  In a way the Brewers are freed from making emotional decisions to please the fan base? 

You're assuming we'd wait and then have to match or beat the Giants.

We wanted to re-sign Willy and they had some talks in '23 about extending him and then before '24. The last one where they said they made a 9 figure offer was probably not competitive, but... it also wouldn't have to have been what the Giants did. They could have extended him before the last year. And not to make too many arguments at once, but... 7 years 175 was a pretty conservative estimate for Willy. I don't see 7 182.5 being crazy. It's Dansby Swanson a couple years later(and the Giants who couldn't find anyone who wanted to sign there no matter how much money was thrown at them). 

Anyway, I just think you're underestimating the value Willy had to the Brewers his last year and the chances the Brewers work something out IF they have a 200M payroll... but we agree that less than 2 years in with Made and Pena busting onto the scene and Pratt, now Jett, we'd be regretting it.