Fear The Chorizo

Rodgers back means Adams is back...likely means Turner sticks around at least one more season and also at least one of the Smiths are brought back for the defense. What I'm interested in seeing is if Rodgers' new deal alters the market in a way not by dollars / season, but by extended deferred payments similar to the route baseball has been going with mega contracts. I fully expect a huge dollar amount with monster signing bonus, but I'm guessing the parameters will be a 5-7 year deal to spread that bonus out for 2022 cap reasons even if he's not going to play that much longer. Is there anything in the CBA or NFL player contract rules that prohibits some sort of an extended, deferred money contract? Something along the parameters of an annual salary while playing of $15M a season with performance escalators, and then once a player retires that contract would pay a player $5M a year in perpetuity?? These numbers are just examples of what I'm thinking could be the framework of a new contract for Rodgers - not saying he'd agree to a deal like that or even if it would be in the Packers' best longterm interest to offer a contract like that but would be interested if it's even possible.

If the game is the product then why dont they broadcast Indy league baseball nationwide with a huge TV contract? It's because the players are third-rate, that's why. The product is the best PLAYERS in the world, playing the game. If these 1200 players played in a different league in the United States, with 30 teams, all different team names and a few different cities, different mascots and different uniforms, then that is the league that would get the TV contracts. It would be disingenuous to ignore that reality. Because those Indy league players aren't on MLB teams, and MLB has the nationwide broadcasts....sure it's the best players in the world right this second - and they are being paid as such. Honestly if organizations simply just completely locked out all MLBPA members and opted to run a regular season with a mix of their non-40 man roster top 15 prospects and international free agents/AAAA journeyman those TV contracts would still be there. By the time those TV contracts came up for renewal, all those prospects and young players would be in their primes, so neither their value or fan interest of following their teams would decline. Ultimately this is going to get figured out - players and owners need each other much more than they'll ever realize or admit, because they have to remain in harmony in order to maximize the money they take from us poor saps.

I think most people believe that Pete Rose should be reinstated and in the HOF. Cardinal sin it may be, but i think it's fair to question if it should be. Betting on your own team to win a game doesn't compromise the integrity of that game. Betting against your own team? Yes, I can understand. Any officials/referees placing a bet? Yes, I can understand. Any other bet that doesn't compromise an outcome, why do we care? It's a pandora's box pro sports teams don't want to open, simple as that. I don't disagree with some of your points, but it's like insider trading in a sense where any aspect of it is skeezy and damages the integrity of the game IMO. It's not like players don't know one another on other teams, so just because it's not betting on the team you play for there's not loopholes for impropriety through back channels.

The players are the product Ultimately, the games are the product. Great players enhance the product and make it more marketable, but at the end of the day TV contracts are tied to broadcasting games, not reality shows revolving around players. This lockout/work stoppage is hurting the product, for both the players that play the games and the owners who own the organizations across MLB that put on the games and manage everything else that goes into it.

That has been addressed in previous rules to try and keep batters in the box - it used to be much worse than it currently is. Also, Braun is still retired so him not hitting 4-5 times a game for one team has actually lowered the average gametime leaguewide by a couple minutes from what it otherwise should have been Recent years, it's predominantly been the pitchers driving the slow time between pitches with their own routines, and hitters have had that lag time to do their own theatrics in and out of the box. My personal gripe is relievers who only pitch from the set, yet seemingly take forever and a day to actually come set and deliver a pitch with nobody on base. Kenley Jansen (by far not the only one, but a great example) has some weird way of coming set that is almost like a quadruple clutch to reinforce keeping his front side closed - having a pitch clock in place will hopefully keep a consistent pace in game action, and I think we'll see it benefit the late innings the most to induce many relievers to actually deliver the damn pitch already.

Pete Rose was banned for life from baseball after betting on the game. Pro sports leagues aren't courts of law - blame the judicial system for players like Hunt being able to continue playing after a half season ban because he wasn't still in prison after assaulting someone. Weird enough as the optics are, gambling on the league you play in is a cardinal sin for members of professional sports teams and is typically a fireable offense - workplaces everywhere have plenty of instantly fireable offenses that aren't also felonies or even misdemeanors.

Highly doubt a bigger base will shorten the distance, as the home plate-facing edges at 1st and 3rd can still be positioned exactly 90' from the plate. My geometry is out of practice - but I think the difficulty in maintaining exactly 90' between the bags gets iffy at 2B - is the rule change to change the bag size at all 3 bases or just 1st? If it's all 3 bases, there might be a slightly shorter distance to and from 2B if they want to keep the bags perfectly aligned - that could be resolved by slightly shifting 2nd back and over a couple inches to preserve 90' from the inside corner of that bag to both 1st and 3rd base, the rest of the base would just appear to be a little off center.

I wish hitters weren't so reliant on the TTO but as we've seen over the past five years, the shift hasn't deterred them from that route in the slightest bit. Removing the shift isn't a perfect solution but it's better than nothing, as hitters have shown they will not adjust their swing to compensate, there's just too much value in the occasional line drive over going oppo every once in awhile. To me part if that is teams haven't had enough time to change the type of offensive players coming up through the system that are capable of defeating shifts... baseball became a TTO- focused sport by emphasizing power over contact for a decade or longer. Shifting has really been in vogue for the last handful of years - players drafted and developed with the emphasis on power arent going to change their stripes once they are major leaguers overnight - what we have seen is some teams start prioritizing contact hitters a bit more even if it sacrifices some power, and baseball would have eventually evolved to reduce the benefit of shifting if they just left it alone with the type of players coming into the league.

The pitch clock is badly needed, I personally hate the shift but don't think it will make much of a difference either way, and while I don't really understand why they think making the bases bigger is something that needs to be done, I also don't really care. Pitch clock is a welcome change, IMO I think the base size increase helps for player safety - both at 1B running down the line and in double play situations at 2nd. I'd wish they just set up the orange bag at 1B in foul territory for runners to touch as well. The outlawing shift stuff bugs me, because it's forcing teams to conform how they play the game and build rosters instead of promoting outside the box strategy - both with shifting defensively and offensive roster building to take advantage of shifts to win games. And of course, none of this is really the crux of why we are unlikely to see baseball games as scheduled...

The NFL and NBA players' unions and ownership groups are able to be happy playing under the salary caps (within reason, since both of those leagues have had lockouts/strikes more frequently the MLB since 1994) they've developed primarily because of the following: NFL does not have fully guaranteed contracts, allowing organizations to make cuts as needed to keep their salary cap in check and also bring in new young talent quickly to rosters pushing 75 players when including the practice squad. The NFL also has college football essentially serving as its minor leagues without the league having to support them at all financially. The NBA has fully guaranteed contracts, however teams have rosters roughly 1/3 of the size of MLB. With a very limited draft pool, expiring contracts are often times much more valuable than the play of the declining veterans who carry them for teams who have to position themselves for multiple years at times in effort to win over superstar free agents or hit on a lottery pick that can change their franchise. MLB doesn't have the luxury with its draft to instantly improve their onfield talent on rookie-level contracts - the draft is set up in a way to develop and help MLB teams 4-6 years after most amateur players are drafted. Many of the top draft picks each year get multi-million dollar signing bonuses and go play in bus leagues for 3-4 years before even sniffing the major leagues. Also, fully guaranteed veteran contracts are prohibitive for most MLB organizations to ink players to once they work through salary arbitration and reach free agency at the peak or even downside of their prime onfield years of production. If the MLBPA wants more league revenue given to their 40-man roster players and also wants the arbitration process to be adjusted (both things I'm in favor of to get younger players paid more), then they need to have reasonable luxury tax threshold limits and/or they need to be willing to have non-guaranteed contracts. MLBPA will never relent on guaranteed contracts, so having a more modest luxury tax threshold than their current ask will continue to provide small-mid market clubs with luxury tax dollars that can be used to pay other players. Having super high luxury tax limits that only a handful of big market clubs ever come close to eclipsing will just consolidate superstar talent on those rosters without providing additional funds for other teams to share and use on their own payrolls. I'm not sure if it already is or how it can be required, but I think one option would be to require any luxury tax $$ given to small-mid market organizations be used for player salaries - and those amounts each team receives would have to be reported so we can all see if an organization is hoarding their other revenue and taking advantage of the luxury tax payments to fund their own roster payrolls instead of using it to increase player salaries beyond what they can afford on their own. Setting a very high luxury tax threshold gets a handful of superstars paid more $, but ultimately reduces the amount of luxury tax dollars funneled directly from big market revenue streams that could be doled out to players across MLB

Though all of this is basically true, I do think it's fair to question why some of the logical and basically 'lock' transactions haven't been done yet- IE, there aren't a lot of people who think anything other than Z must be cut before March 16th. So why haven't they done so yet? Feels like there's a bunch of moves that will come in a major flurry of activity, either within the next day or shortly thereafter. Possibly both. I think many of those obvious moves hinge on what Rodgers opts to do, and in turn Adams - if both of them want out and trades happen before the 16th, then Gute may look at some of those other veterans who would be obvious cuts (Z. Smith or Billy Turner for example) as potential last minute new deal / restructure options because they'd have more cap room to work with in both the short and long term. I do agree that alot will happen this week (starting with tagging Adams and hopefully getting definitive word on Rodgers), but still a ton will happen on the 14-16th next week at the last minute.

To be honest i thought they would still be much farther from getting under the cap at this point...10 days is a ton of time, and the cuts may not happen until the last minute anyways - and definitely won't happen before we know whats going on with Rodgers. Adams won't play this season under the franchise tag...but the Packers could get all their other ducks in a row including Rodgers, get just below the cap with a tagged Adams right at the deadline on the 16th, then get him a new contract that lowers his 2022 cap # in order to sign their draft picks.

But that wording is not inconsistent with what I posted. Yes, that is true that "the Packers" have not lined up any trades, it is Rodgers who is out exploring options for his salary and possible trade parameters. Heck, the reason the Packers haven't talked to Adams could be that Rodgers also wants Davante to be part of the package. There's going to be a shortage of straws with all the grasping you are doing...

In place with who? Florio?

That's true, but changing the system to spread out where dollars are being spent and ultimately increase the size of the pie the players get would likely need to lead to a stagnation of free agent mega-deals for aging superstars. The problem many on the players' side have is they want to continue seeing those contracts balloon because they worked themselves through this outdated process themselves. I think organizations would be much more willing to pay younger players significantly more $$ if they also don't feel like they have to pony up over $40M a season for 3 fully guaranteed years on a new contract to have a 37-yr old be a starting pitcher in order to actually acquire a superstar veteran on the downside of their career.

The premier players are still getting monster deals in free agency that continue to dramatically increase. Young pre-arbitration stars are routinely offered life changing money in longterm extensions that are viewed as "leaving too much $ on the table", so they continue to take things year to year until they reach free agency in their late 20s. The players getting the contract squeeze are the middling veterans who were never deemed valuable enough for teams to offer them a longterm contract until they reached free agency, and teams in this day and age of baseball are much less inclined to offer them 3-5 year contracts at $12-18M per season when they can get the same amount of production from a younger, pre-arbitration player or from a veteran free agent picked up off the scrap heap or from overseas. Dramatically increasing the luxury tax threshold isn't going to make big market teams suddenly pay higher contracts for middling veteran talent - they'll simply offer more to the handful of superstar players and the disparity between what they make and what pre-arby and veteran scrap heap players makes will continue to grow. Part of the financial issue of player pay, in my opinion, is that we're now far enough removed from the PED era that baseball players are now having more expected career arcs, where many of them now don't reach free agency until they are at or even just beyond the years that would be considered their prime - the current arbitration/free agency structure evolved during the steroid era where average vet players were still given big contracts way into their 30s in large part because their primes were also extended unnaturally. IMO the initial fix would be to reduce a year of team control and also maintain a lower luxury tax threshold than what the players want - players will have to get paid more at younger ages by smaller markets if they hope to contend and there will be sufficient luxury tax revenue available for them to afford doing so. The biggest disconnect for me is this negotiation hasn't addressed the problem with MLB's financial structure - 6 yrs of team control with 3 of them being pre-arbitration pushes most players past their prime before they can ever truly capitalize financially. The Super 2 stuff and pre-arby bonus pool is on the fringes of this, but frankly I think they should scrap both and just roll with 5 yrs team control and have the negotiation be between having either 2 or 3 of them in arbitration. In order to get player pay more in line with onfield production both the players and owners need to be willing to make significant concessions that will make future CBA negotiations much easier to conduct. I think the other thing that actually skews that average player salary has been the increase in deferred money being handed out in these mega contracts that isn't included in superstar salaries for a given season.

I feel like we as posters on this board are the product and the reason anyone else on here comes trolling on the site looking for freezing cold takes and player debates using an alphabet soup of stat names (That's WAR and FIP kids, not WAP and FIB...) Therefore, until the new board ownership sends us 50 percent of any revenues for the site and doles it out based solely on how long we've been posting here and not the quality of our contributions to the board, we won't post in new threads. Many of us have spent vast quantities of our professional careers contributing to this board for free instead of actually focusing on our "real" jobs, and we deserve to be compensated more appropriately for that time moving forward. who's with me!

Who won the world series that year?

Did the players go on strike? This is all about the owners forcing the players to fix the mistakes the owners keep making. They all keep making mistakes - it's not just the owners, it's not just the players. Both sides are to blame.

The irony is not lost on me that one of the key player reps who took part in most of these negotiations was Max Scherzer, fresh off inking a fully guaranteed 3 yr deal at the conclusion of the last CBA that is apparently horrible for players that will pay him about $43m per season to pitch in about 32 regular season games until he is 40. He will also be getting annual $15m in deferred money from his last contract through 2028, giving him about $375m in career earnings as a player. I dont think I can't find a small enough violin... Congrats to the MLBPA in at least ensuring they won't have to read 5 years worth of articles knocking them for not trying harder to get a better deal for themselves negotiating a new CBA like they have from 2017-2021. Now they have no deal at all, and unless they come down from their competitive balance cap proposals that escalate at a rate similar to a salary cap, they'll probably be playing in Japan or Korea this year. The more I look at what is financially separating these two sides (and always has been), the more I'm certain the Brewers and other small market teams were going to be hosed no matter what. Not sayng they wouldn't make money, but it will be that much harder to try and be a consistent competitive ballclub due to financial disparity. Until the current operating model shares much more revenues, the players can't have both enormous luxury tax thresholds and large pre arby bonus pools and the owners can't gripe about having to give players more pay that tracks along with increasing league revenues. People want MLB to operate like the NFL or NBA when it comes to CBA discussions - well then the onfield product has to be on the same financial playing field throughout the league. It seems like both players and owners don't universally want a salary cap and floor, so we get to watch them be fools every half decade or so when they redo these CBA's I for one am looking forward to the minor league season, pretty sure that will proceed as scheduled for players not on 40 man rosters, right?

Fewer people are owners than there are HOFers....and forgive me for just not believing anyone has ever won a 2 billion dollar lotter ticket and then cashed it in to buy a team on a whim. The skill of being a great baseball player is much different than the skill it takes to accumulate both immense wealth and the requisite amount of status to potentially become a pro sports team owner. You're trying to equate how well someone hits or throws a baseball to what a person has to do in order to make themselves a multi billionaire - two entirely different skillsets. I never said being a professional ballplayer is dumb luck - what you're saying is becoming incredibly wealthy to the point where buying a multi-billion dollar toy of a company is a possibility is dumb luck.

So if say there are 8 minority owners on a team, what the heck are they all doing on a day-to-day basis for them to warrant 5 million dollar yearly salaries? I'm assuming this statement is based on a hypothetical $40M dollar annual profit divided 8 ways... profit of a business does not equal salary for its ownership - it's not like they get the year end balance sheet and if the organization was in the black they get checks at the holiday dinner. All owners (minority and principle) of an organization have say in what an organization would do with an operating profit - oftentimes it's used to pay down financed debt within the organization or be used as capital for planned improvements to team facilities, player payroll, etc. I'd assume some ownership stakes may include a form of dividend/bonus compensation if an organization is turning a significant profit, but I'd really doubt all annual profit just gets wired into owner checking accounts. Player contract salaries and franchise profit/loss margins or estimated value appreciations are not and should not be compared like they are the same thing. Sure, it's really tough to be good enough to be a major league baseball player - you've essentially got to hit the genetic lottery and have a bunch of breaks go your way to get there...but it's a LOT tougher and more expensive to become an owner of a MLB organization. Are some owners simply winners of the genetic lottery by being heirs to owning a team? Sure - but to me there's quite a bit of similarity between that and being Vlad Guerrero, Jr., or Prince Fielder, or Ken Griffey Jr., and so on.

Professional sports majority owners are in a much more rarified air than professional athletes - There are 30 MLB majority owners (some of which are corporations themselves and nearly all of which are merely controlling owners over a pile of minority ownership stakes). The same sentiment about pro athletes trying to get everything they can, when they can applies to owners, it's just the arena is the boardroom and not the athletic field. Profits for an organization are simply not profits for the owner to pocket and go buy an island or new fleet of jets for themselves - they are profits for the organization/asset that often get reinvested into the organization. That in turn improves its value and makes the principle owner more wealthy - however that wealth isn't realized until the owner sells...and no professional sports owner sells an organization they own simply for a return on investment.

The players are part of the product and the most important part of it - they don't provide it, but they do play the game at the highest of levels that creates public demand and raises revenues. Without the best players in the world, the product certainly would be diminished and the drop in public demand to pay to watch it would cause revenues to drop - which would correspond to lesser players making less money. It would suck for owners if Bryce Harper got replaced by Joe Replacement at Bryce's salary for the next decade....but it wouldn't sting near as much to the owner if Joe Replacement was making league minimum in a league void of superstars. Nobody would watch or be interested in it, though. Owners need the players just as much as players need the owners for both sides to milk the maximum amount of $ from us schlubs - if they don't find a way to maintain harmony with each other, we'll find plenty of other places to spend our money...particularly now when inflation is driving costs up so fast it seems like the price of a happy meal goes up from the time you order it to the time you reach the window to pay for it.

If the Packers are indeed able to hang onto Rodgers, then I feel like the move to franchise tag Adams may wind up being nothing more than a way to buy more time this offseason to sign him to a new contract - I doubt he would actually be a Packer and play the 2022 season on the franchise tag. Assuming Rodgers is a Packer for 2022, the Packers will get the rest of their restructures and some cuts done in the next 10 days, then drop the bomb of a new Rodgers deal and tagging Adams right before the new league year starts and somehow have enough wiggle room to try and resign Campbell and Douglas. Then they use the next couple months' time to work out a new Adams contract that makes his 2022 cap hit less than the tag value, and use that savings to sign their draft picks this summer. At this stage of his career, playing under the tag is a bad deal for Adams - any significant injury ruins his chances for one last windfall contract. He's looking for an extension that gives him that huge signing bonus upfront (and rightfully so). Luckily for the Packers, that is easier in cap accounting to accomplish than trying to fit Adams under contract in 2022 with a franchise tag.