The problem is that fans want to "fix" things so that the league is competitive and has parity. However, the owners and players only want to argue with each other over who gets more money. We, the fans, don't even have the same concerns as the people who are actually involved in the process. So, whatever agreement they come will almost certainly not address any of the problems we want to see addressed. As for the #1 proposal, I laughed it off as incredibly stupid when I first read it. After thinking about it, I don't think it at all plausible but could at least be fun to think about with some tweaking. League revenue gets split 50/50 every year, half to MLB and half to the MLBPA. MLB and the owners can figure out how they divide it amongst themselves. The players union can figure out how much they want to pay each player. Which, quite frankly, would probably lead to the union splitting up because this would be a disaster of epic proportions. Just imagine if, at your own job, your boss just gave the employees one gigantic lump sum of money and said split it between yourselves however you see fit. Factions will be formed, lawsuits will probably filed, just absolute union armageddon would happen. Bit I digress. The players get paid by the union and each year all players are placed in a pool and drafted by teams. This would totally eliminate any issues with market size or payroll and should, in theory, lead to having 30 competitive teams every year to start the season at least. In no way would either side ever agree to that but maybe it's at least fun to think about.