Fifth Avenue Forum

That's a good read. One thing I take issue with though is that part of his premise seems to be that a salary cap will fix waning interest in the sport. That's a product issue more than a finance issue, IMO.

Couldn't agree more. The horse has left the barn there... they absolutely have to simplify the product and appeal to the Gen Z'ers, otherwise the denominator for how much revenue is even available for a guy like Nutting to go after will continue to shrink.

For a market like pittsburgh, there are too many games, the season overlaps poor weather, the games are too long, and it's not a great gambling sport.

So the salary cap aspect that he wrote about... does all that check out? I haven't paid close attention to the labor agreement part of baseball in a long time, but it does seem to make sense that both the owners and the PA in general would benefit from a cap system, if his numbers are right. Is the PA only looking at the highest average annual salary as a barometer?

I'm conflicted. If players truly only get 40% of the pie as he stated, a cap would be a big bump and help drive middling salaries up. But a cap would also deter teams from giving $43M to 37 year old max scherzer.

The union wants those insane top contracts but they also want Colin Moran and Steven brault making $5M.

It's all moot though. There will not be a hard cap. They'll just add a soft floor of some kind

For people like Nutting and Angelos, it's all about making those profits. They don't care about having a winner. What they don't understand is that having a winner would probably make them extra profits.

After reading more about this, the MLPA seems to be a complete joke. No floor, no ceiling, no nothing that would possibly limit the highest possible salary for only the very best players. I don't really understand how the rank and file can see this as good for them.

I don't understand how the NFL and NHL can figure it out so there's relative parity in their leagues (I don't know anything about NBA so somebody feel free to chime in here) but Major League Baseball is such a damn mess.

NFL, because you have 53 man rosters, and while there are superstars, they don't really run the show. Certainly even more of the case when the cap was implemented. Hockey, you've got lower revenues, they lost a full season over the fight, and you had teams that could have folded. MLB owners are making money, so they're ok, in general, with not really pushing the cap. Players are dead set against it, so if teams are making money and players don't want it, why change? They certainly won't do it for competitive balance or good of the game.

Exactly. There's no incentive on either side.

If small market teams were at risk of going under, maybe. But revenue sharing keeps them afloat. It seems like those owners are fine with the way things are - they're profitable.

Plus, the league makes billions and billions in revenue from the top 8 markets so what incentive do they have to take from their bread winners?

Ruth’s swing is so interesting. Feet together at the start but generates so much power by moving his fat ass forward on the step

Gehrig would do well today, taking so many pitches.

Wow, that was brutal

huh, after that video I went to Ruth's baseball reference page and noticed he only won one MVP. Went to Wikipedia and apparently from 1922-1928 there was a sort of MVP award per league but if you won it you were ineligible to win it in any future years. Thus, when Ruth won in 1923, he couldn't win it for another season (for example, the 1927 season).

The actual MVP award that we know today didn't come about until 1931

Wow, that was brutal

How was this actor 13 in 1993 and 17 now

Sounds dumb to me

Absolutely dumb. Relying on non-baseball people to run baseball. Would be nice for prospect sites...can already see the Yankees calling them and offering them money to make sure their players are in the top 150 (heck, they probably already do that now).

I like this

Ortiz gets in the hall. Bonds, Clemens, Sosa and Schilling don't (final ballot for them)

I wouldn't have been upset if the latter group did get voted in but I'm not upset that they're not in now either. I think they'll eventually get in with a veterans committee but I don't think it's easy as "their numbers are the greatest of alltime, they should be in"

Co-sign. Though I thought it was interesting that Ortiz gets a pass. Didn't he pop a few times?

Ortiz tested positive but let's keep the best player of all time out. Makes sense. Morons

he was rumored to have taken them but nothing near as concrete as the others

it wouldn't surprise me if something did come out that indicated he did take them but until then (and I'm saying this as a biased Sox fan) I don't think you can hold it against him



also, now that I think about it, the HoF should create a "controversial figures" wing in the Hall. That way Bonds, Sosa, Clemens, McGwire, ARod, etc. get in as well as Shoeless Joe, Pete Rose and whomever else


edit: my bad, Ortiz did test positive in 2003, but there wasn't really a punishment for it then. After 2004 when they started testing more rigorously, he didn't test positive

oh and the commissioner that overlooked all this to grow the sport? oh yeah, he's in too