CBA Science Fiction: MLB Y3K

[Wally Mo Pena]

With the collective bargaining agreement scheduled to expire on December 19th this year, we can expect to start hearing some restructuring proposals for the league. Everything from contraction to salary caps, arbitration to all-star games to the post season will be on the table, and in the end the face of the game for the next 5+ years will be determined. So this is the time to think about changes that could make this great game even better (or in the owners case, more profitable), and I’ve come up with a few possibilities.

Think of this as baseball science fiction, and remember what seems crazy today is ho hum tomorrow.

Divisions based on team salary

It’s safe to say that with the current set up, the Devil Rays will never make the playoffs, ever. To me, something’s wrong with the system if you can say that with any assurance whatsoever, and one way to change that would be to shake up the divisions each year based on each team's starting salary. Each league would still have three divisions and a wild card, but the divisions would be low salary, mid salary, and high salary, rather than based loosely on region.

Benefit: with the unbalanced schedule already in place, teams would get to play more even competition throughout the year, more teams would get to fight for the playoffs, and no one would be out of it before the season started because of market size. The playoffs then will be even more fun, just like the NCAA basketball tournament, because every year you’d have the chance for a serious underdog from the low salary division.

Drawbacks: the first thing that people will think of is travel, but with a little fore thought I don’t think it would be that much worse than travel used to be in the old days. A flight from Boston to Chicago today is no longer than a flight to Tampa Bay, and neither are as bad as a train ride from Boston to D.C. and ballplayers used to do that all the time. The biggest issue to me would be the loss of some rivalries (though I think it’s safe to say that NY and Boston would still be in the same division) and generally a lack of consistency year to year in the game.

Other considerations: Some teams would maneuver to be in the lowest division possible, and that could affect free agent signings and salary structures, but that would mostly just be another thing for bloggers to talk about, I don’t think it would really make that much of a difference.

The Divisions this year would look like this:

Al High               NL High
NY Yankees	    NY Mets
Boston	             LA Dodgers
LA Angels	             Chicago Cubs
Chicago Sox	    Atlanta
Seattle	             Houston

Al Middle             NL Middle
Detroit	             San Francisco
Baltimore	             Philadelphia
Toronto	             St. Louis
Texas	             San Diego
Minnesota	             Washington
	             Cincinnati

AL Low                NL Low
Oakland	             Arizona
Cleveland	             Milwaukee
Kansas City	    Pittsburgh
Tampa Bay	             Colorado
	             Florida

All incentive contracts and variable ticket prices

Hopefully you didn’t think that last idea was too crazy, ‘cause this one gets a lot hairier. It’s really two ideas that are sort of complimentary as you’ll see. The first part is that all players earn a fixed starting salary based on nothing but service time. A range of something like $.3 mil for rookies to $2 mil for 10 year vets. Players would then negotiate the value and type of incentives with the team. Because final team salary would not be determined until the end of the season, ticket prices would fluctuate based on what percentage of incentives a team’s players were getting. Underperforming teams' ticket prices would go down, and vice versa.

Benefit: this one is really for the fans. It sucks when the guy you’re paying $10 mil tanks it or gets hurt, and it sucks when you’re team tanks and they still want lots of money to see the games, which leads to low attendance and lack of fan interest and loyalty. With this structure, a player who kicks butt gets paid for it (maybe an “incentive” to kick more butt) and a player who has a bad season doesn’t (unless you think making hundreds of thousands+ to suck at baseball isn’t that bad of a deal, like me).

Fans then feel like they’re getting their money’s worth, and that there is some sort of accountability on their team. Also, if someone budgeted to make $15 mil goes down in spring training, they'd still get they're base salary, but the team could try to acquire someone at the deadline with the saved money.

The players would get taken care of, because really this wouldn’t be that big of a change in 90% of the cases. Pujols’ agent could negotiate so if his client has a normal MVP type year, he’d make his normal $10+ mil. A lesser player wouldn’t be able to negotiate rates like that because Pujols is bonafide, where as guys like Chris Shelton are not. Shelton might make a few mil with an amazing rookie season rather than half a mil, but nowhere close to what the stars would get. Free agents would be swayed by the value and structure of incentives rather than overall salary.

If the whole team is doing well, then ticket prices might go up some to cover all of their incentives, but people love to see their team win, and wouldn’t feel bad paying a few bucks more as a reward for great baseball. If a team isn’t coming close to reaching most of it’s incentives, the team could lower prices to keep fans coming to the ballpark despite a bad season. So the owners would do fine as well.

Drawbacks: an arrangement like this has a few obvious problems that I can see. First it’s confusing, and generally, the more complex things are the easier they are to poke holes in. Maybe some team offers it’s incentives for the first three games played: you get a third of your salary for the first game, a third for the second, etc. Basically a guaranteed contract like we have now. Then other teams might have to start offering that too to compete and the whole thing goes to hell.

The other problem is that it might bring money into the game too much. Players like to get their contract signed and move on, concentrate on playing. If each HR was a check, they might change their approach, and take themselves out of the zone.

Additional considerations: this is really the ultimate infusion of a market economy into the sport, where players are paid for performance and fans pay more for a better product. As such, it opens up the possibility of an actual baseball ticket futures market, where people could buy a team’s tickets for a future date on an exchange at a certain price, with the hope that the ticket prices would be higher by the time that date rolled around and they’d be able to sell them for a profit, like a commodity. Just a thought for you financial professionals out there.

So those are a few of my thoughts. Comment away on those, and add more of your own, you never know what the next wild card is going to be.

[Dry1313]

Hmm. The drawbacks are really much worse than the Positives for both. I mean, it just gives another excuse for the low market team to say; "Well, if we had as much money as you, we'd be even better."

And for that incentive plan, the idea seems good, but right now you see everyone swinging for the fences. If my shit utility guy gets up with 1st and 2nd, no outs, I don't wanna see him swinging for the fences. I want a sac bunt. I'd much rather pay the $2 extra to see good baseball, because if we did all these incentives, baseball would be like basketball; Flashy, look what I can do, no teamwork, and no real fans.

[Wally Mo Pena]

i don't understand you're first comment, why would it give small market teams more of a reason to make excuses? If they lose in a division made up entirely of small budget teams, it seems like it would be way harder for them to play the salary card than it is now.

I mean the DRays can make the "excuse" that they'll never make the playoffs because they don't have the money that NY and Boston do every year. And you know what, they're right.

If they were stacked up against the Royals that argument holds a lot less water.

As for the second comment, i never said that incentives would have to be based on HRs. They aren't now and they wouldn't be in the future. A guy like Ryan Freel for the reds hit's one or two a year, so he wouldn't ask for that to be what determined his salary. i would assume for a guy like that would have things like plate appearances, OBP, SB, runs scored, outfield assists, and maybe even sacs, stuff like that.

[Fishercat]

Being the typical person resistant to change, I have a few issues. I'll just go after the standings for time's sake.

The Payroll Based Standings
You mentioned it, but I think a legitimate gripe about it is the collusion of teams or the idea of a team in terms of either reducing or increasing payroll to get into a different division. If you are Wayne Krivsky, is there any reason for you not to deal a Scott Hatteberg or Jason Larue for a middling prospect to get into the division with the Rockies, Marlins, and Pirates?

Also, when are these divisions locked? It can't be too late, as teams need to sell tickets early and plan routes. It can't be too early, or teams will just send money away until free agency and the deadline, and then splurge.

Off of that point, how are payroll changes in mid-season addressed. Suppose the D-Backs acquired Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter from the Yankees after Cashman goes insane, do they move up and maintain the same schedule? Do they stay until next year?

The Wild Card is still in play, but is it really a Wild Card? Why not just give two playoff spots to people in the Top Division? Is it really fair for teams who are willing to spend to lose their spot in the playoffs to a team who may have 5, 10, 15 less wins?

It's definitely an intriguing idea, but I have to worry about the savvy owner/GM who changes their payroll simply to move and the actual execution.

[Wally Mo Pena]

Off of that point, how are payroll changes in mid-season addressed. Suppose the D-Backs acquired Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter from the Yankees after Cashman goes insane, do they move up and maintain the same schedule? Do they stay until next year?

The Wild Card is still in play, but is it really a Wild Card? Why not just give two playoff spots to people in the Top Division?

good points all around. The actual excecution would be tough, and probably impossible right now. The way i conceived of it, mid season acquisitions would not factor into the divisions, so it would certainly place a burden on teams to make moves mid season, but that already exists.

As for the wild card, you have to remember that the teams in teh top division are playing all teh other teams in the top division a lot more, so their win totals might not be that much higher than the win totals of say the indians, who are so successful with a small budget that they might just dominate the other little guys. The wild card is all about being better in relation to the competition, and this way the competition is more even.

Think about it now, is the wild card really fair as it is when Houston last year got to play in a six team division, where 4 of the teams basically sucked? They racked up a lot of wins in those division games that the phillies didn't have a chance to in the East.

So if anything, i think it has the chance to make the wild card more equitable if you could get it off the ground.

[Kingdom]

I wish Atlanta would spend some money these days, and get (and keep) some real relievers

[redsfan28]

I don't want the Reds to be in the same division as the Cardinals anymore. Other than that, I don't have a problem with the divisions.

[Dry1313]

Well, I was saying your divisions based on money does lend them an excuse. Sure, the little team can make the playoffs, but when they lose in them, it's not because the other team is better, just because they have a smaller payroll.

And as for the little guy, ok that is more far-fetched, but think of all the ML'ers going for HR's now. Imagine what every firstbaseman would do? Someone like Giambi would put less stock in the walk and put more in trying to hit it out. It lends to poorly played games, awful strategy, like the NBA.

[HollywoodLeo]

Well, I was saying your divisions based on money does lend them an excuse. Sure, the little team can make the playoffs, but when they lose in them, it's not because the other team is better, just because they have a smaller payroll.

And you know what? They'd probably be right.

Nice idea Wally, but the real answer is a salary cap.

And as for the little guy, ok that is more far-fetched, but think of all the ML'ers going for HR's now. Imagine what every firstbaseman would do? Someone like Giambi would put less stock in the walk and put more in trying to hit it out. It lends to poorly played games, awful strategy, like the NBA.

I agree with Dry here. I love the concept of incentive based contracts in theory, but in practice they'd lead to such problems, which would be bad for the game.

Nevermind the sac bunt scenario, because that's a call that can be made by the manager.

How about this scenario. It's the bottom of the 9th of a tie game with two out and the winning run on 3rd base. Your star power hitter is up, do you want him trying to get a base hit or swinging for the fences?

[redsfan28]

A salary cap and a salary basement would solve everything. Forcing the smaller market teams to spend about $60 million while capping the large market teams at about $100 million would substantially shrink the gap between the two.

But the players union will NEVER agree to a cap!

[HollywoodLeo]

i'd be fine with a "basement" as well, as long as it were reasonable. 60 would sound fine.

[Wally Mo Pena]

Well, I was saying your divisions based on money does lend them an excuse. Sure, the little team can make the playoffs, but when they lose in them, it's not because the other team is better, just because they have a smaller payroll.

And as for the little guy, ok that is more far-fetched, but think of all the ML'ers going for HR's now. Imagine what every firstbaseman would do? Someone like Giambi would put less stock in the walk and put more in trying to hit it out. It lends to poorly played games, awful strategy, like the NBA.

Teams make fewer excuses when in the playoffs than out, if you hadn't noticed, and when a team gets to the playoffs they get extra money from extra fans and extra TV and stuff, so then they can move up the ladder, and close the gaps some.

MLB players go for HRs now for several reasons: first it's a great way to score runs, and often the team that hits more HRs in a game wins; second it's a way to get more money in a contract. None of that changes in my set up, and just saying incentives doesn't mean paying just for HR's or RBI or whatever. It gives teams and players the ability to define what they expect from players, and what would be above and below those expectations. if you have a job, there are certainly things you have to do to keep that job or get promoted. If you only did one of those things and tried to do it all the time, you woud probably get a talking to, and maybe get fired. Same here.

For Giambi they could incentivize OBP if they wanted, or they could incentivize 2 out RBI percentage, or really anything. and if you haven't noticed, most players play to their abilities, so in many cases nothing much would change. But take a cub fan's situation right now: there are a few players who aren't doing that (juan pierre) and many who are hurt. It would be nice if the cubs gained flexibility from that to get new players if they wanted, or at least to lower the price to games at wrigley.

Truely nothing could be more american than incentive laden contracts, incentives are the foundation of our economic system are they not? When did george washington ever say, "if thou playest baseball, thou art exempt from performance based standards, and that shall be the law of this new land, now, and for all eternity." With this addition, baseball can finally pass apple pie and bald eagles as most american thing of all time!

[Dry1313]

I understand what you're saying about incentives, but you miss my point. There are several hitters who have altered their swings for their incentive contracts. I'll give you the best example: David Ortiz, while with the Twins, had a very incentive laced contract. The biggest incentive was for OBP. He went to the then Twins batting coach and worked for hours on hitting the ball the other way to avoid K's. Well, he became so good at hitting the ball the other way he lost his power stroke and was relegated to a puch and judy hitter. Sure enough, he goes to the Red Sox, playing just as another 1st base option, and explodes, no longer under the constraints of his contract. ~Michael Kay, YES Network.

That's paraphrased, but you see what I mean? Some people will do anything to get that money. There's another story I'll paraprhase from the book "Zim," Don Zimmer's bio. ANyway, Zimmer was managing somewhere and he has a hitter up with 2 outs and 2nd and 3rd. The guy proceeds to strike out ending the crucial situation. But when he gets back to the dugout, everyone shakes his hand and congratulates him. When Zim asks why, the player says he just fulfilled his at bat incentive.

If that happens now, what makes you think instituting more of them is a good idea?