Rangers BANKRUPT

[The Come Up Shuffle]

And if Baseball doesn't need a cap as much as it needs a salary floor and a crack down on these bonuses draft picks get.  Something needs to be done about how international players are signed.

My question is, for those that cry about Baseball needing a cap what would you choose as a reasonable cap ?

I would put the cap at around 115 million,thats more then enough for teams to work with,and make the floor 55 million.

So how do you propose the 6 teams that are over 115 million be punished for it.  And your salary basement only consist of 5 teams.  One of which is the Marlins who despite there miniscule payroll have managed to be a competitive team the past 5 years.  And one of the other teams is the Pirates who are hands down the worst ran organization in all of North American sports.

They shouldnt be punished,it should be an enforced hard salary cap.Im not talking about the nbas lame excuse for a salary cap Im talking a hard cap like in the nhl were you are not allowed to be over the cap under any circumstance.

So how do you propose they get there payroll down to 115 million?  And my mistake it's only 4 teams under your 55 million threshold.  That consist of only 4 teams.  So thats 20 teams that fall between your proposed salary floor and cap.  Thats pretty even to me.  And if you get rid of the Yanks and Pirates throwing it a bit out of wack the differences in payroll are even less drastic then you previously thought.

You cant look at the numbers now and say oh it only effects this many teams blah blah.All those players from the teams that are stacked would be disperesed between the other teams and make the league that much more comptetive.Instead of basically having half the league being comptetivie you would ahve the entire league be competitive.

How isn't it competitive though.  If people can look past the Yanks making the playoffs every year and the Pirates sucking every season it is pretty competitive.  I understand where you're coming from because you're a Jays fan.  I would probably feel the same as you if I were a Jays fan.  But spending money doesn't guarantee success.  Look at the Cubs and Mets.  I think a lot of people crying for a cap do so mostly because of the Yanks.  When you eliminate the Yanks 220 million pay roll the rest of Baseball is pretty even.

[Jaydc]

Obviously spending money doesnt gaurantee anything,but it does make it more comptetitive.I put up those numbers that show over the past ten years a total of 16 teams of made a grand total of 6 playoff appearances.Thats 16 teams,half the league being made into basically feeder teams for the big market teams.And I wont like being a jays does play a bit into it,considering how many star pitchers and players have come through toronto only to leave because the blue jays cant afford to keep them.If their was a cap it would rewards teams with great farm systems more then being about who has the biggest wallet.Now obviously their is exception to the rule,but baseball is very much a mercenary sport for players,with players going to the highest bidder with zero loyalty to teams,its all about the highest dollar.Where as in sports like nfl and nhl with hard caps in place,loyalty is all over the place.Now in every sport theirs going to be people that only want to the biggest dollar,but its rampant in mlb.

[The Come Up Shuffle]

Obviously spending money doesnt gaurantee anything,but it does make it more comptetitive.I put up those numbers that show over the past ten years a total of 16 teams of made a grand total of 6 playoff appearances.Thats 16 teams,half the league being made into basically feeder teams for the big market teams.And I wont like being a jays does play a bit into it,considering how many star pitchers and players have come through toronto only to leave because the blue jays cant afford to keep them.If their was a cap it would rewards teams with great farm systems more then being about who has the biggest wallet.Now obviously their is exception to the rule,but baseball is very much a mercenary sport for players,with players going to the highest bidder with zero loyalty to teams,its all about the highest dollar.Where as in sports like nfl and nhl with hard caps in place,loyalty is all over the place.Now in every sport theirs going to be people that only want to the biggest dollar,but its rampant in mlb.

Unless I am misreading your comment about only 16 different teams making the playoffs over the past 10 year you're way off.  Again I might be missing your point but according to my count 23 different teams have made the playoffs over the past 10 years.  So that leaves 7 teams that haven't.  And three of those teams are/were three of the worst ran organizations in all North American sports.  Those three teams being the Pirates, Royals, and Nats.  Thats who by the way before MLB took them over were always pumping out young talent and are now finally going in the right direction.  But lets say you implement a cap, you know what will happen ?  Big market teams will pump even more money into signing international free agents and the draft and people will complain about that.  When it comes down to the draft these kids will let it be known they refuse to sign with smaller market teams because they know larger market teams can offer them signing bonuses that can dwarf that of a smaller market.  And about loyalty in the NFL.  What do you mean by loyalty ?  The only reason you may see loyalty in the NFL is because nothing in the NFL is guaranteed.  Even if you sign a guaranteed contract it still isn't guaranteed.

[Jaydc]

You did in fact misread.Seven teams have missed the playoffs,four more teams have made one appearance and five teams have only made two.Thats 16 teams over ten years with a grand total of 6 appearances between them.Like I said,that half the league basically being feeder teams.

And what I mean by loyalty is,players are loyal to their teams they dont jump ship at the first chance they get offered a big contract at another team.

[Javier]

Aren't playoff appearances a bit unfair to judge competition when only 8 teams make it in the entire league? Plus the fact that it's a division by division basis with uneven schedules.  Right now NL West teams face pitchers up the ass more so than the NL Central and NL East.  And anyway, in the NL West for example you would think the Dodgers would have it easy with their money when it comes to drafting young talent and signing international players (since we have Dodger camps around the world), but Giants have built great pitching and are now getting some good young position players coming up, SD Padres have been building their farm system since 2006 and now are up there, Rockies have been a force ever since humidor, and the Dbacks are a joke right now but they're the most recent World Series champs in the division and have usually been in contention for the division. 

[Jaydc]

Well thats another one of my problems with baseballl,I think 8 teams should make it from each league or in the very least 6 from each league.

[The Come Up Shuffle]

You did in fact misread.Seven teams have missed the playoffs,four more teams have made one appearance and five teams have only made two.Thats 16 teams over ten years with a grand total of 6 appearances between them.Like I said,that half the league basically being feeder teams.

And what I mean by loyalty is,players are loyal to their teams they dont jump ship at the first chance they get offered a big contract at another team.

I disagree with your entire assessment in regards to the number of teams that have made the playoffs as a good argument about the lack of parity in Baseball.  If anything I think it speaks volumes that Baseball is more competitive than other sports.  Look at the NBA.  More than half the league makes the playoffs.  Most people recognize the regular season and 99% of the time the first round of the playoffs means jack shit.  In NHL more than half the league makes the playoffs and they had to implement that stupid point system they have now to even things out some.  Look at the list of World Series winners in the past 10 years.  It consist of 8 different teams.  Yes Baseball has its economic issues but the lack of a cap is hardly the problem IMO.

NFL players don't have the freedom to do what MLB players do.  The MLBPA is the most powerful union in the United States.  If NFL players had that type of freedom and guaranteed contracts best believe they would jump ship to the team offering the most money.  But there own union doesn't even look out for there best interest.  NFL players are well payed slaves and shit is about to hit the fan in regards to that.

[The Come Up Shuffle]

Well thats another one of my problems with baseballl,I think 8 teams should make it from each league or in the very least 6 from each league.

And that completely cheapens the regular season and the playoffs.  The great thing about Baseball is so few teams make the playoffs thus the regular season actually means something.  Hell look at the Mets.  In 99 they need an extra game against the Reds to decide the Wild Card winner.  In 07 they were in first place from opening day until the last game of the season.  You don't see that in Basketball and Hockey.

[Jaydc]

Yes but the american league its almost a given that red sox and yankees are making it.So its basically two spots up for grabs.How is that exciting or making the longest regular season of all sports meaningful?Look at hockey,the 7th and 8th seeds in the east were in the finals for their conference.Frankly,only having four teams just makes it uninteresting.Thats why baseball has teams with the longest droughts in professional sports of not making the playoffs.how is that good for the league at all when half the cities never get to see their teams play in meaningful games?

[The Come Up Shuffle]

Yes but the american league its almost a given that red sox and yankees are making it.So its basically two spots up for grabs.How is that exciting or making the longest regular season of all sports meaningful?Look at hockey,the 7th and 8th seeds in the east were in the finals for their conference.Frankly,only having four teams just makes it uninteresting.Thats why baseball has teams with the longest droughts in professional sports of not making the playoffs.how is that good for the league at all when half the cities never get to see their teams play in meaningful games?

I don't see how it isn't fair when 23 teams have made the playoffs in the past 10 years in a sport where only 8 teams make the playoffs.  And if you want to go with well only making the playoffs once in 10 years doesn't count 19 teams still made the playoffs 2 times.  And of the teams that have only made the playoffs once in 10 years one of those teams won the World Series.  You have two other teams that made the World Series one of which has the best record in Baseball right now.  I don't understand this whole it's not interesting for fans of other teams.  After this season my Mets will be one of those teams that has only made the playoffs once in the past 10 years and you know what, they have played plenty of meaningful Baseball during that time despite only making the playoffs once.  Just because a team doesn't make the playoffs doesn't mean it isn't playing meaningful games.  Bottom line is your view is extremely distorted because the Jays are the unluckiest team in Baseball.  They have fielded a decent team the past few years but have to share a division with the Sox and Yanks.  It's not fair but it's life  But somehow the Rays made the playoffs in 08 and are dominating this year with an even smaller payroll than the Jays.  And if you look at teams with long droughts minus the Jays how many of them have droughts because they are just horribly horribly run.  Teams like the Pirates and Royals can spend like the Yanks and they would still be bottom feeders because they know how to do anything whatsoever.  And like I said before, you can implement a cap but that means big market teams will just invest that much more into player development, the draft, and international free agents.  And for these teams that spend a lot of money and have prolonged success, the foundation of that success was the development of home grown talent.

And you bring up the NHL but in the NHL and the NBA how often do the 7 and 8 seeds meet in the conference finals ?  It's rare, lets not act like this is a common thing.

[The Come Up Shuffle]

Personally I think the fact that so few teams make the playoffs and it's so difficult to make the playoffs is great.  I think when more than half the league gets into the playoffs it's lame and cheapens the regular season.