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Oh my god I found floor seats for tomorrow’s game for only $200 (normal weekday/non big time team like this would be like $550+). I’ve only been on 100 level once, this is gonna be amazing

God I hate Cowley

According to Jeff Passan (wouldn't shock me if you also know details on this as well), the Sox were 1 day away from signing both Tatis and Juan Soto https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/page/coverstory032621/welcome-juan-soto-mlb

Reading these replies makes it seem like the 2011-2016 white sox were like this golden child of baseball competitiveness and entertainment by their consistently signing 2nd contract vets to be competitive. I think it’s very likely that baseball could make no changes and have a much more competitive 2020s than (esp back half) 2010s. In the 2000s, the lower spend teams like the As and Rays modernized, but the higher revenue teams could just outspend them to out talent them. But then Theo to the Red Sox, and Friedman to the dodgers and etc etc soon the big market teams began deploying these same talent strategies and my take is that by 2016 SO many other teams in the league realized they were way behind and would not be able to compete with their strategies anymore and could also not compete with mere money advantages (they didn’t have any). So I don’t think it was just fetishizing tanking to win, it was a ton of teams throwing their seasons as they overhauled their orgs. Player development technology, further integrating track an, etc, there may have been a lot more start up costs into the org that weren’t going into players hands. But that’s over now. There is what, one? “Old school” organization (the rox), and I guess the Royals maybe. When Dick friggen Williams hired Driveline, you could tell there was no actual debate anymore on what was needed to compete (and I’m sure Boddy was expensive). But anyway, that’s over now, changes will occur but I’m not sure anything like what just happened the last 5 years will happen for quite a while. So with teams operating much more similarly, the margins of improvement will probably shift back to free agency for the edge. Long story short, I don’t think dramatic changes are necessary for parity or anti-tanking measures. It was just a kinda shitty competitive era. Wouldn’t be the first time in baseball, but it’s not everlasting.

And this is why you don’t let scouts make important economic decisions that impact the well-being of the entire league. Just a horrible idea if parity is what you’re actually seeking.

Juan Soto only signed for $1.5 million. Tatis got $700K

I don't think there's any way a salary floor is going in. 23 owners will never agree to something like that. The players want less revenue sharing for the small markets which has been a non-starter so far. They should aim for the number at the top end to go higher so the big market clubs can spend more and they should be pushing to significantly raise the major league minimum salary. They just have given up too much in previous negotiations to win very much back here unless they're willing to miss a season and history says that they aren't willing to do that. I'm not a fan of this. Something needs to be done (no top five in successive years, lottery, etc) but this is too far. A team like the Diamondbacks wasn't taking last year. They're just bad. They deserve the #2 overall pick.

Sadly, the only one who deserves credit for the Kimbrel trade is Jed Hoyer.

Five years is worth it for 75% revenue. Everyone can KBO and Wayne Chung for a while. Also Cien Fuegos has some openings.

A $100 million floor among 30 teams locks in a revenue distribution that is something like 45%. The players will sit out 5 years before they do that. If you want a cap and floor that the players will go along with, you have to give them something that is better than any other offer they get without a cap. $250 million cap and $200 million floor, adjusting for revenue growth, so they're getting 70-65% of revenue.