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shebashab wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 11:00 am

Youboughtit wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 10:29 am

shebashab wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 09:56 am Baseball is broke and it's not getting fixed. The days of doing development better than the big clubs is gone as all the big clubs took notice and invested accordingly. The only teams really in contention are leading their respective division in payroll. Same as last year and will be the same next year. Tampa is the best at small market competition and even they are struggling the last two years. At this point the Cardinals are in no mans land, they can't spend enough to compete and the market they live in will demand competitive teams... not sustainable in todays landscape.

NL East Top payroll Mets & Phillies . First place Phillies followed closely by Mets.
NL Central top payroll Cubs First place Cubs
NL West top payroll Dodgers (followed by Giants) first place Dodgers (followed by Giants)
AL East top payroll Bluejays & Yankees (both top 5) first place Bluejays followed by Yankees
AL Central top payroll tie Tigers and Twins first place Tigers
AL West top payroll Astros first place Astros.

The smoke and mirrors of adding another wildcard to make teams think they are competitive doesn’t do it for me. Baseball just continues to run the sport without the fans in mind. Sad, I’ve been a lifelong baseball fan but I can’t get myself to care much anymore. Ownership has no real chance to have a consistent winner unless you are in a large market. The Dodgers can pay its whole ridiculous payroll with the difference in revenue between the Cardinals and Dodgers. I wish I could just hate DeWitt... instead I hate how baseball is run. Sad

The proven formula for the Cardinals is top 5 farm and top 10 payroll. That is $215m. Do that and they will get their 3.4m fans and make as much profit as this $135m payroll and what I suspect will be 1.5m fans. Boras reported the General fund alone paid out $100m to every team last year and Forbes has the cardinals at $340m from baseball only revenue. That does not include ballpark village parking the apartments etc because Dewitt has them under a separate business. Claiming poverty for a franchise that has appreciated from 150m when purchased to 3.4b now is absurd. Dewitt is the problem.

Its like people on this forum only know one thing... and dont even read anything that anyone else writes. Top payroll teams are also the top revenue teams, and those are the only ones that are competitive. This is no longer MLB of 2005

45s wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:08 pm

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:01 pm Players would never agree to a cap so it’s a non starter. We just had the rangers and diamondbacks playing each other in the WS 2 seasons ago, not exactly WS regulars. My biggest complaint is teams that refuse to spend. We need a luxury tax system for low spenders similar to the one we have for high spenders. Maybe then teams will stop giving away solid players to the dodgers for minimal return to avoid paying them.

A salary floor or tax is inflationary…….and penalizes the followers of small market teams..

Alex Reyes Cy Young wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:11 pm

rockondlouie wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 10:50 am RE:

TAMPA RAYS

Exactly. You can compete with a low payroll that’s total [nonsense].

desertrat23 wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 16:18 pm

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 16:00 pm

desertrat23 wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:15 pm

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:01 pm Players would never agree to a cap so it’s a non starter. We just had the rangers and diamondbacks playing each other in the WS 2 seasons ago, not exactly WS regulars. My biggest complaint is teams that refuse to spend. We need a luxury tax system for low spenders similar to the one we have for high spenders. Maybe then teams will stop giving away solid players to the dodgers for minimal return to avoid paying them.

If the owners hang tough a cap will happen. They might lose an entire season but it will happen.

With the game increasing in popularity at all levels right now this would be the most short sighted thing the league could possibly do and it wouldn’t even save them money. It would just force poor teams to pay more than they can afford and for the rich teams to be more profitable than ever assuming the players get 50% of revenue. Won’t happen.

The poorest team can afford a lot more if they go with the NFL revenue sharing model.

Youboughtit wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 17:08 pm

desertrat23 wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 16:18 pm

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 16:00 pm

desertrat23 wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:15 pm

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:01 pm Players would never agree to a cap so it’s a non starter. We just had the rangers and diamondbacks playing each other in the WS 2 seasons ago, not exactly WS regulars. My biggest complaint is teams that refuse to spend. We need a luxury tax system for low spenders similar to the one we have for high spenders. Maybe then teams will stop giving away solid players to the dodgers for minimal return to avoid paying them.

If the owners hang tough a cap will happen. They might lose an entire season but it will happen.

With the game increasing in popularity at all levels right now this would be the most short sighted thing the league could possibly do and it wouldn’t even save them money. It would just force poor teams to pay more than they can afford and for the rich teams to be more profitable than ever assuming the players get 50% of revenue. Won’t happen.

The poorest team can afford a lot more if they go with the NFL revenue sharing model.

Yep. Go convince the top 10 markets to cut their profit in half and all good

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 16:04 pm

45s wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:08 pm

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:01 pm Players would never agree to a cap so it’s a non starter. We just had the rangers and diamondbacks playing each other in the WS 2 seasons ago, not exactly WS regulars. My biggest complaint is teams that refuse to spend. We need a luxury tax system for low spenders similar to the one we have for high spenders. Maybe then teams will stop giving away solid players to the dodgers for minimal return to avoid paying them.

A salary floor or tax is inflationary…….and penalizes the followers of small market teams..

Every team gets over $110 million in revenue sharing. There’s no excuse for the Marlins to be spending $69 million this year. I’m not saying we should make the floor $200 million or something, just have them spend the money they receive in revenue sharing.

45s wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 18:40 pm

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 16:04 pm

45s wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:08 pm

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:01 pm Players would never agree to a cap so it’s a non starter. We just had the rangers and diamondbacks playing each other in the WS 2 seasons ago, not exactly WS regulars. My biggest complaint is teams that refuse to spend. We need a luxury tax system for low spenders similar to the one we have for high spenders. Maybe then teams will stop giving away solid players to the dodgers for minimal return to avoid paying them.

A salary floor or tax is inflationary…….and penalizes the followers of small market teams..

Every team gets over $110 million in revenue sharing. There’s no excuse for the Marlins to be spending $69 million this year. I’m not saying we should make the floor $200 million or something, just have them spend the money they receive in revenue sharing.

Ok…so you want Miami to spend 110 million…

Well no one wants to go there….so there’s no Kyle Tucker contract to get them there..

What to do…? Well, there is a broken down, old shortstop looking for a job….lets sign him for 20 million and we are there…

It just so happens that Masyn Wynn is up for arbitration that year….so his agent looks around the league for comparables…

Hey that bum in Miami is getting 20 million…….my guy is younger and better…as least twice as good as him…

The arbiter says….you are right …Masyn, congrats on your 40 million..

An overpaid guy in Miami….and an overpaid guy in Stl…

Too much money chasing too little talent….inflation…

bretto12 wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 14:51 pm The Dodger's make more in local TV money than the Cardinals do from all sources. And yes, a Salary cap is the issue. All a cap means is that the players will not all sign with the big market teams. They still get their money, but the locations may be Seattle or St.Louis.
I'm tired of watching the same teams go to the WS every year.

desertrat23 wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:56 pm

45s wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:21 pm

desertrat23 wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:15 pm

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:01 pm Players would never agree to a cap so it’s a non starter. We just had the rangers and diamondbacks playing each other in the WS 2 seasons ago, not exactly WS regulars. My biggest complaint is teams that refuse to spend. We need a luxury tax system for low spenders similar to the one we have for high spenders. Maybe then teams will stop giving away solid players to the dodgers for minimal return to avoid paying them.

If the owners hang tough a cap will happen. They might lose an entire season but it will happen.

They might agree to it……but delayed significantly

Very likely -- they'll have to solve contracts like Ohtani and Soto.

desertrat23 wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 19:07 pm

45s wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 18:40 pm

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 16:04 pm

45s wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:08 pm

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 15:01 pm Players would never agree to a cap so it’s a non starter. We just had the rangers and diamondbacks playing each other in the WS 2 seasons ago, not exactly WS regulars. My biggest complaint is teams that refuse to spend. We need a luxury tax system for low spenders similar to the one we have for high spenders. Maybe then teams will stop giving away solid players to the dodgers for minimal return to avoid paying them.

A salary floor or tax is inflationary…….and penalizes the followers of small market teams..

Every team gets over $110 million in revenue sharing. There’s no excuse for the Marlins to be spending $69 million this year. I’m not saying we should make the floor $200 million or something, just have them spend the money they receive in revenue sharing.

Ok…so you want Miami to spend 110 million…

Well no one wants to go there….so there’s no Kyle Tucker contract to get them there..

What to do…? Well, there is a broken down, old shortstop looking for a job….lets sign him for 20 million and we are there…

It just so happens that Masyn Wynn is up for arbitration that year….so his agent looks around the league for comparables…

Hey that bum in Miami is getting 20 million…….my guy is younger and better…as least twice as good as him…

The arbiter says….you are right …Masyn, congrats on your 40 million..

An overpaid guy in Miami….and an overpaid guy in Stl…

Too much money chasing too little talent….inflation…

OK, so how do you fix it? (Note: if your answer is ‘you don’t,’ I think that’s a perfectly reasonable if sad answer.)

Clubmaker2 wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 21:49 pm If your second and third largest paid pitching contracts are tied up in a guy that was the worst starting pitcher in all of MLB last year and is the same guy this year, and the other tied up in a guy who failed so miserably he never held on to starting despite giving him a 4 year contract, it most definitely is on front office management and ownership. That is how awful some of MO's contracts are.

Frontierman wrote: ↑08 Jul 2025 14:11 pm Long term it seems like MLB will combine local tv rights into one pool so they can sell them together rather than each team selling them. If that’s the case I’d assume tv revenue would be shared more evenly than it currently is which fixes the revenue disparity issue. Salary cap isn’t the answer.

In the meantime there’s no reason why the cardinals can’t spend in the 8-12 place payroll range which is enough to put together playoff teams regularly with a competent front office. That last part is what’s missing but that change is a month away.