See for me, I think that was far worse than anyone taking steroids in the 90s. I'll still cheer Springer and wouldn't boo the Astros for it but that Astros World Series is majorly questionable to me. The only saving grace is the fact they barely penalized anyone tells me it was far more prevalent in the game than just the astros.
The process is a little different for the last year, which I didn't know until today.
From Passan (https://www.espn.co.uk/mlb/story/_/id/47538606/mlb-2026-tarik-skubal-detroit-tigers-record-arbitration-contract)
"On top of that is a rarely used provision that allows players with more than five years of service time to compare themselves not only to past arbitration-eligible players but to everyone in baseball. Meaning that if Skubal were to choose, say, peak Max Scherzer ($43.3 million a year) or Zack Wheeler ($42 million) as his comparables, he could make the case in front of an arbitration panel that because of his special achievements and consistent performance, he is worthy of a salary similar to theirs."
Yes, I think year 3 of arbitration now allows the player to use free agents as comparisons, in which he would definitely be getting over 30 million. The argument goes like this. Dylan Cease just got 30 million. I'm better than him. I also throw with my left hand.
The CF free agents on the market right now are:
Bader
Bellinger - debatable he is a CF
Garrett Hampson
Chas McCormick
Pretty slim pickings after Bader so in that hypothetical, Straw might command something.
Lane Thomas got 5.5 million coming off two negative bwar seasons and a negative fWar season.
You have to follow other money too. Roger's is rumoured to be getting ready to split their sports interests off into a separate entity and having an IPO for it. Building it up now will earn them so much more later in this scenario.
Just the fact that you can watch Canadian podcasts and shows that cover multiple sports right now and they are still leading with the Jays (in January!) tells you they have unlocked access to that behemoth.
I don't believe expansion is tied to doing well financially anymore as much as it maybe was before. It's often used as a way for the current owners to receive an influx of cash up front in exchange for giving up a piece of the pie. One thing holding the other leagues back from expansion is the fact that 1/30th or 1/32nd of that pie is a very large amount for those leagues at the moment. For example, in the sale of BamTech (which came from mlb advanced media (mlb.tv) and turned into disney plus interestingly enough, Disney paid the MLB owners over 3 billion dollars. NHL owners for 350 million in that deal.
I'm dead set against a cap in baseball but could get behind escalated penalties for spending. A hard cap would create massive advantages for certain teams who would be better suited to recruit players when salaries are similar. Ie the histories of the Dodgers and Yankees combined with the extra revenue potential in those cities make them more attractive to many players. Teams in no income tax states would also have an advantage with salary numbers having to be equal. Try convincing a player to take the same amount of money to play in April snow in Minnesota as they could get playing in perfect weather Arizona.
The Dodgers being both a smart run organization and having so much appeal in their team and city would likely end up having just as mush success if not more in a cap system.
I don't think this would be the case. The low spenders likely want no upper cap with much higher tax penalties so there is more money going into the pot to be distributed to the non tax spenders.
It seems the market is quite depressed with all contracts coming in below projections, except Cease's. Now maybe we will see that isn't the case once the other big names sign, time will tell.
I was down in Atlanta a few years ago. The are around the stadium with all kinds of cars and restaurants where you can carry your drinks out into the streets was fantastic. Then in the stadium they had a little museum for the team which was really to see as well. Great stadium other than location.
Deep dynasty league. 20 team, 26 man MLB roster, 30 man MILB. 7x7 with hitting stats being HR, net SB, RBI, Runs, AVG, TB and OPS. I'm coming out of a rebuild where my OF is weak atm,
Thoughts on Lawrence Butler after this down year last year? I'm in a dynasty league where I have both Abrams and Konnor Griffin. I'm wondering if I should explore a deal of Abrams for Butler plus something else.