LogFAQs > #976983836

Delirious_Beard posted...

the only way to remove cheap teams from existing is total overhaul to player compensation. why has player development become the most important thing for every well-run organization? because players make no fucking money early on in their career, so churning out cheap young stars and contributors at an enormous surplus is the key to sustaining winning on a budget.

Aaron Judge as a rookie was an MVP runner-up and his salary that season was league minimum. exploiting this is the job of every top executive in these front offices, it's why the free agent market has dried up in recent years except for true superstars, who are always worth paying (unless you're the Red Sox). paying market value for merely good and aging players is just not worth it for most teams, and any system where paying actual fair value to workers is discouraged is a broken one

the closest thing to a compromise that teams are actually doing is these early extensions like the aforementioned Corbin Carroll one, but even these are still extremely team-friendly like 80% of the time, and in some cases like the Ozzie Albies or Ronald Acuna deals they are outright robbery

See, I pretty much agree with most of this. I'm not against players getting paid, especially from the outset. I would not be against something forcing teams to pay the players more; raised league min or salary floor or something, as well as increased focused on player retention (fuck do I wish the D-backs were better about that one).

Maybe I'm just jaded, though, because the overwhelming feeling I get after 25 years of watching this team is just that the playing field is too unlevel when it comes to free agency, to the point that as soon as any of our stars are approaching the end of their contract, I assume they're just going to be gone because we (and poorer teams in general) can't compete. Just in recent years, losing JD Martinez to the Red Sox and AJ Pollock to the Dodgers just really drove that home, as well as trading away Goldschmidt.

But even with that, I don't oppose players getting paid in free agency, or want a cap of any sort to that. I just simply see how teams like the Rays run things as the way for poorer teams to actually be able to compete.

So, tl;dr, I don't agree that lower payroll teams that do well through the farm system and trades and whatnot is inherently bad for baseball like you and Zithers have been saying, but I do agree that players deserve to be paid more than they are, and wish we would. I'm going to be pissed if we let Gallen walk after this season, but I'm largely expecting it to happen.