Quote:
Originally Posted by PSUColonel
In fact, a new CBA is upcoming in the off season, and it's my belief we will see financial changes as a result. Young productive players are underpaid, while older declining players are overpaid. I believe there will be changes to award those who are performing in their prime. Arbitration is probably an outdated system, and it would make sense to me, that after three years under club control, rather than being arbitration eligible, players would become something similar to the NFL system (restricted FA) or even an outright FA...however that would really hurt smaller clubs. The best solution would likely be a salary cap, but you know darn well the MLBPA will never go for it.
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From my point of view, salary caps are
horrendous, while arbitration is a good way to balance stability (players sticking with the same team) with players' legitimate rights not to be grossly underpaid relative to the revenue they generate.
The thing that I think is undervalued by almost everyone is the stability. In terms of what's best for the game as a spectator sport, if one were willing to ignore players' rights, the best thing was the reserve clause.
Note I'm not advocating for that because players are human beings with legitimate rights, and also the grossly huge profits teams made and would make in such a system, while players got so little, would be horribly unfair.
I am saying though, that it would be great as a fan to follow a team, know that if they found a great player that that player was theirs unless they traded him and got (what at least they thought of as) value for him.
There's no question that was, and would be, horribly unfair to the players. However, stability is very valuable to the game as a spectator sport. Arbitration ensures players are paid with a reasonable amount of fairness, while lessening the team turnover that would occur if instead those players had free agency.
I hate salary caps beyond belief because those combine unfairness to players by driving down demand at the top with working against stability, especially of great teams. I don't envy a lot of things about life in the past, but I do envy people getting to see and root for/against dynasties.
Baseball is unique to a point there, too. There is less in-game strategy than in other major sports. So much of success is putting together the right group of players in the first place. When a team succeeds at doing that, I don't want to see them punished by having to give up some of those players, even if they can and are willing to pay them market value.
I have no idea what will happen with the CBA. Arbitration almost seems like something that would have come about if the teams and players had to compromise with the fans, which obviously they don't. It's possible that some on one side or both realize that how entertaining baseball is as a spectator sport is tied to how much money both sides will make (If revenues go down, not only will teams have less profit potential but they'll have less money that players, through both collective bargaining and individual negotiation, can make it so they have to pay to the players).
But, I can see how players might think of quicker free agency as clearly good for them (including getting to play in a city or for a team one prefers) and owners might see that as a smaller concession than others for which they may be asked, it may not survive or may be curtailed. I hope that does not happen, however.