in real life both things happen..
in general the big contracts set the market, then the dominoes fall. then later the lwer priced guys get signed...
however, some guys do hold out too long and then sign for a great reduction.
jd martinez saw the writing on the wall.. probably would have gotten 25-30m/year just a couple years ago for his produciton, and not barely breaks 20M/year... he was smart and listened to his agent.. signed before he missed out.
there's a clear cooperation amongst owners to stagnate salaries for the last 5 years (including this one).
there's no way to predict what's going to happen with salaries other than a general trend upward over the long-term due to inflation. their salaries won't continuously rise at the rates we've seen since FA's inception, but it shouldn't level off either.. merely the growth will level off to some relatively constant percent with a large enough sample.
it grew so fast because the owners were hording most of the money and still are... if you think the %'s from teh CBA relate to real net cash inflow, you are severely mistaken. accounting is the science of hiding money.. and they do a really good job of it to reduce tax burden as well as ammunition during negotiations with the mbbpa.
just look at how the marlins duped their local city to pay for a large portion of their new stadium... they could have afforded it themselves, yet take/extrort gov't handouts by threatening a move... what a joke. only 1/5th of the population even cares about baseball and sports in general.. they should not be able to steal public money for these private ventures.
damn communists... really.
