gehringer_2

If you 'incentivize' longer starts, you'll just destroy more arms. It's not the players, it's the game.

The NFL doesn't really have a cap, it has a budget the teams must spend on players, if they end up under budget on salaries, they have to make it up in payments to the NLFPA but they have to be within about 90% in direct player payments. So on every team, the players get the the negotiated cut of the team revenue. It's not really a cap or a floor, it's the player piece of team revenue. That is pretty close to an ideal construct for a sports league. MLB can't get anywhere near there for dozens of reasons, but the 1st prerequisite to moving toward balanced team salary is balanced team revenue. Taking about caps and floors seems pretty pointless to me when it doesn't address the fundamental issue, which is team income inequality. Only movement in that direction, even if incremental, begins to rationalize the MLB system. As Buddha pointed out, a cap added to any thing like the current system (i.e.absent real structural revenue reform) simply benefits the richest teams even more. I suppose you could say that if they institute a meaningful floor, that means they have to institute some additional revenue sharing, otherwise a meaningful floor is an impossibility. But that is exactly why a meaningful floor is really unlikely!

yeah - maybe something like that. BTW - what happened with Tony Clark? There seemed to be some kind of controversy brewing a few months ago but seems to have blown over? A weakened union leadership with a self-preservation agenda becomes a wild card also.

TBH, I don't think the small market teams want a cap either because any cap that emerged would almost certainly benefit the richest teams the most, unless those owners are just dumb - which is also possible! I do think the players are going to push hard to reduce years of control, and I think you could get odd bedfellows between the players and the rich teams both being in favor (even if those owners would never admit it in public) but the majority of owners being opposed.

God was using Times Roman because Calibri is too woke and 10 were all that would fit and still be legible to nomads with no bifocals. Everybody knows that.

The thing is, I don't think there is a whole lot ASP can do for the rest of this season. It's not a matter of him just picking up his game. Sometimes he's not in the right place but more often he is just physically out matched, and that isn't going to change before next season -- even if the team believes it eventually will So teams are going at him harder now and McLellan doesn't have much choice but to cut his playing time - and that can't go on for too long. In the long run, if they still think he can get strong enough to be an asset in the future,, then playing this season will be a plus for his development, but given that the Wings have put themselves in such a good position in the standings, at some point McLellan is going to be pleading with Yzerman that winning games has to take precedence. Just think how much worse it could be if JBD weren't playing decently. 😱

and we still have to worry about Larkin. Daniels made a point last night about McLellan holding Larkin to 13min against Boston so we are already seeing the team concerned about his workload.

Yup - I think Daniels noted he came out for one shift late, but that was it. IDK - maybe Yzerman thinks one of the guys at GR is close enough that they'll be ready after the Olympics. Otherwise the closer it gets to the deadline the more I worry about a them making a bad desperation deal.

some real team leadership there by Raymond, he could have had that himself - he was looking for Casper.

not really on board for 1-3, but who can argue with 4?

I think you should definitely be allowed to borrow your own Roth since you've already paid taxes on it. There is a reasonable argument to be made that the gov can tell you what you and can't do with your tax exempt money because they gave you the exemption to encourage you to use it for a particular purpose (ie retirement). I don't know how in favor I am I of this idea without seeing the fine print, which we don't have.

likewise here.

if absolute performance were the only criterion in the arbitration process, then a lot of 6th yr guys ought to have been awarded a lot more than they ever were/are. I don't know all the things they factor in, but there have to be some pretty hard rules about service time and multiples from previous salaries that figure into the process.

Proverbs 26:27 would also be advisable to keep in mind: "He that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him"

I have no complaint about how much players make, if what they do generates the income, then they are entitled to it. What I object to is my team not being able to compete on a level playing field. What the argument misses is that more 'socialism' among the owners *is* good for competition. In today's baseball world, whether you believe more competition is good for the fans comes down to whether you live in a have or a have-not city.

If there is a driver this time around, I think it would be a schism within ownership between those are demanding to have the playing field leveled vs the Dodgers/Yankees/Mets. In that collision the players would be more or less just be caught in the middle. I don't have any particular insight into how PO'd the majority of owners are at the way the Dodgers and couple others have been throwing money around, but I wouldn't be surprised if the temperature around the issue is rising, in part because of the on-going failures to thrive at so many RSNs. When a dozen or so teams are going to be asked to negotiate away income they thought they could count on, it can't make them happy to see LA drop $60M on a 4 WAR player. So while I don't know if the strain between owners is high or not, it's easy enough to see the reasons it might be growing. One way that could play out in terms of the actual contract issues is that the players want the number of years of arb control cut, and I can't see any way the mid market and below teams would ever agree to that without a big increase in revenue sharing. So there is one possible three way dance.

Once the Dodgers sign Skubal at the end of the season, they'll have more AAV to 3 players:Tucker, Ohtani and Skubal; than the total payroll of maybe 20 teams.

whatever slight probability remained that Skubal re-signs with the Tigers just evaporated with the Tucker signing.

NBA rule book sucks.

Good point. It's another element in a general trend toward intellectual passivity. We watch too much, generate too little, construct intellectual shelters when we need the outside constantly storming our brain's ramparts. I think it's all very damaging. We are getting to be like bored dogs that chew on the carpet or lick their paws out of lack of intellectual stimulation. Our brains evolved as problem solving machines to help keep us alive, and we are starving them for anything to do and so leaving the lizard brain in control as the higher functions atrophy.

If you don't think you have too much starting pitching, you probably don't have enough.

I think ASP has shown a fine level of offensive potential for an NHL defenseman. The question for ASP is can he become a more effective defensive defenseman. At 20, we know he can get stronger so it's reasonable to expect more upside on his ability to handle opponents that are out-muscling him right now, but it might be another 2 yrs before he reaches his ceiling in that regard.

I think we are headed for Yugoslavia. The level of support Trump is finding in the US public for cruel, hateful, murderous policies both at home and abroad has me as doubtful about the future of this country as I have ever been. This public is far, far worse than the one that took 10yrs to realize Vietnam was wrong. Sliding rapidly into irredeemable IMV. the one accomplishment of the Christian Right has been to finally reveal the Anti-Christ for us. It's them.

LOL - I suppose based on the Tigers international player track record that is probably true, but I'd call that a bug, not a feature. 🇻🇪 🇩🇴 🇲🇽

I don't think it has to be a matter of replacement - all the entertainment/social interaction sites can remain profitable - I don't think that precludes the rise of new high trust sources. There already are some actually. Ironically, I think NPR, and public radio locally, which have found that public support is strong after being cut off the government trough, is in much better shape to concentrate on the quality of their journalism now that they can stop arguing internally about the risk to the government $ on every story they do.