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Originally Posted by Django7975
I wish we could go back to those days and just forget the money. Such a shame to me why the worship of mammon must bastardize all good things. Shame shame
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Maybe money wasn't a big concern in the 1800s, but it wasn't too long after the turn of the century that money had already taken a hold in the sport (see battles of salary, including Tris Speaker and Babe Ruth, not to mention the Black Sox scandal). I'm not a historian, but I'd wager that the different leagues at the time wanted to kill off others because of the finances, too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rats60
They are also paying out big signing bonus when players are drafted. Aaron Judge will be fine if he keeps performing.
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Money in the draft and in the international market is basically capped now, too. The owners have done a great job in building a system that limits their biggest expense, the workforce on the field, while the MLBPA has done a really bad job in representing their members.
The record bonus for a draftee is $8 million by Gerrit Cole (Pirates) in 2011. Last year's first overall pick got $7.5 million (under the slot amount of just over $8 million). Using an inflation calculator, Cole's $8 million in 2011 translates to nearly $9 million for 2018. Meanwhile, MLB had the 16th consecutive year in setting the record for revenue (despite down attendance and flat TV revenue) (source: Forbes).
I think the players see this as a raw deal and will take a strong stand to really change the current system, and I doubt the owners will give in easily. And my impression is that with so much youth in baseball now, there aren't many players that were even old enough to remember the 1994 strike (a 30-year-old player in 2018 would have been 6 in 1994). It's going to be ugly.