5/28/20

Mike's Mets - The Not So Funny Money Blues


 
The big news of the day, which technically broke yesterday, is that MLB has finally made a concrete financial proposal to the union. Given the sense that a deal needs to be made fairly soon in order to meet the early July goal, I was honestly shocked that this hopeless proposal is what MLB decided to go with. It's fairly obvious that MLB doesn't expect the union to agree to the tiered salary structure they proposed. It's clearly meant to drive a wedge between the players and convincing a percentage of the public that the players are evil, greedy monster.

Let me get one thing on the record here. I don't think anyone should be paid what the top stars in baseball get paid. Being paid multi-millions of dollars per year for playing a game is insane. It's really hard for me to identify with someone making that kind of money, much less feel sorry for them taking a hit along with most of the rest of us during this pandemic. Then again, I feel pretty much the same way about the drastically overpaid company CEOs. It's just the way the world works today.

We would all do well to remember that there's a reason that the top players in baseball receive those crazy contracts. To put it simply, it's because owners give it to them. Baseball has been flush with crazy amounts of cash for quite a while. A premium is placed on signing star-level players who draw fans into overpriced ballparks to pay hugely inflated prices for food and libations that make those cash registers go ka-ching. Some of this big money trickles down to veteran players who offer value and help the club win, while very little makes it down to fringier roster fillers at the bottom.
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4 comments:

Mack Ade said...

Mike is a long time Mets friend of mine and I love this association.

Please visit his site regularly.

Mike Steffanos said...

Thanks, Mack. I really appreciate it.

Tom Brennan said...

Hey Mike, honestly, if Scherzer does not want to play for $8 million, some AAA guy will be happy to take his place for $300,000

Mike Steffanos said...

No doubt, but I'd rather watch Scherzer. If many of the stars decide to sit out we're just going to wind up with a more watered down game.