Read on Twitter
I will be *extremely* surprised if there's a LeMahieu suitor out there for 5/125. I'd be surprised if he got that even if we knew for a fact that baseball has a perfectly normal 2021.
And players should get used to this if they approve expanded playoffs; making success even more randomized makes top players worth less.
I said it before and I'll say it again: the days of mega-contracts for the free agents who aren't superstars in their 20s are gone. If the MLBPA wants the pot to grow, they're going to have to focus on growing it for the young players, not veterans.
If I worked for the MLBPA, the message I'd beat to death would be: owners don't spend money because they're kind or withhold money because they're cruel. Ownership spends money as baseball's structure incentivizes them to do. You want more spending, change the incentives.
Large playoffs, a revenue sharing system subsidizing low-revenue rather than team investments, thinks like international revenue, internet revenue, merchandising all shared between teams equally. All of these things reduce the value of a marginal win and thus, player value.
MLB will be happy to give players scraps and token concessions at the table like a bigger playoff cut or an extra roster spot, but the MLBPA has not yet succeeded in changing the *incentives* to win money, which the owners have cannily directly in their favor.
And in the end, it's the players who will have to fight to get what they want. Owners aren't going to give it and fans largely aren't going to support them.
