00:00What's going down is the owners want a hard salary cap and salary floor, which means teams would have to
00:06would have a limit on how much they can spend, which is the norm across most sports leagues.
00:12But what has made baseball so unique and different is they've never had this.
00:17Right. But because when you have a cap, that means you also have to have a minimum for teams to
00:25spend.
00:26So that's the positive side of it. It's going to force a lot of these teams that are spending nothing
00:31on their payroll to actually create competitive rosters.
00:39But the players obviously don't want a cap because that they believe it's going to limit and it will how
00:46much that they can earn.
00:48And their argument is simple. Don't punish teams like the Dodgers for spending and force cheap teams to spend more.
01:00And the Dodgers are front and center, you guys, of this entire conversation.
01:05The owners are saying we need a cap so the Dodgers can't outspend everyone.
01:11And the players are saying, no, don't punish the Dodgers for trying to win, punish the teams that refuse to
01:18spend.
01:18And that's kind of what the whole fight is about.
01:21And it also goes like there are teams that are not spending what the Dodgers are spending that are just
01:28managed well and put together well.
01:30And they're able to compete.
01:33So this is just this is really interesting.
01:37Ken Rosenthal did an article for The Athletic and he's also yeah, him in his bow ties.
01:43Also a reporter, MLB reporter for Fox Sports.
01:47And he said to put it in baseball terms, the negotiations were still in the first inning.
01:54You guys actually, this might be overstating it.
01:56The teams are not even in the respective clubhouses yet, and I'm not even sure they've left their hotels.
02:02So, like, that's how early we are in these negotiations.
02:07And as you know, in any negotiation, one side is always going to go as low as possible and the
02:15other side is going to ask for as much as they can.
02:18And you hopefully somehow meet in the middle.
02:21Well, I and because of that, this is why we are headed towards a lockout.
02:31Yes, basically in Major League Baseball, which would mean spring training wouldn't start on time.
02:36Hopefully it doesn't get to the season being affected by it.
02:39But everything kind of gets pushed back until these negotiations can be agreed upon.
02:44Yes, and the biggest issue that they cannot come to terms with is that, as you mentioned, the players do
02:53not want a salary cap and the ownership does.
02:57And until they get over that hump and someone has to back down and both sides are making it very
03:05clear we are not backing down from this singular issue,
03:07they can't even get to the dozens and dozens of minutiae that they have to figure out because the two
03:15big issues that they both have,
03:17and they are staunchly on the opposite sides of, nothing can happen until one side acquiesces and neither side says
03:27that they will.
03:27I do think it is important to address that the ownership's logic in why they want a salary cap is
03:38completely dishonest.
03:40They don't want a salary cap because they want to spend less money, as business owners do.
03:45But they're trying to frame it as parity, as this is unfair, and look at what the Dodgers are doing,
03:56what are we supposed to do, it's unfair,
03:58they're playing it by a different rule, and trying to distract fans from the fact that every team can do
04:04what the Dodgers are doing.
04:05They are choosing not to.
04:08And two flaws in that line of thinking and their logic.
04:13One, if success on the baseball diamond just comes down to who spends more money, why are we paying a
04:20manager?
04:21Why are we paying a GM?
04:22Why do you have a scouting department?
04:25Okay, so why are any of you getting paid if it just comes down to paying for the best player
04:30so you don't have to coach,
04:32you don't have to tweak things, you don't have to make lineups, it's just whoever spends the most money wins?
04:36The second part of it, there was a graphic I saw, and they were trying to show that there is
04:43a, so this is for 2025, payroll,
04:46there was a $446 million gap from the 30th ranked team in spending, Miami, to the first ranked team for
04:54the Dodgers.
04:54Yeah.
04:55The flaw in that graphic, and what they were trying to do, is that, you know who's ranked 25th in
05:01that graphic?
05:03Cleveland.
05:04Yeah.
05:0423rd was Cincinnati.
05:0722nd was Milwaukee.
05:09Yeah.
05:0917th was Detroit.
05:11All teams in the lower half of spending, all those teams were playoff teams last year.
05:15Yeah.
05:15So what are we doing?
05:16So this tweet came from Alden Gonzalez.
05:19He put out a couple of the visuals that, I'm a visual learner, so this is very helpful for me.
05:25Shout out to Alden, by the way.
05:26Yeah, this is used, this was used by Major League Baseball in these arguments right now.
05:33So they are clearly using the Dodgers as the prime example, because it has them at the top,
05:41their payroll, $515 million, to, as you mentioned, Miami being at $69 million, as the pay gap.
05:50They also use the payroll luxury tax and how much more the Dodgers are paying in luxury tax
05:58compared to all the other payrolls.
06:01Their luxury tax exceeded the payroll of 16 teams.
06:05They also went on to compare the Dodgers payroll comparison, that their $515 million was the
06:13same as one, two, three, four, five, six teams combined.
06:17And then again, the 2026 payroll projection, they put the Mets and the Dodgers, who have
06:25paid the most, as we know, Uncle Steve on the Mets is also willing to spend as much as the
06:31Dodgers ownership group is, and it put the two of them at, they said, $1,009 million compared
06:41to, wait, that would be, that would be a bill, right?
06:45Why did I just say billion there?
06:46I'm not sure.
06:47Yeah, why didn't they put a B there?
06:49That's weird.
06:51Compared to $948 million for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten teams.
06:57So it's saying these two teams, their payroll is the same as a handful, two handfuls of these
07:04teams.
07:04And you know what?
07:05Like, okay, this felt like you were given an assignment of like, hey, do a PowerPoint
07:11presentation and just kind of get some good visuals together so we can sway people.
07:16I see this.
07:18And what I see is you got a, you got a lower half of the league problem.
07:23Like, don't get mad at the top dog for doing whatever it takes to win and not doing it
07:30illegally.
07:30Like, this is what baseball has been since the beginning of time.
07:34This is what the Yankees were in their dynasty age.
07:38This is just what they're doing.
07:39And again, I say this to all these fans who hate on the Dodgers and hate that they're able,
07:44they're willing to pay because all these teams are able, your owners are able to pay the players.
07:51They are choosing not to pay the players and choosing not to have these big contracts.
07:56The Dodgers are a player-friendly place, which is why you see all these stars wanting to come
08:03to play for the Dodgers because not only are they actually getting paid what they're worth,
08:07but they're creating an environment.
08:09They're creating a winning atmosphere and they're creating a dynasty that is fun to be
08:16a part of.
08:17And if you're going to highlight when spending money leads to success, you have to highlight
08:24when it doesn't lead to success.
08:25Yes, the Dodgers have spent the most money.
08:27They are one of the teams atop the MLB right now.
08:30The Mets have spent the second most and are off to one of the worst starts that they've
08:34had in recent years, sitting at 23 and 33 at the bottom of the NL East.
08:40The Philadelphia Phillies are spending a grip of money.
08:42They had one of the worst starts that they've had and since firing their manager have got
08:47back on track.
08:48The Toronto Blue Jays have the fifth most spending and they are sitting, what, middle of the pack?
08:54Probably.
08:55Yeah, they're sitting with a losing record at 28 and 29 in the A at least.
09:00It's such flawed logic.
09:02And the scary thing, as you teased about, Alex, is that it will work for some of the fans to
09:08actually fall for this and believe the narrative of, well, we can't spend the way that they
09:14do and spending leads to direct winning, even though, one, you can spend the way that the
09:20Dodgers and Yankees and Mets do.
09:21And two, it doesn't directly lead to winning.
09:25Just look at the standings.
09:26No.
09:27And also because, again, like this whole discussion is to have a hard cap and a floor.
09:34And what I think is important is to push the idea that these teams that are not spending the
09:41money that they can will have a minimum that they need to spend.
09:44That is important.
09:46And I think for fans that are in markets that, obviously, their teams aren't playing
09:52well, they're not spending the money, they have hope that it will give their teams a
09:56fair chance to win.
09:57But if the cap is such a great equalizer, and this was also quoted by Ken in the Athletic
10:02article, why are the Cleveland Guardians more frequently in the playoffs than the Cleveland
10:07Browns?
10:08Okay.
10:09Also, how do Tampa Bay and Milwaukee, Brewers and Rays, often succeed while the New York
10:16Mets don't?
10:17So it's just like, when you look at the cap in other leagues, it doesn't mean that these
10:25teams are going to be great.
10:26No.
10:26There is no guarantee.
10:28There's no correlation whatsoever.
10:30No.
10:30You can, as you mentioned, you can have one of the highest payrolls in the Mets.
10:34Yep.
10:35Just because you pay the players doesn't mean that you're going to have the success.
10:38It's so, it's such a tired topic, and we've been ramping up to this inevitable lockout.
10:48It's so sad.
10:49Just admit that you want to spend less money, because the sooner that you can admit that,
10:53the sooner we can get to legitimate solutions.
10:56The longer you spend the commissioner, the owners, and the union arguing over fallacies,
11:03that's just wasted time, because we're arguing over something that we both know is not true,
11:07and we're just pushing down the road the things that we are actually arguing over that you
11:12don't want to admit this is really about.
11:14Yeah.
11:14And I think the saddest part for me is baseball is on such a high right now, and they have
11:19so much momentum.
11:21A lockout is only going to set us back, like, years.
11:25Like, only.
11:26Like, there's been so much work to get baseball to this point.
11:30And baseball has it.
11:33Like, it has the cool factor right now.
11:35We talked about it.
11:35I feel like it's the first time it's had the cool factor since Ken Griffey Jr.
11:39Like...
11:39Now we're pulling the emergency.
11:41Not yet.
11:42Like, it would be during the offseason.
11:43And that's not what we want to do.
11:46I just...
11:46It just makes me sad.
11:48And again, like, you've got billionaires that are probably going to be, like, holding the
11:52line, and hopefully after a couple weeks of spring training, when they're losing millions
11:58of dollars, they'll come to some sort of agreement, but...
12:02That's all you can hope for.
12:03Yeah.
12:04This is going to be tough.
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