Average MLB salary drops for 3rd straight year...

[Lipman 1]

Looking more and more like a labor impasse is going to hit either sometime in 2021 or most definitely in 2022:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/2/4/22266795/average-mlb-player-salary-falls-for-third-consecutive-year

[HomeFish]

The article doesn't seem to explain why, but I assume the main factor here is that teams are now less willing to give big or lengthy contracts to guys on the wrong side of 30. So guys who were once making millions of dollars at age 35 or age 36 are now making $0 at those ages, which will definitely lower average salaries!

If you were appointed as a special baseball dictator and charged with creating a salary structure for MLB that solved this problem and was tolerable to both sides, what would you do?

One obvious solution is a salary floor, which would probably force rebuilding teams to each add another older veteran or two who would otherwise be out of baseball. Another possible solution would be to make arbitration happen earlier. The other thing you could do of course is make players into free agents earlier, but this is probably significantly more skewed towards players and against teams than the other ideas.

[Mohoney]

The article doesn't seem to explain why, but I assume the main factor here is that teams are now less willing to give big or lengthy contracts to guys on the wrong side of 30. So guys who were once making millions of dollars at age 35 or age 36 are now making $0 at those ages, which will definitely lower average salaries!

If you were appointed as a special baseball dictator and charged with creating a salary structure for MLB that solved this problem and was tolerable to both sides, what would you do?

One obvious solution is a salary floor, which would probably force rebuilding teams to each add another older veteran or two who would otherwise be out of baseball. Another possible solution would be to make arbitration happen earlier. The other thing you could do of course is make players into free agents earlier, but this is probably significantly more skewed towards players and against teams than the other ideas.

Make arbitration and Rule 5 eligibility arrive sooner. Make the entire minor-league process take 5 years maximum; 3 before being added to the 40-man, then 2 option years. Also, create an international draft.

[JazzyCyclist]

Make arbitration and Rule 5 eligibility arrive sooner. Make the entire minor-league process take 5 years maximum; 3 before being added to the 40-man, then 2 option years. Also, create an international draft.

I’d like to see international players added to the regular draft, just as the NBA does. I see no good reason for the distinction.

[TDog]

Players would disagree, but I see the decline in salaries as a result of a labor system that favors the players. Teams will always look to pay as little as they can. The entire concept of Moneyball was to find cheap players who had a chance to win -- not to find a better way to win, but to find a cheap way to have a chance to win. Then they stopped being cheap and teams were paying big money for the bargain-basement analytics. Now teams are cutting expenses by going younger with fewer opportunities going to older veterans.

The reality is that when someone who isn't very good at hitting and isn't very good at fielding and doesn't pitch, i.e. Kyle Schwarber, can sign for $10 million for a season (if I read that correctly, I was wrong by the way, but don't expect the deal to work out for the Nationals unless Schwarber demonstrates some actual baseball skills), the union really has nothing to complain about.

Whatever baseball does, owners will always find a way to drive down average salaries.