MLB's Deferred Salary Madness the Red Sox Refuse to Partake in
Alex Bregman is not going to be a Boston Red Sox. The latest report has the All-Star third baseman wanting a six year deal. Craig Breslow and his army of Poindexter's are not going to sign an aging player with declining numbers. Management does not want to invest big dollars and contracts past five years. Honestly, I don't disagree with a lot of that logic. Outside of the fact that the Red Sox need to find success on the diamond now not later. Bregman would help that. The Red Sox need leadership badly. Bregman would bring that. The Red Sox need an asshole in the clubhouse. Bregman is the good kind of asshole. Oh, plus he and Cora perfected cheating in baseball and that always helps.
But, that aint happening. So an other alternatives include Nolan Arenado in a trade from the St. Louis Cardinals.
Arenado is due $75 million over the next three years and the Cardinals are willing to negotiate keeping $20 -25 million of that. He too is a 30+ year old third baseman whose numbers seem to be dipping, but the money and the contract may make sense for the Red Sox who have decided to treat their $5 Billion Dollar Franchise like a the Hobby Lobby of the MLB (Minus the bigotry. We think)
This is all just a lead in to tell you I looked at Arenado’s contract and the St. Louis Cardinals deferred money from that contract all the way to 2041 and it made me wanna rage poop in a cup.
Baseball needs a salary camp
This is not a novel concept. People have been talking about this forever. The baseball traditionalist continuing to get in the way, but that is slowly starting to change. We're seeing it on the diamond with the rules. Now we have to see it off the diamond with the money
These deferred contracts are fucking ridiculous. Nolan Arenado was deferred to 2041. The Mets are paying Lindor through 2041. The Red Sox owe Chris Sale through 2039. The Dodgers will be paying Freddie Freeman through 2040. Dodgers, the biggest abusers and culprits of this tactic deferred nearly all of Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million contract to the point where he is only on the books for $2 million a year for the entirety of his 10 year deal. That’s $680 million to be paid out 2034 - 2043. This is not new, it’s just becoming the norm for these big market teams. You notice how all those Names are either from New York, LA, or Boston?
Yes, professional sports is a multi billion dollar industry, but at the end of the day it's still a game and it's a game that only works if competitive disparity is equal or at least close to it.
It's one of the reasons baseball continues to suffer and die. It's purely a regional sport. One of the biggest reasons they cannot get big names stars on a national level is because people don't give a shit about big name stars unless they're in LA or New York.
The NFL on the other hand has always been the poster child for parody. It should be argued that most of that is due to the nature of the sport, but there's no denying the salary cap in other professional sports creates a much more equal playing field than in baseball. However, even the NFL is threatening their parody with the way they are handling their contracts. The free market system is creating super high-end paid players mostly quarterbacks, but some other positions are such as wide receiver or left tackle. The rest of the population mostly lives in poverty with minimum contracts or rookie deals. The middle class is shrinking by year.
Unlike in a really economy, it fairly easy for these leagues to fix this pretty quickly. In the NFL just change the rules so the quarterbacks aren't as so goddamn important. That’s step one.
In baseball, get rid of the profit sharing mechanisms that you have and your stupid luxury taxes. Put in a proper salary cap that everyone has to play by. Even if it has as many loop holes as the NBA or NFL. It’s more on the level than baseball is now.
Here’s some cold water. The biggest hurdle for any of these leagues inevitably is themselves. The 30 or so egomaniacal, power junkie, greedy whore owners, who are mostly second or third generation at this point, either only care about their bottom line, just don't give a shit because everything was handed to them, or lack the skills and competency to make the right decision decisions to improve their league in business for the future. So, we are all pissing into the wind with subjects like this.
The deferred money payment seems like an easy one to fix though. Yes, it helps the greedy fucks with taxes and not having a pony up all the money upfront. $680 million is not worth as much from 2034 - 2043 as it is in 2023. That’s just economics, baby. Simple Minds. In baseball you need to have the total amount of money of the contact available to offer said contract even if it is over a 35 year fucking term. But, all that money can just sit in an escrow account that collects a high interest rate year over a year. By the time the Dodgers are done paying Ohtani they would've made money off that deal.
It's gross. It's not in the spirit of the game, but never mind the fucking spirit. It just doesn't makes sense. The poor slobs in Milwaukee will never have a chance at sustained success never mind the poor bastards in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh who year after year have to watch the cunt bag owners take the cash from New York in Boston and stick it right in their pockets instead of in the club.
You're all gross. You can defer my ass to your lips.
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