Brewers Trade Peralta And Expose Baseball’s Biggest Problem | Matt Adams Shares His Take
MLB says it wants competitive balance, but the reality tells a different story. When teams like the Brewers are forced to trade frontline starters while the Dodgers keep adding stars, fans start asking hard questions.
In this clip (taken live from The Key STL), Matt Adams, Jim Hayes, and Cam Janssen break down why baseball’s financial model feels unsustainable, how looming lockouts could reshape contracts, and why fans may be the ones paying the price.
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14 comments
Kudos to Matt Adams for being a player or former player and getting it. Takes guts to say the right thing when you know that your peers won’t like it. Jim, I wish you actually did debate strongly with Matt, Lance, and Kyle regarding the need for a cap
What's up Big City
I think you forgot to mention the Brewers have a rotation of : Logan Henderson, Brandon Woodruff, Chad Patrick, Brandon Sproat, Robert Gasser, Jacob Misoirowski, Quinn Priester,DL. Hall, Carlos Rodriguez. I would move Peralta's career year also and cash in while you can. He has been a head case for them also.
Baseball is broken due to these out of control player salaries. A lockout is needed. No guaranteed contracts only signing bonuses. Salary cap of 500 mill
These players that don't want a salary cap SUCK!!!!!! If you can't get a salary cap then spot runs like gambling. The suck ass Dodgers have a 2026 active salary of $300,000,000 and the White Sox have one of $43,900,000. LA's is 6.8 times larger so round up to 7. When the suck ass Dodgers play the ChiSox the game starts off with the ChiSox having a seven run lead. The greedy bastards still get rich and the small markets are competitive.
Super hypothetical here, and it will never happen obviously, but what if every team in MLB for fitted every game against the Dodgers. No ticket sales for the Dodgers, no one watching on TV, etc. Yeah, they win the WS in that scenario, but who cares, you cut off their revenue stream and make them rethink things.
The Cat is on point!
Good Convo, but I felt like they kept cutting Matt off when he was talking. I wanted to hear more of what he had to say.
With better revenue sharing, there are 32 high-paying options for every position, versus a capless system where there are a half dozen high-paying opportunities.
there isn't any free agency now only a handful of teams get the good free agents the small markets get nothing
The Brewers are not stupid. They got a pitcher with a high ceiling and major league ready. A second baseman also with a high ceiling
This ain't nothing new here in Milwaukee we've been watching this happen for decades….
Why can't the discussion simply begin with the agreement on the part of owners and players that a high percentage of fans believe that the current system is unfair? Start there! Make sure that there is consensus as to the problem in it's entirety as opposed to what you're doing which is trying to solution it by declaring caps and floors when it isn't even clear that the problem has been adequately defined to the satisfaction of both sides (owners and players).
If the owners insist that the only way through this is for the players to accept the fact that the upper limits of their earning potential is going to be nerfed, then since this is a negotiation, what is it that the owners would offer in return for that huge concession?
Suppose for example that the players were to say, "Well we don't like the 162 game season. We don't want to have to play baseball practically everyday from Easter to Thanksgiving. Especially if you don't want to pay us for it anymore. It takes a heavy toll on our health and our career longevity, especially for pitchers. It doesn't serve any benefit to us at all. We'd prefer to spend more time with our families in a longer offseason. Are you willing to discuss reducing the season by 25%?"
Or suppose the players say, "We don't like pre arbitration/arbitration because we have to give up 6 years of our MLB career before we have an opportunity to freely negotiate a deal for ourselves. The other sports (NBA, NFL) don't tie their players up for that length of time. We'll give you 3 years but no more of this 6 year stuff. That's too long."
My point is that this universe of possibilities can't be shrunk down to the owners saying we want to curtail our spending and we need a rule to protect us from ourselves. To the players that screams of taking them back to the Curt Flood era and the age of the MLB Reserve Clause where players had ZERO mobility or negotiating rights for their entire careers. Most players believe that is the ultimate objective of owners, no matter how many CBA's have to be negotiated before they get back to that place before 1976 when free agency arrived.
A salary cap isn't the issue. A salary floor is the issue. MLB is just a race to the bottom at this point because cheap owners realize there's free money to be had in revenue sharing.