The pirates, as it currently stands, are (on target for) committing $65 million in total salaries next year, including arbitration salaries and pre-arbitration salaries. They receive around $50 million in revenue sharing a year, and this year are desperate to sign a big name FA NOT BECAUSE they want to compete, but because there is a MLBPA rule of spending atleast 1.5x of what revenue sharing money you get from other teams.
I think they’re going to throw shit at anything they can get their hands in to get to around $90 million (which would project them to around 5% more spending than last year) and they will say “LOOK YOU LOTAL FOOLS (I mean fans!!) WE SIGNED A GUY AND FOR A LOT OF MONEY! WE TRIED!!” And then you loyalists will get pandered to and get complacent and say “wow look guys they’re trying to win!” When in reality they just want to spend enough to not have the MLBPA file a grievance against them (like what almost happened in the past).
We’ve seen this exact same thing play out last season with the A’s when they signed Severino to get to a “respectable” floor.
Understand this, guys and girls, they will only spend up to a threshold that makes it look like they’re trying. And from what I’ve been seeing this past week with this sub, all you really care about is the appearance of trying.
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Looking like their trying is at least better than looking like they aren’t trying
Ah yes we are moving from the “they should spend more” phase into the “they are just spending to pretend they care” phase.
Why not just root for a different team if you’re always going to be unhappy?
That doesn’t make sense though. If they’re required to spend 1.5x their revenue sharing and each team gets $50M, how does that explain the Marlins having a $67M payroll last year?
1.5 x 50 mil is 75 mill. Obviously less than the planned 65. I’m assuming the 1.5x revenue share is for more than the team?
>MLBPA rule of spending atleast 1.5x of what revenue sharing money you get from other teams.
Teams are required to spend this “in an effort to improve performance on the field.” If Ben’s judgment is that he needs 100 new front office lackeys to crunch numbers in order to improve performance on the field, he can say that counts. If payroll is low enough, the burden of proof shifts to the team, true – but the Pirates faced a grievance just a few years ago. As far as I know, it pretty much died with no consequences for the team.
They’d rather not face a grievance, sure. It’s embarrassing. But it’s very unlikely they are “desperate” to avoid one. MLB will quietly disappear whatever they need to quietly disappear to make sure the owners are protected.
Why would we overpay a player though? If you’re gonna spend money to meet a threshold, it makes no sense from a business perspective to not at least spend it well. I get that Nutting and BC could get desperate and started chucking money at Yastremski or someone, but right now with all of the legitimate trade and contract offer rumors I find it hard to believe the Pirates really want to waste money solely to hit a salary floor. Of course, this changes if we haven’t signed anyone in a couple days, but we’ll see.
Fuck all these delusional ass fans who thinks this regime actually cares about winning. I don’t believe they have any intention on actually signing a big name FA to a big, 9 figure deal. They’re playing the game right now. They’re throwing out offers they know won’t get accepted. It’d be like me offering sticker price for a car when there are 3 other buyers offering over sticker. They’re doing this for a couple reasons. 1) like you said to avoid a grievance. 2) to show ahead of the lockout that they’re trying to be competitive. 3) they’re trying to save face amid the most criticism they’ve ever faced.
They’ll prob end between 90-100mil in the end. And that is a fucking joke considering the opportunity we have right at our doorstep, both with the talent we have and the financial position we’re in. I’m a nihilist when it comes to this team. But how can you not be? They fail us every single time and show no signs of that changing. Already missed out on prob the 2 best options. I would be over the moon to be proven wrong, but I doubt I will