MLB The Show Franchise Mode Can't Handle the Dodgers (And Neither Can the MLB)

[Feros Ferio 7]

How is MLB free agency broken compared to the other leagues?

NBA has basically killed free agency with their cap structure. The very best players never reach free agency in the NFL. NHL cap and salaries break teams apart very quickly.

MLB also has the best parity of these sports.


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[jcar0725]

Quote: Originally Posted by Feros Ferio 7

How is MLB free agency broken compared to the other leagues? NBA has basically killed free agency with their cap structure. The very best players never reach free agency in the NFL. NHL cap and salaries break teams apart very quickly. MLB also has the best parity of these sports. Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

The leagues best players will 95% of the time end up the upper tier market teams because they can spend frivolously. LA, NY etc. The smaller market teams have no shot to have a superstar play his entire career with that team once they hit free agency. That's not the usually case in the NFL or NBA.

[Armor and Sword]

Quote: Originally Posted by Feros Ferio 7

How is MLB free agency broken compared to the other leagues? NBA has basically killed free agency with their cap structure. The very best players never reach free agency in the NFL. NHL cap and salaries break teams apart very quickly. MLB also has the best parity of these sports. Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

You can't be serious.

MLB has a huge competitive balance issue......huge. Teams like the:

Pirates
Nationals
Marlins
Rockies
Reds
Royals
Tampa Bay
Minnesota
White Sox
Oakland


Have basically become a minor leagues for future stars to leave and sign with:

Dodgers
Mets
Red Sox
Yankees
Giants
Phillies
Braves
Houston
Texas

Then you have teams in pugartory who can't get over the hump:

Baltimore - They will lose guys soon....no doubt. They have built an amazing pipeline that they can't afford to keep long term.,
Toronto - also will lose guys
Cleveland
Seattle
Brewers
Cardinals
Cubs
Padres
D Backs


We need a salary floor. There must be a minimum that every team must spend on payroll. And yes we need a maximum cap otherwise baseball which is already dying......will die quicker and all these bloated salaries....will take the league down.


The NHL has it right.....IMO every team has the ability to draft, trade and sign free agents and construct a competitive team.

Gone are the days in baseball of building a team thru the farm because the big bad teams I mentioned above will come in a hoard all that young talent once they are out of a teams control in year 6.

Tampa used to be smart and try and lock up a player before they hit arbitration years and it worked......until it did not.

The NBA? A total mess because the league let the players run the business.....that's a failing model. Ratings are proving that this year. I turned off the NBA 5 years ago. Never getting me back. Dead to me.

The NFL is a league where every team has a chance.....it might not be perfect....but you do have a structure to work within.

Now the NFL will need to make a QB cap otherwise they are going to die too. That has gotten completely out of hand and is hamstringing the quality of the overall product.

The NHL has the most balanced product of the 4 major sports right now.

Easily.

[ChaseB]

NHL is tricky because it's also had the flattest cap so I wonder if anything will fluctuate now that we might finally get some sizable cap jumps there.

This was Kyler's first article for us by the way, glad y'all are enjoying it.

[Feros Ferio 7]

My biggest issue is that these other leagues don't have as much parity as MLB does.

NFL is all about the QB'S. You don't have one you're not competing every year and only way to get one is the draft.

NBA players already just gravitate to the big markets unless they get drafted and decide to stay.

NHL has the most fluctuation of teams year to year and have the lowest salaries of these leagues.

Yes, the big markets have an advantage but that's already true in every other league. Teams have been joked about being farm teams for other clubs my entire life. Remember the jokes in the 80's.

As for team building in baseball it takes all the available resources to do it correctly. Draft, international free agents, trades, free agency and player development. The best teams of the the last 40 years at their core were all built from prospects who blossomed into quality players.

The avenues are there for teams to compete. It wasn't but 30 years ago the Royals ran the highest payroll in baseball and that squad sucked.

Money doesn't buy you wins. It buys you mistakes. The 2018 Red Sox won the most games and the world series and had over $70 million in payroll not playing for them.

The best teams still have to build the right way of they want to maintain their roster.

Free agency actually is true free agency and the players changing teams has an impact.

The closest is the NHL for parity. But I'd much prefer the teams having to make choices on what they want to do not because of a salary cap.

Salary caps about suppressing salaries. If those cost savings were given back to the fans so they could enjoy the game more sign me up. But the savings will go to the owners so I'd rather have it actually be open and not closed.


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[Kalkano]

Ridiculous. When was the last time one of the biggest budget MLB teams missed the playoffs? What percentage of the time do they miss the playoffs, compared to low budget teams?


PARITY!? IN MLB!? Give me a break...

[Cod]

Quote: Originally Posted by Kalkano

Ridiculous. When was the last time one of the biggest budget MLB teams missed the playoffs? What percentage of the time do they miss the playoffs, compared to low budget teams? PARITY!? IN MLB!? Give me a break...

Depends on how you define biggest. Most revenue? Highest overall team salary? Top 5? Top 10?

Here's the breakdown from the 12-teams in the 2024 playoffs based on overall salary:

• 6 from the top 10%
• 5 from the bottom 10%
• 1 from the middle 10%

Seems like good parity last year. I'd have to take some time to go back and do this over a longer period.

[Kalkano]

Actually digging into this seems pointless to me, since we all already know it's ridiculously unbalanced. It's obvious.


But if I must...AI to the rescue...



Over the last 29 years (1995-2023), 48% of World Series champions had one of the top 5 payrolls, and 93% were in the top half of league payrolls (Brewer Fanatic). This suggests a strong link between high budgets and playoff success, but not universally so for the top 5.

Given the variable nature of playoff success among top-budget teams, a precise percentage for the last 20 years isn't directly available from the sources. However, we can infer from the data that teams with top 5 budgets might reach the playoffs around 60-70% of the time, considering fluctuations and exceptions.

The exact percentage of teams with the lowest 5 budgets reaching the playoffs in the last 20 years isn't explicitly provided. However, from the trends and specific years' data:
Small-budget teams have made the playoffs around 20-30% of the time, with some years showing better representation or even success stories like the 2014 Royals or 2020 Rays.

Please note, these percentages are estimates based on the interpretation of the data from the sources provided, as exact figures for the last 20 years across all seasons are not directly stated.