NYY $202
PHIL $165
BOS $162
METS $138 (Hello Omar!!)
LAA $136
CUBS $134 (Hello Jim!!)
WHITE SOX $125
SFG $122

While I think Pujols is worth every bit of $30mm/year not only as a player for the next 5-7 years, but also as he becomes THE home draw attraction in years 6-9 (notwithstanding how good or bad the team he is with will be at that time) begins to rack up milestone upon milestone creating records that may not be broken for 50 years or longer (some of the same that had Barry Bonds drawing 3.5mm in SF in 2006 and 2007 while the Giants had a terrible team and then dropped off by 400k the following year)….I also understand and would agree that for a team with $100=$125mm payroll it is very difficult to allocate $30mm to one player and expect to have 6-9 years of contending teams by filling in around that. Of course, just imagine what it must be like to work with a $60-$75mm payroll and try and compete and need to “fill in” with $10mm players??

On the other hand Bonds put, arguably 500-750,000 fans/year in the seats for the Giants. How much is a fan in the seat worth between the ticket revenue (all marginal, with no variable cost), food purchased, shirts, jackets etc.?? If it is $25/person “net” (since they share, but also get to share on the road), that would mean that Bonds was worth $12.5-19mm/year single-handedly. Thus, if one were paying him $25mm during those twilight years, they were really only paying him $6-$12.5 for playing “net’….So perhaps not such a bad deal for a middle market team after all?

What that translates into is the ML players union is much stronger than the owners, as evidenced by the fact that the owners have gotten their collective butts handed to the every time they went against the players and likely will next time too. So, lets have a work stoppage in the hopes that perhaps we’ll get a system that will save moronic owners from themselves.

We already live in a culture, not particular to the US alone by the way, that values professional sports players more than teachers, police, military, health care workers …. which is why they are paid so obscenely. But, lets not lose sight of two facts; 1. If players agreed to a 50% cut in salary tomorrow, across the board, the outrageous prices we pay for all things baseball would not drop a nickel. Owners would merely pocket the additional profit. 2. The value placed on professional sports is what it is because of us, the fans. The very people that complain here about the prices and the irrational cultural hierarchy are the root cause of it. If we weren’t showing up at games, paying our cable subscriptions and buying official MLB stuff the system collapses within a single season. So we kind of earned it.

If fans really wanted to exert some influence for OUR benefit, i.e. lower prices more access…, all they need do is; Stop going to games. Stop watching games. Stop buying official MLB stuff. In fact if ALL fans agreed to do just two of those things it might well get the attention of the owners and players. But since fans are even less organized than the owners that is nothing ore than a pipe drream. Like an electorate that gets the government they deserve we have a system that we have because we paid for it. And, nothing short of an economic collapse, on the scale of 1929, would change ths system. And, we got a glimse of that after the 2008 sean when many high priced FA went without contracts or got significantly less because the economy tanked.

To paraphrase; I have seen the enemy and he is us.

Yes you do. Or, to put it another way, you (and legions of underpaid health care workers like you) make it possible for medical industry companies to make plenty of money. The fact that it winds up in the pockets of the corporate execs, stockholders and their country club bank accounts instead of yours doesn’t lessen the centrality of your labors in generating it. But I like how meekly you’ve accepted your own low ceiling. This economic system would collapse if people like you actually decided you were worth more than you’re getting paid.

And your description of “communism” is so utterly uninformed and cliched that I had to cringe while reading it. Go back to school and take some evening courses in economic and political theory.

I can’t believe a guy as smart as KW would say a work stoppage would be OK.

As long as the fans are willing to pay those outrageous prices for tickets and refreshments the owner will charge it

$100 tickets to a baseball game (not to mention $1000 tickets)
$8 beers
$7 hot dogs
$5 3 oz bag of peanuts
$20 parking

Seriously, this is nonsense. Baseball players already make a lower percentage of the pie than athletes in the other major sports. If we are going to cap the salaries, lets make it fair all around, eh?

Fortunately, I live in an area where fans are so fickle when they’re not being apathetic that I can usually get reasonably good seats and reasonable prices no matter how deeply the big market teams slash their wrists to pay these guys….