Seems failry simple. Take the average of the bottom five payrolls over the past decade and make that as the new salary floor, and do the same for the top five to create a cap. Average of the median five payrolls over the past decade and disperse revenue sharing accordingly on a sliding scale.

Quick theory on my part, I’m sure there are numerous ways to shoot it down. Just makes too much sense to me, which means that it wouldn’t work.

This is kinda big, isn’t it?

1) Violation of minimum results in revoking equivalent portion or full revenue sharing dollars. So if the Marlins are under the floor by $5 million, then they lose either $5 million (or 2x; $10 million) or ALL revenue sharing dollars. It is easy to penalize people when you are giving them free money; cut back the free money.

2) similar to #1, but put them on probation, where all league money is escrowed until they surpass a certain pay threshold.

3) Do all the things that supposedly Bud has threatened the Rangers with: losing draft picks, forfeiting minor league players, put the Marlins under virtual league control, etc

Does this mean they will be signing Ben Sheet for a 1 yr 10 mil deal?

(I always look for a way news that comes out screws the Rangers)

….I’ll bet teams like KC, PIT, FLA, WAS are pressured like this on a semi-regular basis.

That’s the only explanation for moves like KC signing Jose Guillen for 3 yrs, $36 million or Gil Meche for 5 yrs, $55 million. Surely their front office knows that they won’t win. And they know that players like Meche and Guillen are not going to make them contenders. The sound financial thing to do would be to field a team of 25 guys making less than $1 million each. Have a payroll around $25 million, claim you are in a (never-ending) rebuilding phase, and pocket the shared revenue.

Yes, a team with a $25 million payroll would be bad. But, really, how much better is a team with a $50 million payroll if 23 million of that goes to guys like Guillen and Meche? Maybe 4 or 5 wins per season? If that?

But, I’m sure the union and the big market teams stay on their asses to make sure the small fish in the pond don’t keep too much of that shared $$$ in their pockets. So, they sign players like Reggie Sanders, Mark Grudzielanek, Gil Meche, Jose Guillen, Jason Kendall, etc. (one of my buddies is a Royals fan, so that’s the team we usually discuss as an example)

for the Marlins.

Think of how many players got their first 2-3 years in a Marlins uniform only to be traded to a new team when they start making legit money.

1) how much you spend on players

2) the number of wins you get

3) the number of people that show up (specific to the marlins)

Players are overpaid compared to the amount of money necessary to secure a certain threshold of production, given the variance in player production. Much better to go after young talent or raise your own prospects. And winning doesn’t seem to guarantee them fans anyway.

Or to sum up in the parlance of 20 years ago: Don’t hate the player, hate the game

that gets shared to them by the revenue sharing pool. So if they didn’t use it, it just went back into the pot.