I just didn’t really have anything to add.

I think the floating realignment idea as laid out in the article is dumb. I can’t imagine it ever actually happening.

That said, if they really want to do this and don’t want to put in salary caps or floors or whatever, just split the teams into two leagues by payroll and relegate/promote the winners and losers of each (as well as re-classifying by payroll) every year. That would still be dumb and I’m sure teams would find a way to game the system, but it’s less extreme, I think.

Red Sox were 6th in payroll last year.

… and they can’t do a cap without a CBA saying they get to do so. Any attempt to do something that actually prevents teams from spending above a certain level (rather than taxing them for doing so, which is what happens now) is engaging in unfair labor practices that would result in a 9 figure judgment in favor of MLBPA and the likely end of MLB’s antitrust exemption.

The MLBPA refuses to agree to a cap (or at least they always have so far), and the owners either can’t or won’t offer something big enough in exchange to coax the union off that position. The NFLPA agreed to a cap when that league agreed to garauntee that players would receive a fixed percentage of league revenues. When actual player contracts fall short of the fixed percentage, the league pays the balance in to the union which then uses a formula (approved by the players) to disperse the money to players who are outperforming their contracts. That system worked very well for a dozen years or more, until the owners decided that the players percentage was too big and opted out of the deal.

To me, a cap/floor is the obvious remedy worth trying, but to be fair it’s not a simple fix either. The NFL is significantly differently situated from the MLB, however, because that have broader revenue sharing and universal media contracts that prevent the sort of economic disparity generated by the MLB’s local media deals. Those disparities are now so massive that a handful of teams would, if the owners agreed to give the players a fixed percentage of revenues, end up forking over 25% of their revenue after they finished paying their own players. And the gap looks like it’ll continue to get wider before the “new media” revenue streams (which Bud cleverly convinced the owners to share completely before Steinbrenner knew what the internet was) begin to catch up with entities like the YES network.

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Or what about the players? How angry would the players be knowing that they’re not playing for anything?