Salary Cap

[Tecuala Juggernauts]

I'm wondering if we could have a discussion about the salary cap. We are currently set at $125M, and I'd like to propose that we raise it.

The average MLB salary in 2011 was $3.3M. If every player on our rosters made the average salary, we'd all have payrolls of $99M.

However, those average salaries take into account all 750 players on Opening Day rosters. We only use 480 of those players, or the top 64% of all available players.

That doesn't necessarily mean that all 480 of those players are making more than the average salary, but it dramatically increases the odds that our players will be paid above MLB's average.

Since this league began:

-- The average MLB player salary has gone from $3.15M to $3.31M, an increase of 4.8%.

-- The MLB minimum salary has gone from $400,000 from $414,000, an increase of 3.5%.

A small increase of 4% would give us a $130M salary cap, taking us from an average salary of $4.17M to $4.33M.

[Bobby Ayala - Matt]

Sounds pretty good to me. We haven't raised it in awhile.

Should we do the winter meetings sooner rather than later?

[Tecuala Juggernauts]

Nov 5, 2011 17:59:29 GMT -5 Bobby Ayala - Matt said:

Should we do the winter meetings sooner rather than later?

Might as well. Since the Series ended, there aren't any important sports going on to distract me otherwise.

[Nuke LaLoosh Express]

I think doing the winter meetings sooner we might be able to get more manager input so I'm in favor of it. I also think the Salary increase to $130 million is a good idea since we haven't raised the total for quite some time. Thanks for the math Colin!

[Tecuala Juggernauts]

From a story I read about the new MLB CBA:

"As part of the deal, baseball's minimum salary will go from $414,000 this year to $480,000 in 2012 and $500,000 later in the deal — matching what the average salary was in 1989."

If the minimum salary is going from $414k to $500k in the span of a few years, won't that have a similar effect on salaries into arbitration years? If they're all starting from a higher amount, then average salaries will eventually increase as well. I think this makes a bump in our salary cap even more imperative, and perhaps even more than the 4% I proposed.