To: JD Martinez From: CIP Really dude? EOM

OK, so it's not the end of the message.   However, JD Martinez's comments are so ridiculous that they don't merit discussion.   But let's have that discussion anyway.

From a recent article on Boston.com (https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-red-sox/2019/02/24/j-d-martinez-says-the-players-association-needs-to-counter-the-embarrassing-state-of-free-agency) we have this:

"Martinez told WEEI.com that players were getting paid fairly and the sport as a whole was thriving until 2016."

 Really, dude?

Hey, when I retired I was like two levels from the top of my company.   I didn't even make the major league minimum.  I was well-known and I think respected in my field.   The main problem:  Thirty thousand people didn't pay $50 a piece to see me do my job.

I get it.

However, my company was making a lot more money than what they were paying me, or my boss, or the CEO.   We were a piece of a whole and we didn't think just because the company had a good year that we should get proportionately more money.  

It was the company's money.   They were taking most of the risk, they were signing the paychecks.   They were funding the research, research that had no guarantee of success.  

Baseball players get paid enough once they reach the majors.

If you want the teams to share the profits how about making them share them with minor leaguers.   Minor leaguers, if that was their only income, which it seldom is, live under the poverty line.   Some way under.   Your child's high school assistant principle likely makes more than any but the highest paid minor leaguers and there ain't no one who will pay to sit in his/her office to watch detentions being given out.

JD, buddy, don't ask for a bigger piece of the pie.  That just makes the average joe mad and makes you look greedy.

 “They got away with it last year,” he said. “Why wouldn’t they do it again? What’s going to happen? Nothing. It’s embarrassing for baseball, it really is. It’s really embarrassing for the game.”

Got away with what, JD?  They got away with not succumbing to the outrageous inflation of top baseball salaries?

“It’s more of a race towards the bottom now than a race towards the top,” Martinez said. “You can go right now through everyone’s lineup and you already know who’s going to be in the playoffs. What’s the fun in that? We might as well just fast-forward to the end of the season.”

This is an old Scott Boras argument rehashed.   We should make the losing franchise spend more money.   Basically, the thought is that the more bidders there are for a guy the more likely he will get paid more because of a bidding war.   Just like Boras, JD Martinez doesn't given a crap if there is parity.   

"The 31-year-old pegged the number of teams intentionally trying to lose at 80 percent."  

You know, JD, I can't say you are wrong.   I just don't know, although your statement seems really ludicrous.  But, given your other comments, I know that you mean that they refuse to enter bidding wars for players which is necessary to drive up the player salaries disproportionately for the best players.  If you are correct, you want to know why that is?  It's because some teams have enough money to allow them to outbid other teams for players so those other teams just give up and spend their money elsewhere in player development and in trading major league assets for prospects, draft choices or international bonus pool money, hoping to catch the next wave of success once their prospects mature into stud major leaguers.   

But I do have a solution for you, JD.   Let's put a salary cap in baseball.   That will level the playing field and create parity so that teams won't have to 'try to lose' as the financial playing field will be more level.

If you want to get the Player Association "ducks in a row" for the next labor negotiation, start working on a salary cap that makes sense.   Let me give you a hand:

Team salary cap is $165 million
Each team has to have a major league salary of at least $125 million (NOTE: If you can't afford to pay your team $125 million in salary then sell your team)
Major league minimum will rise by 5% per year
Minor leaguers above low A ball will get $20,000 per player per year.  Obviously the split deals and other things that cause minor leaguers to still be able to get more than the minimum will still be in place.
No team is allowed to cut their number of minor league affiliates below their 2019 level for the entire length of the new salary agreement.  You can add minor league teams, just not subtract them.  Co-op teams can be eliminated.
Allow trading of all draft choices but limit the trading to the next baseball draft from when the pick is traded only and don't allow teams with losing records the previous year to trade their first round picks.
Finally, let's leave the draft bonus pools and international bonus pools in place.

While that won't drive up the salaries for the top players, which is really all you are concerned about JD, it will be good for all major league players and, to a lesser extent, all professional baseball players. Just like the bonus pools for the draft and the international free agents have worked, so will a salary cap and team salary minimum in baseball.

Finally, I have to quote one more of his comments:  "The game has to change. We have to incentivize to win, not to lose".  As I said above, I think that that a maximum and minimum salary cap will do that.   Aside from that, JD, I think the increased revenue teams make by making the playoffs and having themselves be considered as winning franchises which, in theory draw more fans, attracts better free agents and allow teams to charge higher ticket prices, seem to me to incentive enough to try to win. .

But you are the expert, JD.   Or at least you are the expert at hitting a baseball and milking the game for your obscene salary while minor leaguers struggle to make ends meet.