Zack Scott is a 4x World Series champion with the Red Sox and former acting general manager of the Mets. Today he is the founder of Four Rings, where he builds top leaders in and outside of sports their own AI system to make better calls on top decisions that they can’t reverse. He is also a partner in PBI Sports, which represents more than 20 coaches and managers throughout MLB. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Editor’s Note: This is a two-part series with a unique proposal for future interview discussions. You can read the first part here.
In the first part, I argued that the salary cap proposed by the owners is an unfair battle, and that three problems lie beneath it: the local television gap, low-income teams pocketing their paychecks, and players who do not capture any of the value created when the franchise sells. Renovations there began with the owners’ vision, including a local television, and added a luxury ceiling that prevents the ceiling without a solid ceiling. Here’s the rest of the deal, the part that starts over.
Bottom line itself, the two sides are closer than the headline numbers suggest. The $171.2MM for owners includes benefits and bonus pools, so it works out to about $148MM in actual pay, and the union didn’t face a hard floor at all. It would tax teams that spend less than $150MM, roughly in the same area. The number is almost complete. The more difficult question is what is important about it.
The floor must be real, which means the money must be spent. But the payroll-floor only carries the risk that no one calls it. Free agency is the oldest corner of the pool, the biggest focus of financial decline in sports. Teams pay free agents close to full value on signing day, and over the years of long deals they’ve paid for production that has faded. Most of the league is running payrolls well below the line, so the salary-only rule can push many of them from the $80MM range up to it through free agency alone, where the downside grows faster than the upside and they have less room than big markets to trade or eat a mistake. So define responsibility broadly. Combine revenue sharing and centralized media with major league pay and baseball infrastructure, strictly defined and audited by the league so nothing is hidden from the players. The club should be able to satisfy the pitch by building one of the best development jobs in the game instead of handing the 31-year-old a five-year deal that no one else could do. That forces owners to invest in being good at baseball, which helps smaller markets more than forcing a number on the payroll.
Then pay the younger players. This plan pays off its best deals for six years. Raise the minimum wage, expand the arbitration bonus pool, and increase arbitration annually. It’s the best thing the union says and it’s cheap next to the star market. It won’t fix service time games, and I won’t pretend it does. Teams have grabbed good but non-elite prospects and signed others to pre-season extensions, and you can’t justify that if there’s no one to prove that the player is ready for the big leagues. on a given day. But the case stands alone. These are the most productive, cheapest players in the sport, and they are underpaid. It’s doing a great thing too. Every dollar committed to minor leaguers is a dollar that can go toward free agency, the lowest spending in the game. Compressing salary on that talent and away from the old, expensive cap on roster commitments pays off more in production than in recruiting time, which is good for the clubs and good for the game.
