Rob Bradford

The league likes to point out that there hasn't been a bottom 15 market team to win a World Series since the Royals in 2015.

That's not great for parity.

The union points out that since 2000 in the four major men's professional sports,

Baseball's had more individual winners than any of the other sports.

So I think 16 is the number.

Um,

Then you get to a debate about, well, okay, if you agree that there's a problem, and I'm not saying I necessarily do, but if that's the position you take, then what is the solution?

Does the salary cap fix it?

And then the big question becomes, well, where are you setting the floor?

Where are you setting the cap itself?

The Dodgers, whatever you set the cap at, will spend toward the cap.

The Pirates will spend toward the bottom of that.

And so how many more playoff appearances do you get

for those small market teams that raise the Marlins, et cetera, in this new system?

Does it actually fix the thing that you have just argued is broken?

And again, it's like three different arguments to get to this point.

I think there is an effort that both sides, the players and the owners, are going to undertake to convince the public of what is right and what is good for baseball.

At the end of the day,

It matters somewhat what the public thinks, but the bottom line is who's willing to miss time for their positions if indeed the cap proposal stays on the table.

And I think in an industry that next year is going to be probably about $13 billion or close to it,