Nothing in a vacuum

The Nats should pounce.

I mean some team should and the Nats are as good as any.

The ownerships are playing a long con on the fanbase. The way the payment in the game for a while now was kind of unfair, but tacitly agreed upon. Players would give up value at the beginning of their career, providing potential production for minimal cost, for the chance at a bigger pay day down the line. It was clear that FA contracts were often not going to pay for themselves, but that was part of the point. The "survivors" - those that proved they could produce with some consistency and remained healthy - would reap the benefits from age 26-35 of the value everyone lost from 18-26. In place of production we talked about leadership and presence and nonsense. It was a little bit delusional but everyone bought in.

But now the ownerships are pointing to the back end with analytic numbers and saying "See you aren't worth it. We want to pay you what you are worth!" and trying to sell that to the public. The obvious problem is they aren't pointing at the front end as well and saying the same thing. They are looking to continue to underpay to start, but no longer make up for that later. They are trying to squeeze more cash from the players, plain and simple.

And people are buying it.

Not everyone. Maybe not even most. But a good percentage of fans fall back on the "greedy players" who can't be happy even making millions. I've talked about this before but I think a big big big part of this is how athletes are perceived in general. "Baseball player" isn't seen as a real job.  "Owner of business" is.  Owner makes billions - that's just the way the world works. Baseball player makes millions - I can't believe it! For a kids game! I'd do it for free!.  But I digress, the point isn't the why, just the fact that it is working for some, and if it works for enough they can keep pushing it.

We already give the owners a lot of leeway. Another thing we've talked about is how I don't see this as a business but a hobby. You don't make money on hobbies - you spend money on them. Owners should. And if it IS a business - it's a lucrative one that makes money not so much on the day to day, but in the eventual sale. The team end up being worth far more than what you paid for it. Do owners lose money each year knowing you'll make it up in the end? Rarely ever. See we give the owners leeway on these things. We pretend it's a regular business that has to match annual revenue to expenditures and assume that's what teams are doing. We accept small-market designations (even for teams that are clearly not small-market) and allow for rebuilding periods where we accept low spending. All in all we give ownership more than enough chances to make money. We don't have to provide them with another.

Bringing this back around, ultimately you can only effect your team. For me it's the Yankees, and honestly I'm pissed they aren't just giving Machado 250 million for 8 years or whatever. Being a fan is a hard thing to walk away from but at the very least my feet are on a path of "what's the point of rooting if you aren't really trying" For you it's the Nats. And while the Nats have made a good faith effort in the old ways, or at least their "minimum of what the best teams" effort that they have settled on over the last few years, I see no harm in taking them up to spend more. Sign Bryce, extend Rendon and build a core that's Bryce, Rendon, Corbin, Soto, Robles - that's a core that's still under the cap with room to fix SP as Max and Stras do what they do. (because that money frees up). Or look at this market and think - "the overpays we have to make for a Kuechel or a Kimbrel are less than normal. Let's get in there" so the Nats aren't essentially running with the same back end of the rotation and question mark pen that failed last year.

I don't know. To me this has always been pretty clear. Yeah, it's spending other people's money but it's telling them to spend your money if you want me to spend mine.