SultanofSwat posted:This is a simple free market capitalism question. You are either for it, or you are not informed, or an idiot.
If you artificially raise wages, you WILL HAVE TO FIRE PEOPLE. The pie does not get bigger, there is only so much pie.
In a market with low wages (for example, fast food) this would be true. In a market with high salaries and/or large profits only one of these would be affected. It would probably be profits if the organization wanted to have continued success. However, the big money in pro sports is the value of the team for sale purposes. It’s not the annual bottom line.
Every major league organization is not the same. A financially successful large market organization could probabaly afford to pay minor leaguers more and not affect the big picture significantly. A small market organization probably couldn’t. What would happen is the rich get richer. There would be more competitive imbalance than already exists.
Baseball has already made moves regarding minor leaguers to attempt to remove team imbalance. Teams like the Red Sox and Yankees used to be able to draft players late out of high school who insisted they were headed for college.Then they offered enough money to sway them to sign. Now each team has a limit on how much they can spend on draft picks.
If MLB organizations were all forced to pay minor leaguers a certain amount it would place a financial strain in some teams.
What could have worked is keeping up with inflation annually or every two or three years from the beginning. But like a previously stated signing bonuses procises the players expected to make it extra money. Even the better Latin players now receive significant signing bonuses.