Alternate Financials: Imagine Merit-Based Pay

[Frozen Stiffer]

I would love to gauge everyone's opinion on this fictional concept. Currently, players' contracts include an agreed-upon salary based on, effectively, just two things; past performance and anticipated potential.

What kind of impact do you think changing the financial structure of the game would make- basically, paying players based on how well they played? Good hitting, clutch hitting, stellar fielding, errors, great pitching, wild pitches, passed balls, etc. All of these would be used to determine what a player should expect to be paid. At the end of the month, their club's A/P department cuts a check based on how well they played that past month.

Obviously, players won't like it. Their first complaint, I would imagine, would be "Doesn't what I did for you last year matter?". It did. Last year. Right now, it's 'this year'.

What is everyone's thoughts on this?

[Bustoff]

In the real world, this would be a bit hard to manage. If a utility player spent most of the month warming the bench and maybe pinch-hit in 5 games and got 3 hits and 2 RBIs, what is his value relative to the guy who played every day and got 30 hits and 20 RBIs in 100 at bats? The mind boggles at the complexities of a system like this...at least mine does. There would have to be some sort of formula to plug numbers into and produce a dollar value based on some predetermined standard.

And you're right, the players would hate it. The slogan of the owners would be "What have you done for me lately?"

In the PS world, I think it might even be more complicated...but at least the players would complain less.

Some positions in the real world are sort of like this now. Such as sales jobs based on commission, where you're only as good as your last sale, as the saying goes. Now, I get paid the same whether I am actually doing something productive or hanging out on the PS board...and I like it that way. As another saying goes, my boss doesn't pay me what I'm worth...and thank God for that!

[GNDN]

Maybe am I missing your point, Bustoff, but I have to disagree.  These types of incentive/merit payouts DO exist in the real world.  From the 10,000 ft level, this type of pay is all over the pro sports scene.  Incentives based on IP, AB's, voted MVP, etc.  Or how about minutes played, yards from scrimmage, heck even NFL roster bonuses could be considered merit based.
 
Even post-season shares are merit based.  You have to get there to get paid.
 
The slogan of the owners and the fans is exactly "what have you done for me?"
 
I would not like to see it in the game, unless it is already built into the contract extension logic?  Pay me more because I did well?

[Bustoff]

GNDN, we may be looking at this from opposite ends of the telescope, and maybe I forgot to remove the lens cap. Certainly incentives are all over the place, no argument there. I may be incorrect, but most of these are based on annual performance, in other words, the view from 10,000 feet as you put it. There are exceptions to this, I am sure.

The gist I got from Frozen's initial post is that horrid buzzword "micromanagement." In other words, every player, every month, has their performance programmed into some meat-grinder mathematical formula that produces a number of dollars that player "earned" in the past month. To me, such a system would be difficult at best and chaotic at worst.

I may be in over my head here. I usually am when it comes to discussing the financial minutiae of real-world sports. FS, is micromanagement what you are suggesting?

[Frozen Stiffer]

Bustoff,

This may not be an ideal response to your question, but Yes and No. I was thinking about that as a What If scenario, not one that I would like to see happen or would be in favor of happening. Where I work, I determine my employees' yearly increases based on their performance for the past year. As a merit-based increase, if they do well, they get paid well, if they do poorly, they experience only a slight increase (or occasionally, NO increase). I was just theorizing how such a pricing plan would work in the majors, but on a more frequent level; monthly instead of yearly.

Or, conversely, what about players getting paid AFTER the year instead of before it? This way, if they have a good year, they get good pay- a bad year translates into lower pay. This way you avoid pitchers who get paid $12.5 million for what turns out to be a 5-14 5.54 ERA year, just because the year before they were 18-10 with a 3.07ERA. Does that make more sense than a monthly-pay?