Le Journal

"Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize… I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace," Trump wrote in a message to the Norwegian Prime Minister.

The neon sign in front of the new location of Pinkerton’s Barbecue tells diners almost everything they need to know about the restaurant. Based on a drawing by pitmaster and owner Grant Pinkerton, the sign’s retro-inspired design and simple declaration of “Beef, Pork, Links” offers a simple summation of what the restaurant will serve when it opens to the public this Tuesday, January 20.

MLB players have been adamantly against a salary cap in baseball for decades, for good reason: In general, it would depress salaries. I’ve noted briefly here, mostly in comments, that a salary cap system might be palatable to players if it were combined with a salary floor. That would mean that all teams would have to have a minimum payroll, and in many cases that would force some MLB teams to increase payroll significantly. A general rule of thumb for such systems is that they would have to have a floor somewhere around 90 percent of the cap. That would have the effect of making financial competition between teams much less, and thus putting together a good team wouldn’t be simply about money, it would be having a good executive team with sound player evaluation skills. You see this in the NFL, where all the TV money is split equally among the 32 teams, since all the TV money is national. That allows small-market teams like the Packers and Jaguars to be competitive, and conversely, the New York teams, in the nation’s biggest TV market, have been largely awful for many years. My colleague Patrick Creighton, manager of our SB Nation Astros site The Crawfish Boxes, wrote an article proposing exactly this sort of system over the weekend, and I thought I’d present his arguments to you. The first key to understanding how such a system works is noting that the other professional sports leagues that have a cap — the NFL, NBA and NHL — all give their players somewhere around 50 percent of league revenue. The specific details are in the article. But MLB doesn’t do that: MLB is nowhere near that. In fact, in 2024 MLB salaries were 42.1% of revenues. That is the highest percentage for players over the past 12 non-pandemic seasons, ranging from 2012 to 2024. And so, Creighton proposes: In reality, if the MLBPA told the owners that they would agree to a cap system, with a 50/50 split and a 90% floor, players as a whole would make MORE MONEY. I believe if the players came out with this position, they would back owners into a corner they can’t really get out of, because owners have screamed they need a salary cap for over 40 years but they would 100% balk at a 50/50 split because it would cause them to spend more than they currently do. (Emphasis in the original article.) I agree with this completely. The headline of the article says players should “call the owners’ bluff.” Whether this would work or not is unknown, but it’s unquestionably true that players, as a whole, would make more money if they got 50 percent of league revenue instead of 42 percent. Now, the note above about NFL TV revenue is cogent here. MLB doesn’t have the national TV revenue that the NFL does. Thus such a system would involve sharing of local TV revenue, where the Dodgers’ take dwarfs everyone else’s. I think you can see the difficulty in convincing the Dodgers to do that. What would also happen in such a system is that teams like the Marlins, Pirates, A’s, Guardians and others would be forced to spend a lot more money than they do on players. Now, which of those teams is the outlier among those four? Right, the Guardians, who consistently contend even with small payrolls. That’s a credit to their baseball ops teams. Every team would have to have such a group in order to compete under a salary cap/floor system like this, not just have the most money like the Dodgers do. Creighton concludes: This current CBA battle currently looks to be a protracted one, but players can really score big the court of public opinion by changing their salary cap position, and putting all the onus on the owners to accept what they have been clamoring to get for over 40 years, and writing the bigger check that would need to go with it. I concur with this. Whether owners would go with a suggestion like this if it came from players is unknown. But it’s likely worth an attempt by players to try it.

Happy Monday, friends. It’s been a hectic weekend around the old offseason hot stove. The Mets, who tried their hand at signing Kyle Tucker, needed to rebound quickly after he signed his spendy contract with the Dodgers, so they turned their buying power towards free agent Bo Bichette. We also learned that Elly De La Cruz may have turned down the biggest contract in Reds history. All this, plus a debate on who the true ace of our recent generation was, and we learn exactly when Mookie Betts will retire in today’s news links. So let’s just get right into it. David Schoenfield tries to determine who will be remembered as the true ace of their generation: Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, or Max Scherzer. Davy Andrews reports that J.T. Realmuto will be staying with the Phillies. Tom Dierberger looks at the wild 15 hours of free agency that sent Realmuto back to the Phillies. Jay Jaffe looks at the wild contract this has sent Kyle Tucker to the Dodgers (more on this below.) Mookie Betts has confirmed that when his contract with the Dodgers ends in 2032, he will retire from baseball. Story by Brent Maguire. Alden Gonzaelz reports that Jakob Junis has signed a deal with the Texas Rangers. C. Trent Rosecrans shares that Elly De La Cruz reportedly turned down the largest contract in Reds history. (The Athletic subscription required.) A truly fascinating possibility. (Here’s a direct link to the BlueSky post for those reading on Apple News.) The Mets could start Bo Bichette (0 MLB games at 3B) & Jorge Polanco (1g at 1B) at 3B/1B on Opening DayOnly team in last 100 years to start 2 non-rookie INFs on Opening Day w/1 or 0 prior MLB games at that position:1948 Dodgers: Jackie Robinson 2B, Billy Cox 3B@EliasSports— Sarah Langs (@slangsonsports.bsky.social) 2026-01-16T21:33:48.771Z Michael Baumann shares that the Mets have signed free agent Bo Bichette. How will the short-term deals for Tucker and Bichette shape contract negotiations for Cody Bellinger? (MLB) Travis Sawchik looks at the best potential landing spots for free agent pitcher Framber Valdez. Stephen Douglas looks at some Dodgers salary facts that might make you reconsider the salary cap. Tim Capurso has some big questions following the contract signings of Tucker and Bichette, and what they mean for the bigger picture. Reliever Ryan Pressly is retiring after 13 seasons. (AP) Ken Rosenthal shares rumors that the Orioles are looking at Justin Verlander. (The Athletic subscription required.) An interesting look into the finances of running a baseball team. The Atlanta Braves financial statements are publicly available and serve as a general guide for understanding the business of baseball. Any good accountant can move some decimals here and there, but these are a good starting ground. The Braves made $46M in profit last year on… pic.twitter.com/7v1EEykSBf— Daniel Meyer (@TheAstrosLocker) January 16, 2026 Jay Jaffe makes a Hall of Fame case for Daniel Murphy. Matt Monagan wants to know if a bigger posterior actually helps make for a better batter. Fresh off a $2oM deal, Ha-Seong Kim will miss 4-5 months after going in for hand surgery. Story by Mark Bowman. Brent Maguire shares that former White Sox knuckleballer Wilbur Wood has passed at age 84. Brian Giufra looks at how the Mets’ World Series odds changed after signing Bo Bichette. Cade Cavalli and the Nationals will avoid arbitration as they agree on a deal. (AP) I’m sorry but this is genuinely nuts on so many levels. With the luxury tax, the Dodgers will be paying $126 million a season for Tucker (assuming no deferrals). That's more than 11 teams' entire payrolls. This is absurd.https://t.co/uwe3cLpqXw— Andrew Flax (@ajflax) January 16, 2026 And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.

During a performance in Red Bank, New Jersey this weekend, rock legend and fierce Trump critic Bruce Springsteen had some choice words for the president regarding the situation in Minneapolis.