I'm sure MLB will think that players like Tucker would not be able to be signed by teams like the Dodgers and would go to the Pirates instead. Sounds good in theory but I wonder how deferred payments would work in that equation. Teams that needs to add payroll may frontload a contract for a year or so to players while teams that need to shed would still defer.
Deferring payments has no actual impact on anything in terms of MLB salaries or player earnings. The teams still have to put the money in interest-bearing accounts and the players end up with the same thing in the end. If they defer money, they just get a bigger number of inflation-adjusted dollars down the line. It doesn't help teams save money and it doesn't earn players extra money. The main impact is that players (1) can't do stupid things with the money and lose it today and (2) they get to say they made more money than they actually do, which help players save face when they don't get contracts as large as they hoped.
Yup - it just counts in current $ terms. So if Ohtani is getting $30MM in 2050 for his 2026 earnings, they'd see how much that is worth in 2026 and that's how much they count it as. And that's how the much the Dodgers have to put in a savings account that will grow to $30MM by the time he has to be paid. It's effectively just forced savings.
