I also think they should loosen the draft/int'l FA caps for teams in the bottom-10 markets.

MLBPA will collectively bargain that away.

The idea is that a good, well-run organization that is good at finding and developing talent is given some additional tools (in the form of success rewards) to keep that talent... it's the difference between rewarding the lottery winner (because every team finds their occasional star) and rewarding the teams that work hard and right, with a cohesive plan, and allowing them more room to further than plan.

I think we all get it and I think we're all in agreement. But punitive mechanisms aren't panaceas.

Take the Rays. For their first 10 years, they won 70 games or fewer. They'd have been punished for ineptitude -- which likely means Sternberg never buys them, Friedman never gets hired and they never become the Rays we know today. And those early Rays teams did spend -- quite a bit on whichever draftee that was who got declared an FA, Vinny Castilla, etc. -- they just spent very badly.

The penalties in the new CBA are interesting but ... are we sure they don't just drive Loria to set a payroll so low that he doesn't need the revenue sharing money, he just gets by on central revenue (not the same thing as revenue sharing) and local revenue? If you give me $40 M but force me to spend $50 M on players, I might as well just spend $10 M on players. Plus I suspect we will see the bottom feeders magically sitting at 125% payrolls, pocketing all their central revenue. I'm probably more in favor of Snapper's #48. That essentially means that all profit/discretionary spending is from local revenues.

The goal is to make sure that winning 60 games with a $30M payroll is never more profitable than winning 75 games with a $60M payroll.

Pretty much this.