Meanwhile, the CBA just went from maybe to definitely awful for small market teams who were working the old system in the one way in which they were able: with overslot bonuses. The Pirates are all-but-forced to go from spending $16.4 million to $6.5 million and the Royals go from $14m to $6. Way to level the playing field, Bud! (Yes, I blame the MLBPA's myopia, too.) While one can certainly argue that eventually the big boys would have caught on and started spending big on overslot bonuses, too, don't you wait for that to become a problem before "fixing" it? If you're actually worried about competitive balance, that is.