Well, his problem doesn't have much to do with power at all. If it were just power he'd hit 30-40 HR's ever year and be an MVP candidate. He hits too many groundballs full stop.
Curt Flood ruined baseball. Well, not for the players, but he ruined baseball for small market teams. What he did was not wrong. He was a pioneer. He brought players out of bondage. But, what he did also changed the financial landscape of baseball forever and it changed in a way that benefitted large market teams while handicapping small market teams.
His BSR has also fluctuated wildly. It's not a gigantic stretch it may be the difference in almost a wins worth with how bi-polar Hosmer's BSR's can be. That's more an indication of how aggressive he is, but the errorbars looking at his history there is pretty big.
Considering baseball is the only non salary cap sport I do think they do a decent job of keeping everyone competitive. I don't know what the rules for free agency were when it first started but the way it is now the team that drafts a player at least keeps them for a good part of their prime. So when larger market teams sign players they are usually over paying for the future value of a player, if that makes sense. In other words, the best teams in any given year don't necessarily have the highest payroll.
