Mwahahahaha!

I wish MLB would institute a salary cap, and floor. 120-130 on the top, and 60-65 on the bottom would force owners like those in Oakland to either pay up a reasonable amount, or sell. It would force Teams like NY, LA and BOS to excercise some financial restraint, and keep unrealistic expectations from being an every-year reality.

I know it's never going to happen, but I'd rather see more parity in baseball than what we have now. First playoff appearance in 9 years for a team with a history as good as Oakland's? Pitt never making the playoffs again after having some good teams and HOF players in the past? It's a shame, it will eventually kill baseball in some of these towns with cheap owners.

 

Agree with you about a salary cap.  Although, spending a lot of money doesn't always guarantee success.  The Angels underperformed the entire season and Texas didn't play good baseball recently.  I wanted to see Texas get to the World Series again this year.  Although, I also understand how difficult it is to play in the World Series every year. 

I think with a floor, these cheaper teams would be more inclined to keep some of their players as they reach prime age, and witha  cap, bigger spending teams wouldn't be able to keep throwing around tons of money, limiting where those players from poorer teams could even go. I think it would, overall, bring salaries down a bit. Washington would never have had to pay someone like Werth 18million a year if he didn't know he could get 17 from many different teams.

Pipe dream, I know.

In response to ma6dragon9's comment:

I understand what you are saying, but the cap would be at whatever the highest salaried team is right now and the variance between the max. and min. cannot be that great.

There is so much involved in creating this. You just cannot snap your fingers and it happens. Even if everyone agreed, owners, union, etc - you still face problems:

Salary caps would not be able to take affect until the last guaranteed contract has expired and no players from this point forward could be signed to a contract that lasts past that one players contract. I think Pujols has that contracts now.

In response to jesseyeric's comment:

I think it may be Joey Votto ... he signed his extension after Pujolsif I am not mistaken.  (Which I often am).  I think he has two years of options as well.  Again, I am porbably wrong.

In response to jesseyeric's comment:

I think they can figure it out, but small market teams will still be limited.  Oakland still only drew 1,679k.  Philly, in the crapper the entire season, still doubled that.  Both LA > 3M despite not being in the playoffs for a while.

Then you have to appease the fans.  Boston and NY charge a pretty penny for their games. It'll feel like 4M EE fans, paying top-dollar, are being equalized to TB who draws a solid 1.5M fans.

An MLB salary cap would create far less parity than fans imagine.  MLB already is the onlyl sport where every team wins between 40-60% of their games, and crowns new champions more frequently than all the others.  What do fans want?

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What I want is to see someone like Pittsburgh to have kept Bonds, the Mariners to have kept ARod, the Indians to have held onto Manny, the Royals to still have Carlos Beltran on their team.... the current system sucks.....

 

Like I tell my friends who are fans of small market teams such as the Blue Jays or Royals-- "Don't hate the player, hate the game."  LOL

In small market cities, there is lack of support from the fans.

For example, I visited my cousin in Oakland in 2006 to see a Red Sox vs. A's game.  As we all know, in late 2006, the Red Sox were pretty much out of the playoff hunt.  But for the A's, they were going head-to-head with the Angels for the AL West crown.

Only 18,000 plus fans came to see that game (at least one out of three were Red Sox fans).  Buying a ticket 30 rows behind first base that day was as easy as ordering a cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts.  LOL

 

 

In response to EnchiladaT's comment:

I'll admit, if the Rangers offered me a 10-year, $252 million contract (what they gave A-Rod), I would jump ship faster than a speeding bullet.  LOL

 

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Pop Quiz, guess how many fans came to see the October 1st game between the Rays and O's (Tampa Bay was STILL in the playoff hunt)?

1. 13,666

2. 17,983

3. 21,485

4. 28,048

Answer below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answer: 1.  Geez, less than 14,000 showed up?  Move the Rays to NH or Vermont.  LOL

In response to ma6dragon9's comment:

double is too much disparity.

pool the revenue. pare it out to all teams. and make owners use it all. then you will see some competition.

its no fault of a team to be in a market with tens and tens  millions less people.

 

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In response to notin's comment:

The Yankees have won about 25% of the WS in history...I don't see how that's parity.

Since the strike in 2004, when salaries really started exploding, you've got the Yankees for 5, Boston for 2, St Louis 2, Marlins 2 (both bought), and a mix of high budget teams throughout. The only real exceptions are the Giants, who won on a rare depth of quality, home-grown pitching (and carrying Zito's deal), and AZ winning once against long odds. Other than that; Bos, Phi, St L, LAA, CWS. That's not parity, those are teams that spend, spend, spend. Maybe a case could be made fot STL, their towards the upper middle of the pack, but have shown a willingness to spend when needed, and have grown good pitching as well. NOT signing Pujols will end up being their best move though.

The division is getting larger, it's going to be getting like football of the 80s where only 2 or 3 teams can really be expected to win unless someone catches lightning in a bottle for a season.

In the NFL, 14 teams have only 1 or 0 SB appearances, which seems to totally lack parity. But when you look closer, of the 10 teams with only 1 SB appearance, 9 have occured since 1994, with only the Jets being since the 60s (haha). CLE, DET, JAX, HOU haven't made it, for those that wonder. The NFL is going in the correct direction, MLB is going the other way.

In response to EnchiladaT's comment:

Right. And the Sox would have zero World Series wins since 1918.......

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But in football, teams stay behind because they are poorly run (raiders). In baseball, teams stay bad because they can't, and don't try to spend with the 'big fish' (pittsburgh). Maybe more teams repeat in football, but more teams also go from last to first in football than baseball.

Football, also, has been puting 12 of 32 teams into the playoffs, that's 37.5% of the league. Baseball, with the exception of this year, puts 8 of 30 into the postseason, that's only 27% of the league. OBVIOUSLY football is going to have more repeats with more teams going, that's no surprise.

Using the stats back to 2004, fewer teams go to the playoffs in baseball, and yet almost the exact same percentage repeat year-to-year. That shows me the top STAY at the top more in baseball. And who are they? The big spenders.

Helps to take a look at context and the complete picture when throwing stats around.

Oh, and Verducci s u c k s, sorry you went with him as a source. I prefer to go with my own numbers, and what I see rather than some 2-bit hack with an agenda who bends the numbers to his desire.

You are going to see a LOT more of the same teams making the playoffs in baseball year in and year out with the new system.

In football, the majority of the league has seen a SB in the past 20 years...even TB, AZ and SEA for gods sake. Without looking, I doubt that exists in baseball. PIT hasn't even made the playoffs in 19 years. No team in football is that inept. And if you want to talk Cleveland Browns (who at least made the playoffs in 2004), remember they were an expansion team 13 years ago when the then Browns, now Ravens, left.

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Yes Oakland is in but how long has it been 2006 and inbetween averaged 16 GB each year. Yes sir small salaries will get you a good team every 6 yrs and in some cases Pitt, KC, Seattle, Houston, etc... nothing for many years.

I still like having a team that actually will use their revenue for the team. Unlike others who do not and only spend what they get from the luxury tax and revenue and not any more. 

There will always be occasions where the underdog comes through and wins it all . That will not change, and it always makes for a nice story.  But for the most part , money talks.  It is not an accident that the Yankees have far more championships than anyone else. That is not about to change. To think otherwise is naive.  It is not good , but as long as we continue to support it, it will stay that way.  

In response to JimfromFlorida's comment:

Doesn't look like they'll be in to long either.