First, let me get this out of the way—congratulations to the New York Yankees and their fans on winning the World Series. They were the best team and deserved to win.
Okay, now I can move on to why the rest of baseball needs to see what the Yankees accomplished in the last twelve months, and why they should be afraid—be very afraid.
Over that time, the Yankees signed three of the top four free agents on the market, a year after signing Alex Rodriguez to the riches contract in the sport. They then opened a brand new stadium that despite all those stories about empty seats still brought in more money than its predecessor did the year before.
Everyone else around baseball needs to realize something must be done now to attempt to level the playing field in Major League Baseball.
Some actions must be taken to give all teams a chance to compete with the few big market teams, not just on the field, but also in the free agent market.
This isn’t anti-Yankee in any way. The Yankees put together the best team they could within the rules of the sport. There is nothing wrong with that, and there is no reason why the Yankees or their fans should apologize for one second for all the money they spent.
And this isn’t about trying to stop the Yankees.
It is about trying to do what is best for the sport of baseball.
I am tired of seeing the same stories every offseason about how the same handful of teams are all competing over the top free agents, while everyone else has to make good with the leftover scraps.
This year has to serve as a wake-up call, not just because of the Yankees winning, but also because of a postseason that was dominated by the presence of the big market teams from New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
Baseball has become almost irrelevant in too many places around the country over the last decade.
If MLB does not take some sort of action soon to at least attempt to somewhat level the playing field, I believe that it risks losing large percentages of the fanbases in some of these cities for good.
I know all sports are a business these days, but competition should still matter, and what does it say about competition when only a handful of teams have an ability to sign the game’s top players.
Year in and year out we see young, talented players either become free agents, or be the subject of trade rumors not because their original teams don’t want them, but because those teams know they have no chance of paying them.
These teams have to try to catch magic in a bottle—attempt to win a World Series in the small window where they still have these talented players. If it works out, great. If not, it's time to basically trade away your best players.
A great example is the Cleveland Indians.
In 2007, C.C. Sabathia wins the Cy Young and helps Cleveland reach Game Seven of the ALCS. The following year, Cliff Lee wins the Cy Young. And Sabathia and Lee earn these awards with a catcher named Victor Martinez.
Now it is 2009, and Sabathia, Lee, and Martinez all played significant roles in the postseason, only that they did so playing for new teams. The Indians had to trade away all three because they knew they could not afford to resign them.
The Indians are far from the only team.
The Colorado Rockies made the playoffs this year, but imagine how much better they could have been had they not been forced to trade away Matt Holliday last offseason.
I am reading today about the Detroit Tigers possibly having to trade away Edwin Jackson, a 26-year old pitcher coming off a career season, due to financial concerns.
Or how about the Toronto Blue Jays possibly having to trade Roy Halladay? Do you think they want to trade one of the game’s top pitchers? Absolutely not, but they can’t afford him.
Now, I would love to see a salary cap, but I think that baseball has waited so long to do anything, that it is no longer possible.
If MLB tried to put in some sort of meaningful salary cap, what happens with teams like the Yankees and the other big market teams that would already be well over it? With long-term deals to Sabathia, Rodriguez, and Mark Teixeira, it seems to me impossible to then force the Yankees to get under some sort of cap.
Yes, I know there is a luxury tax and baseball apologists out there will say it has brought fiscal balance to the sport.
Revenue sharing may have put a few extra dollars in some teams' wallets, but it seems each year the discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots has only grown.
Every offseason the list of top free agents is posted in newspapers and web sites, and each offseason, the same four or five teams are listed as the leading candidates to sign these top players.
When MLB instituted the luxury tax in 2002, the Yankees payroll was $125M. In 2003, the first year the tax went into effect, at $117M, the Yankees payroll jumped to $152M. It then peaked in 2008 at $209M. Last season, New York trimmed its belt, cutting down to a measly $201M.
Clearly, the luxury tax has not stopped their spending.
The luxury tax hasn’t brought any balance back to the sport. In 2000, exactly 15 teams spent more and 15 teams spent less than the average payroll. This past season, only 11 teams spent more than the average, while 19 teams spent less.
Some of the non-big market teams have found ways to compete, namely the Minnesota Twins and the Oakland A’s a few years back. But for any success those small market teams may have had, neither was ever able to win a playoff series over the last 15 years.
Over the past decade, while the Yankees made the postseason nine times, the St. Louis Cardinals seven, and the Red Sox, Angels, and Braves six times, eleven different teams either failed to reach the postseason at all or only made it one time.
So, what can MLB do?
Here are a few ideas that even without a salary cap, would go a long way to providing real financial balance to the sport:
- Create max contracts. While all current contracts would not be subject to this, it would go into effect for all future contracts. This would stop the big market teams from just being able to blow away the competition with their offers.
- Reward teams for resigning their own players. A possibility would be that only a certain percentage of the new contract would count towards a team’s luxury tax level. Also, similar to the NBA, provide incentive for players to remain with their original teams.
- Restrict the number of Type A free agents one team can sign in an offseason, not counting players that a team resigns. It could either be a set in stone restriction, where teams can sign, let’s say, just one Type A. Or it could be more flexible, where a team can sign one Type A, and if they want to sign more than one, those other contracts weigh more heavily towards the luxury tax.
- Speaking of the luxury tax, let’s come up with a meaningful amount and meaningful repercussions for teams that go over the luxury tax. As I wrote about above, the luxury tax has done nothing to control big market spending. This season, the average payroll was about $80 million and the luxury tax for next year is an absurd $170 million. Those two numbers need to be much closer.
- And lastly, fix the draft. There needs to be some sort of slotting system. Too often, the best player available isn’t being drafted because a team knows they can’t afford him. So that players slips to the big market teams. An example of this is Daniel Bard of the Red Sox. Coming out of North Carolina, teams were afraid to draft him, so this talented pitcher who should have been a high pick, slipped to the Red Sox. Second, allow teams to trade picks. And third, baseball is an international game—international players should be subjected to the draft so that the big market teams no longer have a monopoly on signing the top foreign players.
Whether you root for the Yankees, Red Sox, or Pirates, I have to think that anyone who truly cares about the sport of baseball would agree that bringing true fiscal balance to the game would ultimately improve competition and interest in Major League Baseball.
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