MLB contemplates salary cap

when we had a major spending spree of our own in 2004

For 2 reasons, the 2nd more directly relevant to us.

1) There’s still no salary floor. The Marlins and Royals can keep spending the minimum, while the teams who want to spend wouldn’t be able to.
2) The Angels have the resources to be big spenders and usually are in recent history. We have an advantage for almost every non-Yankee/Red Sox team, why give that up?

The Yankees payroll is lower than it was a year ago.

A 3rd team in metropolitan NY and a 2nd team in Boston.

There, cured!

A few of the polls that have been posted on this site lately are pretty hard to answer.

On this one, for instance, my choices were NO, NO, Screw the AL East, or I don’t know.

I think we need a salary cap, but certainly not because I want to screw the AL East.

…they could increase the luxury tax…which would also nail the overspenders

And sorry if that was too harsh.

It’s just that the last few polls haven’t provided an answer that many would like. One recent poll had a “WTF” response…which was about the only one that would have been even close to what I agreed with…but I didn’t choose it ‘cause it just didn’t make sense. I guess I’m just suggesting that we at least provide all the possible choices.

Sorry again.

but better revenue sharing. Television money should be split among all teams (like football). I realize this would take away a large amount of market value of a team (so unlikely to happen), but why should the Yankees get so much revenue – 100% – from their television rights when the Royals are part of the product being sold.

This might already be happening as more people watch games online, and outside the regional network area. Eventually, as more and more people watch online, games will become “networkless” and become the property of MLB exclusively (and not individual teams) whose revenue gets split evenly.

I’d abolish the luxury tax, but give each visiting team 50% of a given broadcast’s slice o’ cash. That would, unlike a salary cap, actually be based on something like sense, instead of unseemly whining and billionaire socialism.

I just know that right now it takes an incredible convergence of talent, from the front office down to the field, to field a great team. The Rays are great, but what about in five years, when more players have been given big contracts by teams like the Dodgers, Angels, Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets? Constant player turnover can hamper team identity, and a constant need to bank on young players breaking out (a la Longoria) because veterans are unaffordable basically creates a weird class system in baseball where teams are on one end or another of a scale, letting teams like the Marlins and Rays develop players while the Red Sox and Yankees buy them once they’ve turned out to be good major leaguers. I’m not sure that’s a system I enjoy in my favorite sport.

Not without some mechanism that controls how owners of the small-market teams (which would be the beneficiaries of any such plan) invest their revenue back into their team.

You cannot be telling the Yankees or Red Sox or Cubs that they have to fork over money to Lew Wolff while allowing Wolff to pocket his revenue AND that from other teams instead of using that money to maintain a viable product and a viable game experience for his customers.

Nor can you be telling those same clubs that they are artifically prohibited from plowing their revenues back into their clubs because Wolff chooses not to do the same, and wants to keep the money for himself instead.

Guys like Wolff market their team, in no small part, based on being able to showcase the talent of other teams when they come to town. It is just plain wrong to mandate that those other teams must pay via sharing, or be penalized via artifical contraints, just for the privilege of flying out to Oakland for the weekend and watching Wolff take all that extra revenue from sharing AND the revenue from all those extra seat and concession sales, and stuff it in his personal wallet.

isn’t it way more fun kicking the yankees ass knowing they are the “evil empire” of baseball? let’s keep it that way.

as much as people hate the east coast spenders, they love beating them more.

not to mention baseball has had a more diverse group of champions than any other sport over the last 8 years or so.

i think the issue is over-thought.

“if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

remember, the marlins have more world championships than we do and the rays have been to as many world series as we have.