What if I told you that one single player in professional baseball made more money each year than the entire 40-man roster of another team. That one man's salary was greater than forty men's salaries combined. Such is the case in major league baseball, the only major American professional sport to not create some sort of hard salary cap. The above scenario is real. Alex Rodriguez, star third baseman of the New York Yankees, made more than 25 million dollars last year. The Tampa Bay Rays had a total payroll of just over 24 million dollars. This means, in short, that when the Yankees and Rays square off one of the dozen times each year that they do, Alex Rodriguez can stand on the third base bag, look towards the Rays' dugout, and say with certainty that he makes more money than all the people in there combined.
Baseball, along with basketball and football, form the "big three" of American professional sports. Both football and basketball have a strict salary cap system in place, to put everybody on a level playing field and allow small market teams the same opportunity to retain key players as bigger market teams. A salary cap is a system where every team in the league is only allowed to pay their players a certain amount of money, to ensure equality. If not for the salary cap, teams like the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA and the Indianapolis Colts of the NFL would never be the teams they are. Both teams are among the most consistent in their respective leagues, and they both got that way by having very smart management and an efficient front office. At the same time, big market teams like the New York Knicks or the Chicago Bulls have bumbling, inefficient management, and are punished for it by atrocious play. The hard salary cap of the NBA makes sure that bad teams aren't able to bail themselves out by reaching into their deep pockets and waving fistfuls of money at free agents. Without a salary cap, the Spurs wouldn't be able to retain a franchise player like Tim Duncan, nor the Colts with Peyton Manning, robbing them of their nucleus and forcing them into a continuous state of rebuilding.
This is the case with many small market baseball teams. Good scouting is considered essential to a successful franchise, but the truth is that lots of money can certainly make up for it. Take the case of Johan Santana, by consensus the best starting pitcher in the league. Santana was drafted, trained, and brought up through the system of the Minnesota Twins, a team with the 12th lowest payroll in the league. Santana is obviously a great player, but this past off season there was no doubt the Twins would trade him. Trading away the face of a franchise, especially when the franchise has a chance to contend, would seem silly in any other league. However, when the big dogs of MLB come calling, you really have no choice but to listen.
The Twins are in many ways a model franchise, possessing good scouting and a deep farm system, having brought up solid players like Torii Hunter, Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano, and the aforementioned Santana. Yet when it came to negotiating for Santana, they had very little ground to stand on. Santana's rich suitors, the Yankees, Red Sox, and the Mets, didn't need to say it, but the message was clear. "If you hold onto Santana through 2008, we'll just come calling after the season when he's a free agent. Then instead of getting some unproven prospects from us, you'll get nothing at all." The Twins had to give in, eventually trading Santana to the Mets for a package of four minor league prospects. In any other league, the Twins could have dismissed such an offer and taken one that really was equal or in their favor, but instead they realized that they had to take the offer or be left totally in the dust.
The main reason why Santana was traded came down to demographics. New York's population base is close to 20 million people, while Minneapolis has a little over 3.5 million people. This disparity ensures that the Mets, no matter what, will be able to bring in more money each year than the Twins. That's why the Mets were able to pay 45 million dollars more than the Twins last year, and it's why they were able to throw Santana a massive contract that the Twins couldn't hope to compete with.
Due to the above factors, many small teams are doomed to a future of cyclic rebuilding. This cycle means scouting prospects, then drafting them and grooming them into major league players. After a couple of leagues in the majors, the contracts of these players will expire. If they have become elite players, The George Steinbrenners and John Henrys of Major League Baseball will show up and offer absurd sums of money to jump ship and go play for them. The small team will receive prospects and draft picks in return, and just that soon they're back at square one. To succeed as a small team, you need patience and brilliant management. It doesn't take a genius to realize that Johan Santana is good today, but six years ago Santana's skills weren't as obvious. Award the guy who had the foresight to see Santana becoming a superstar, not the guy who was rich enough to buy him away when he became one.
It seems totally unfair to reward teams just for being rich, but that's how baseball is. Are the Yankees so successful because they have the best management in baseball? No, it's because they're so goddamn rich, and they can afford to poach premier players from other teams. I'm not saying the Yankees' front office is stupid, but it certainly makes your job a lot easier when you have almost 300 million dollars in the bank.
So I've stated my case. The aristocratic system of major league baseball is only matched in absurdity by the BCS (college football fans will know what I'm talking about). Baseball, get with the game. It's time to award smart management, because teams that know how to scout, train, and conduct business should be the real winners. The Colts are among the NFL elite because Bill Polian is a brilliant general manager. Money doesn't get in the way. A team from some cow town like Indianapolis wouldn't survive without the salary cap. A salary cap is essential to allow all teams an equal opportunity to compete, and it's time baseball got in line with that type of thinking.
4 comments:
This is a very interesting and well written piece. I enjoyed reading it very much. It looks as though you have put a lot into researching and you know a lot about this subject. I can tell it interests you a lot. I like your voice throughout this paper it is strong and convincing.
I agree with where you stand on the issue, but I'm wondering, should MLB just impose a salary cap or should they do something else as well?
Well constructed argument. I've been on your side the argument for many years now, but what it all comes down to is money. And with a salary cap, management gets richer while the players suffer in comparison. In MLB, compared to the NFL, plays 162 games, while NFL plays only 16. So shouldn't the increased revenue affect the amount these teams can spend on their hardworking players?
To both Ryan and Kamden-I think the key to a totally fair MLB is to create both a salary cap and a good revenue sharing system. I'm not sure of the extent of a revenue sharing system in major league baseball, but a complete one would have the Yankees and Rays bringing in equal money every year. I don't support this idea either, because you should reward teams for doing well, but level the playing field and spread the money out at least a little. Teams should not be rewarded for being in a big population center or punished for being in a small one. The NFL and NBA have found acceptable solutions to these issues, and so should Major League Baseball.
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