Salary cap in baseball?

[Dan!]

Here are a few statistics to ponder in light of the Yankees signing Mark Teixeira to a $180 million contract this week:

In a time when most teams are cutting on salary, the the Yankees have spent $423.5 million this offseason.


The 2008 yankees finished 2008 with a record payroll of $222.5 million.
The gap of $75 million between the Yankees and the next highest spender, the Red Sox ($147.1 million) was more than the payroll of nine other teams.
The Yankees just received a luxury tax bill of $26.8 million-just $141,000, shy of the Florida Marlin's entire payroll of $27,003,450.

Is it time for baseball to consider a salary cap?

[cheewiee]

Forget Salary Caps... I think that all Professional Athetes engaged in seasonal sports should be taxed 100% on everything earned from their Organization of employment over the sum of 5 million dollars a year.

[rossid]

Okay. I think I read that right. WOW!!! That is a lot of taxes.

Then there are all top four major sports teams payrolls.

1. Yanks (no playoffs)
2. Raiders $150M (no playoffs)
3. Portland Trailblazers (season in progress)
4. Detroit Red Wings (season in progress)

Money don't mean championships.

[VerbumReale]

Okay. I think I read that right. WOW!!! That is a lot of taxes.

Then there are all top four major sports teams payrolls.

1. Yanks (no playoffs)
2. Raiders $150M (no playoffs)
3. Portland Trailblazers (season in progress)
4. Detroit Red Wings (season in progress)

Money don't mean championships.

You know I didn't think it was possible for anyone to come up with anything that would make being a Raider fan even more depressing to me, but kudos to you sir, you found a way. :D

[rossid]

Steve you have to look at this article. My son and are were screaming so loud through the whole thing.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/081226&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab6pos1

Oct. 7: Kidnappers release a video of Al Davis and demand a new coach and two first-round picks for his release.

[Gandalf]

I don't favor a salary cap. Look at the results. While the Yankees throw their money away year after year, they aren't winning all the championships, media lovefest notwithstanding. Actually, MLB already has significantly better parity at its championship level (number of different teams playing in and/or winning the World Series) than the salary-capped professional sports do, over the last decade or two. Why communize a system that's working better than the ones that are already restrictive? Fix what's apparently working better than anything else by replacing it with a system that's more broken? The only thing it would accomplish is greater profits for a few owners who aren't disciplined enough to make smart personnel decisions.

[R. Smith]

It doesn't seem like baseball has a salary cap, with all the high paid player on the Yankees team. And I know other teams pay lots for thier players...

I use to follow Baseball, when the Blue Jays were winning. But now teams can go out a buy a winning team...

[Gandalf]

The Yankees haven't won the World Series since 2000. Starting then, the last 8 WS winners have been:
New York Yankees
Arizona Diamondbacks
Anaheim Angels
Florida Marlins
Boston Red Sox
Chicago White Sox
Saint Louis Cardinals
Boston Red Sox
Philadelphia Phillies
From the late '20s through the early '60s, the Yankees were winning regularly, including a 4-year streak in the '30s and a 5-year streak in the '40s and '50s. Since expansion, though, apart from the Yankees' 3-year streak in the '90s, they haven't been as dominant despite their skyrocketing payroll. Even as they've spent more and more money in the last decade, more and more other teams are winning. Whatever the Yankees are buying, it's not World Series championships.

[Jason]

I think they're buying crack. ;)

[VerbumReale]

Since expansion, though, apart from the Yankees' 3-year streak in the '90s, they haven't been as dominant despite their skyrocketing payroll. Even as they've spent more and more money in the last decade, more and more other teams are winning. Whatever the Yankees are buying, it's not World Series championships.


Only if you are defining dominance only as winning the World Series, and I would remind you that prior to the three year streak they actually won the World Series in 96. So the three year streak should probably more properly be understood as winning the World Series 4 out of 6 years. Add to that 2 additional years where they won the AL, 9 straight years (98-06) where they won their division and making the playoffs every season from 95-07 and some might consider that dominance.

Regardless, to pretend that the ability to spend more on one player than probably a third of the other teams spend on their entire roster does not give them a huge advantage borders on delusional. Granted, outspending everyone does not guarantee anything but when you compare how the Yankees did from 82-95, when the revenue playing field was much more level and hence the Yankees could barely finish .500 let alone make the playoffs, which they didn't once during that whole time period, one can hardly look at how they have performed the last 12 seasons and not call that at least somewhat dominant.

[Gandalf]

Of course their massive budget doesn't hurt their chances, but they've had greater periods of dominance than their streak in the late '90s, but the massive spending spree has been since that streak ended. In 2000, their payroll (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/news/2000/04/05/payrolls_2000/) was < $100M, and only $4M higher than the next team in line (Dodgers). Since that time, it's more than doubled and they haven't won another championship. They have made it back to the playoffs most years in that timespan, but so have the Cardinals, who spend less than half as much.

My point isn't that money doesn't help give them the opportunity to get some good players, and give them a good chance in competition, but that there are a lot of other teams winning games, making it to the playoffs, and winning championships without spending all that money.

The payroll ranks of the World Series winners of this decade:
1
8
15
25
2
13
11
2
12
Granted there's only one team with a below-average payroll there, but most of the World Champions are within one good player's salary of the league median.

My point isn't that the Yankees don't get good players for their money, or that this doesn't give them a chance to win, but that winning championships (their goal in spending so much) is not a function primarily of payroll. They're spending twice what other teams are because they don't have an active dynasty right now. Plenty of other teams are also competing and winning without spending nearly as much, and when the Yankees were winning everything, they weren't spending as much themselves. Back in 1998, they didn't even have the top payroll in MLB - the Orioles did. The Yankees payroll started creeping up in the '90s, but didn't really pull away from the rest of MLB until the current decade.

On the other hand, the NFL has salary caps. The Superbowl winners of this decade:
Saint Louis Rams
Baltimore Ravens
New England Patriots
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
New England Patriots
New England Patriots
Pittsburgh Steelers
Indianapolis Colts
New York Giants

Add to that that MLB has the lowest percentage of teams making the playoffs of major professional sports, and the greater variety of teams succeeding in the playoffs is even more noteworthy.

It's probably true that the NYY payroll adversely affects the AL East, since they did manage to win their division for 7 of the last 9 years (not the most recent two), though they had similar streaks in other decades, so it's hard to attribute it entirely to their current spending spree. And the AL Wild Card team has also come from the East for 5 of those years. But once the postseason comes around, whatever advantage the Yankees have in the regular season seems to be mostly lost. It's other teams who've been winning there.

[VerbumReale]

My point isn't that the Yankees don't get good players for their money, or that this doesn't give them a chance to win, but that winning championships (their goal in spending so much) is not a function primarily of payroll.
.

And I never said it was. In fact I think I explictly said spending more than any other team does not guarantee champiosnhips. But, the reality is having the ability to sign big name free agents gives some teams an advantage over others. When the Yankees were winning the World Series in the late 90s they were utilizing their ability to sign talented free agents but they didn't rely solely on that. They may not have had the biggest payroll in 98 but I bet they were in at least the top 10, probably top 5. Back then when they signed big name players it was to supplement the core group they already had; Scott Brosius, Bernie Williams, Danny Tartabull, Andy Pettite, Tino Martinez etc ( and even some of them came to the Yankees as somewhat big name free agents) That was why Joe Torre was the perfect fit as manager. He was a good baseball man, but equally as important he knew how to handle player's egos. But eventually the Yankees started relying too much on their ability to bring in the the big names and eventually there were too many egos even for Joe Torre to handle. But that doesn't change the fact that a select group of teams have a big advantage over the rest of the league because of their ability to sign talented players who will fill their needs.

And yes there are small market teams that manage to compete. But small market teams that make it to the World Series have proven to be much more the exception than the rule. I am a Twins fan and even though they have had some success getting to the playoffs, there was always this sense that inevtably they would run into a team that was just too loaded for them. And yes once in a while there is a Tampa Bay Rays of this year or a Florida Marilins of 03, but for the most part winning and even getting to the World Series has been limited to teams in the upper part of the payroll list. And also with small market teams whenever they manage to produce a home-grown phenom who develops into great player, there is a sense of inevtability that eventually they will leave for a large market team to make the big bucks. That was the case with Torii Hunter, who is now with the Angels and Johann Santana who is now with the Mets. And now I wonder if it's only a matter of time before Joe Maurer is lured away.

[Gandalf]

Oh, I agree that small market teams are at a disadvantage (as are those without devoted fanbases). Just look at Kansas City. But I don't think salary caps are the answer to that problem, nor is the Yankees' excessive payroll. The mid-market teams (which are as a whole just as successful as the big market teams) beat up on the small markets just as effectively. To an extent, more revenue sharing could help those teams. And some are probably just not in sustainable markets, and really need to move. But stopping the teams with money from paying it to the players (who are, after all, the ones the fans are paying to see) won't address the issue of the bottom-of-the-barrel teams not being able to compete up to the level of most of the league. It'll just let more owners keep more of the revenues.