Six major league organizations will pay a luxury tax for exceeding the $189MM salary level, as the Associated Press reports (via Sportsnet.ca). With a new collective bargaining agreement set to go into effect, we’ve never seen more teams subject to the tax.
It’s no surprise which organizations lead the way yet again, but they’ll be joined by a few more others than usual. Here’s the full list:
- Dodgers, $31.8MM tax bill
- Yankees, $27.4MM
- Red Sox, $4.5MM
- Tigers, $4MM
- Giants, $3.4MM
- Cubs, $2.96MM
That’s four years in a row for Los Angeles and a remarkable fourteen straight for the Bronx Bombers, the AP notes. Also of note, this is the first time the Cubs have ever exceeded the luxury tax ceiling.
While the line will move up to $195MM next year, under the new CBA, the penalties will begin to rise — especially for consecutive offenders. Dipping back under the limbo stick may prove tough for the Dodgers, whose future obligations draw down more the following year. But the Yankees could well finally be set to re-set their luxury tax status this time next year.
What is the deadline in order to avoid luxury tax? For example, if the Giants traded away,say Belt before opening day, would they avoid the penalty? Or is it one of those things like as soon as you hit over the mark, you get taxed?
These are taxes for the 2016 season based on the total dollars they actually spent.
It wouldn’t have to be belt, the giants are paying 1.5x for the tax so they would only need to shed a couple of million.
they could always have a salary cap but hey what do i /the NHL know
MLB knows a hell of a lot more than NHL about running a major sports leage. NHL has never and will never touch profits that MLB does. Both leagues know far more about running a major sports league than you will ever know.
Or they could not have a salary cap and not ruin a sport that has seen 60% of its teams reach the World Series since 2001 (to contrast, the NHL has only seen 53% of their teams reach the Stanley Cup Finals during that same period). And by the way, during that time the Yankees have only gone three times while a small market team like St Louis has gone four.
That’s a difference of 1 team.
so? one has a salary cap one doesn’t and they are roughly the same (measured by championship appearances) That’s the point he was trying to make
Way to use a stat that is basically saying the opposite of the point you were trying to make haha
Wouldn’t go out and proclaim st louis small market. Tampa? Maybe. KC? Same. Miami gets major dollars and nothing small market there. Pittsburgh isn’t either, yet they get money too. Same with the orioles Nationals, right next door are considered a large market.. Go figure how the league does it’s calculating, but it’s out of whack.
I see Boston and both Chi town teams, the LAD, Giants and both NY teams as large, then chuck the rest into the middle if the league insists on differentiating have and have nots.
The white sox are in a large market, but do horribly. Whether that is because their team is run poorly (glad they finally locked kenny williams in a closet and let rick hahn do his thing) or because they are in a poor location, I’m not sure. Regardless, they may be in “big market” but they certainly are not a big market team, as it stands.
That was kind of my point. How does the league go about differentiating a large market? look at miami and it’s market. it’s massive and 3 owners, including one in John henry before, who we know isn’t afraid of spending.
The actual market size, as in people close by isn’t what they can use then. TV audience? That would have Miami also. How much they can rake in from a TV deal?? is THAT what is being used to determine market size? How much a certain team can raise ticket prices and force people to pay, rather than in Tampa where some decent seats go for 10$?
It sounds all wrong to me if market size is based on nothing more than the ability of a small handful of teams to gouge fans and think that’s what it is based on myself.
its some combo of native population for the designated area and tv audience. There are articles on this and it does a good job of explaining how st louis manages to slip through the cracks as a “small market” team each year. I’m sorry that I can’t find it with a quick google, but if i find it later i will repost.
Oakland stadium is literally a dozen miles as a crow flies from Giants stadium so he “market” is e same general area….so its more than just geography
Completely agree with you, on that list. But, I’ll never understand why the F’n Smell-A Dodgers are considered to be “large market.” Is it because they used to be in Brooklyn? I thought California was considered, by many, for some assanine reason, to be another planet. I’ll never understand that one. Perhaps it’s because it’s paradise.
LA is the #2 TV market in the country.
Its not really the size of the market, its the revenue that comes in. The White Sox are in a large market but would be considered a medium/low revenue team. Miami? Massive market but a low revenue team. St. Louis is in a small market but has a high revenue relatively speaking.
Don’t forget the A’s and Astros. Two of the largest media markets in the country.
something to consider is the larger markets have a lot more competition for the entertainment $$. Not only are the Yanks in competition with the Mets, they have the Giants/Jets, Nets/Knicks, Devils/Rangers/Islanders….not to mention broadway shows. the Yanks need a entertaining product on the field IF they want that big TV/radio contract coming in. So they need “names” to sell. That’s why George Steinbrenner was always picking up well known veterans for his team.
The Dodgers have led MLB in attendance the last 4 years and have a massive fanbase.
since moving to LA 58 years ago, the Dodgers have led the NL in attendance more than half those years. LA is a good baseball town and the Dodgers have been a mostly well run franchise. Walter O’Malley moved into the huge Coliseum, a terrible place to play baseball but could seat 90k people. He took his time in building Dodger Stadium, a beautiful palace that is STILL cranking out revenue. The rival Giants, who moved to SF the same year went to a small minor league ballpark then rushed things to build Candlestick Park….a lousy stadium in a bad location. Another key has been LA’s farm system that has been the reason for their success dating back to the Branch Rickey era. But in recent years, that farm system suffered with the previous ownership.
Using only teams to make the championship series in each sport is just the worst way to compare. Any team can have a great year, but does that make them a great franchise? The stat you need to use in a comparison of big-market vs. small market is number of years below .500.
Number of years below .500 in the 21st century
MLB
Six smallest teams by population
Brewers – 11
Royals – 11
Reds – 13
Pirates – 13
Indians – 9
Cardinals – 1
Total – 58
Six largest teams by population (NY, LA, CHI divided by 2 due to 2 teams)
Yankees – 0
Mets – 9
Dodgers – 2
Angels – 5
Blue Jays – 7
Rangers – 8
Total – 31
NHL
Biggest (divided by # of teams)
Blackhawks – 5
Rangers – 4
Islanders – 8
Devils – 2
Kings – 5
Ducks – 4
Total – 28
Smallest
Jets – 7
Sabres – 4
Senators – 1
Oilers – 8
Predators – 4
Hurricanes – 5
Total – 29
Yes there are outliers, but for the most part NHL teams have a fairly equal chance of having a poor season depending on the size of the market. In MLB, big market teams have a virtual 2 to 1 advantage when it comes to avoiding a losing season. It’s an even bigger advantage if you include the A’s and Rays whose population numbers are skewed based on area instead of city. There is no question that a salary cap would create more parity.
Very nice post. Excellent analysis. A hard salary cap would definitely compress and narrow the bell curve. Easier for a smaller market to compete and more difficult for a larger market to create a dynasty.
The fact that the Cubs play against 4 of the 6 smallest markets, they have a huge and distinct advantage. If they don’t win their Division the majority of the time, they are under achieving.
This is inaccurate, Houston is larger than Dallas.
Houston MSA 6.7M
DFW MSA 7.1M
The hockey one is incredibly off, the Ducks play in Anaheim not LA, technically a small city in NHL terms. The Hurricanes play in Raleigh which is smaller than Nashville. The Panthers play in Sunrise, which would be close to the smallest by Population and this are just the most noticeable. I think you need to redo these lists accurately.
Ah, the original post should have listed such. Thank you
Anaheim is considered LA by most people. I used the Angels for Anaheim as well. Raleigh has 1.13MM people and Nashville has 1.10 MM people, so no it is not smaller. Besides both Carolina and Nashville are on the list, so what does it matter what order they are listed in? The Panther might play in Sunrise, but they are a Miami team just like the Ducks are an LA team. If you don’t like my lists, then redo it with your own work. I stand by my work.
Its actually a horrible analysis. You need to educate yourself in the economics of salary cap in baseball. These points you reach on are only touching the surface.
You left out Chicago in your analysis too which completely screws your point and why’d you stop at 6? I’d assume because it ruins your point that you failed to make.
I stopped at 6 because that is the top 20% of the leagues. If you had read, I divided the population of Chicago in half for baseball because there are two teams in the city and you have to figure that the majority of people do not support both teams in the city equally. In essence the 9MM in Chicago gives the Cubs 4.5MM and the White Sox 4.5MM which falls below the rest. That number is smaller than both the populations of Toronto and Dallas/FW. Actually it is smaller than 5 other cities as well.
Is my analysis perfect? No. Is yours better? Hell no. If you disagree, do your own study and actually provide some evidence to refute my points rather than just pissing and moaning like a petulant child. Then you might make for a worthy opinion. For now, your rank at about the same level of worthiness as that petulant child.
I am not criticizing your effort by pointing out that city population isn’t a very useful way of measuring. The size of the media market or metropolitan area would be. For instance Washington might be in your top six list if you included the portions of Virginia and Maryland that are within the DC metro area.
Hate to break it to you, but you don’t count Fort Worth with Dallas when calculating total population. They are 2 separate cities.
Also, San Antonio is larger than Dallas…
but it’s the Dallas-Fort Worth TV market which is #4 in the USA. San Antinio is in the 30’s. That’s what advertisers count….market size and NOT the population of an individual city when deciding AD Rates and $$$ they pay for sports entertainment. DFW also has Arlington, Irving, Plano, Mesquite, and many other smaller cities…..just as LA includes not just LA, but Anaheim, Riverside, San Bernanido, Whitter, Culver City, Azuza and Long Beach. LA is the #2 market
Well don’t count either of them them if that’s what you’re saying, Rangers play in Arlington. But I personally think you should count the population of the metro area, which includes Dallas, Fort Worth , and Arlington.
He didn’t say city population, you and others did. He said big and small markets. That is the better way to compare.
References to Dallas minus Fort Worth, Anaheim instead of LA, etc., are patently ridiculous. Even the team names don’t go by official municipal boundaries. Otherwise the Jets and Giants would be New Jersey, not New York.
Of the four major USA sports leagues, is there a smaller market than the Green Bay Packers?
The Packers local fan base is basically the state of Wisconsin. They used to play half their games in Milwaukee until they rehabbed Lambeau Field.
So, dabbed, with all those stats you proclaim, why on earth does MLB need a salary cap? The lack of a false cap on player salaries has not negatively impacted competition. This proves the point that a salary cap only helps owners make money while punishing players.
Exactly but that goes over ray rays head. You’re screwing the players over and letting the owners pocket the money. The MLB would never have a salary cap because the union would never let it. Its not about how much money you spend its how you spend it. Ask the dodgers
Can’t you just make your point without insulting someone? Or are you just trying to disguise the fact that your actual argument is very weak by distracting your opponent?
Besides why does everyone always talk about screwing the players over? The minimum salary is over $500,000 a year. There are no big league players being screwed over. That’s a pretty nice entry level salary for ANY industry.
The people actually getting screwed over are the fans that are forced to pay rising ticket prices to pay for the rising player salaries. The owners are going to get their money one way or another. That’s the way capitalism works. The owners provide the capital, therefore they make the profits. The players are not the employees, that would be the front office and the coaching staff. The players are the inventory. You don’t put 50% of your capital into inventory.
You were sort of onto something then you went right off the deep end.
First, ticket prices are set by the market for tickets. They are set by what the customers are willing to pay for the tickets, not any other thing, let alone, by what the players are paid.
Second, I realize a lot of people on these boards like to talk about money ball. Yet nobody I know comes to the ballpark hoping to watch the owners throw dollars, catch dollar, or hit dollars.
ticket prices are what they are because; WE THE FANS PAY THAT PRICE! if the prices were too high, people would stop going and the salaries would drop as well. that’s supply and demand.
Ticket prices have no correlation with player salaries. Putting on a baseball game is expensive. Most money from tickets never leaves the stadium.
And just because we’re talking about salary caps and how they relate to MLB, ticket prices for NHL games, on average, are far more expensive than tickets for MLB games. In fact, nearly twice as much. But even NHL ticket prices are dwarfed by NFL tickets. The NFL also has a hard salary cap. Salary caps don’t do anything to ticket prices.
Average ticket prices for the four major sports:
NFL: 93$ (NFL has a salary cap)
NHL: 61$ (NHL has a salary cap)
NBA: 56$ (NBA has a -sort of -salary cap)
MLB: 31$ (MLB has no salary cap).
Remind me again how player salaries and no cap lead to higher ticket prices.
What happens when Bryant Russell Hendricks Baez Schwarber Contreras become Arb eligible in 2 years? Not to mention Heywards salary jumps from $21mm to $28mm this year….That payroll is going to skyrocket by $50mm plus in 2 years….
I’m not really sure what you mean? They have money
It doesnt matter if they have the money, obviously all these teams have the money
So they will just pay the taxes? How does it not matter if they have the money to pay their overages. Yes, they will face penalties, but looking at the increasing lux # and the figures they are gonna shed, it shouldn’t be a huge issue for them?
Or, a few might get traded for someone’s three main prospects, and they re-rack the nine-ball rack, and keep rolling.
Lackey, Montero and Zobrist will all be leaving. Arrieta might have a big paycheck coming tho. The Cubs will have a TV deal and not care as much about the tax.
Zobrist signed a 4-year deal. He’ll be with the Cubs for a while.
Zobrist is free agent after 2019. Which is only the first year arbitration for Schwarber and Baez. While Willson Contreras does get arbitration until 2020. So only Bryant/Russell will be making much money going into 2019.
Plus a lot of payroll comes off the books after this season. With Arrieta, Lackey, Davis, Montero, Strop, Uehara, Jay and Duensing coming off the books. That’s like 75 million off the books. Yes they will have to spend some of that to add bench players, relievers and probably a SP. But probably half of that will go to raises. Cubs have a lot of young SP in their system. Who they believe can take over 2018/2019 as well.
you lose 10 from wade davis, 8 from jon jay, Cots has heyward at 21 next year, did they get that wrong? 14 from montero, 12.5 from lackey, 6 from koji, 2 from duensing, That’s what, 52.5 mil coming off? Obviously those players need to be replaced but that’s a solid amount of money
Bro Lackey making $16mm this year. Heyward $28,166,167. Check your numbers
And Heyward is still totally worth it right. Even though he can’t hit the metrics still say he is great. 28 million a year for right field defense.
I am confused. I don’t see how he is making 28 mil, additionally, his wrc+ dropped by almost 50 points (meaning he’s a 50% worse than average hitter). I don’t think anyone would say that his last season was a good showing. His offense was terrible last season, and that sunk his value.
If he continued to be 20% better offensively than the league instead of 30% worse with that defense and baserunning, then yes, he’d be worth his contract.
Trying to use heyward as an example of over paying for defense makes no sense because his offense dropped off so much.
I said “cots has them at”…and asked if they were wrong. I was asking if that is wrong haha. Can you provide what you are looking at?
According to Baseball Reference, Heyward is making $28M each of the next two seasons, then he drops down to the $20-22M range for the remainder of his contract.
is that including his signing bonus that isn’t paid until later *unless he opts out)?
“$20M signing bonus (paid in four $5M installments, each April 1, 2024-27)”
baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/national-…
I’m guessing not since it says those payments start in 2024, which is after his contract ends.
Then I don’t see how one has him at 21 and one at 28. aav of contract including signing bonus?
he is way way way over paid
Why should he be any different from, at least, half of all other major league players. If you, or I, received an outrageously -high offer, wouldn’t you jump at it? I know I would.
On BR for Heyward, the first three years (after which he can opt-out) include a pro ration of his 20 million signing bonus even though he won’t actually get that until after the original eight seasons, I think this is how the luxury tax for MLB treats signing bonuses, too.
Lackey and montero free up almost $30 mil next year, if arrieta leaves that’s another large chunk of change coming off, wade davis is another $10 mil probably coming off, heyward could opt out in a few years if he actually turns it around
Lackey and Montero salaries off the the books alone will cover Bryant, Hendricks and Russell arbitration raises over the next few years. While Zobrist salary will cover arbitration for Schwarber, Baez and Contreras in 2020. So raises aren’t a big deal, because they have so much money coming off the books. But they do need to develop more pitching by 2018/2019.
Because with these raises they aren’t gonna have 50 million to spend on two SP and two late inning relievers. Like they are this off-season on Arrieta, Lackey, Davis and Uehara. That number will be closer to 25-30 million. So they will have to fill holes from within on the cheap.
Don’t forget Fowler ($17 mil), Ross ($6 mil) off the books.
The move to Almora Jr. was about the salary cap more than baseball. Hope he can get on base and have long at-bats like Fowler.
Fowler, Ross, Edwin Jackson, and Hammel come off the books from last year. Lackey and Montero after 2017. That’s quite a bit of money for the arb guys, and they can buy out some arb years with contracts structured as necessary for luxury tax purposes. If Hayward somehow puts it together and opts out they are in great shape, but I wouldn’t count on that.
According to Sportrac the Cubs have just under $80 million committed for the 2018 season.
Doesn’t this mean Heward’s salary is roughly 40 mil based on the cap penalty? Wow.
To chitown311: Heyward’s contract is counted against the 189 (soon to be 195 and higher)cap using AAV, not just his actual contract amount. I hope this kind of clears things up for you. 🙂
I don’t think arbitration will break up the core. Trust in Theo. That guy is good at it.
I love the NHL and the MLB. But to say that the NHL does not know how to run a major sports league just as good as the MLB is ignorant. considering NHL is just not that popular in the U.S. If hockey and baseball had the same popularity in the U.S., i bet you the difference would be very slight
If any two entertainment media had the same popularity of course they would have similar profits but the fact of the matter is that MLB and NHL don’t have the same popularity. I never said NHL doesn’t know how to run a sports league just that MLB is much better at it. So when saying that a salary cap is beneficial and using a sports league that has never touched MLB numbers is just a ridiculous argument to make. Salary cap has done nothing to help NHL get more fans and popularity. All it has helped is to make NHL owners richer.
Actually, the salary cap has increased popularity and revenue has skyrocketed for teams. The salary cap has created a ton of parity league-wide where 80% of the league have realistic playoff hopes at the end of March.
However, the revenue numbers come nowhere close to MLB for a variety of reasons, most of which is the fact MLB stadiums hold between 10-30 thousand more fans than the biggest NHL arena. Another is that almost half the league revenue is generated by the 7 Canadian teams(roughly 42%).
The NHL could theoretically close the gap by a significant margin but they’ve been over aggressive and persistent in trying to make non-traditional markets work despite operating at large losses. Despite all the criticism, the owners and Gary Bettman are seeing massive growth in grassroots programs in these non-traditional markets which is leading to increased popularity. Will it ever match MLB? Not very likely at all but the league is showing some very positive signs for future growth and most of that can be linked to the salary cap in some way.
i’ll admit i’m not at all familiar with this, but aren’t NBA and NHL arenas roughly similar in size? And I imagine that NBA teams sell a lot more than nhl teams. So using only stadium size seems like a flawed method.
Again not sure, but i think a large amount of the greater revenue in baseball comes from the fact that they play 2x as many games as other sports.
That’s funny about the NHL – “80% of the team’s have a playoff chance…”. This is a league in which practically every team makes the postseason and the postseason goes on for months.
Their are some though admittedly I’m not sure what the the non-shared NBA arena’s capacities are. But the shared arenas generally have slightly bigger capacities because the courts are smaller than the rinks and have the ability to have floor seats.
Truthfully, stadium size is one of many reasons why the NHL doesn’t do as well as the other 4 sports. The biggest is the fact the NHL lacks the national television deals that the MLB, NBA and NFL have.
With all of that said, the lone reason the NHL even has a salary cap is because the owners played a better game of chicken against the players while the players union fractured and disbanded and still hasn’t fully recovered 10 plus years later.
I was thinking of arenas that are shared and figure thse were roughly similar. Is it really just owner/player issues, or is it the fact that hockey is just not as popular in the us as football/baseball/basketball?
I live in chicago, and until the blackhawks started winning, no one around here really followed hockey. Now there are roughly infinity bandwagon fans, but I imagine that most us cities are kinda the same. (I could be way off on this)
It’s truly owner vs player. The owners have an infinite amount of faith in Gary Bettman as he’s won 3 lockouts in a row where as the NHLPA has seen 3 or 4 different leaders since 2003.
Hockey also isn’t as popular in the US but it’s growing, thanks in large part to the salary cap. Without it, the Blackhawks would have gone bankrupt in the early 2000’s and would never have recovered and become the powerhouse they are now. Same for the Blues, Coyotes, Hurricanes(though they’re dying but for different reasons) and without those teams, several of the up and coming US born talent likely would have chosen another path(ie Auston Matthews would likely have gone the baseball route).
Baseball is thriving at the pro level but domestic growth has decreased where as hockey has generally been the opposite the past 5-10 years, struggling at the pro level but gaining more and more grassroots programs. The salary cap is a huge reason for that as it’s kept teams in non-traditional markets for much longer than they probably should have.
As for bandwagon fans and what not, most northern US cities have strong foundations(Boston, Philly, NY Rangers, Minnesota) while some surprising markets like Dallas, San Jose, Anaheim, Los Angeles and a few others have created strong foundations with winning teams and great branding. The one’s that really struggle are the sunbelt teams, Arizona, Carolina, etc
For the record, I love the NHL salary cap because it makes perfect sense for the league. It keeps costs in check while the league continues/attempts to grow in the US.
I don’t think a cap makes a whole lot of sense in MLB. Teams are already operating, for the most part, at the largest payrolls in league history and they’re likely to continue going up for the foreseeable future. Instituting a payroll floor while becoming stricter on the luxury tax ceiling may make more sense but even that is debatable.
I really hate salary floors. It’s much easier to just punish teams that aren’t spending enough than to create a fake (pver priced) market for un desireable players, just to meat a salary floor.
Most Chicagoans look like bandwagon Blackhawk fans because previous ownership did everything he could to kill team awareness in the city. ESPN ranked him as major sports worst team owner for a reason.
Don’t forget Tampa Bay. Who would’ve thought a hockey team in Tampa would not only do so well consistently, but also draw decent crowds consistently. Unlike the Panthers, who can’t draw no matter what.
Tampa doesn’t draw well when they don’t have a competitive team. Miami doesn’t do well with sports teams period. Minus the dolphins but the NFL is a different animal.
The salary cap is a solution looking for a problem, but comparing the size of the audiences that follow hockey to baseball to draw some broader conclusion about how the sports are run seems foolish to me. It’s like saying that because chocolate ice cream is more popular than strawberry ice cream that the people who make chocolate are better at making ice cream. I grew up in the Northeast where lots of people followed pro hockey, and my high school had a hockey team. Where I now live in California, I don’t know a single person who follows hockey, or a local high school that fields a team. Baseball is more popular for a reason, the least of which is how good MLB is at running their business.
Saying that one doesn’t know how to run something as “good” as another is ignorant, is ignorant. (well)
What are the new penalties for going over please say loss of some kind of draft picks or something cause this is only just going to get more ridiculous in a couple years when there will be some big names in free agency even though its is already ridiculous with the dodgers and yankees almost at 250mil in payroll and you have teams down around 60 mil
Not having a Salary Cap system in place is a joke. How does it work in every other sport but can’t in baseball? The well run teams will still remain successful because they are well run and know how to manage the Cap. This tax is a joke when teams worth over $1billion pay a tax that when split will amount to only $thousands and it’s supposed to level the playing field? LA or NY can write ridiculous checks to players and bail out when the time comes while small market teams get buried with one bad contract. They need to shop at the scratch and dent section for Free Agents hoping to revive a career, and if they do then they’re back on the market for the big boys to open up the checkbook again. The reason there is perceived parity is because the window for winning it all is so small for most they go all in to win and then are forced to break up the core because they can’t afford to keep players. It’s not fun having a 162 game season and knowing a week into the season that many teams have absolutely 0% chance of winning it all, try selling that to your fans and filling seats.
The MLBPA will never vote for it. Ever.
To do so, to use your term, would be a joke.
The other player associations somehow found ways to vote on caps in their leagues. All depends on what is on the table at CBA time. The league has more leverage to get it done, fans are sick of labor disputes especially with MLB. NHL lost a season because there was no way they weren’t going to have a salary cap last time through because Bettman was supposed to negotiate it in the time before but he didn’t.
Polish hammer: you don’t get to write your own history in order to support your incorrect “facts”. MLB doesn’t have a salary cap for one simple reason — the union will not agree to one. And, clearly the false narrative that a cap would improve competition is not true in MLB, and isn’t true in NFL, NBA, or NHL, but the players union in those sports are just weak. A salary cap only helps owners falsely depress salaries. In other industries management calls it a budget.
RBI: thanks, but you don’t get tell people what opinion they are required to have. I never said it would “improve competition”, but it would create a competitive balance, a level playing field. Anybody against an MLB Salary Cap is probably a fan of NY, LA, Chicago or Boston.
I agree. High price teams like the cubs win every year. Then when they win its last like wow we poor cubbies final won one. Bullcrap ya bought one!
I really hope that was sarcasm.
He’s probably not kidding. I’d bet he’s a terrified Cardinal fan. And bought one? They paid Lester to a high end deal. That’s it. Who else? Zobrist? Anyone could have paid that price. They won because the hit with their trades, drafts and upped every aspect of their organization from their scouts to the Daytona Cubs.
If there is a hard cap of say 200 million and a hard cap floor of around 100 million it brings more money to players and evens out the competition and it wont kill the sport it would help make it better. Better competition so you dont have 5 teams cutting payroll every season and you dont have team like the dodgers going crazy that or if they are over the luxury tax the penalty should be loss of picks to thats the only way to keep teams going crazy like the dodgers and spending 300 in payroll a year
That’s too big a gap. If you are going to do that, then why not just make it a closer range? Say a cap of $160MM and a floor of $140MM. In theory, the players would get the same amount and the advantage would not be 2 to 1 in favor of the big payroll teams.
cause 100mil is a minimum teams will go higher and 2:1 is a lot better then 5:1 and there would be less bitching from yankee and dodger fans
That’s hard to swing, more like $90 to $165 or so. Anything would be better than the current system.
Do you mean the current system that has worked for the past few decades? Also, the MLB players’ union would never go for a cap, not ever.
To be against the current no salary cap system is just not knowing all the facts. Sure on the surface it makes sense, but when you factor everything into it, MLB has the best system.
cause 100mil is a minimum teams will go higher and 2:1 is a lot better then 5:1 and there would be less complaining from yankee and dodger fans
A hard cap even helps the big boys. Instead of agents knowing you have no limit to what you can pay a player they have the leverage which drives salaries up.
What is the problem with players making what the market will bear? What is wrong with teams spending whatever they want on the very talent that causes fans to want to view a game? It’s called capitalism and it is the same system most owners utilized to make the fortunes that allowed them to buy their franchise.
cause its going to get to the point where it kills baseball by have 6 to 8 teams with all the good players spending all the money the and the league would not be competitive and not fun to watch unless you want to see major league teams playing independent teams all the time
That’s a problem based on how the revenue pie is divided. The owners can split up the money in the game any way they like, and the way they like is rich team-poor team. How much the players are paid has nothing to do with it.
And what is wrong with having the same thing every other major professional sport has like a Salary Cap. Somehow all of those owners do quite well as do their players.
It’s not really capitalism when the taxpayers kick in money to help greedy owners build their stadiums. Salaries would be more in line if the cry baby owners would just build their own damn stadiums.
players and owners are no different than any other human. greed is a human emotion and the only reason the owners get govt to pay for them is because govt is WILLING to pay for them to keep those teams there. there is supply and demand for these teams and the owners will go to the highest bidder. Ask Dodger and Giant fans in NY….same for the Browns/Orioles, Braves/Boston/Milwaukee, A’s Phil/KC/Oak, …Lakers/Minnneapolis, etc…
Would love to see a league where every team and the league itself took every penny of revenue and split it equally among all teams and that’s all the money that can be spent. Then you will be able to see who knows how to build a team compared to buying a team.
We all know that would never happen but while we are making our wish lists, that one would have to be on the top of it (at least for those of us who believe that 30 competitive teams would be good for the game). They’d also need to established fixed minimums the percentage of revenue spent on salaries and facilities, or some owners would simply pocket the money, which some of them do with revenue sharing already. If we could wave our magic wands and make those to things happen, it might actually make sense to talk about a salary cap.
Implement communism in MLB? Worst idea i ever heard
Ummm…. what the heck are you talking about?
Taking revenue from every team and splitting it equally among eveyone? Thats communism. Actually probably closer to socalism but not much of a difference
I didn’t realize. I thought MLB already shared revenue between the teams. And I thought the owners of the exclusive baseball franchises were all in business together to operate a thing called MLB. Obviously I had some of my basic facts wrong. Or maybe baseball has been a communist front organization all along.
Oh, dear. Now that you’ve informed me correctly, I will have to reconsider my entire interest in the game.
Here’s the dirty little secret sports leagues won’t admit and another reason why baseball will not have a salary cap, they want the big market teams to thrive.
MLB doesn’t want a San Diego vs. Tampa Bay World Series. They want Cubs vs. Yankees. They want Dodgers vs. Red Sox.
The ratings, ad revenues, ticket sales, merchandise sales, etc. do much better when large market teams win compared to small market teams.
The small market teams are there to be the Globetrotters.
Yes, teams like Kansas City and Cleveland pop in and out of contention, but the windows are small and close quickly.
More often than not, the clock strikes midnight and the large market teams still win in the end.
To expound on the point….in the past 20 years all but 3 World Series champions have come from a top 12 US market:
St. Louis (market #20) twice and Kansas City (market #30).
Going beyond 20 years you get Atlanta (market #8) and Toronto (would be the #2 market in the US after NY) before getting to Minnesota in 1991 and Cincinnatti in 1990.
The era of big money free agency started around 1992 when Bonilla inked his legendary contract.
Excellent points. The eyeballs are in the big markets and that’s why the advertisers are paying big money to reach them. Big markets have the overwhelming advantage vs the small ones.
Good point but I wonder if the small-market team owners are really happy about their short windows of competitiveness in between decades of doormat status. I suspect they are mollified by the revenue sharing money they receive but aren’t held to spending. MLB is the 30 team owners and they can decide collectively to divide the revenue in the game in whatever way they want.
The league is a stupendous economic success, with virtually every team worth a billion or more, with favorable tax treatment for the owners, taxpayer handouts, gigantic TV contracts. No system is perfect, but this one works very well. As for parity, it’s an illusory goal. Some front offices are smarter than others. Sometimes there’s just bad luck with injury or inexplicable underperformance. Sometimes there’s just good luck. in a signing–everyone knows Trout was drafted 25th pick, and Pujols went in the 13th round. Some owners emphasize profits, others are willing to spend more in order to win more. What MLB has works. You want to tinker around the edges, fine. But theres’s no reason for substantial changes, and certainly not for a hard cap.
I would not change a thing if I was a big MLB market owner. It is like playing poker with 7 cards and your opponent has 5. Small market owners just want to eventually sell and pocket a nice capital gain. Making sure you don’t borrow money that makes the franchise hard to sell is the discipline needed to make the investment work.
Sure, the system works… if you’re NY, Boston or LA. Everyone else has to tank or get creative to contend. They won’t spend the money to acquire top players or retain their stars. Pittsburgh, Oakland, Minnesota, BOTH Chicago teams are just a few that come to mind. Winning a championship every 50 years on average is not parity or success from the fan’s perspective. A salary cap would put an end to the monopoly the coastal hubs have on the labor pool (players).