Free Agency/Salary Cap?

[Astro]

While I doubt it will ever be possible, who would be in favor of a league-wide salary cap with penalities and a sliding scale from year to year, as with the NFL...

Something needs to be done before fan resentment grows too heavy from all of the crazy contracts players are signing, and all of the small-market teams losing their players year in and year out

[Cubsfan97]

Baseball should never have a Slaray Cap. It makes the game more interesting. It should stay "Highest bidder wins." IF there were a salaray cap there wouldnt be an all-time team that everyone can hate. Think of it this way, What if in the next five hyears your favorite team signed A-Rod, Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Barry Bonds, Chris Carpenter, Roy Halladay, Mariano Rivera and Aramis Ramirez, win the world series, be on top year afetr year after year and then someone says "you need to dump half your team to maintain a salary cap." If your all realistic kind of people imagine your team are the yankees and you have top dump half your team. TYhat is why I like no salary cap. Not to mention we wouldnt have as many people being on the same team for 20 yrs.

[Brian McKenna]

whether you want a cap or not sooner or later everyone in the business is going to get tired of the few teams that spend such a great deal more on talent than others can afford

[hudsonharden]

Think of it this way, What if in the next five hyears your favorite team signed A-Rod, Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Barry Bonds, Chris Carpenter, Roy Halladay, Mariano Rivera and Aramis Ramirez, win the world series, be on top year afetr year after year and then someone says "you need to dump half your team to maintain a salary cap."

That would never happen because my team can't afford all those players.

[charlesblalack@yahoo.com]

Yall heard of the NFL rite? One of the big reasons that make it the #1 sport in America is the salary cap. Parody will always help a leauge.

[Dasperp]

Parody will always help a leauge.

I agree, it's what made the XFL so great. All kidding aside, i support a salary cap despite being a Yankee fan. The problem, aside from the refusal of the MLBPA to ever agree to it, would be how to institute it. Say it's set at 90 million, what would the Yankees be forced to do? Even if they wanted to, they could never find people to take on enough contracts to get their payroll down that much.

[ElCaminoSS]

I think there should be a salary cap.

[steveox]

I think theyre should be a team salary cap limit $100million per team payroll. Yanks can still spend but not as nearly they want like over $200 million.Theres lot of teams over $100 million.Just keep the good clubs who can afford those superstar players so just about every club can have a superstar player.

[Captain Cold Nose]

I think theyre should be a team salary cap limit $100million per team payroll. Yanks can still spend but not as nearly they want like over $200 million.Theres lot of teams over $100 million.Just keep the good clubs who can afford those superstar players so just about every club can have a superstar player.
So, the majority of teams, and it is the majority, should be forced to fold because they aren't spending $100 million? Is that what you're saying?

[runningshoes]

If there's a salary cap, the player mentioned in cubsfan's post would have no choice but to be paid within the limits of a team's payroll; or they can go pump gas for a living.

[VTSoxFan]

Call me crazy, but before a salary cap is instituted, I think a salary FLOOR should be in place. It's not because I want the players to make more. It's to force the skinflint owners to pony up more to make thier teams competetive. It galls me to see fabulously wealthy owners like Pohlad cry poverty and let their teams starve, or even try to dissolve the team (and pocket a healthy sum in the deal) rather than actually part with money needed to sign and retain good players. If a team gets money from revenue sharing, that owner should be required to put that money back into the team, not into his pocket.

I too would love to see teams like Pittsburgh and KC have a better chance. But I don't know if forcing salary parity is a panacea for baseball's competetive imbalances.

[Captain Cold Nose]

Call me crazy, but before a salary cap is instituted, I think a salary FLOOR should be in place. It's not because I want the players to make more. It's to force the skinflint owners to pony up more to make thier teams competetive. It galls me to see fabulously wealthy owners like Pohlad cry poverty and let their teams starve, or even try to dissolve the team (and pocket a healthy sum in the deal) rather than actually part with money needed to sign and retain good players. If a team gets money from revenue sharing, that owner should be required to put that money back into the team, not into his pocket.

I too would love to see teams like Pittsburgh and KC have a better chance. But I don't know if forcing salary parity is a panacea for baseball's competetive imbalances.
Excellent point, Annie. And seemingly so soon forgotten in throwing around figures as to how high the cap should be.

[BristolBoy]

Let's do a little comparison, shall we?

NFL: won by the same team 3 of the last 4 years
MLB: won by a different team every year for the last 5

Well whaddayaknow? There already is competitive balance! Case closed.

[trosmok]

If a team gets money from revenue sharing, that owner should be required to put that money back into the team, not into his pocket.

... all thirty teams pooled 100% of the broadcast revenue and divided it equally, and use it exclusively for player's salaries we wouldn't even be discussing a cap. All thirty owners would be forced to work in concert to help their smaller market partners in MLB without making an upper limit income ceiling for the most expensive players. It isn't the superstar salaries that cause the disparity, it is throwing millions at mediocre players that kills the parity (not parody). The Yankees and Red Sox would still make the most money, thanks to geography and the marketing of their teams and associated merchandise better than anyone else. Attendance and ticket sales are only a small percentage of the actual revenue a club generates, but it is high time the rest of it is put toward MLB as a whole, instead of 30 egomaniacs tring to crush competition instead of thriving on it. Free market forces can be allowed to work, if the owners would only realize they are all in the same business, namely major league baseball.

[Brian McKenna]

a cap should involve a % range - rather than a specific $ figure that would be argued about yearly - say the mean is X then the teams could spend within the range X +/- 20% -- or something like it so that all teams are within striking distance of each other - this sets a floor and a ceiling - no one is unduly behind or ahead - even at the lower end it is reasonable to assume that one team could catch up in the standings by developing talent efficiently, drafting well, trading well, efficiently signing free agents, etc. plus executing on the field

the yankees really have an advantage with their local broadcast revenues - hell good for them - that's theirs - don't cry if your market doesn't - this should give them certain advantages in the boardroom - but it shouldn't give them such an overwhelming advantage in payroll and it shouldn't allow them to drive all labor costs up for the rest of the league and price many teams out - common sense dictates it - but the rich teams and the players currently have the votes to quash common sense in pursuit of the almighty dollar and glory

[sschirmer]

I can't believe nine people said "no". Must be nine Yankee fans, and "everyone else".

[Captain Cold Nose]

I can't believe nine people said "no". Must be nine Yankee fans, and "everyone else".
See posts 11, 14 and 15 (not to make light of what BristolBoy pointed out.)

[sschirmer]

I saw the posts, and some of the content is baffling. "Skin Flint Owners"? They can't be that cheap, as they've been the ones who allowed salaries to get as high as they are.

[Captain Cold Nose]

I saw the posts, and some of the content is baffling. "Skin Flint Owners"? They can't be that cheap, as they've been the ones who allowed salaries to get as high as they are.
Some are, some aren't. People like David Glass of Kansas City and Carl Lindner of Cincinnati (who's only been the former owner for a very short period of time) are billionaires whose unwillingness to spend their own money and lack of huge broadcast/marketing revenue has put those once glorious franchises at a standstill.
Other teams are simply able to let their teams pay for themselves at a far better rate. A salary cap is like putting a band aid on an amputation.

[Barnstormer]

Let's do a little comparison, shall we?

NFL: won by the same team 3 of the last 4 years
MLB: won by a different team every year for the last 5

Well whaddayaknow? There already is competitive balance! Case closed.

Number of A.L. East teams that have made it to the playoffs in the last 8 years not named Yankees or Red Sox: zero.

And you are forgetting the 4 straight years (and 5 of 6) when the highest payroll team did in fact win the WS, 1998-2001.

It's not really that balanced.

[Dasperp]

The Yankees weren't the highest payroll team all those years, i think LA and Boston were ahead a couple of those years. But I agree that another big problem is owners who won't invest in their teams. Loria, fresh off his successful destruction of the Expos, is now holding a firesale and destroying any chance of building a fan base in Miami so that he can make a point to the city about a new stadium. I fear that if a more extreme revenue-sharing system were to be put into place, some of these owners like Pohlad and Glass would pocket the money instead of investing to rebuild these franchises and their fan bases.

[eurobaser]

Yall heard of the NFL rite? One of the big reasons that make it the #1 sport in America is the salary cap. Parody will always help a leauge.

NFL is the richest LEAGUE but not necessarily the No.1 and not necessarily the No.1 SPORT.

Basketball and baseball/softball have more participants nationally and internationally than football/touch football and longer pro seasons and more games. NFL is a great show and very popular but as a SPORT football isn't necessarily No.1 on all ways of looking at it.

[wilkerson_rulz-06]

Hey guys, this is not the NHL.

[Knick9]

Let's do a little comparison, shall we?

NFL: won by the same team 3 of the last 4 years
MLB: won by a different team every year for the last 5

Well whaddayaknow? There already is competitive balance! Case closed.

Not a legit arguement. You forget 1998-2001 as someone pointed out.

I'm sad to see 9 people who actually vote "No" when it is obvious that there is a financial problem in competitiveness. Once proud franchises in the Reds, Pirates, and Royals are in total sewage holes and the uncommitment of their owners is getting on my nerves. It's like there's no end to this.

AL East teams not named Yankees or Red Sox to make the playoffs (again, as someone pointed out): NONE.

While Angelos is arguing about the Nats coming in, (and rightfully so :rolleyes: ), he is unwilling, though, to help his own team when they need it most. The O's couldn't pull off the Burnett trade while at the snap of a finger, the Red Sox zoom right by and will get Josh Beckett. Angelos is a douche, plain and simple.

Cubsfan97: I don't buy any of that. You should try being in the shoes of a Royals, Reds, and/or Pirates fan to see exactly what's wrong, same thing for everybody else. Even when they rebuild and make potential stars, after 1 good year or two, they all will end up being grabbed by the New England Baseball Financial Alliance of Doom, with the exception of the Mets. It's kind of like a food chain, two teams end up eating everyone else, and then the end. At least the Cubs can get guys like Nomar, Burnitz, A-Ram and D-Lee, and be graceful in defeat, while KC, Pittsburgh, and Cincy can't even buy a vowel. :rolleyes: Plus, I don't mean to be harsh, but that arguement doesn't make any sense.

Yes to Salary Cap, end the New England bias.

EDIT: What, there's 11 people now? :eek:

[BristolBoy]

Not a legit arguement. You forget 1998-2001 as someone pointed out.

I'm sad to see 9 people who actually vote "No" when it is obvious that there is a financial problem in competitiveness. Once proud franchises in the Reds, Pirates, and Royals are in total sewage holes and the uncommitment of their owners is getting on my nerves. It's like there's no end to this.

AL East teams not named Yankees or Red Sox to make the playoffs (again, as someone pointed out): NONE.

While Angelos is arguing about the Nats coming in, (and rightfully so :rolleyes: ), he is unwilling, though, to help his own team when they need it most. The O's couldn't pull off the Burnett trade while at the snap of a finger, the Red Sox zoom right by and will get Josh Beckett. Angelos is a douche, plain and simple.

Cubsfan97: I don't buy any of that. You should try being in the shoes of a Royals, Reds, and/or Pirates fan to see exactly what's wrong, same thing for everybody else. Even when they rebuild and make potential stars, after 1 good year or two, they all will end up being grabbed by the New England Baseball Financial Alliance of Doom, with the exception of the Mets. It's kind of like a food chain, two teams end up eating everyone else, and then the end. At least the Cubs can get guys like Nomar, Burnitz, A-Ram and D-Lee, and be graceful in defeat, while KC, Pittsburgh, and Cincy can't even buy a vowel. :rolleyes: Plus, I don't mean to be harsh, but that arguement doesn't make any sense.

Yes to Salary Cap, end the New England bias.

EDIT: What, there's 11 people now? :eek:Fair comment.

The point I was making though is that to use NFL as an argument supporting a salary cap is a flawed one - I admit that my argument against is hardly a foolproof one, but I think I got what I meant across.

[Twinskoop]

I am a Twins fan. I am vehemently opposed to a salary cap.

1) It will go a long way toward destroying the league. The players will not accept it.

2) The players should not accept it. I am never in favor of ownership placing an artificial cap on costs at the expense of labor. Not in baseball, not in the real world. Workers should make what the market will bear.

3) Competitive imbalance is overstated. "Small market" teams (there are really no small markets in baseball, just large and larger markets) can compete. We have been sold a lie by the fraud of a commissioner the owners appointed (an owner himself) in order to cap costs and blackmail the public to finance private buildings for private profit. Low payroll teams make the playoffs every year. Salaries don't win baseball games, players do.

4) Competitive balance is overrated. Baseball fans should not wish for the NFL system. Football players have shorter careers, no minor leagues, and play a game that is more dependent on the "system" than baseball players. High turnover rates are acceptable in football, because past the premier skill-position players, most casual football fans simply don't care much about who occupies a particular roster spot.

We obviously want to avoid turning into a league with 4 or 5 teams hording the talent. There are means to that end that don't include the pitfalls of the cap.

1) World-wide draft. No more bidding for young internationals who aren't currently in the draft. Any player that wishes to play MLB must first submit himself to the draft process.

2) Cap signing bonuses, preventing players and agents from circumventing the draft process. Helps teams save money in a much less offensive way.

3) Expansion. Yes, expansion. It's obviously a ways down the road, and will take a lot of shift in the current climate, but it's no less realistic to talk about than a salary cap. The American League needs two more teams. Put them in the northeast, and make the Yanks and Red Sox fight for their privileged status. No more captive audience. Move the Royals to the AL West, and the Blue Jays to the AL Central. 6 teams in the AL East. Pipe dream? You bet. And a darn good one.

4) Finally, let the high-payroll teams continue to waste their resources. Smart management will produce a winning team. Morons will be wasteful, and produce mediocre to bad teams. Period.

The bottom line is that baseball really needs to quit the complaining. That's what's really hurting its popularity. They have convinced fans that their teams can't win; even fans of teams like the A's and the Twins, who should seriously know better.

[steveox]

So, the majority of teams, and it is the majority, should be forced to fold because they aren't spending $100 million? Is that what you're saying?
Im saying you cant pay over $100 million per team.Yankees have a huge payroll is way over 200 million.

And if your twins cant keep up and spend a little i say too bad! Samethng goes to the oakland A`s are just too cheap not to hold on to their players.

[runningshoes]

Workers should make what the market will bear.

Tell that to teachers who are underpaid and hold "real jobs" in the real world.

[Barnstormer]

A couple of guys at Northeastern did a study of payroll vs. performance from 1985-2002 and found that there is definitely a correlation. Following is a table with the average number of wins of teams in the different quartiles of team payroll (i.e. Q1 includes the 1/4 of teams with the lowest average salary):


----1991-97 1998-2002
Q1 - 75.0 wins - 75.6 wins (25% of teams with lowest payroll)
Q2 - 81.0 ---- 75.2
Q3 - 81.8 ---- 83.9
Q4 - 85.9 ---- 89.7 (25% of teams with highest payroll)

In other words, from 1998-2002 being in the highest quartile of teams according to payroll bought you an extra 14 wins compared to the teams in the bottom quartile.

Of course a high payroll doesn't guarantee a WS ring, teams choke or don't gel, and low-payroll teams make the playoffs. But you can't say that money doesn't make a difference. On the whole, teams with higher salaries win more games. It's logical and it's empirically true.

[Twinskoop]

A couple of guys at Northeastern did a study of payroll vs. performance from 1985-2002 and found that there is definitely a correlation. Following is a table with the average number of wins of teams in the different quartiles of team payroll (i.e. Q1 includes the 1/4 of teams with the lowest average salary):


----1991-97 1998-2002
Q1 - 75.0 wins - 75.6 wins (25% of teams with lowest payroll)
Q2 - 81.0 ---- 75.2
Q3 - 81.8 ---- 83.9
Q4 - 85.9 ---- 89.7 (25% of teams with highest payroll)

In other words, from 1998-2002 being in the highest quartile of teams according to payroll bought you an extra 14 wins compared to the teams in the bottom quartile.

Of course a high payroll doesn't guarantee a WS ring, teams choke or don't gel, and low-payroll teams make the playoffs. But you can't say that money doesn't make a difference. On the whole, teams with higher salaries win more games. It's logical and it's empirically true.
Who on earth ever suggested there was no correlation? Hello, strawman.

No one is saying money doesn't make a difference. The point is that the money doesn't make the player good. The money may or may not be an indicator of his value. But it does not determine his value.

Studies based on payroll are nice, but misleading. First, there isn't much historical context, because salaries exploded in the 90s (along with revenue, an extremely important point). Due to the strategies I've already talked about, billionaires crying poor, etc, teams have only recently begun the widespread practice of fire-sales. There's a HUGE difference between a low payroll team that is trying to win (like the A's and Twins) and a low payroll team that is not trying to win (Royals, Pirates, '06 Marlins). The numbers, sorry to say, don't account for that difference.

[trosmok]

I am a Twins fan. I am vehemently opposed to a salary cap....
3) Competitive imbalance is overstated. "Small market" teams (there are really no small markets in baseball, just large and larger markets)...
We obviously want to avoid turning into a league with 4 or 5 teams hording the talent. There are means to that end that don't include the pitfalls of the cap. ...
4) Finally, let the high-payroll teams continue to waste their resources. Smart management will produce a winning team. Morons will be wasteful, and produce mediocre to bad teams. Period. .... They have convinced fans that their teams can't win; even fans of teams like the A's and the Twins, who should seriously know better.

Even fans of the Cubs like me agree, Twinskoop. I have long advocated revenue sharing (see post #14), and while it may prove a daunting task, it is certainly the direction the MLB should be headed. Someone made the analogy of the thirty owners in their own little tubs paddling around in circles, when in fact they should all be on the same big boat, manning an oar, and rowing toward greater growth and prosperity. Rather than continue fighting over a larger piece of pie, the owners and players must work together to make the pie bigger! There is much competition for people's entertainment dollars, and MLB would be wise to examine other forms of leisure activities, not just team sports, and adjust to the best of what they find. In order for this to be accomplished, the first step must be the installation of a real Commissioner, not an owners' puppet like we have now, to assume real stewardship of our beloved baseball. After all the contraction hooey Bug Selig spewed, it is obvious that most if not all teams are actually quite profitable, but keep two sets of books to hide the truth. Same with a salary cap; you create some artificial barrier or limit, and you can guarantee there will be those who manage to circumvent it on technicalitites, or extra-legal means.

[Yankeebiscuitfan]

I have voted in favour of a salary cap for the reason I have stated before several times.

[Twinskoop]

Even fans of the Cubs like me agree, Twinskoop. I have long advocated revenue sharing (see post #14), and while it may prove a daunting task, it is certainly the direction the MLB should be headed. Someone made the analogy of the thirty owners in their own little tubs paddling around in circles, when in fact they should all be on the same big boat, manning an oar, and rowing toward greater growth and prosperity. Rather than continue fighting over a larger piece of pie, the owners and players must work together to make the pie bigger! There is much competition for people's entertainment dollars, and MLB would be wise to examine other forms of leisure activities, not just team sports, and adjust to the best of what they find. In order for this to be accomplished, the first step must be the installation of a real Commissioner, not an owners' puppet like we have now, to assume real stewardship of our beloved baseball. After all the contraction hooey Bug Selig spewed, it is obvious that most if not all teams are actually quite profitable, but keep two sets of books to hide the truth. Same with a salary cap; you create some artificial barrier or limit, and you can guarantee there will be those who manage to circumvent it on technicalitites, or extra-legal means.
Good points. I should have added a step five - more revenue sharing of broadcast money, and a salary floor. But that had already been addressed in other posts, including your own.

[STLCards2]

I don't think any employer should ever be told that they can't pay an employee more money if they wish to.

[Brannu]

I am a Twins fan. I am vehemently opposed to a salary cap.

1) It will go a long way toward destroying the league. The players will not accept it.

2) The players should not accept it. I am never in favor of ownership placing an artificial cap on costs at the expense of labor. Not in baseball, not in the real world. Workers should make what the market will bear.

3) Competitive imbalance is overstated. "Small market" teams (there are really no small markets in baseball, just large and larger markets) can compete. We have been sold a lie by the fraud of a commissioner the owners appointed (an owner himself) in order to cap costs and blackmail the public to finance private buildings for private profit. Low payroll teams make the playoffs every year. Salaries don't win baseball games, players do.

4) Competitive balance is overrated. Baseball fans should not wish for the NFL system. Football players have shorter careers, no minor leagues, and play a game that is more dependent on the "system" than baseball players. High turnover rates are acceptable in football, because past the premier skill-position players, most casual football fans simply don't care much about who occupies a particular roster spot.

Thank you very much .... you saved me from a long tirade myself. I agree 1000%.

[brewcrew82]

Call me crazy, but before a salary cap is instituted, I think a salary FLOOR should be in place. It's not because I want the players to make more. It's to force the skinflint owners to pony up more to make thier teams competetive. It galls me to see fabulously wealthy owners like Pohlad cry poverty and let their teams starve, or even try to dissolve the team (and pocket a healthy sum in the deal) rather than actually part with money needed to sign and retain good players. If a team gets money from revenue sharing, that owner should be required to put that money back into the team, not into his pocket.

I've been singing this song for a long time...If you compare baseball to other businesses, a company won't be told that they can't pay their skilled employees top dollar but if a company decides to pay it workers peanuts that company will either have an unproductive workforce or it will be out of business (teams such as KC, TB etc are struggling due to the unwillingness to give money to those who should get it).

[brewcrew82]

In regards to the question, I won't be in favour of a salary cap in the majors until baseball gets as predictable as domestic football (soccer) in Europe.

[steveox]

I don't think any employer should ever be told that they can't pay an employee more money if they wish to.
Hey,,Go to wal mart and ask those employees how much they get paid? Who wants to work at wal mart anyways?

[Knick9]

Twinskoop: Some things that you stated are true, about the unwillingness of the owners and along those lines, but would MLB be better off with the luxury tax than with the salary cap/floor? I, personally, have huge doubts about that.

And no, I don't think it will go a long way towards destroying the league. It's just what I see right now in free agent signings and trades, is that you don't hear anything groundbreaking in KC, Pittsburgh, and Cincy that actually had a positive effect while you are assured of hearing something good in the Bronx and Boston every year without fail. That's another issue. I don't expect to see A.J. Burnett go to the Royals unless he took a huge pay cut, which is obviously unlikely.

Predictability? Since when did that overrule the fairness of the game, may I ask?

[sandlot]

Sooner or later, most attempts at redistributing wealth end up redistributing poverty and opening up corruption (in its widest sense, e.g., market distortion), as water always seeks the path of least resistance. That's one more reason why Annie's right. Putting a floor has a number of beneficial effects, one of them being that it's harder to subsidize the top guys at the expense of the bottom rung. It would also slow down revolving player transfers, as players would not be so inclined to try and test the market at the first opportunity. If teams wanted to go cheap, they'd have to look to the minors and that might spur badly needed investment at that level. Every owner would also know that he or she could not field a team without spending X times 25 as a minimum wage cost. If you start wth this as a base, you see why a cap becomes unworkable and unwanted. The market would become artifically compressed, and you'd quickly end up redistributing mediocrity, not talent. Besides, players don't play just for money; they want to play with the best and against the best. When Edwin Moses won about 900+ races in a row, others guys didn't suggest that he should have weight added like a handicapped racehorse; they had to go out there and beat him. The top teams are the just Edwin Moses of baseball. If you're tired of watching them win, go beat them. If some owners want to pocket the profits and not reinvest them, that's their choice. If some owners spend, but spend badly, that's their problem. If they spend and spend well, more power to them. If what you want is a better distribution of talent, then perhaps talk about shared allocation of income -- not equally divisible spending. Shared allocation won't guarantee anything, but at least it provides a floor -- a guaranteed minimum income, if you will -- for the owner. What each owner can or will add to that from other resources should be a matter of free choice. Should plumbers, carpenters, nurses or sales reps have their incomes capped? Why ballplayers, who'll be lucky to work until the age of 40? The way to drive down salaries, if that's your goal, is to reduce demand by increasing the supply of talent. Build up the minors and have more quality players, hungry for a chance and willing to play for the established minimum. This is where MLB should focus for both cost control and long-term success. End of rant.

[runningshoes]

I suppose if there was a salary cap, owners would stop asking the fans to pay for thier stadiums.

[sschirmer]

Some are, some aren't. People like David Glass of Kansas City and Carl Lindner of Cincinnati (who's only been the former owner for a very short period of time) are billionaires whose unwillingness to spend their own money and lack of huge broadcast/marketing revenue has put those once glorious franchises at a standstill.
Other teams are simply able to let their teams pay for themselves at a far better rate. A salary cap is like putting a band aid on an amputation.

Don't get me wrong, a cap isn't a cure all, but it would be a start. BTW, Lindner spent money, he brought Jr. here, he brought Eric Milton here at $8 mil per year, signed Larkin to a ridiculous contract, renewed Casey, etc. He just didn't spend money wisely. Revenue sharing is the real answer here, but to call a group of people who pay their employees an average of $3mil per year "skin flints" is just plain wrong. I wish my boss was such a skin flint.

[VTSoxFan]

I may be comparing apples and oranges here, but I heard something the other day that struck me, as I was contemplating baseball salaries.

During the peak of popularity of the TV show "Frasier", Kelsey Grammer was polling down about $10.5M per episode.

Now, I am fully aware that the economics of baseball and that of TV are quite different animals, but I was wondering... do the people who set up a screech over ballplayers getting $10M a year, and threaten to boycott the game until some sanity returns to the pay structure, also threaten to boycott TV shows because the actors make too much?

I know, I'm off on a tangent. It just struck me as a little strange, that's all. :crazy

[DoubleX]

The lack of disparity in competition in baseball is overblown. Sure teams like the Yankees and Red Sox spend more than everyone else, but that doesn't necessarily buy success, and this past season showed, that it is not a given that those teams will make the playoffs.

Moreover, the advent of the Wild Card has really added a new dimension to the game. We have had a different World Series winner every year of this decade, and only one team has made the World Series more than once this decade. Now that's diverse competition. Additionally, 18 different teams have made the postseason this decade. By far the largest number in a 6 season span. That's almost 2/3 of the teams in 6 years giving their fans hope of World Series glory. When else in history have we had that kind of depth?

I think the consistent success of teams like the Athletics, Twins, and Marlins, shows that it's not just money that builds a winning team, but that smart baseball is probably just as important.

[Twinskoop]

Twinskoop: Some things that you stated are true, about the unwillingness of the owners and along those lines, but would MLB be better off with the luxury tax than with the salary cap/floor? I, personally, have huge doubts about that.

And no, I don't think it will go a long way towards destroying the league. It's just what I see right now in free agent signings and trades, is that you don't hear anything groundbreaking in KC, Pittsburgh, and Cincy that actually had a positive effect while you are assured of hearing something good in the Bronx and Boston every year without fail. That's another issue. I don't expect to see A.J. Burnett go to the Royals unless he took a huge pay cut, which is obviously unlikely.

Predictability? Since when did that overrule the fairness of the game, may I ask?
I think MLB would be best off with increased revenue sharing, AND a salary floor. I wouldn't even consider giving someone like Carl Pohlad or Jeff Loria a windfall without making him invest it in his team.

What I meant by destroying the league is that, for better or worse, the baseball players union is one of the strongest unions in the world. When the owners insist on a salary cap, ala the NHL, that labor war will be the fiercest yet.

Regarding positive news in signings and tradings, how much positive news did the Yankees actually have last year? Jaret Wright and Carl Pavano busted. The Sox had an effective Schilling for one year - was that worth what they gave up for him? Let's say AJ Burnett gets a 5 year deal for 50 million dollars from the Mets. How positive is that if he has two healthy seasons in the next five, and wins 35 games total?

By playing the high-stakes free agent game, you are making a choice. You are investing in established players who are generally at or past their prime. There is no more talk of ceiling, or potential for most of these guys - they won't get any better. And you do that at the expense of fully developing your own players. Using the Red Sox example again, Kevin Youkilis might be a hell of a player. Looks like he would be, if given playing time. But the BoSox had invested in Mueller and now Lowell instead. If some lower payroll team can pry him (rescue him) from the Red Sox, he might yet turn into a hell of a player. And that would be true positive news.

Finally, regarding fairness, I think we'll have to define our terms. Does fair mean equal? Is it fair to force successful teams that have invested and risked much to give up the advantage they have worked for? Is it fair to allow billionaire owners to make more profit by placing an artificial cap on demand and costs?

[runningshoes]

was either kidding or hallucinating.

No..just wishful thinking.

[digglahhh]

Annie,

That Frasier figure can't be correct, maybe per season. But Ray Romano makes 1.8M per episode. Regardless, I agree with you completely.

Let's debunk some myths.

#1: Athletes are NOT overpaid. Let's even forget about their salaries in relation to overall team profits and just think outside the box for a second. Take the NBA, because the math is easier and roster size doesn't change.

30 teams x 15 players on roster= 450 players.
Avg salary: 4.something million.

Okay, these guys supposedly make up the 450 most talented and highest paid basketball players in the world.

Forget about entertainers even, what how much do you think the 450 highest paid corporate lawyers, advertising executives, PR gurus, software developers reel in on average yearly?

And don't give me the prestige argument. What athlete's do is relatively neutral morally. Athletes are no more overpaid than the evil genius who convinces you to buy things you don't need at prices you can't afford to soothe fears and insecirites drummed up by that guy in the first place. They are no more overpaid than the lawyer who defends faulty accounting practices, environmental destruction, and free market trade at the detriment of millions of indigenous people.

#2: Competitive imbalance in baseball is not a complete red herring, but is overplayed.

Baseball has a smaller playoff structure than all of the other major sports yet still produces nearly the same variation in franchises who win it all. On the other hand, it has perenial doormats with no hope for the future. Affluence does not guarantee success, but poverty does guarantee failure.

Finally, a message to all Mets fans. We are not that different than the Yankees. Only in New York do we feel like the small fish. In the grand scheme of things we are one of the monsters coming after your teams best players (and some of your crappy players) with fists full of cash.

in 1986, we had 4 of the ten highest paid players in the league and gave George Foster, the highest paid player in the league, an outright release midway through the season. It is the same Met fans complaining about the Yankees who are telling me we should sign both Billy Wagner and BJ Ryan.

[Indylavi]

I've always been in favor of a salary floor. There are some owners that don't invest in their team. I'm not just talking about signing players for big money. I mean investing in the farm system and everything. There are some owners (like the Royal's) that just sit back and throw crumbs at the team. They could afford to invest in the team but don't. Instead they'd rather buy a Yacht. Now I have nothing against making money. In fact I'm strongly in favor of it :p
But we have people with Billions of dollars claiming they are poor. They take money from revenue sharing and pocket a good amount of that. The problem with baseball is there are some owners that don't love the game. They just love the money of the game. They don't take the money or effort to invest in the entire team and make them profitable.


sschirmer said something telling. The Reds did spend money but didn't do it wisely. Now, is giving them more money actually going to help them? IMHO there should be two requirements to own a baseball team. The willingness and want to invest in the team and love for the game.

[Knick9]

Twinskoop: But the Yankees and Red Sox can afford to make mistakes such as those debacles that you mentioned, and the smaller market teams can't afford to make those mistakes. That's just where I'm getting at. Recieving hard earned, or should I say easy earned?, cash then knowing you can have a big monopoly over many teams and then doing so is not good. Smart baseball also does play a role in championship winning, rest assured, but compare that strategy to having an agressive advantage in money. Owners are at fault, but then again so is the entire system that MLB has right now. MLB, while I enjoy it, just isn't normal. It's no garuantee, obviously, that a $200M payroll will make the team winners, but it always gives them an advantage when the teams come out of the gate.

Does fair mean equal?

Yes it does in this case. 3 sporting events have salary caps. The NFL, NBA, and NHL are the ones that I know of. Currently, none of them have any problems with the salary cap being in effect. While baseball is traditional, there are some traditional methods that just need to be abandoned. Not all traditional things in baseball are kept. Many things play a role into the things that are so lop sided now, but there is a difference between always contending and hardly ever contending.

[STLCards2]

Hey,,Go to wal mart and ask those employees how much they get paid? Who wants to work at wal mart anyways?

What are you talking about? I said that there should not be a regulating body preventing companies from paying employees more if they wish. What does Wal-Mart have to do with that? Wal-Mart has never been kept from paying employees more money.

[Jennifer]

In all the discussion about salary caps so far no one has mentioned ticket prices. It is the fans that contribute to the huge salaries. The Yankees with there 2005 $ .208 billion payroll have just announced an increase in ticket prices to help cover player salaries. Increasingly fans around the country are unable to afford going to games even though there tax dollars helped build the stadiums their teams play in.

[Big_Mac]

yes, i would love a salary cap around 60-70 million. i think i said in another thread if they started it at 100million dollars and worked there way down to the 60-70 mark in around 5 years. i like salary cap and being a jays fan it doesnt seem fair that we cant compete with the yankees and sox because they have some much more money then us.

[Ubiquitous]

Forget salary caps and fight for revenue sharing. The Yankees and the Red Sox don't have an advantage because they spend 150 million plus dollars every year but because they make more then that every year. Get teams to share local revenue and the gate and you have your equality and fairness.

Salary cap is a red herring created by the owners who want keep the money flowing into their coffers while forcing the players to help out the little market teams. The Yankees would love a salary cap because it means they would get to keep all those extra hundreds of millions of dollars they get in revenue while not shelling out hundreds of millions to player and they get to shut up small market teams that might end up voting for something more drastic by lowering their costs. Salary caps will not mean that ticket prices are reduced. The Yankees raised ticket prices becuase they know people will pay it. Its supply and demand not paying for costs. A salary cap will not lower ticket prices only a drop in demand will lower ticket prices.

[Jennifer]

Forget salary caps and fight for revenue sharing. The Yankees and the Red Sox don't have an advantage because they spend 150 million plus dollars every year but because they make more then that every year. Get teams to share local revenue and the gate and you have your equality and fairness.

Salary cap is a red herring created by the owners who want keep the money flowing into their coffers while forcing the players to help out the little market teams. The Yankees would love a salary cap because it means they would get to keep all those extra hundreds of millions of dollars they get in revenue while not shelling out hundreds of millions to player and they get to shut up small market teams that might end up voting for something more drastic by lowering their costs. Salary caps will not mean that ticket prices are reduced. The Yankees raised ticket prices becuase they know people will pay it. Its supply and demand not paying for costs. A salary cap will not lower ticket prices only a drop in demand will lower ticket prices.No one said anything about lowering ticket prices. The question is if teams in smaller markets become more competitive does this mean greater attendance, greater local TV and radio revenue and increased sales of team merchandise. In other words, increased revenues. Increased revenues lessen the pressure to increase revenues via ticket price increases.

A team like the Yankees could suffer on the revenue side because going forward the team will be forced to make prudent decisions in constructing a roster and not rely on having more bucks to spend than anyone else. Bad choices will lead to lower attendance and merchandise revenue in the short run and media revenue in the long run.

Since owners now raise ticket prices rather than maintaining them or lowering them it can be assumed, as you have done, that the incremental increase in ticket prices and the resulting revenues offset the decrease in revenues resulting from decreased attendance (and parking and concession revenues). However, do we know what the Yankees demand curve looks like if they fielded a team that finished at the bottom of its Divison three or four years in row? Would it be a total shocker that under such circumstances that a decrease in ticket prices might stimulate demand enough so that the result is a net increase in revenues?

Revenue sharing is less fair than salary caps because large market teams market value would be dramatically affected.

[Ubiquitous]

No it doesn't. It doesn't work like that. Increased popularity means increased demand, increased demand means prices go up. No business man is ever going to say "well we make enough money now so lets not raise prices"

Revenue sharing would effect a team ownership in the short term but in the long term it would benefit all.

[Jennifer]

No it doesn't. It doesn't work like that. Increased popularity means increased demand, increased demand means prices go up. No business man is ever going to say "well we make enough money now so lets not raise prices"

Revenue sharing would effect a team ownership in the short term but in the long term it would benefit all.No, no, no! Elasticity of demand must be taken into account. Moreover, it must be remembered that there is no shortage of supply in most instances (demand does not exceed supply) because most ballparks are seldom, if ever, filled to capacity (no scarcity of supply exists and the existence of excess supply is relevant despite MLB being monopolistic) . The goal is to maximize revenues not maximize ticket prices. If the two were synonymous then the average price per game for a season ticketholder would be lower than the price of a comparable ticket bought on the day of the game (indeed the season ticketholder gets greater value -- better seats -- and at a discount compared to what a single game ticket purchaser receives) Children would not pay less for tickets. There would be no discounts for buying tickets for a block of games. There would be no "Ladies Day" or Businessmen Lunch Discount days, etc. Indeed, if a team were using a totally rationale pricing scheme they would charge more for tickets when they were playing the Yankees at home at less when they were playing the Royals.

The above is a very simplified response of the economic factors involved but that I believe makes my point.

[Ubiquitous]

Yes there is a scarcity of supply. Premium seats have the highest demand and are priced accordingly. Premium are the first to be sold out and in general (and especially for the Yankees, Boston, Cubs, so on) are sold out before the season even starts, and in some cases years before the season is to even be played. Whereas the seats that go unsold the most are priced the lowest. Bleachers, last rows so on.

I'm not even sure what you are debating now. Ticket prices will go up as demand goes up, regardless of how much money a team makes on its tv and radio contracts. Regardless of whether there payroll goes up or down the price of a ticket depends on the demand for that ticket. I'm not even sure why you brought up ladies day and all that other stuff. I don't see what that has to do with salary caps preventing ticket price raises.

[Jennifer]

Yes there is a scarcity of supply. Premium seats have the highest demand and are priced accordingly. Premium are the first to be sold out and in general (and especially for the Yankees, Boston, Cubs, so on) are sold out before the season even starts, and in some cases years before the season is to even be played. Whereas the seats that go unsold the most are priced the lowest. Bleachers, last rows so on.

I'm not even sure what you are debating now. Ticket prices will go up as demand goes up, regardless of how much money a team makes on its tv and radio contracts. Regardless of whether there payroll goes up or down the price of a ticket depends on the demand for that ticket. I'm not even sure why you brought up ladies day and all that other stuff. I don't see what that has to do with salary caps preventing ticket price raises.There is a scarity of supply a few high priced seats in a FEW ballparks and there is no doubt in those few examples that the law of supply and demand allow increases in tickets but of course your original argument contained no such limitations.

If demand was as completely insensitive to price as you claim all seats would be filled for all games. And ticket prices could continue to rise so long as there were more demand for seats at the new price then there are seats. That teams adopt the type of discount pricing I've talked about is prima facieevidence that teams believe their is elasticity of demand when it comes to pricing (an increasingly competitive team shifts the demand curve). So long as tickets are priced over the incremental costs incurred because of the fans presence then net revenue is increased. My point is a simple one tickets are priced to maximize net revenues. Your point somehow seems to be that the price of tickets can be increased by a team at will to cover expenses and increase profits with no supply and demand constraints. Moreover, that as demand increases because a team becomes more competitive that despite ample supply of seats that management will increase tickets rather than pursue a policy (that may or may not iinclude increasing ticket prices) of maximizing profits.

The mods get upset when the discussion shifts too far from Baseball so I will offer you the final word on this thread and if need be we can take this discussion private via e-mail.


You state that "Whereas the seats that go unsold the most are priced the lowest." Do you have any proof that such a strict hierarchal pattern exists? My personal observation (no other proof of it) is that there are generally as many empty mid-priced seats empty as low priced seats. Your last row argument means what. If there are 10,000 seats at $15 and the demand is for 7,500 hundred then it can be expected that the worse 2,500 seats would be the ones that were vacant. If the undesirability of these seats were the major reason they were not filled (as opposed to there only being 7,500 fans willing to pay $15) then management would price these seats at less than $15.

[Knick9]

Ubi, I don't agree with you. In the long term, it hurts smaller market teams for revenue sharing. Revenue sharing and the word "fair" is completely non-existent being in the same sentence. I don't see where you get at when it comes this owner pocketing money thing. The Salary Cap keeps both sides (Players and Owners) in check. Salary Caps have managed to stay for some time now in other sports, the same can be done for MLB.

[Ubiquitous]

Ubi, I don't agree with you. In the long term, it hurts smaller market teams for revenue sharing. Revenue sharing and the word "fair" is completely non-existent being in the same sentence. I don't see where you get at when it comes this owner pocketing money thing. The Salary Cap keeps both sides (Players and Owners) in check. Salary Caps have managed to stay for some time now in other sports, the same can be done for MLB.


How does revenue sharing hurt small market teams? They would be recieving money not sending it out.

[Ubiquitous]

There is a scarity of supply a few high priced seats in a FEW ballparks and there is no doubt in those few examples that the law of supply and demand allow increases in tickets but of course your original argument contained no such limitations.

If demand was as completely insensitive to price as you claim all seats would be filled for all games. And ticket prices could continue to rise so long as there were more demand for seats at the new price then there are seats. That teams adopt the type of discount pricing I've talked about is prima facieevidence that teams believe their is elasticity of demand when it comes to pricing (an increasingly competitive team shifts the demand curve). So long as tickets are priced over the incremental costs incurred because of the fans presence then net revenue is increased. My point is a simple one tickets are priced to maximize net revenues. Your point somehow seems to be that the price of tickets can be increased by a team at will to cover expenses and increase profits with no supply and demand constraints. Moreover, that as demand increases because a team becomes more competitive that despite ample supply of seats that management will increase tickets rather than pursue a policy (that may or may not iinclude increasing ticket prices) of maximizing profits.

The mods get upset when the discussion shifts too far from Baseball so I will offer you the final word on this thread and if need be we can take this discussion private via e-mail.


You state that "Whereas the seats that go unsold the most are priced the lowest." Do you have any proof that such a strict hierarchal pattern exists? My personal observation (no other proof of it) is that there are generally as many empty mid-priced seats empty as low priced seats. Your last row argument means what. If there are 10,000 seats at $15 and the demand is for 7,500 hundred then it can be expected that the worse 2,500 seats would be the ones that were vacant. If the undesirability of these seats were the major reason they were not filled (as opposed to there only being 7,500 fans willing to pay $15) then management would price these seats at less than $15.


I'm still not even sure what we are arguing here.

You originally said this.
The Yankees with there 2005 $ .208 billion payroll have just announced an increase in ticket prices to help cover player salaries

To which I said that A: they didn't do it to pay for costs and B) a salary cap would not have prevented this.

You simply cannot get premium tickets to Yankees without going to a scalper, You have to be a season ticket holder and if you are not then you have to go on a waiting list. The tickets that go unsold for the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Mets, and some others are not premium seats or at least not the vast majority of tickets. The Yankees did not raise these premium level tickets because of payroll but because there actual value is far higher then what they are charging. People are willing to pay more for those seats so they charge more.

You then said Increased revenues lessen the pressure to increase revenues via ticket price increases.


And that is not true

You then switched it to this economic debate about unsold tickets. Which has nothing to do with the original point. The original point is that you believe that a salary cap will help lessen ticket price increases. I bleieve that a presence of a salary cap will have no effect on ticket prices. Meaning if because a teams payroll drops from 100 million to 70 million becuase of a cap they are not going to cut ticket prices by 30%. What will effect ticket prices is the quality of the team and if it goes up then the prices are going to go up regardless of whether or not that team is more expensive or less expensive then they were before.



As for which tickets go unsold, most if not a huge majority of season tickets are sold for the premium seats. Go to any stadium and if they announce an attendance of say 20,000 probably at least 75% of the people in attendance have the top quarter tier of tickets. Thats why season tickets are so lucrative its a large amount of people buy large amounts of tickets for the highest priced seats.

[Cubsfan97]

That would require a lot of restructuring for baseball. They would have to restructure a lot of contracts otherwise A-Rod would have a quarter of the Yankees payroll.

[Knick9]

How does revenue sharing hurt small market teams? They would be recieving money not sending it out.

It hurts because it just does, Ubi. Revenue sharing has no limit to how high or how low a team's payroll will go to. Just watch at least 3 more teams have financial crisises. It won't all happen this upcoming season, but I could suspect that within the next few seasons, the possibility is there. Since there is no limit for what your payroll can be, the owners do what they do and roam around as if nothing is wrong and they pocket money. See Dave Glass. This has also happened with other owners.

You waste your thinking = you waste and lose your fanbase

You waste your money = you waste your time

You waste your time = you waste your consistency

You waste your consistency = you lose your mind, and the team by then would be lost in that city, and you face relocation.

In KC, I doubt Royals fans would come to see Matt Stairs and a AAA.5 team that often.

[Ubiquitous]

There is always a limit to how much money you can spend. Most teams right now without a salary cap and limited revenue sharing make money. There are no teams in financial crisis and the really hasn't been one for quite some time. The closest thing to that was Montreal and baseball did that on purpose.

Whats wrong with a team wanting to win so bad that they are wiliing to spend more money then they take in? Its a risk, they are willing to take it, why shouldn't they be allowed?

[Astro]

Personally I think a salary cap would do wonders... it would push down salaries so that the common fan wasnt driven away by the bench warmers making millions... it would also help to ensure competitive balance by having equal teams and no real team able to go buy players to become better, more emphasis would be put on trading and drafting... would make owners think twice about bad contracts...

The most important part of a salary cap is it would help push down ticket prices and ballpark items (or atleast keep them from rising much more) due to the owners most likely already making a profit because they dont have to spend so much to field a team... this would increase fan interest and make baseball more popular

[Ubiquitous]

So are football tickets cheap? Are basketball tickets cheap?

The NFL makes so much money on TV, Radio, and Merchandise that they don't even have to charge for admission and they would still make tons of money. Yet for some reason they charge people for admission and they charge a lot too.

You get a salary cap and it will have no effect on ticket prices. Bad contracts will not be stopped they will not be lessened. Or are you forgetting the phrase, "salary cap hell" from football? As football and basketball shows the huge contracts will not be stopped, Michael Jordan still got 30 million dollars, Donovan McNabb still made boatloads of cash. Mediocre players still got paid, Matt Geiger lives in comfort. A salary cap does nothing for the fans, its not there for the fans. Its there so the owners can make more money, it doesn't help parity, it doesn't help your team.

[westsidegrounds]

Salary cap no, revenue sharing yes.

[Jennifer]

So are football tickets cheap? Are basketball tickets cheap?

The NFL makes so much money on TV, Radio, and Merchandise that they don't even have to charge for admission and they would still make tons of money. Yet for some reason they charge people for admission and they charge a lot too.

You get a salary cap and it will have no effect on ticket prices. Bad contracts will not be stopped they will not be lessened. Or are you forgetting the phrase, "salary cap hell" from football? As football and basketball shows the huge contracts will not be stopped, Michael Jordan still got 30 million dollars, Donovan McNabb still made boatloads of cash. Mediocre players still got paid, Matt Geiger lives in comfort. A salary cap does nothing for the fans, its not there for the fans. Its there so the owners can make more money, it doesn't help parity, it doesn't help your team.Are the Stadiums filled to capacity for many of the teams week after week in the NFL? Do a number of teams have a long waiting list for season tickets? Did I not earlier make the point that the inability to sellout in Baseball suggests that maximizing revenues might not be best accomplished by raising ticket prices. Doesn't the NFL situation differ significantly because the supply (number of seats available) is generally less than the demand for such seats (which means that prices can be raised until supply equals demand).

As to the NBA I'm not that familiar with ticket pricing and capacity but I would assume that ticket prices are higher for those teams that regularly fill their arenas and lower for those who have a problem maintaining 70% capacity.

I am, of course, primarily relying upon fairly basic economic principles. If you have any factual data that contradicts these principles I would love to see it.

As for the rest of your argument it is premised on existing salary caps and presumes that a better salary cap will not be adopted. The NHL is adopting a salary cap built on lessons learned from the NFL and NBA. Might not MLB do the same.

Finally, no matter what salary regime is adopted some players will be overpayed for a variety of reasons. Under a salary cap teams have to live with their mistakes. Under the current regime rich teams that make mistakes can try to spend their way out of their mistakes.

[Jennifer]

Salary cap no, revenue sharing yes.Westsidegrounds welcome to the fray. Would you like to offer us the reasons underlying your response?

[Ubiquitous]

Are the Stadiums filled to capacity for many of the teams week after week in the NFL? Do a number of teams have a long waiting list for season tickets? Did I not earlier make the point that the inability to sellout in Baseball suggests that maximizing revenues might not be best accomplished by raising ticket prices. Doesn't the NFL situation differ significantly because the supply (number of seats available) is generally less than the demand for such seats (which means that prices can be raised until supply equals demand).



Are baseball games constantly sold out? No they are not, yet for some reason the average ticket price in practically every stadium goes up every year, regardless of whether or not their payroll goes up or down. Why? Well because incrememental ticket raises are not a matter of concern for most ticket buyers. If you raise a ticket price a dollar every year most people will not care. Nobody is going to say I'm not buying a ticket this year because they raised the price a dollar. Most tickets in most stadiums get their prices raised like this. It does not go from $20 a ticket to $40 a ticket in one offseason.

but again though none of what you are talking about has anything to do with revenue sharing or salary caps. What does any of that have to do with salary caps and the notion that they will somehow keep ticket prices down?

[Knick9]

So are football tickets cheap? Are basketball tickets cheap?

The NFL makes so much money on TV, Radio, and Merchandise that they don't even have to charge for admission and they would still make tons of money. Yet for some reason they charge people for admission and they charge a lot too.

You get a salary cap and it will have no effect on ticket prices. Bad contracts will not be stopped they will not be lessened. Or are you forgetting the phrase, "salary cap hell" from football? As football and basketball shows the huge contracts will not be stopped, Michael Jordan still got 30 million dollars, Donovan McNabb still made boatloads of cash. Mediocre players still got paid, Matt Geiger lives in comfort. A salary cap does nothing for the fans, its not there for the fans. Its there so the owners can make more money, it doesn't help parity, it doesn't help your team.

The thing you forget is that the salary cap sets limits as to how low or high a team's payroll will go to, no matter the exact amount. Sure, it doesn't stop star players from getting huge cash, but at least there is a line actually drawn, while maybe 5 years from now if they keep dominating, the Yankees and Red Sox will have near or exactly 1 billion dollars in payroll. How, and I'm really wondering to ask you this, how is that parody compared to $30 to 40-ish million dollars from the Royals, or even lower? Perhaps you like the idea of a team having just $1.00 in payroll, where players only recieve pennies for rewards. If players get paid that much, then sign me up for one season! :eek:

Fighting for revenue sharing will only widen the gap between all teams. Since there is NO LIMIT at all, you'll have the current setup as it is right now. Yes, with a salary cap, teams will have to live with their mistakes, but all MLB teams would live with their mistakes, not a select few teams with Boston and New York rarely ever going that route, and if a mistake is made then too bad, that is the price you pay with mishandling your own fair share of money. I like to think of a salary cap as a thing to keep your team in check. Independent League baseball teams DO have a salary cap, but does it hurt them? Go ask them, then.

[Jennifer]

Are baseball games constantly sold out? No they are not, yet for some reason the average ticket price in practically every stadium goes up every year, regardless of whether or not their payroll goes up or down. Why? Well because incrememental ticket raises are not a matter of concern for most ticket buyers. If you raise a ticket price a dollar every year most people will not care. Nobody is going to say I'm not buying a ticket this year because they raised the price a dollar. Most tickets in most stadiums get their prices raised like this. It does not go from $20 a ticket to $40 a ticket in one offseason.

but again though none of what you are talking about has anything to do with revenue sharing or salary caps. What does any of that have to do with salary caps and the notion that they will somehow keep ticket prices down?Around and around we go where we stop nobody knows. Everytime I explain why there is linkage between salary caps and revenues you go off onto a tangent. When I reply to the tangent you then offer a response like your most recent one. If you don't understand my responses why don't you say so rather than offer unresponsive replies followed by later posts then asserting that you did not understand my earlier responses.

Your arguments lack any relationship to economic principles and you assert opinions as they are facts. Other than what you believe to be common sense do you have any evidence whatsoever that a $1 increase has NO effect on demand? Do you have any basis to support the assertion that a $1 increase each year will not in each succeeding year result in lower and lower demand all else being equal? Economic theory, of course, would predict there would be some lessening of demand.

Have you managed yet to reconcile your notion of inelastic demand with MLB teams offering numerous discount ticket plans? Have you yet come up with an explanation why a MLB team would prefer to maximize ticket prices rather than maximize revenues when the two are not synonymous?

[Ubiquitous]

There are already limits to how much a team can spend its called revenue. KC only spends so much because they only take in so much, and that is never going to change. What do you think the salary cap is actually going to be? And why do you think that all teams will utilize it? You set it at 75 million and there is still 15 teams that won't spend that much. You think KC is going to spend 75 million dollars when right now they only spend 36 million? So what does the Salary Cap need to be? 50 million? 40 million?

If all the teams shared 90% of the money equally then right there you have equal footing. If somebody wants to spend 200 million dollars to win while losing 50 million then so be it, but everybody would be equal in terms of revenue and money to spend. Salary Cap does nothing, if anything it gives large market teams even more of an advantage because a) they would still be spending more money then most teams do on payroll, b)have more money to spend on draft bonuses, and C)have more money to spend on scouting and developing foreign camps. If you tell the Yankees that they can only spend 100 million dollars on their major league payroll what do you think will happen? Do you suddenly think that 27 other major league teams will raise their payroll so they too are at 100 million dollars? No they won't. Do you think the Yankees won't do something to gain some kind of advantage with the 100 million dollars they no longer have to spend on MLB players? Heck I could see high school kids holding out or telling teams not to draft them because the Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox will give them huge bonuses. The Yankees and Steinbrenner will not rest and stay on the sidelines with their 100 million dollars. On the flipside you will also be seeing more of the salary cap hell problems that you see in football. You will be seeing teams signing players to very long term contracts that are probably extremely back loaded to get them on their team. Then a few years down the road it comes time to pay the piper and you are stuck with a horrible team for a few years while the team has to wait to get out of the salary cap hell.

In the end what are we worried about? We want equality so we want to model ourselves after football and basketball? Two sports defined by dynasty like teams? Take a look at baseball in the last 25 years since free agency? You have a small period in the late 90's where the Yanks won a lot and the rest of the time you have everybody fighting for the title. We have had 6 different world series winners in 6 years and 13 different teams compete in the world series in the last 9 years. What more do you want? Why should a team like KC who is unwilling to spend, unwilling to take chances, and is run horribly be allowed to win?

[YOUgodofwalks]

Gate receipts are not where most of the money comes from anyway. Most of the money comes from TV deals, lisencing and luxury seating. So Ubi and Jennifer your entire argument has little effect on revenue sharing or a salary cap. The Yankees make approximately $500 million a year on thier TV deal alone. Teams like Yankees and Red Sox raise ticket prices every year for additional money because people are willing to pay them. For teams that can't sell ticket at that high a price, they don't care as much for attendence as long as they have their TV deal. In 2004 the Pittsburg Pirates made about $12 million in revenue. It wasn't from ticket sales, I can tell you that.

Baseball is a business. The point is some owners have realized they can make money without fielding a winning team. So why should they? For the fans and the integrity of the sport. But some owners don't care about that. So while a salary cap should help make the game more competitive, it won't. Even increased revenue sharing won't make a difference to a lot of owners expect for increased profits.

One thing baseball can take from the NFL is that all the owners at least try to field a winning team. Even if they have seasons upon seasons of losing, every franchise tries to get better every year. The Cardinals have been at the back of the back for a long time now. They sign 2 time MVP Kurt Warner and give they're new star wide reciever Boldin a big deal. The Lions, well they try. That's the expectation, because of the different systems since top drafted rookies come right into the big leagues, teams that do badly get the high draft pick, who always gets a large deal. NFL teams are always dancing around right under the cap, spending the max they can.

[Ubiquitous]

Around and around we go where we stop nobody knows. Everytime I explain why there is linkage between salary caps and revenues you go off onto a tangent. When I reply to the tangent you then offer a response like your most recent one. If you don't understand my responses why don't you say so rather than offer unresponsive replies followed by later posts then asserting that you did not understand my earlier responses.

Your arguments lack any relationship to economic principles and you assert opinions as they are facts. Other than what you believe to be common sense do you have any evidence whatsoever that a $1 increase has NO effect on demand? Do you have any basis to support the assertion that a $1 increase each year will not in each succeeding year result in lower and lower demand all else being equal? Economic theory, of course, would predict there would be some lessening of demand.

Have you managed yet to reconcile your notion of inelastic demand with MLB teams offering numerous discount ticket plans? Have you yet come up with an explanation why a MLB team would prefer to maximize ticket prices rather than maximize revenues when the two are not synonymous?

Your linkage is that you believe that since they would make money elsewhere they wouldn't raise ticketprices. And that is not how the real world behaves.

As for the rest take a look at Doug Pappas' site he lists the average ticket price of every year, he lists the average opening day payroll for every team, and I believe he even has attendance. If he doesn't then check out B-Ref or download Lahman's database. you can even download a salary database and play with the numbers that way. Others have studied it and shown conclusively that payroll does not correlate well to ticket prices. I believe I mentioned it before, check out books by Andrew Zimbalist he will tell you the same thing.

Finally I have never said anything negative about a team wanting to maximizing revenue, nor have I ever said that the only way to do that would be to raise ticekt prices. I am perfectly aware of the balance between getting money through tickets and getting money through people spending money at the stadium. What I have always said is this, "what does any of that have to do with Salary caps?"

It makes no sense. If the salary cap is 50 million dollars and the KC Royals spend 50 million dollars why wouldn't they raise ticket prices? If the Salary Cap is 100 million and the Yankees spend 100 million dollars why wouldn't they raise ticket prices. What part of the salary cap reduces that? If somehow the salary cap works and the KC Royals start to become a premier team and the demand for them goes up why wouldn't they raise ticket prices?

[westsidegrounds]

Westsidegrounds welcome to the fray. Would you like to offer us the reasons underlying your response?


Just very briefly cause it's time to go home -

salary cap no because it's too radical a social step - should movie actors or lawyers or doctors have their salaries capped? When the CEO of microsoft gets his salary capped, then maybe.

revenue sharing because baseball is a cooperative enterprise. If Steinbrenner (for example) doesn't believe that, let him announce the Yanks will only be playing Boston next year, and that in between Red Sox visits to the Bronx fans will get to pay to watch the Yanks playing intrasquad games. See how many tickets he sells then.

[Ubiquitous]

Gate receipts are not where most of the money comes from anyway. Most of the money comes from TV deals, lisencing and luxury seating. So Ubi and Jennifer your entire argument has little effect on revenue sharing or a salary cap. .



Actually gate receipts are a big deal for practically every team including the Yankees. We are not talking about a revenue stream that only accounts for 1-2% of a teams revenue stream.

If you draw 2 million fans and your average ticket costs say $25 dollars then you brought in around 50 million dollars in revenue. An amount that far exceeds the money you make in National TV money and most local TV contracts. Gate money is very important it usually accounts for about a quarter to half the money a team takes in on a yearly basis.

[Jennifer]

Gate receipts are not where most of the money comes from anyway. Most of the money comes from TV deals, lisencing and luxury seating. So Ubi and Jennifer your entire argument has little effect on revenue sharing or a salary cap. The Yankees make approximately $500 million a year on thier TV deal alone. Teams like Yankees and Red Sox raise ticket prices every year for additional money because people are willing to pay them. For teams that can't sell ticket at that high a price, they don't care as much for attendence as long as they have their TV deal. In 2004 the Pittsburg Pirates made about $12 million in revenue. It wasn't from ticket sales, I can tell you that.

Baseball is a business. The point is some owners have realized they can make money without fielding a winning team. So why should they? For the fans and the integrity of the sport. But some owners don't care about that. So while a salary cap should help make the game more competitive, it won't. Even increased revenue sharing won't make a difference to a lot of owners expect for increased profits.

One thing baseball can take from the NFL is that all the owners at least try to field a winning team. Even if they have seasons upon seasons of losing, every franchise tries to get better every year. The Cardinals have been at the back of the back for a long time now. They sign 2 time MVP Kurt Warner and give they're new star wide reciever Boldin a big deal. The Lions, well they try. That's the expectation, because of the different systems since top drafted rookies come right into the big leagues, teams that do badly get the high draft pick, who always gets a large deal. NFL teams are always dancing around right under the cap, spending the max they can.You really are pretty condescending. First off the Yankees did not make $500 million last year in TV revenues. Going into the season their total estimated revenue was $315 million with $143 million from attendance. Based on this estimate attendance constituted more than $45% of revenue. Putting it another way, the Yankees revenues were estimated to be $172 million without attendance revenue or roughly $35 million less than player payroll.

Second, I am clueless as to where you got the $12 million revenue figure for the Pirates. In 2004 the Pirates attendance was 1,583,031 if one assumed that the entire $12 million came from attendance that means that the average ticket sold was $7.59 -- No way. But all revenue was not derived from attendance, indeed without checking my guess is that the Pirates share of the National TV contracts alone exceeded $12 million.

Third, before you claim that others do not understand the revenue structure of MLB you should first familarize yourself with it. To assist you is a copy of the post that I posted a few days ago on the Yankee board in the Ticket vs. Payroll thread. The post contains some very good links.
I don't have a lot of time right know but I wanted to quickly post some links (six or eight months ago I did a fair amount of research and I need to figure out what forum (and where in the forum) it posted it. These links are all based on 2001 MLB numbers and disaggregate to some extent the revenues and expenses. Bear in mind that some of the expenses are for non-cash items such as depreciation expense. The last document is multi-linked and the link I included is not the first one. I chose this one because it tells a story that fans do not take into account when talking about player payroll size. Specifically, the non-payroll operating expense. Since much of this expense is unavoidable and, therefore, this expense is generally a larger percentage of total expense for revenue poor teams than it is for revenue rich teams. This last link (with the ones that go with it are an excellent primer on MLB accounting.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/stories/2001-12-05-focus-expenses.htm

http://www.eh.net/encyclopedia/article/haupert.mlb

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0415/092tab2.html

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1325

[Jennifer]

Your linkage is that you believe that since they would make money elsewhere they wouldn't raise ticketprices. And that is not how the real world behaves.

As for the rest take a look at Doug Pappas' site he lists the average ticket price of every year, he lists the average opening day payroll for every team, and I believe he even has attendance. If he doesn't then check out B-Ref or download Lahman's database. you can even download a salary database and play with the numbers that way. Others have studied it and shown conclusively that payroll does not correlate well to ticket prices. I believe I mentioned it before, check out books by Andrew Zimbalist he will tell you the same thing.

Finally I have never said anything negative about a team wanting to maximizing revenue, nor have I ever said that the only way to do that would be to raise ticekt prices. I am perfectly aware of the balance between getting money through tickets and getting money through people spending money at the stadium. What I have always said is this, "what does any of that have to do with Salary caps?"

It makes no sense. If the salary cap is 50 million dollars and the KC Royals spend 50 million dollars why wouldn't they raise ticket prices? If the Salary Cap is 100 million and the Yankees spend 100 million dollars why wouldn't they raise ticket prices. What part of the salary cap reduces that? If somehow the salary cap works and the KC Royals start to become a premier team and the demand for them goes up why wouldn't they raise ticket prices?There you go again. Who has tried to make the point that payroll correlates with ticket prices -- whether true or not it is totally irrelevant to our discussion. My point was and is that winning teams drive up demand and thus results in higher attendance. Salary caps increase the likelihood that revenue poor teams have a chance to compete.

As for Zimbalist I have read two books he authored and a third where he served as co-editor. I would be deeply indebted to you if you would specifically identify where in his books he makes points specifically supporting the arguments you have offered in this thread.

[Knick9]

There are already limits to how much a team can spend its called revenue. KC only spends so much because they only take in so much, and that is never going to change. What do you think the salary cap is actually going to be? And why do you think that all teams will utilize it? You set it at 75 million and there is still 15 teams that won't spend that much. You think KC is going to spend 75 million dollars when right now they only spend 36 million? So what does the Salary Cap need to be? 50 million? 40 million?

If all the teams shared 90% of the money equally then right there you have equal footing. If somebody wants to spend 200 million dollars to win while losing 50 million then so be it, but everybody would be equal in terms of revenue and money to spend. Salary Cap does nothing, if anything it gives large market teams even more of an advantage because a) they would still be spending more money then most teams do on payroll, b)have more money to spend on draft bonuses, and C)have more money to spend on scouting and developing foreign camps. If you tell the Yankees that they can only spend 100 million dollars on their major league payroll what do you think will happen? Do you suddenly think that 27 other major league teams will raise their payroll so they too are at 100 million dollars? No they won't. Do you think the Yankees won't do something to gain some kind of advantage with the 100 million dollars they no longer have to spend on MLB players? Heck I could see high school kids holding out or telling teams not to draft them because the Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox will give them huge bonuses. The Yankees and Steinbrenner will not rest and stay on the sidelines with their 100 million dollars. On the flipside you will also be seeing more of the salary cap hell problems that you see in football. You will be seeing teams signing players to very long term contracts that are probably extremely back loaded to get them on their team. Then a few years down the road it comes time to pay the piper and you are stuck with a horrible team for a few years while the team has to wait to get out of the salary cap hell.

In the end what are we worried about? We want equality so we want to model ourselves after football and basketball? Two sports defined by dynasty like teams? Take a look at baseball in the last 25 years since free agency? You have a small period in the late 90's where the Yanks won a lot and the rest of the time you have everybody fighting for the title. We have had 6 different world series winners in 6 years and 13 different teams compete in the world series in the last 9 years. What more do you want? Why should a team like KC who is unwilling to spend, unwilling to take chances, and is run horribly be allowed to win?

The Yankees and Red Sox have made the playoffs for consecutive years now, so I don't know the base of your WS argument. Yes, KC is unwilling to spend, but that is the problem, and part of the thing that I'm worried about. All teams should be allowed to win, there should be no favorable interest, which is what Bud is doing right now. Why say that, Ubi? All teams should have a fighting chance to win, they should be allowed to win. Royals fans shouldn't be punnished for what the dudes up in the press boxes constantly messs up on.

That's exactly where I'm getting at. An advantage. Those two teams constantly gain an advantage. When they meet, the media starts drooling, but hypocritically, in a financial sense, so. In my mind, the salary cap has to be anywhere from 85 to $95 million dollars, with a salary floor being at anywhere from $40 to 50 million dollars. Those limits that you talk about don't happen as often as a salary cap would pursue a team. Ever so often after a few years, the Yankees would have to stop because of a luxury tax, but when a salary cap is in place, it will constantly draw a line and keep teams in check. If a luxury tax is your style of baseball, then you're in a New England state of mind.

I can't even debate anymore to see where this is going. Take it from here, Jennifer. :waving

[Ubiquitous]

There you go again. Who has tried to make the point that payroll correlates with ticket prices -- whether true or not it is totally irrelevant to our discussion. My point was and is that winning teams drive up demand and thus results in higher attendance. Salary caps increase the likelihood that revenue poor teams have a chance to compete.



Wait a minute so you are saying that a salary cap will help a revenue poor team compete, which of course means you are saying teams that are bad can become good through a salary cap. Which of course means they will become more popular because they are winning. So why wouldn't they raise ticket prices? If demand is going up why wouldn't they? Again why would a salary cap keep a team from raising its ticket price?

[Ubiquitous]

The Yankees and Red Sox have made the playoffs for consecutive years now, so I don't know the base of your WS argument. Yes, KC is unwilling to spend, but that is the problem, and part of the thing that I'm worried about. All teams should be allowed to win, there should be no favorable interest, which is what Bud is doing right now. Why say that, Ubi? All teams should have a fighting chance to win, they should be allowed to win. Royals fans shouldn't be punnished for what the dudes up in the press boxes constantly messs up on.

But KC doesn't want to win, why should the entire game be manipulated so that the dumbest kid in the room is forced to be the best. KC doesn't want to compete, he could spend more but he doesn't want to, instead he takes his profit.


That's exactly where I'm getting at. An advantage. Those two teams constantly gain an advantage. When they meet, the media starts drooling, but hypocritically, in a financial sense, so. In my mind, the salary cap has to be anywhere from 85 to $95 million dollars, with a salary floor being at anywhere from $40 to 50 million dollars. Those limits that you talk about don't happen as often as a salary cap would pursue a team. Ever so often after a few years, the Yankees would have to stop because of a luxury tax, but when a salary cap is in place, it will constantly draw a line and keep teams in check. If a luxury tax is your style of baseball, then you're in a New England state of mind.

I can't even debate anymore to see where this is going. Take it from here, Jennifer. :waving

So how does a 95 million dollar cap help? It would effect only 3 teams right now, and only one in a big way, the Yankees. A salary floor would be useless because it would only drag one or two up and it wouldn't be like it would force them to sign AROd or something. Instead they sign Derek Bell for 6 million dollars. Salary Caps don't even keep football teams in check why would they keep baseball teams? And again what do you think the Yankees are going to do with that extra 100 million dollars a year that used to spend on MLB players? Give it to charity? No they will use it to sign players from high school, college, and other countries. They will drive the cost of drafting elite players up so much that only a very few teams will be able to draft them. In otherwords haves will get the best young players while once again the have nots are shut out. Right without a salary cap it is already happening, where small revenue teams pass on elite young talent that could have helped their team.

[Twinskoop]

Ugh.

It is simply morally, ethically, politically, socially, economically, and in all other ways wrong to place an artificial limit on how much an organization is allowed to spend on labor. End of story. I don't care that other sports have done it. They shouldn't have. And they have weak unions.

[Knick9]

Before I stop, I'll just say this, whether KC wants to win or not, they should be given equal chance. They should be allowed to win whenever they start feeling like they want to win. The option has to be there for them. If KC keeps losing, are you suggesting relocation then? KC isn't the problem, it's the ownership. If hardly anybody wants to win, then just have a 2 team league, Boston nad New York. Yeah, that will last long. :crazy

I said this before: There are some traditions in baseball that just need to be abandoned. To me, this luxury tax is one of those traditions.

[Knick9]

Ugh.

It is simply morally, ethically, politically, socially, economically, and in all other ways wrong to place an artificial limit on how much an organization is allowed to spend on labor. End of story. I don't care that other sports have done it. They shouldn't have. And they have weak unions.

I tend to disagree. That is stretching the situation way too much.

[Twinskoop]

I tend to disagree. That is stretching the situation way too much.
So it is ok for ownership to artificially cap labor costs (which is essentially collusion)? It must be ok for ownership interests in other fields to do the same, right? It's ok if the owners of department stores, fast food chains, oil companies, car manufacturers, etc., get together and bind each other to not spend over a certain dollar amount on labor costs?

As others have said, I'll be alright with a salary cap when owners agree to cap their own profits and the prices they charge the public. I will never support a labor salary cap until that happens.

[Jennifer]

So it is ok for ownership to artificially cap labor costs (which is essentially collusion)? It must be ok for ownership interests in other fields to do the same, right? It's ok if the owners of department stores, fast food chains, oil companies, car manufacturers, etc., get together and bind each other to not spend over a certain dollar amount on labor costs?

As others have said, I'll be alright with a salary cap when owners agree to cap their own profits and the prices they charge the public. I will never support a labor salary cap until that happens.Ownership cannot on its own lawfully impose a salary cap.

[Jennifer]

But KC doesn't want to win, why should the entire game be manipulated so that the dumbest kid in the room is forced to be the best. KC doesn't want to compete, he could spend more but he doesn't want to, instead he takes his profit.


So how does a 95 million dollar cap help? It would effect only 3 teams right now, and only one in a big way, the Yankees. A salary floor would be useless because it would only drag one or two up and it wouldn't be like it would force them to sign AROd or something. Instead they sign Derek Bell for 6 million dollars. Salary Caps don't even keep football teams in check why would they keep baseball teams? And again what do you think the Yankees are going to do with that extra 100 million dollars a year that used to spend on MLB players? Give it to charity? No they will use it to sign players from high school, college, and other countries. They will drive the cost of drafting elite players up so much that only a very few teams will be able to draft them. In otherwords haves will get the best young players while once again the have nots are shut out. Right without a salary cap it is already happening, where small revenue teams pass on elite young talent that could have helped their team.First, where is your evidence that Kansas City shows a profit? The 2001 data posted earlier in this thread showed a net loss in 2001. While it is true that some of the expenses are non-cash items thus making available money for shareholder distribution it is also true that in the Economics's sense that the cost of equity is a cost of doing business and a "profit" is earning a return in excess to the cost of equity. What many people do is look at a team's payroll expense and use that as a basis to determine that a team is not spending as much as it can but to make that determination total revenue and total expense must be compared.

[Jennifer]

Wait a minute so you are saying that a salary cap will help a revenue poor team compete, which of course means you are saying teams that are bad can become good through a salary cap. Which of course means they will become more popular because they are winning. So why wouldn't they raise ticket prices? If demand is going up why wouldn't they? Again why would a salary cap keep a team from raising its ticket price?In short, as I said many posts ago the answer is yes. Moreover, I pointed out that teams with huge payrolls with high attendance that were unsuccessful in competing would have a drop-off of demand. For further explanation how about going back and reading the rest of the thread. I find it tiresome to have to repeat myself everytime you repeat your questions and will not do it anymore.

[Jennifer]

So how does a 95 million dollar cap help? It would effect only 3 teams right now, and only one in a big way, the Yankees. A salary floor would be useless because it would only drag one or two up and it wouldn't be like it would force them to sign AROd or something. Instead they sign Derek Bell for 6 million dollars. Salary Caps don't even keep football teams in check why would they keep baseball teams? And again what do you think the Yankees are going to do with that extra 100 million dollars a year that used to spend on MLB players? Give it to charity? No they will use it to sign players from high school, college, and other countries. They will drive the cost of drafting elite players up so much that only a very few teams will be able to draft them. In otherwords haves will get the best young players while once again the have nots are shut out. Right without a salary cap it is already happening, where small revenue teams pass on elite young talent that could have helped their team.If you have to ask the question then you are clueless. In the short-run the more you narrow the gap the less influence money has in determining victories and the more influence prudent executive decision-making has in determining victories. Consider the fact that the Tribe won 93 games in 2005 on a $42 million payroll. The Yankees spent almost five times that amount to win 2 more games than the Tribe. Is it even debatable which team's executives were more effective? Yet, the Yankees ability to imprudently spend rewarded them with a Divison Championship. Narrowing the spending gap increases the importance of good judgment making.

In the longer term a salary cap makes it more difficult for the richest teams to monopologize the acquisition and retention of star players.

Finally, the more good judgment determines a team's record then the greater opportunity revenue poor teams have a chance of winning which translates into greater revenues and a potential narrowing of the salary gap between the richest and poorest teams. Does that mean that every team that is revenue poor will suddenly become competitive, of course not. Kansas City is a prime example. Part of the team's problem is its lack of revenue to retain star players but beyond that the organization has systemic problems in that it has repeatedly made bad decisions and has failed to show it has a potentially effective plan to improve.

[Twinskoop]

Ownership cannot on its own lawfully impose a salary cap.
Obviously. That's like saying I cannot, on my own, lawfully print millions and millions of dollars for my own personal use. If I could, it would have been done a long time ago.

The question is whether or not the players should agree to it, and what fan response should be. I would never agree to it in my field. I don't think players should agree to it in their field. It's a poor deal that will limit the earning potential for the vast majority of them while increasing the profit that the team owners and shareholders take in.

And it's un-American to tell stupid rich people that they can't spend more money.

[Jennifer]

Obviously. That's like saying I cannot, on my own, lawfully print millions and millions of dollars for my own personal use. If I could, it would have been done a long time ago.

The question is whether or not the players should agree to it, and what fan response should be. I would never agree to it in my field. I don't think players should agree to it in their field. It's a poor deal that will limit the earning potential for the vast majority of them while increasing the profit that the team owners and shareholders take in.

And it's un-American to tell stupid rich people that they can't spend more money.A few quick things. First, how can you say that players should refuse without knowing what the quid pro quo would be? For example a cap regime might include a floor that results in MLB in the aggregate spending more on salaries then are spent today. This would mean that star players would suffer -- No more A-Rod and Manny sized contracts but the vast majority of players below star level would benefit. What if the lenth of service required to qualify for the MLB pension was lessened? What if the length of the eligibility requirements for salary arbitration, free agency and right to refuse a trade was shortened? Etc., etc., etc.

Second, as to increasing owner profits. You are aware are you not that the size of a salary cap would be pegged to something like revenues? Under a salary cap regime some owners would do better and others worse but that owners as a whole would probably maintain about the same level of profits.

Third, who is "telling" rich people that they cannot spend more money? If a salary cap is adopted it will be because these rich people want it.

Finally, while I don't know what line of business you work for if you work for a large corporation then except for the very top candidates there are salary caps. Every employee within a certain job classification is paid within a certain pay range. In some instances there exists job performance bonuses.

Many people look at each team as a stand-alone corporation battling each other in a highly competitive world. But MLB is really a joint venture. Certain restrictions on competition exist that do not generally exist among true competitors. For example, in the real world any employer can hire any college graduate it wants subject to its ability to compete with everyone else who wants to hire individuals. MLB has an amauter draft where all the top players become the property of the team that drafts them. Why do these rules necessary? Because it is generally deterimental to successful teams to have unsuccessful teams go out of business.

[Ubiquitous]

If you have to ask the question then you are clueless. In the short-run the more you narrow the gap the less influence money has in determining victories and the more influence prudent executive decision-making has in determining victories. Consider the fact that the Tribe won 93 games in 2005 on a $42 million payroll. The Yankees spent almost five times that amount to win 2 more games than the Tribe. Is it even debatable which team's executives were more effective? Yet, the Yankees ability to imprudently spend rewarded them with a Divison Championship. Narrowing the spending gap increases the importance of good judgment making.

In the longer term a salary cap makes it more difficult for the richest teams to monopologize the acquisition and retention of star players.

Finally, the more good judgment determines a team's record then the greater opportunity revenue poor teams have a chance of winning which translates into greater revenues and a potential narrowing of the salary gap between the richest and poorest teams. Does that mean that every team that is revenue poor will suddenly become competitive, of course not. Kansas City is a prime example. Part of the team's problem is its lack of revenue to retain star players but beyond that the organization has systemic problems in that it has repeatedly made bad decisions and has failed to show it has a potentially effective plan to improve.


Ah clueless? Heres a question, isn't possible that the 200 million dollars and the 150 odd million dollars they spent more then Cleveland didn't help the Yankees win 2 more games but prevented them from winning more?

Or how is this for clueless. Saying Cleveland spent 43 million for 93 wins means nothing. You have a bunch of rookies, under 3 year players and under 6 year players and you are going to have a low payroll regardless of talent. Every year that team stays together is another year in which it gets more expensive, and one more year in which it will be closer to breaking apart under salary cap setups. That team that was so well put together, that turned into a winnner, that help grow revenue streams will be forced to breakup and have the team start over in the near future under salary cap rules.

[Ubiquitous]

In short, as I said many posts ago the answer is yes. Moreover, I pointed out that teams with huge payrolls with high attendance that were unsuccessful in competing would have a drop-off of demand. For further explanation how about going back and reading the rest of the thread. I find it tiresome to have to repeat myself everytime you repeat your questions and will not do it anymore.

So what was your point? Let me get this clear, you are now saying that Salary Cap will not reduce the need to raise ticket prices. That it will not deter rises in ticket prices? Is this correct?

[runningshoes]

If you have to ask the question then you are clueless.

What's with the personal attacks?

[runningshoes]

Of course ticket prices will rise. Owners are in this to make money, but the justification for a rise will be a better product on the field, not the need for revenue to pay the players.

[Jennifer]

Ah clueless? Heres a question, isn't possible that the 200 million dollars and the 150 odd million dollars they spent more then Cleveland didn't help the Yankees win 2 more games but prevented them from winning more?

Or how is this for clueless. Saying Cleveland spent 43 million for 93 wins means nothing. You have a bunch of rookies, under 3 year players and under 6 year players and you are going to have a low payroll regardless of talent. Every year that team stays together is another year in which it gets more expensive, and one more year in which it will be closer to breaking apart under salary cap setups. That team that was so well put together, that turned into a winnner, that help grow revenue streams will be forced to breakup and have the team start over in the near future under salary cap rules.Your first paragraph kinda makes my point. The Yankees can recklessly spend money because there is no salary cap. If they make a mistake they just try to correct it by spending more money while teams that have far less money to spend must live with their mistakes and are less prone to acquire high risk players at large salaries. The Yankee mistakes have the tendency to increase the cost of business for every other team because what they pay players tends to create a benchmark for what free agents and arbitration eligible players will get paid. Before you challenge this assertion I suggest that you peruse the media comments on the signing of BJ Ryan. It was pretty universally observed that Ryan's signing drove up the market price of every other free agent closer and set-up man. It was also pretty universally accepted that the Jays overpaid.

As to whether the Yankees might not have done better with a smaller payroll I neither agree or disagree. That the Yankees would have exercised greater discipline is beyond dispute but whether this greater discipline would have succeded is something we will never know. In my earlier post I thought about including the above paragraph and this one but decided not to because I knew I could expect you to raise the issue. We are long past having a serious discussion because no matter what I say you can be expected to take a contrarian view.

As to the Tribe I think you should take a closer look at the composition of the 2005 team. The pitching staff which was the strength of the team was composed mainly of veterans. One starter had less than five years of MLB experience and the same was true of the bullpen for most of the year. The one high priced pitcher, Millwood, who was a high risk signing at the size of his contract pegged to how healthy he remained.

For position players they had two relatively priced free agents Belliard and Boone. Other key position players such as Martinez and Hafner in particular were signed prior to the season to multi-year deals below their market values because they were not yet eligible for free agency. The same was true of C.C. on the pitching side. Much of the young talent like Sizemore and Lee were obtained in very smart trades for players about to enter in their free agency and who would have been to expensive to re-sign. Shaprio was GM of the year for his efforts in constructing the team, although in my opinion the White Sox GM should have gotten it.

Can the Tribe keep the team together for a long time? Almost certainly not without a salary cap. Is that a bad thing? I suggest you look at the thread I started on the Tribe Board which I called something like "Something Interesting." The Tribe to sustain long term success absent a salary cap will have to rely on shrewdness in its player decisions. If it were not for the reckless spending of teams like the Yankees there would be a much greater chance to hold the core of the team together for the long-term.

Thank you for your last post. It has allowed me to make some very major points. I look forward to your contraian response.:dance

[Jennifer]

What's with the personal attacks?No offense intended but I suggest you go back and read or reread the entire thread and then decide whether it is a "personal insult" or a rhetorical question.

[runningshoes]

No offense intended but I suggest you go back and read or reread the entire thread and then decide whether it is a "personal insult" or a rhetorical question.

A rhetorical question is one that needs no answer, because the answer is obviously know..and I know you're inteligent enough to know that.

In other words..he's clueless.

Besides, that's not the point. It's the perception.

[Jennifer]

So what was your point? Let me get this clear, you are now saying that Salary Cap will not reduce the need to raise ticket prices. That it will not deter rises in ticket prices? Is this correct?As I stated earlier I have answered that question and if you don't understand my position I apologize for our failure to effectively communicate but it seems as though we are only going around in circles which is a waste of both your time, my time and everyone else's time who is reading this thread.

[Jennifer]

A rhetorical question is one that needs no answer, because the answer is obviously know..and I know you're inteligent enough to know that.

In other words..he's clueless.

Besides, that's not the point. It's the perception.Don't expect me to disagree with you. Indeed, I do think its obvious. And thank you for calling me intelligent whether it was sincre or merely a left-handed compliment.

[runningshoes]

Don't expect me to disagree with you. Indeed, I do think its obvious. And thank you for calling me intelligent whether it was sincre or merely a left-handed compliment.

It is a compliment. I've read many of your posts in different threads and I agree with much of what you write, I just think you should understand that calling someone clueless will only lead to the degeneration of a discussion. I know Ubiquitous won't go down that road, but there are many here who will see nothing else but the insult.

[Ubiquitous]

Thank you for your last post. It has allowed me to make some very major points. I look forward to your contraian response.:dance


Um no. All I care about is the view that somehow a salary cap is going to keep ticket prices from rising. That is all I have ever disagreed with you on. Now apparently you claim that was never your view.

As for the Indians, somehow the Indians without a salary cap have competed, and for the most part they have done so for most of the 90's and into the new century. But hey, they need a salary cap to compete. Okay whatever, you want to move on to needing salary caps to compete that is fine.

Why do the Cleveland Indians need a salary cap to compete? Why do the Chicago White Sox need a salary cap to compete? Why do the Houston Astros need a salary cap to compete? Why do the Atlanta Braves need a salary cap to compete? Not a single one of them would have reach the proposed salary cap ceiling that anyone has proposed. Yet they have all done fairly well. A salary cap basically hurts one team in the short team and is pretty much useless for the rest of the league and to top it all off it isn't even necessary to hold back that one team. This isn't 1955 the Yankees do not keep the Royals from having a shot at the playoffs or the world series. They don't even prevent the Devil Rays from having a shot at the playoffs, and they most definitely don't keep the Giants from having a shot at the playoffs. The Yankees and their gigantic payroll hasn't stopped anyone from competing. If the Yankees spend only 100 million dollars what do you think will happen? World Peace? Suddenly the D-Rays become competitive? No, the Yankees would still be the top spender and 3/4 of the other team wouldn't have a payroll close to them. It doesn't help the Royals, they are still a have not and they still have to compete against two large revenue teams in their own division and those teams haven't even come close to maximizing their cap space.

Plus of course you talk about salary caps but completely ignore real world usage of salary caps. The New York Yankees could and probably would if they wanted to have the exact same team that they do now but with a 100 million dollar payroll. They simply would change pay amounts and the years of the contract. So then after maybe a decade of this they hit salary cap hell, but here is where the advantage of the large market pays off. Since the Yankees only have to spend 100 million dollars on major league salaries they then use the hundreds of millions of dollars they didn't have to spend on youth and the development of that youth both local and foriegn. So now they got limited cap space but it isn't a problem because they get to play youth and since the service time is low they can pay them on the cheap.


you yourself have shown why salary caps are not necessary. Oakland, Chicago, Cleveland, Atlanta have all shown why salary caps are not needed. Heck even the Yankees of the early to mid 90's have shown why you don't need a cap. Build your team the old fashioned way, with youth and smart trades and you will build a perennial winner and do it relatively cheaply.


Yes BJ Ryans signing drives up the cost, but here is the thing he drives up the cost on high risk players. He doesn't drive up the cost of a rookie and he really doesn't drive up the cost very much with young players overall. BJ Ryans contract is probably going to be a dud, Billy Wagners contract is probably going to be a dud, and even if they are not they probably are still not going to be worth the amount they gave them. Probably both teams if they had spent possibly a quarter of that money on scouting and the farm team could have brought somebody to perform at their level and do it cheaper.

[Ubiquitous]

You say we are spinning around in circles so answer this question. It's the only thing I was debating you on in the first plac.

Salary caps, do you believe they will prevent ticket prices from rising?

[Jennifer]

You say we are spinning around in circles so answer this question. It's the only thing I was debating you on in the first plac.

Salary caps, do you believe they will prevent ticket prices from rising?Again why don't you reread my earlier posts? My position cannot be answered yes or no it is much more complicated then that. Since this discussion has become so convoluted let me articulate my position in a reformulated expanded manner. First, off I argued that for teams that are now successful solely because of the ability to outspend many other teams that if they fail to successfully compete under price caps eventually there will be a drop in attendance that will force them in the near term to freeze or only minimize increases in ticket prices (why will explain later why I offer the "short-term qualification) for all but the ticket prices of those with the most inelastic demand who are primarily the large businesses who buy the most expensive seats and are able to claim the expense for tax purposes. I might also add that the problem with average ticket data is its failure to disaggregate the information so that it is impossible to analyze the distribution of ticket price increases. Since the highest priced seats tend to have the most inelastic demand it is possible that changes in ticket prices from year to year might be almost exclusively the result of increasing the ticket price of the higher priced seats. Has this actually occurred with respect to some teams? I have no idea, which is my whole point that the lack of disaggregation of the data you referred me to does not permit this. I might also add something that should be completely non-controversial. In examining historic data there is the problem of teams moving into new parks or having existing parks modified. This results in the expansion of high priced seats which changes the weighting of the various priced seats so even if not a single ticket price is increased the average price of a ticket increases. A simple example to illustrate the point. Suppose you have 10 seats at $20/seat and 40 seats at $5/seat. The average price/seat equals $8 ((10 x $20 = $200 ) + (40 x $5 = $200)/50 = $8). If the new park has 15 seats at $20 and 35 seats at $5 then the average ticket price becomes $9.50 (do the math yourself if you don't trust me). There is a $1.50 increase in the average ticket prices despite the fact that ticket prices have not increased. Further distortion occurs with respect to new fields because of a shift in the demand curve resulting from increased interest by fans wanting to attend games at the new park. This permits the increase of ticket prices without decreasing attendance (all else being equal), although the attendance increase will be less than if ticket prices increase.

Second, for less successful teams that become competitive an increase in the short-term is likely provided the anticipated increase in demand occurs. How big an increase is dependant on prudent management decisions regarding how best to maximize revenues (simplistically put the best mix increased ticket price revenues when compared to the impact of ticket price increases have on maximizing demand).

Third, the reason I talk about short-term is that all else being equal ticket prices need to be increased to increase revenues if for no other reason to match increased expenses (both increasing player payroll expense as well as all other expenses). If all else is equal then a decrease in revenues would result from all else being equal. Ignoring changes in a team's competitive status over the mid and long term growth in the economy results in increased cutomer disposable income which depending on the size impacts on the movement of demand.

I'm getting very tired so I hope the above is coherent irrespective of whether you agree and is, at least, generally responsive. As to your immediate prior post please do not take my failure to immediately respond as reflecting my agreement.

[Twinskoop]

A few quick things. First, how can you say that players should refuse without knowing what the quid pro quo would be? For example a cap regime might include a floor that results in MLB in the aggregate spending more on salaries then are spent today. This would mean that star players would suffer -- No more A-Rod and Manny sized contracts but the vast majority of players below star level would benefit. What if the lenth of service required to qualify for the MLB pension was lessened? What if the length of the eligibility requirements for salary arbitration, free agency and right to refuse a trade was shortened? Etc., etc., etc.

Second, as to increasing owner profits. You are aware are you not that the size of a salary cap would be pegged to something like revenues? Under a salary cap regime some owners would do better and others worse but that owners as a whole would probably maintain about the same level of profits.

Third, who is "telling" rich people that they cannot spend more money? If a salary cap is adopted it will be because these rich people want it.

Finally, while I don't know what line of business you work for if you work for a large corporation then except for the very top candidates there are salary caps. Every employee within a certain job classification is paid within a certain pay range. In some instances there exists job performance bonuses.

Many people look at each team as a stand-alone corporation battling each other in a highly competitive world. But MLB is really a joint venture. Certain restrictions on competition exist that do not generally exist among true competitors. For example, in the real world any employer can hire any college graduate it wants subject to its ability to compete with everyone else who wants to hire individuals. MLB has an amauter draft where all the top players become the property of the team that drafts them. Why do these rules necessary? Because it is generally deterimental to successful teams to have unsuccessful teams go out of business.

A) To answer your first question, I can say that players should refuse a salary cap, because right now, there is nothing on the table. This is not a negotiation. This is a message board. (And what the hell is a "cap regime" anyway?) Of course there would be some qualifying addendums that might change my opinion (and might change the unions opinion as well). Are we just supposed to assume that all of your qualifiers are on the table? If we are, then the thread should probably be named something else. As I've already made clear, if owners would agree to cap their income, I'd be more inclined to agree to them capping their expenses. I've also already stated my support for a floor, with increased revenue sharing. As for base salaries increasing for "most" players under a cap-with-floor plan, I am skeptical. I think you'd see a lot of mid-range veterans getting squeezed, like they do in the NFL. You'd probably see a lot more not-quite-ready-for-prime-time guys, also like the NFL, with probably much worse results. Owners who care most about the bottom line will still make profit with no risk fielding losing teams, like they do now.

B) I still don't know how you get to just assume that a salary cap would be "pegged" to revenues. But whatever. If owners "as a whole" were going to maintain the same level of profits, there wouldn't be as much support. A salary cap is, in essence, collusion to cap expenses. Organizations give up their ability to outbid each other for talent. They don't have to keep up with the jones's. It won't bring profit down for anyone, unless they're going to start dropping ticket prices as well (fat chance).

C) "who is "telling" rich people that they cannot spend more money? If a salary cap is adopted it will be because these rich people want it." Of course. And why would they want it? Because capping expenses (an artificial suppression of demand) is good for business. Labor be damned.

D) There are not "salary caps" in business. Target and JC Penney didn't get together and decide that they would not spend over x dollar amount on labor. I work for a CRO. It is a large corporation. And their labor expense is not "capped." They have a budget. Big difference. They can spend their budget however they see fit. If another CRO wants me bad enough, they can pay me more. They can increase their payroll, and they don't have to demote or cut anyone else. That's how supply and demand is supposed to work.

The argument that MLB is like one big business is a giant crock of poo, another lie perpetuated by ownership interests. If that was the case, then it should be run like one giant business, with one corporate office, and all income, expense and profit pooled and distributed accordingly. They want to make money like individual organizations, especially when it's time to build publicly financed stadiums. But on the other hand, don't treat them like businesses that have to be in competition with each other (and pay according labor costs). No, it's just one big joint venture. That's not reality. This is MLB owners trying to have their cake and eat it, too. It has to be one or the other.

[Jennifer]

A) To answer your first question, I can say that players should refuse a salary cap, because right now, there is nothing on the table. This is not a negotiation. This is a message board. (And what the hell is a "cap regime" anyway?) Of course there would be some qualifying addendums that might change my opinion (and might change the unions opinion as well). Are we just supposed to assume that all of your qualifiers are on the table? If we are, then the thread should probably be named something else. As I've already made clear, if owners would agree to cap their income, I'd be more inclined to agree to them capping their expenses. I've also already stated my support for a floor, with increased revenue sharing. As for base salaries increasing for "most" players under a cap-with-floor plan, I am skeptical. I think you'd see a lot of mid-range veterans getting squeezed, like they do in the NFL. You'd probably see a lot more not-quite-ready-for-prime-time guys, also like the NFL, with probably much worse results. Owners who care most about the bottom line will still make profit with no risk fielding losing teams, like they do now.

B) I still don't know how you get to just assume that a salary cap would be "pegged" to revenues. But whatever. If owners "as a whole" were going to maintain the same level of profits, there wouldn't be as much support. A salary cap is, in essence, collusion to cap expenses. Organizations give up their ability to outbid each other for talent. They don't have to keep up with the jones's. It won't bring profit down for anyone, unless they're going to start dropping ticket prices as well (fat chance).

C) "who is "telling" rich people that they cannot spend more money? If a salary cap is adopted it will be because these rich people want it." Of course. And why would they want it? Because capping expenses (an artificial suppression of demand) is good for business. Labor be damned.

D) There are not "salary caps" in business. Target and JC Penney didn't get together and decide that they would not spend over x dollar amount on labor. I work for a CRO. It is a large corporation. And their labor expense is not "capped." They have a budget. Big difference. They can spend their budget however they see fit. If another CRO wants me bad enough, they can pay me more. They can increase their payroll, and they don't have to demote or cut anyone else. That's how supply and demand is supposed to work.

The argument that MLB is like one big business is a giant crock of poo, another lie perpetuated by ownership interests. If that was the case, then it should be run like one giant business, with one corporate office, and all income, expense and profit pooled and distributed accordingly. They want to make money like individual organizations, especially when it's time to build publicly financed stadiums. But on the other hand, don't treat them like businesses that have to be in competition with each other (and pay according labor costs). No, it's just one big joint venture. That's not reality. This is MLB owners trying to have their cake and eat it, too. It has to be one or the other.Let me start by providing the post of yours to which I was replying:

Obviously. That's like saying I cannot, on my own, lawfully print millions and millions of dollars for my own personal use. If I could, it would have been done a long time ago.

The question is whether or not the players should agree to it, and what fan response should be. I would never agree to it in my field. I don't think players should agree to it in their field. It's a poor deal that will limit the earning potential for the vast majority of them while increasing the profit that the team owners and shareholders take in.
And it's un-American to tell stupid rich people that they can't spend more money. (Emphasis added).You begin your latest post as follows:

"I can say that players should refuse a salary cap, because right now, there is nothing on the table. This is not a negotiation."

Please reconcile your argument in the italized language that players should not agree to salary caps because its a "poor deal" with your later contention that they should refuse a salary cap because nothing is on the table? The whole point of my response was how can you call it a "poor deal" which should be rejected when nothing is on the table. I then proceeded to offer potential pieces of a salary cap that might very well make the players think it was a very good deal. In other words, I was demonstrating the absurdity of your original statement because it was a blanket assertion rather than one directed to one or more specific potential formulation(s) of salary caps.

As to being pegged to "revenues" I said no such thing. I said "something like revenues" which to must everyone signify that I was offering an example. Moreover, to anyone who understands salary caps they would understand that it virtually inconceivable that players and their union would ever accept a proposal that freezes or minimally increases a salary cap each year while letting owner profits soar.

As for or JC Penney argument versus Target you missed my point completely. Separate corporations agreeing to do what you say that they don't do would be illegal collusion under the anti-trust laws. On the other hand, and this was my point, individual businesses can and do generally have what is analogous to salary caps. Take, for example, a corporation spread out throughout the nation. It is more likely than not that every level one VP falls within the same predetermined salary range that as a minimum and a maximum (that may vary from location to reflect the cost of living in the locale where they are employed). And as an aside it is not unusal for management to iincrease the floor and ceiling based on the change tin net income (or profits). Such an employee basically has four options. First, the employee can stay with the company and be subjected the designated salary ranges. Second, the employee can move onto a company that is in the same general line of business. Third the employee can obtain employment in a different line of business. Fourth, the employee can leave without obtaining new employment, for example decide to retire or become a house husband. MLB players clearly have options one and four available to them. They also have option two available to them (such as playing in an independent or foreign league) but for many players it is not a very desirable choice since there would be a major drop in salary. Option four is also available to them but except for rare instances they will be unable to even earn the MLB minimum salary. Therefore Options two and three are effectively not available to them. This is because of the strong monopolistic characteristics of MLB. Teams more nearly resemble divisions of a single corporation with no competitors to hire away employees than it does 30 separate corporations. That was point. In other words, your analogy is not responsive to the point I was making.

[Brannu]

The intellectual exchange in here is exciting.

[Twinskoop]

Jennifer

Drop the arrogance. You are not a "salary cap" expert, and even if you were, no one here would care. You are incredibly naïve if you think owners want a salary cap for any reason outside capping their expenses to increase profits. You can come up with all the scenarios and qualifiers you want, that's just not what they're after. You might as well propose dropping ticket prices to be more fan friendly as well. Ain't happening.

And in any case, the notion of a salary cap, legal collusion, is just wrong in principle. It doesn't matter how you spin it. It is anti-labor at its core. There IS a difference between an individual corporation's budget, and collusion to cap expenses by suppressing demand. You keep telling everyone who disagrees with you that we're missing something. We're not missing your points, Jennifer. Your points are just not founded in reality, and you are unwilling or unable to talk about the issue on any other grounds than what you've already established in your head with some fantasy panacea proposal. You'll have to forgive those of us who are skeptical and not so quick to jump on that bandwagon.

[Knick9]

Look, we agree to disagree anyway, we all have "opinions." I don't find salary caps wrong in principle. That's still stretching the situation way too much. If there was anything, and I mean anything, that was morally wrong with the salary cap in principle, then I'm sure major sport leagues, aside from MLB, wouldn't give the idea of a salary cap a look, but the facts are facts, salary caps are in existence because the NBA, NHL, and NFL don't find anything wrong with the salary cap when it comes to those boundaries. I also don't find salary caps to even strike or touch a chord with moral issues and the like, and besides, when I was making my case, I wasn't even going there because salary caps are not that important of an issue. Yes, it is important in MLB to have a salary cap economically, but morality issues shouldn't be bothered with when it comes to this. Salary caps don't have feelings, so there is no need to dig that deep. Besides, if there was anything wrong with a salary cap, don't you think the player's unions of those sports would've looked into it by now?

I could care less about ticket prices, or what teams do with the pricing, because the general issue here is main payroll. With salary caps, "rich" people can still spend, they won't ever be told not to spend, they will, just not as with much money as they would treasure to spend with, such as in five years, again if they keep dominating, having the Red Sox and Yankees spending either near or exactly 1 billion dollars in payroll. I will always fail to see how 1 billion dollars of payroll is parody compared to $30-40 ish million dollars in payroll. That's a joke right there, and if people still think that the luxury tax can help smaller market teams, then I still fail to see how the luxury tax can help. It's a slap in the face to those smaller market teams, along with bad ownership just trying to make a profit, and that is wrong in principle, if that ever were in discussion, to me. Fairness is not ever justified, to me, with this luxury tax, because I fail to see how the Royals can dig themselves out of this big a hole within the next 3 years. I am no salary cap scientist, but I don't need to be one to see how lopsided and biased MLB's economic system has gotten. You should look at Bud Selig's chats with George Steinbrenner for visual proof.

Let's just put this discussion to rest before things get even more dangerous, eh?

[Jennifer]

Jennifer

Drop the arrogance. You are not a "salary cap" expert, and even if you were, no one here would care. You are incredibly naïve if you think owners want a salary cap for any reason outside capping their expenses to increase profits. You can come up with all the scenarios and qualifiers you want, that's just not what they're after. You might as well propose dropping ticket prices to be more fan friendly as well. Ain't happening.

And in any case, the notion of a salary cap, legal collusion, is just wrong in principle. It doesn't matter how you spin it. It is anti-labor at its core. There IS a difference between an individual corporation's budget, and collusion to cap expenses by suppressing demand. You keep telling everyone who disagrees with you that we're missing something. We're not missing your points, Jennifer. Your points are just not founded in reality, and you are unwilling or unable to talk about the issue on any other grounds than what you've already established in your head with some fantasy panacea proposal. You'll have to forgive those of us who are skeptical and not so quick to jump on that bandwagon.I'm not going to get into a name calling contest with you. I'm instead going to test your assertion that you understand what I'm saying (despite the fact you patently distort it) by asking you where I have said I believed that owners had a reason other than wanting to increase profits. The second question I'd like to ask you is do you think that a salary cap regime where owners can potentially increase profits necessarily means that this will be at the expense of the players, and if so, why. Being a generous soul I will give you a clue by asking the question of whether you are familar with the difference between changing the size of slices of pie everyone receives and increasing the size of the pie so that everyone gets a slice?

[steveox]

Im for a team cap of 100 million NO MORE! Any team can do very well with 100 million team salary payroll. Take a look.
http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/totalpayroll.aspx?year=2005

Theres No need for yanks & red sox to get greedy!!! So even it out.

[nyyanks13]

Even as a yankee fan, im for a cap of around 85 mil but baseballs gotta have a floor of around 55-60 million. If you cant afford that, youre either not putting a good product on the field or your in a bad market and should consider moving your team (ex. Tampa Bay)

[Jake Patterson]

I'm for salary control... The sport (and pro sports in general) seems to have gone nuts with the money that's thrown at these young athletes. How can it make sense for a 20 year old ball player to make more money than the commanding general of the U.S. Army, who commands thousands of 20 year olds? We tried to get tickets for the Red Sox this past fall - scalped at $400.00 each. I used to take the train into Boston with my Uncle and spend about $15.00 for a game and a dog.

Whether or not it would bring parody to the game is questionable. It would be an interesting study to conduct.

[Astro]

Im for a team cap of 100 million NO MORE! Any team can do very well with 100 million team salary payroll. Take a look.
http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/totalpayroll.aspx?year=2005

Theres No need for yanks & red sox to get greedy!!! So even it out.
Is it really fair to blame the Red Sox and Yankees? Other teams are spending great ammounts of money, including the O's and Jays

[DodgerBlue8188]

Are you in favor of having no salary cap in the MLB? With teams like the Yankees, Redsox and Mets who spend hundreds of millions a year on payrolls, while teams like the Royals and Devil Rays spend less than 70 million it seems very lopsided. We've witnessed teams win World Series with low payrolls like the Marlins. But will likely never see a team compete like that for more than one year in a row. So my question is, do you think there should be a salary cap in baseball? I am unsure and would like to hear reasons why or why not to establish an opinion of my own.

[Captain Cold Nose]

Are you in favor of having no salary cap in the MLB? With teams like the Yankees, Redsox and Mets who spend hundreds of millions a year on payrolls, while teams like the Royals and Devil Rays spend less than 70 million it seems very lopsided. We've witnessed teams win World Series with low payrolls like the Marlins. But will likely never see a team compete like that for more than one year in a row. So my question is, do you think there should be a salary cap in baseball? I am unsure and would like to hear reasons why or why not to establish an opinion of my own.
The above was merged into this thread from a brand new thread on the same subject.
Now that you see we're already discussing this topic, DodgerBlue, what do you think?

[KCGHOST]

I don't care whether it is a spending cap or improved revenue sharing or some other mechanism that puts the teams on equal financial footing. Having extra cash is an advantage that is unfair in a cooperative business venture.

I want a team's quality to be determined by the skill of the front office in player acquisition/development and the performance of said players on the field. This foolishness of "I'll just go to the store and buy a good player" mentality is simply wrong.

My argument is not that teams on smaller budgets can't be competitve, but that they should be not face an obstacle that the big money teams don't face. I have no problem with players being free agents. But I want all teams to be on an equal footing when it comes to attempts to purchase these players.

[Ubiquitous]

I don't care whether it is a spending cap or improved revenue sharing or some other mechanism that puts the teams on equal financial footing. Having extra cash is an advantage that is unfair in a cooperative business venture.

I want a team's quality to be determined by the skill of the front office in player acquisition/development and the performance of said players on the field. This foolishness of "I'll just go to the store and buy a good player" mentality is simply wrong.



This is what good teams do. They don't build good players, they do not impregnate someone with a good player and then wait 20 years for it to grow up. All teams "buy" good players. Whether it is from some third world country, the draft, free agency, or from a fellow team. The Florida Marlins won because they bought a lot of talent. They didn't do it through free agency but through youth. They bought Josh Beckett, Derrek Lee, Miguel Cabrera, Penny, Lowell, and everybody else.

As for unfair, having better talent is unfair in a cooperative business venture. Any advantage is unfair and should be weeded out.

[steveox]

Look the NFL has a cap and its ruining my RAVENS!:grouchy I dont think the NFL needs a cap but BASEBALL needs a cap!

[Erik Bedard]

Do you think baseball needs a salary cap? If you answer, please give your reasons why or why not.

Thanks!

[Astro]

Alright, new members, make sure you go back and check prior threads... I also had a thread on this not very long ago and will get you the link in a second

[Astro]

http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=36425

[Brian McKenna]

no doubt a ceiling but a floor as well - it's ridiculous when one team spends over $200M and another $30M - baseball must be the dumbest ass sport in the world

[Mattingly]

About every other month, we get a thread about the salary cap, how the NFL has one, that the MLB should also.

Right off the bat, if we had a ceiling and a floor, what would both be? When would these be enforced?

[TonyStarks]

The Oakland A's, Twinkies & Florida Marlins are always teams that I look at when the 'Salary Cap' questions pop up.

I don't see how it's fair to penalize teams with Good Operational people like the Yanks, Red Sox, ChiSox because some teams are very bad judges of talent or the owners don't put the money they make back into their teams.
If the problem is the team's market then it's time to re-evaluate that market and maybe move on to another market ...say Las Vegas for example.

And I didn't think Astro's poll was very fair.
I am not for a Cap, but I didn't like the reason that was listed.

[Monarchs29]

Having a cap is one thing, The penalties for going over are quite another.

A couple of years ago, when this question was asked, my opinion was that the cap should be $100M. Well, I've reconsidered this and now I'm thinking that it should be $120M. Since the price of everything has skyrocketed these days, and upward adjustment in the cap seems appropriate.

The big question is, what should the penalties be if you decide to go over the limit. Here's my solution that I think might rein in those teams who decide to buy their way into the playoffs.

I'm thinking that for every dollar those teams spend over the limt, they should be assessed another dollar to put into the revenue-share fund. Hence. If a team wants to spend $200M in salaries, that team should have to pay another $80M in penalties. IMO, that would be the incentive to bring it all down to reasonable levels.

Similarly, if there is a cap, there should also be a bottom level. I propose something in the order of either $50M or $60M. No exceptions.

Having this bottom level would do something to ensure a more competitive balance among all 30 teams. With the prospect that any team had a chance to make the playoffs, the possibility exists that most teams would draw more fans to their games. The outcome in this is that and all teams would benefit.

[BristolBoy]

...And I'm going to put the same comment in this post as I do every other salary cap thread: the only reason for NFL's salary cap is competitive balance, and like it or not there is more parity in MLB without a cap than there is in NFL with a cap.

I've got no problem with bringing up old topics, but we really seem to be flogging a dead horse with this one:

Different champions for 6 consecutive years:
MLB: Currently
NFL: Never

Teams reaching playoffs final four in the last 5 years:
MLB: 13/30, 43%
NFL: 12/32, 37.5%

Super Bowl / World Series Winners by era:
2005-2001: NFL 3 - 5 MLB
1996-2005: NFL 7 - 6 MLB
1986-1995: NFL 11 - 13 MLB
1975-1985: NFL 13 - 19 MLB
1965-1975: NFL 17 - 19 MLB

Can we please stop perpetuating these myths that
a) baseball has no parity,
b) football has parity far in excess of baseball and
c) baseball needs a salary cap?

Consider the dead horse flogged once and for all.

Signed: #1 BBFer against 'baseball needs a cap for competitive balance' threads, BristolBoy.

[Knick9]

...And I'm going to put the same comment in this post as I do every other salary cap thread: the only reason for NFL's salary cap is competitive balance, and like it or not there is more parity in MLB without a cap than there is in NFL with a cap.

I've got no problem with bringing up old topics, but we really seem to be flogging a dead horse with this one:

Different champions for 6 consecutive years:
MLB: Currently
NFL: Never

Teams reaching playoffs final four in the last 5 years:
MLB: 13/30, 43%
NFL: 12/32, 37.5%

Super Bowl / World Series Winners by era:
2005-2001: NFL 3 - 5 MLB
1996-2005: NFL 7 - 6 MLB
1986-1995: NFL 11 - 13 MLB
1975-1985: NFL 13 - 19 MLB
1965-1975: NFL 17 - 19 MLB

Can we please stop perpetuating these myths that
a) baseball has no parity,
b) football has parity far in excess of baseball and
c) baseball needs a salary cap?

Consider the dead horse flogged once and for all.

Signed: #1 BBFer against 'baseball needs a cap for competitive balance' threads, BristolBoy.

Baseball has no parity. Saying that $250+ million and $30-ish million would ever be parity is a joke. What's your plan on making the Royals a championhip caliber team within these next 3 years? It's only been the way that one team in the NFL (New England Patriots) have won 3 Super Bowls in a 4-year span. Dynasties can always be made, and it's nothing new with the NFL. It doesn't hurt the quality of the NFL teams if one team happens to have a Super Bowl dynasty on their hands. To get back on topic with MLB, the Yankees are dubbed "the team of the 20th century", and that organization is dubbed that for a reason. Advantage in money, $. So I guess that one team winning 26 World Series championships in one century is parity compared to one NFL team having at most, 5 Super Bowl titles in 40 years? Also, World Series have been recorded longer than Super Bowls, so take that into consideration.

Let me list the teams that have never been competitive, and don't give me the excuse that they should be contracted:

Tampa Bay (always)
Colorado (except for the 1995 season)
Montreal of the mid '90s to 2004
St. Louis Browns (exceptions obviously)
Texas off and on

Teams that are always in the hunt for a ring:
Yankees
Red Sox
(this speaks for itself)

I'm in favor of a salary cap and floor, because if you keep going like this, chances are you'll see a billion dollar payroll for one of the two New England teams, and that won't be fun. It's something called a monopoly, and it's something that the salary cap keeps checking on, so that there are no monopolies.

I agree with you, though, it's like beating a dead horse. I'm not going to get into this thread alot.

[Mattingly]

Having a cap is one thing, The penalties for going over are quite another.

A couple of years ago, when this question was asked, my opinion was that the cap should be $100M. Well, I've reconsidered this and now I'm thinking that it should be $120M. Since the price of everything has skyrocketed these days, and upward adjustment in the cap seems appropriate.

The big question is, what should the penalties be if you decide to go over the limit. Here's my solution that I think might rein in those teams who decide to buy their way into the playoffs.

I'm thinking that for every dollar those teams spend over the limt, they should be assessed another dollar to put into the revenue-share fund. Hence. If a team wants to spend $200M in salaries, that team should have to pay another $80M in penalties. IMO, that would be the incentive to bring it all down to reasonable levels.

Similarly, if there is a cap, there should also be a bottom level. I propose something in the order of either $50M or $60M. No exceptions.

Having this bottom level would do something to ensure a more competitive balance among all 30 teams. With the prospect that any team had a chance to make the playoffs, the possibility exists that most teams would draw more fans to their games. The outcome in this is that and all teams would benefit.
Basically, what you're saying about the cap and penalties seems to be about what we've got right now w/o an actual cap. The Yanks do pay revenue sharing fees for going over some $130m level. If there's a large difference between your proposal and the 2002 CBA as it exists, then please advise.

I'd call this a "soft cap", meaning that it's like a strong adviser, but you can go above this, but at your own risk. It's not even a risk, as you'd *DEFINITELY* get penalized.

If you're going to have a cap, then you could make it what I'd consider a "hard cap", meaning that no team is allowed to go above this, regardless of how much of a penalty they're willing to absorb. Some would like this, some wouldn't.

As to the floor, how come no penalties for this, as you had for the cap? What would stop a team from coming out with a $30-40m team if the floor were $60m?

[trosmok]

....all thirty teams pooled 100% of the broadcast revenue and divided it equally, and used it exclusively for players' salaries we wouldn't even be discussing a cap. All thirty teams would be forced to work in concert to help their smaller market partners in MLB without making an upper limit income ceiling for the most expensive players. It isn't the superstar salaries that cause the disparity, it is throwing millions at mediocre players that kills the parity (not parody). The Yankees and Red Sox would still make the most money, thanks to geography and their expertise in marketing their teams and associated merchandise better than anyone else. Attendance and ticket sales are only a small percentage of the actual revenue a club generates, but it is high time the rest of it is put toward MLB as a whole, instead of 29 egomaniacs and a puppet trying to crush competition instead of thriving on it. Free market forces can be allowed to work, if the owners would only realize they are all in the same business, namely major league baseball.

[Brian McKenna]

soft cap - what the hell is that - aah we have this limit but those who choose to go above it okay no problem - a cap is a cap (high and low) - no one exceeds it

the caps would have to be based on some kind of percentage - whatever the industry argues - if its $200M/$100M than so be it - at least everyone would be a lot closer in talent outlays - sure small market teams would need to be especially effiecient with their expenditures

whoever said that all small market teams are poor and fail because their top management can't do their job and that rich clubs are that way because they have the only bright front office people in the business must be some sort of english major or something

you new york guys are dreaming if you believe that the discrepancy between the highest and lowest payrolls make sense - come out of the clouds

revenue sharing is an agreement w/i the industry - if it works for them fine - if it doesn't that's their business - i don't see where it matters too much - there will always be teams that do better financially than others - as long as the poorer teams can meet the payroll floor and infuse talent into the organization and keep things interesting great - if they can't - time to move on - but it is wholly ridiculous that one teams spends $230M and another spends $30M - argue it all you like because it is "your" team that can spend the cash but - IT IS A RECIPE FOR FAILURE - the failure would be an industry wide failure - so toot toot your boys but it will come - if that's not until 2050 than i hope the industry can survive until then - i'm sure the other major sports (and the up-and-comers) will be all too happy to pick up the disgruntled baseball fans

i and no one here on bbf is going to shun the sport - but we represent a very small portion of the potential market

[digglahhh]

A COMPLETE lack of competitive balance only exists between the extreme highs and lows of payroll. I believe that almost 2/3 of the league is within $30M, between 50 and 80 mil, not positive though, and the numbers always change.

The problem isn't the lack of competitive balance or lack of "parity" per se, its the fact that it is always the same teams with the most and least resources. Football's parity is overrated, and honestly I don't care how many teams finish between 7-9 and 9-7 to feign competitiveness because every year there are less than a handful of teams with a legit shot at winning it all, and that exists in all sports. In basketball, they let 16 teams in the playoffs, and never are there more than 4 with a legit shot at going home with the rings. So, in my mind competitiveness among the mid tier teams is overrated. However it would be nice to see different teams cycle through the rebuilding phases, it would lead to more well rounded management too.

I'm rambling a bit, but one thing I would like to note is that the Twins who are everbody's small market darling because they made the playoffs were #2 in payroll within their division in '02,'03,'04 when the made the playoffs.


Taken from the article linked at the bottom, this chart shows the relative payrolls of teams in relation to their finish within their division.

1990-1996 Teams NPayroll NP-MAX NP-MIN
1 34 1.13 1.59 0.58
2 35 1.05 1.59 0.48
3 34 0.96 1.38 0.62
4 33 0.97 1.58 0.45
5 28 0.91 1.49 0.30
6 16 0.88 1.45 0.32
7 10 1.03 1.41 0.74

1997-2001
1 30 1.26 1.74 0.56
2 30 1.04 1.68 0.27
3 30 1.00 1.67 0.36
4 30 0.88 1.70 0.25
5 24 0.79 1.24 0.30
6 4 0.89 1.25 0.35

2002-2005
1 24 1.32 2.86 0.59
2 24 1.09 1.84 0.57
3 25 0.92 1.41 0.50
4 23 0.94 1.56 0.43
5 20 0.76 1.65 0.28
6 4 0.56 0.75 0.40

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/competitive-balance-and-the-cba/

[digglahhh]

Revenue sharing and the aphorism of owners having to put the money back into the team is not that simple.

Spending big dollars to turn a 65 win team into a 74 win pays very small returns at the bottom line.

In fact encourging medium and small market teams to spend their revenue sharing money on pverpriced mid level free agents is extremely inefficient in terms of dollar spent per win and overall revenue increase as a result of increased "comepetitivenss" The value of a player is related as much to team performance as it is to the team's market. Teams may be better off investing that money in the farm system and stockpiling it for a real worthwhile addition if they become improve substantially through homegrown talent and want to add a free agent then. Also, having the money to pay homegrown guys when they turn into stars is important too. The Expos were basically a communal quadruple A franchise for the rest of the ML for ten years.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/measuring-the-dollar-value-of-a-player-part-3/

This is the final part of a three part series that explores these issues and the whole series is worthwhile reading. At some point in one of the articles, the author makes the same contention that I just did here.

If you are put off by use of Win Shares or whatever, fret not. Overall, I shun that stuff too, but their use doesn't undermine the spirit of this analysis because the underlying premise is solid and the Win Shares just allow him to quantify unknown quantities for the sake of the argument. Whether Vladimir Guerrero is worth 7, 9 or 11 wins is not really the point here, so don't get caught up in that aspect of the articles.

[Brian McKenna]

i might be wrong but it just seems to me that much of marketing, pr and word-of-mouth depends on perception - as i understand it the nfl has a hard cap and almost all the teams spend $ for talent at very much the same level - hence the perception is that teams are potentially equal - thus a generic team has a shot every year - i don't think that is the case in baseball - if that's okay than its okay - but basketball and football didn't become as big as they are following baseball's financial management model - perhaps there is a lesson there

[trosmok]

....
Spending big dollars to turn a 65 win team into a 74 win pays very small returns at the bottom line...
In fact encourging medium and small market teams to spend their revenue sharing money on pverpriced mid level free agents is extremely inefficient in terms of dollar spent per win...

Exactly, and even big market teams that blow outrageous bucks on free agents and still don't make the post-season is well documented. My Cubs have one of the highest payrolls in MLB, and nary a WS appearance to show for it. The Phillies and your Mets are poster children for high-priced signings that bust. The Blue Jays have shopped and spent more than any team outside of the Bronx and Boston over this last off-season, and I sure hope they get some return on their huge investment. I also like the point you make about developing talent being only part of the game; the ability to keep what you've grown is a whole different kettle of corn.

[Brian McKenna]

these are all factors in producing a winning team - they are not mutually exclusive but they aren't wholly dependent on each other either

1) developing a farm system
2) keeping your players
3) purchasing talent
4) execution on the field
5) effective mgmt decisions

the fact is this is sports - every action has a reaction - you can have the worst front office in the world and still win and vice versa depending on execution - but it sure does help to have the $ to position yourself with the best team possible come opening day and to be able to make adjustments come august

[Cubsfan97]

I've said it before and will say it again, there is no need for a slaray cap. If the Brewers or Royals want to compete there is nothing stopping them form opening up their wallets. If the YAnkees want to have 200 million dollar payroll, the more power to them. I actually like the Yankees high payroll. Every winter Im just seeing how high it can go. I look at like the game limbo, except opposite. I love watching it rise.

[Brian McKenna]

. I love watching it rise.

so do the players

[digglahhh]

The biggest advantage money gives you is the luxury of not being crippled by one or more expensive busts. Smaller market teams just have a smaller margin for error. Many of the wealthy teams can absorb bad signings to varying degrees and are able to buck up again next offseason, or immediately to replace the bust. Making $6 million in New York is not enough, in and of itself, to justify the manager sending you out there everyday.

The Yankees are really the only team that is willing to flat out eat big contracts, giving a check and your walking papers.

If you look at the Yankees in terms of their contributing members last season, the payroll of THOSE guys was not $200M. Big checks were going to Wright, Pavano, Bernie, Kevin Brown, Steve Karsay as well as portions of contracts of players on other teams being paid by the Yankees.

The Yanks got substantial contributions from guys like Aaron Small, Wang, Sturtze, etc. and these guys were making peanuts.

While the financial disparities are alarming, it is prudent to keep in mind that the payroll does not play the games, and the price of the on-field Yankees is not $200 M and the actual value of those players is often substantially less.

In a society where teenage girls working at McDonalds spend two weeks salary on Gucci bags it is often forgotten that price does not dictate quality, and even rarer still does it dictate efficiency.

[Tigerfan1974]

Do you think baseball needs a salary cap? If you answer, please give your reasons why or why not.

Thanks!

The MLBPA will never let it happen.

[Mattingly]

The MLBPA will never let it happen.
Neither would $cott Bora$.

[The Big C]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/060124

That sums up a lot of how I feel, and states it better than I ever could.

Baseball has no parity. Saying that $250+ million and $30-ish million would ever be parity is a joke. What's your plan on making the Royals a championhip caliber team within these next 3 years? It's only been the way that one team in the NFL (New England Patriots) have won 3 Super Bowls in a 4-year span. Dynasties can always be made, and it's nothing new with the NFL. It doesn't hurt the quality of the NFL teams if one team happens to have a Super Bowl dynasty on their hands. To get back on topic with MLB, the Yankees are dubbed "the team of the 20th century", and that organization is dubbed that for a reason. Advantage in money, $. So I guess that one team winning 26 World Series championships in one century is parity compared to one NFL team having at most, 5 Super Bowl titles in 40 years? Also, World Series have been recorded longer than Super Bowls, so take that into consideration.

Let me list the teams that have never been competitive, and don't give me the excuse that they should be contracted:

Tampa Bay (always)
Colorado (except for the 1995 season)
Montreal of the mid '90s to 2004
St. Louis Browns (exceptions obviously)
Texas off and on

Teams that are always in the hunt for a ring:
Yankees
Red Sox
(this speaks for itself)

I'm in favor of a salary cap and floor, because if you keep going like this, chances are you'll see a billion dollar payroll for one of the two New England teams, and that won't be fun. It's something called a monopoly, and it's something that the salary cap keeps checking on, so that there are no monopolies.

I agree with you, though, it's like beating a dead horse. I'm not going to get into this thread alot.

Football is very prone to dynasties, being that there is atleast one in almost every decade. Dynasties in baseball are off and on, not running consecutively for many years.

You listed baseball teams that have never been competitive (among them the St. Louis Browns. What the hell?) There are several teams in the NFL that are not competitive now, and haven't been for awhile. Also, teams like Tampa Bay were not competitive for a long time, but are now. I think the salary cap almost contributes to tearing down teams now. The Titans were decent last year considering how long Steve McNair was out, and they were only a few years removed from that super bowl appearance against the Rams.

The cap forced them to get rid of many of their better and higher paid players. People hate the Marlins for their firesale, but this is somewhat more common in the NFL entirely because of the salary cap.

In the NBA, the salary cap doesn't really stop teams from blowing their money (Knick9, you should know all about this). Stephon Marbury and Allan Houston are paid more by the Knicks than all of the Detroit Pistons starting 5 combined. I don't know why you would think the salary cap prevents this.

I just think the salary cap is a bad idea in general. It also leads to more labor disputes, which is definitely something we want to avoid.

[Mattingly]

Since the NFL currently has a salary cap, I heard yesterday on TV that if the current contract expires, they may not even have the $94.5m cap in the future.

If MLB had a salary cap, then would teams be forced to terminate contracts? How much would that cap be?

http://images.chron.com/photos/2006/02/03/1241563/311xInlineGallery.jpg
NFL Players Association Executive Director Gene Upshaw
talks with reporters in Detroit in a Friday, Feb. 3, 2006
photo. NFL labor talks broke off Tuesday three days
before the start of free agency, leaving teams and
players in a quandary about negotiating new contracts.
Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players
Association, spent the last three days meeting in
New York and Washington with commissioner

NFL Owners Will Try to Find Labor Peace (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/football/3694796.html)
NEW YORK — NFL owners will try Thursday to find labor peace before the start of free agency, hoping to avoid the mass dumping of veterans for salary-cap reasons.

The owners will meet in New York, looking to reach an agreement with the players' union that could add $10 million to $15 million to a 2006 salary cap that currently is $94.5 million. Without it, some teams could be forced into wholesale cuts to get beneath the cap by midnight. Free agency starts Friday. The NFL extended the deadline for teams to terminate contracts and request waivers on players six hours, from 4 p.m. Thursday to 10 p.m.

[efin98]

Since the NFL currently has a salary cap, I heard yesterday on TV that if the current contract expires, they may not even have the $94.5m cap in the future.

It's a guarentee, but not until next year. The cap is active for this year.

If MLB had a salary cap, then would teams be forced to terminate contracts? How much would that cap be?

There won't be any terminations, more likely a situation similiar to the NHL's sallary cap situation from this past summer, what the NBA did after their last labor agreement, and what the NFL does each year:

Yearly: Mandatory buyout clauses in every future contract. Teams releasing highly paid older players at a deadline with no penalty to the teams, just whatever amount is agreed upon in their contracts. Also payrolls will be percentage based so no player can have more than a certain percentage of the salary cap for the year. Players can only resign for a certain percentage above their former salary with one the solo exception being second year full year players. Players are also allowed to have signing bonuses of which only a certain percentage is counted alongside the player's base salary against the cap.

One time only: Mandatory contract renegotiation to include a buyout clause. Institution of a one day only buyout deadline for teams to jettison players to get themselves under the sallary cap. A few "amnesty" days where teams are allowed to write-off the contracts to old or injured veterans at no penalty to the salary cap. The teams are limited to only a certain amount of money and or a certain number of players so no team can release an entire team in order to "start fresh".


As for the salary cap number? I'd guess it would be about $90 million at the start and raising to $125 million a year after 10 years. No team can exceed that amount for players regardless of how rich they are.

That's about $3.6 million or so per player for a 25 man roster. That's better than the NFL($1.7 million per player, 55 man roster) and NHL($1.58 Million per player, 24 player roster)

[Tigerfan1974]

Neither would $cott Bora$.
Good One! ROFLMAO!!:laugh

[Erik Bedard]

If the Brewers or Royals want to compete there is nothing stopping them form opening up their wallets.

You're joking, right? There is something. It's called LACK OF REVENUE. They don't MAKE enough money to spend on players, so they have little hope. George Steinbrenner has all the money from broadcasts coming back to him, or, in French, l'argent as revenu. Recognize the word?

[Ubiquitous]

I'll say the same thing I said before. Forget salary caps and focus on real revenue sharing. With real revenue sharing salary caps become unnecessary.

[Ubiquitous]

You're joking, right? There is something. It's called LACK OF REVENUE. They don't MAKE enough money to spend on players, so they have little hope. George Steinbrenner has all the money from broadcasts coming back to him, or, in French, l'argent as revenu. Recognize the word?

How much money does one need to spend on players?

There are 8 playoff spots and the Yankees are not in direct competition for 6 of those spots. The Royals only have to be better then the Indians, Twins, Tigers, and Sox, not the Yankees.

On top of that the way the pay structure of players is set up one does not need to pay players 20 million dollars to get 20 million dollars worth of performance.

One doesn't need to match the Yankees dollar for dollar to compete with them. The cleveland Indains with a payroll a 5th of the Yankees won 93 games last year to the Yankees 95 games.

[RationalNYYfan]

The Brewers GM brought up the question that just doesn't go away. Should MLB have a salary cap?

I'm busy right now, so I'll post my opinion later.

[spark240]

I say no.

Revenue and payroll imbalance among MLB organizations is a problem, but I believe the institution of a salary cap (like the current "revenue sharing" and "luxury tax" devices) misunderstands the root of the problem.

[Fuzzy Bear]

I clicked "yes" because I think the amount of money we spend on professional sports in America is obscene.

[foxxx]

I would be in favor of a salary cap if the revenue imbalance was affecting the parity of the game, however it is not.

One could argue that parity exists in the playoffs but not in the regular season where it seems that the same 12 or so teams win the 8 playoff spots every year but even this isn't true. The Tigers came out of nowhere two years ago and everyone knows the story of the Rays.

So really in the end all the gross imbalance of money in the league is doing forcing teams to get smarter and making things like the draft and minor leagues as interesting as free agency.

So I vote no on the salary cap, a resounding no.

Don't hire awesome free agents, hire awesome front office guys.

[Mongoose]

Just remove the government subsidies for ballparks and teams, and the entertainment deductions for season tickets and lots of the money that's paying these salaries will dry up.

Then no salary cap will be needed.

[Domenic]

Here is a post I made in another forum in regards to fixing the financial structure and competitive imbalance in the MLB:

Part I: The Draft
Internationalize the draft. Allow all teams a crack at the top-notch international talent, as opposed to the teams with the greatest reaches and deepest pockets.
Create a slotting system for signing bonuses for draft picks - the higher a player is drafted, the greater the signing bonus he is eligible for. This will help curb the signability/Boras element that has plagued recent drafts.
Utilize funds from revenue sharing to create a draft pool for signing first-round draft picks. This will allow a lower-rung team to draft the best available player, as opposed to the most signable player.


Part II: The Re-distribution of Wealth
Provide each team with a fair portion of the market share of games played. When the Royals play the Yankees, for example, they are eligible for a portion of the televised broadcast that is equal to their share of the viewing audience.


Part III: Competitive Balance
Reduce the unbalanced schedule. This will allow a strong team like the Blue Jays to be more competitive in the AL East, while reducing the likelihood that a team like the Angels will run away with the league due, in large part, to their position in the AL West.

These three steps, taken independently of the remaining three, would do a great deal in increasing the level of competition in the MLB.

Part IV: The Salary Floor
Raise the salary floor to be equal to the average annual salary of a major leaguer (less the top 1% to 5% of contracts) multiplied by twenty-five. This will save smaller market some money, as it will lower the average annual salary without the likes of Rodriguez, Teixeira, Sabathia, Jeter, et al. At the same time, it will provide owners with a prod towards investing money in their team.
The salary floor would begin at $30 million, and raise $10 million per season until it reaches the decided minimum. This will not force teams to make haphazard signings. Rather, it will allow teams to manage backloaded contracts, arbitration raises, and the like. Most teams, in maintaining the previous years roster, will have upwards of $5 million in arbitration and contractual raises alone.

Part V: The Salary Cap
The salary cap will be set at two times the average annual salary of a major leaguer multiplied by twenty-five.
The salary cap will begin at $220 million, and be lowered by $10 million until it reaches the decided level.
In order to prevent teams above the threshold from having to jettison talent, a luxury tax will be imposed on teams until they reach below the salary cap.
Contracts given before the imposition of the salary cap will not count against the cap as it is reduced, nor once it is reached.

Part VI: Penalties
Teams will be docked draft picks for remaining below the floor and cap, once the final floor and cap are reached, respectively.
Teams below the salary floor will be docked a draft pick, then draft picks, then revenue sharing funds the further below the floor they fall. No team may fall more than 20% below the salary floor.
Teams above the salary floor will be docked a draft pick, then draft picks, and be subject to an increasing luxury tax. No team may rise more than 20% above the salary cap.

[108stitches]

Just remove the government subsidies for ballparks and teams, and the entertainment deductions for season tickets and lots of the money that's paying these salaries will dry up.

Then no salary cap will be needed.

Remove all subsidies and teams will start to dissapear. If they dissapear, then jobs are lost and if that happens then fans dissapear as well. There has to be another solution. The salary cap as we understand it is not viable in baseball. It restricts free agent movement and then everything that the players have fought for over the years will start to crumble. This tax system is obviously not deterring teams like the Yankees from trying to monopolize all of the premier free agent talent. How can Oakland or Kansas City compete at all for free agents with all of this money that is being thrown around? Could we possibly see a maximun amount of years that a player can be signed for? Perhaps 3 year contract maximums are required. It would eliminate some of this guaranteed money, puting performance back into the equation. I am not saying that all players are equal. However, even the lowest paid of ball players makes more in one year that what I can make in 10. Even if I am the best elementary school caretaker there has ever been, I cannot justify being paid half a million dollars just to sweep and mop floors. Mind you, if there is some idiot out there that wants to pay me that...PM me (please).

[Dogdaze]

Here is a post I made in another forum in regards to fixing the financial structure and competitive imbalance in the MLB:

Part I: The Draft
Internationalize the draft. Allow all teams a crack at the top-notch international talent, as opposed to the teams with the greatest reaches and deepest pockets.
Create a slotting system for signing bonuses for draft picks - the higher a player is drafted, the greater the signing bonus he is eligible for. This will help curb the signability/Boras element that has plagued recent drafts.
Utilize funds from revenue sharing to create a draft pool for signing first-round draft picks. This will allow a lower-rung team to draft the best available player, as opposed to the most signable player.


Part II: The Re-distribution of Wealth
Provide each team with a fair portion of the market share of games played. When the Royals play the Yankees, for example, they are eligible for a portion of the televised broadcast that is equal to their share of the viewing audience.


Part III: Competitive Balance
Reduce the unbalanced schedule. This will allow a strong team like the Blue Jays to be more competitive in the AL East, while reducing the likelihood that a team like the Angels will run away with the league due, in large part, to their position in the AL West.

These three steps, taken independently of the remaining three, would do a great deal in increasing the level of competition in the MLB.

Part IV: The Salary Floor
Raise the salary floor to be equal to the average annual salary of a major leaguer (less the top 1% to 5% of contracts) multiplied by twenty-five. This will save smaller market some money, as it will lower the average annual salary without the likes of Rodriguez, Teixeira, Sabathia, Jeter, et al. At the same time, it will provide owners with a prod towards investing money in their team.
The salary floor would begin at $30 million, and raise $10 million per season until it reaches the decided minimum. This will not force teams to make haphazard signings. Rather, it will allow teams to manage backloaded contracts, arbitration raises, and the like. Most teams, in maintaining the previous years roster, will have upwards of $5 million in arbitration and contractual raises alone.

Part V: The Salary Cap
The salary cap will be set at two times the average annual salary of a major leaguer multiplied by twenty-five.
The salary cap will begin at $220 million, and be lowered by $10 million until it reaches the decided level.
In order to prevent teams above the threshold from having to jettison talent, a luxury tax will be imposed on teams until they reach below the salary cap.
Contracts given before the imposition of the salary cap will not count against the cap as it is reduced, nor once it is reached.

Part VI: Penalties
Teams will be docked draft picks for remaining below the floor and cap, once the final floor and cap are reached, respectively.
Teams below the salary floor will be docked a draft pick, then draft picks, then revenue sharing funds the further below the floor they fall. No team may fall more than 20% below the salary floor.
Teams above the salary floor will be docked a draft pick, then draft picks, and be subject to an increasing luxury tax. No team may rise more than 20% above the salary cap.

You have some good ideas Domenic.

I'm a Red Sox fan, as we all know the Sox are one of the higher spending teams, they had the 4th highest payroll in 2008. But I don't always agree on their spending. But even though a salary cap might effect the Red Sox in spending I'm still in favor of a cap. Fuzzy Bear said "the amount of money we spend on professional sports in America is obscene." I agree.

[SamtheBravesFan]

If the amount of money that the people of the United States put into professional sports is obscene, then there is only one way to fix these exorbatant salaries: we need to stop buying merchandise and stop going to games. All of us. That puts a cut into all the owners' coffers; they can't afford to pay the hefty asking prices of free agents and salaries will then go down.

However, that is not going to happen. As long as there is Major League Baseball, people will just throw all kinds of money at it. I naturally include myself in that regard.

It is my belief that a player payroll cap (that's really what it is) cannot totally solve the problem because all that means is that it will create a ceiling that teams will have to work with (or even around). This will not curtail money demand for the players, however. As long as players and agents think they can get $10-$20 million a year for their services, then they can try to find a team that will give it to them. Their demands will naturally lower when they can't find a buyer (i. e., Kyle Loshe).

The only way I can see demands lowering that much is if several "buyer" teams hit the cap and can't naturally afford to sign any new players.

[Mattingly]

If there's a cap, is there also a floor? If the cap is $180m, is the floor 30-40% of this?

I doubt that the Players' Assn will agree to this, since the top players won't be able to get such large, long-term deals. I'm also quite sure that $cott Bora$ would blow a gasket or two.

Do these threads ever occur when the Yanks don't make big deals?

[Mild Sauce]

If it's instituted correctly then I'm all for it. It would have to be something pretty complicated though, especially with how baseball works.

[RationalNYYfan]

I voted No also. The Yankees should be able to buy as much as they want, at the cost of the luxury tax.

The Brewers GM said that nobody can compete with the Yankees. What is he talking about? Wait till the Yankees actually play a game first to see if you can or cant compete with them. Sure, the Yankees are tough to compete with financially, but that doesn't mean that a salary cap is necessary. A salary cap is necessary if the Yankees spending leads to championchip after championship every year. But as far as we can tell, the Yankees have spent crazy amount of money since 2001 and haven't won a single world series from it. So why should the Yankees stop spending money? It helps teams like the Brewers by giving them more money.

[SamtheBravesFan]

Rational,

I think what the Brewers owner means (he's the owner, not the GM), is that few other teams can compete with the Yankees for highly-priced free agents. In that sense, he's right. At the same time, that sounds as if he wants a player salary cap, not a payroll cap.

[spark240]

Remove all subsidies and teams will start to dissapear.

Professional baseball existed and did pretty well before any of the modern subsidies were invented. It could do so again.

[spark240]

I would be in favor of a salary cap if the revenue imbalance was affecting the parity of the game, however it is not.

Suppose we had a system in which certain rules were different for some teams. Suppose for example that all teams east of the Mississippi were allowed to carry 25-man rosters, but those west were allowed only 20. (We could make up any number of other examples.) This would be clearly unfair, and no matter how many times the Dodgers or Angels go to the Series despite their handicap, it will never be any less unfair, or any less relevant. No one can possibly make an argument that having your roster arbitrarily limited while your opponent's is not, is not a disadvantage. It is a disadvantage. If you manage to win with such a handicap, it makes a good story, but it doesn't make it right.

By the same token, the (sometime) success of financially-handicapped teams has nothing to do with the fairness of the system or the relevance of the debate.

As noted earlier, however, I don't think a salary cap is the right solution.

[baseball junkie]

Really, somewhere Milton Friedman is rolling over in his grave!

free market = no salary cap

[philipthegreat]

If you institute a salary getting cap teams will find ways of getting around them, like lengthening the already ridiculously long contracts.

"Hey Mark Texiera how woukd you like a 15 year contract"

[Indianapolis Indians]

Hasn't one of the haggling points of the last few strikes been the owners wanted a cap and the players union didn't? I don't see any way in the world the players union would ever go for this and the players union is incredibly strong.

[White Knight]

No way, I'm a Yankee fan and times are good this Winter. Just like in politics, we vote in our own interests.

[All-StarLF1713]

i voted yes. i voted that bc i think the YANKEES need a salary cap. them and fast food seem to be the only things not negatively effected by the economy. getting the top three free agents this year and having over 1 BILLION DOLLARS committed this year alone, they need to have a limit. other teams seem to. like the phillies for instance. they couldve persued cc hard. but they dont have that kind of cash. call it a cap, call it a budget, but i believe some teams shouldnt have as much money as others. but the rich teams e.g. yankees, red sox should have a certain amount of money that they're allowed to spend.

[baseball junkie]

There is no socialism in baseball!

It is a pure meritocracy, i.e. 2003 Florida Marlins; 2008 Tampa Bay Rays.

Seattle had spent over $100,000,000 in 2008 and all it got them was 100 loses.

Money does not equal success, although it certainly helps.

Not to go off on a Dennis Milleresque rant here, but instead of people being offended by the Steinbrenner's spending $424,000,000 this off season, why isn't anyone offended by the owners that use their MLB franchises as merely a place to invest money and watch it appreciate in value -- regardless of how the teams plays?

At least George, Hank & Hal are trying to win. Why isn't anyone annoyed at the multi-billionaire owners of the Twins, the Royals, the Nationals, the Orioles and many more franchises -- which are nothing more than tax-payer funded (stadiums), TV and revenue sharing (socialism), long-term investments for the Über-rich?

[MyDogSparty]

I'm not in favor of a salary cap or luxury taxes at this time. I'd rather see a third team move into the NY market or a new team in NY.

[Imgran]

Suppose we had a system in which certain rules were different for some teams. Suppose for example that all teams east of the Mississippi were allowed to carry 25-man rosters, but those west were allowed only 20. (We could make up any number of other examples.)

Suppose some teams were allowed to replace their pitcher in the lineup with another player.

This would be clearly unfair,

Uh-huh.

By the same token, the (sometime) success of financially-handicapped teams has nothing to do with the fairness of the system or the relevance of the debate.

As noted earlier, however, I don't think a salary cap is the right solution.

It's not the job of baseball to make sure that each team has an equal chance to win in any given year. That's little more than an attempt to take the responsibility for bad decisions out of the General Managers' hands.

If there's a situation where abuse of the system is clearly happening then something has to be done. It's getting close to that point with the Yankees. But let's not pretend that a perfectly level playing field is the goal or is even really attainable.

If there's a franchise thjat can't field a competitive team at all then it's time to move, strip the franchise from its owner or retract the team.

[Hysteria]

There is no socialism in baseball!

It is a pure meritocracy, i.e. 2003 Florida Marlins; 2008 Tampa Bay Rays.

Seattle had spent over $100,000,000 in 2008 and all it got them was 100 loses.

Money does not equal success, although it certainly helps.

Not to go off on a Dennis Milleresque rant here, but instead of people being offended by the Steinbrenner's spending $424,000,000 this off season, why isn't anyone offended by the owners that use their MLB franchises as merely a place to invest money and watch it appreciate in value -- regardless of how the teams plays?

At least George, Hank & Hal are trying to win. Why isn't anyone annoyed at the multi-billionaire owners of the Twins, the Royals, the Nationals, the Orioles and many more franchises -- which are nothing more than tax-payer funded (stadiums), TV and revenue sharing (socialism), long-term investments for the Über-rich?

I agree and thats why i voted no. You have all these teams that have rich owners and they dont put money back into the teams its their fault.

[NewEnglandAmazins]

The free agency and salary cap system seems to be working pretty well for the NFL, why wouldn't it work for MLB?

[MyDogSparty]

The free agency and salary cap system seems to be working pretty well for the NFL, why wouldn't it work for MLB?

You must not be a Lion's fan. :laugh

[SamtheBravesFan]

You must not be a Lion's fan. :laugh

The thing is: the Lions have been badly run since the 1960s. The closest baseball equivalent I can think of to describe that period is the Texas Rangers.

[leecemark]

--Having a huge payroll does not guarentee success, not does a small one doom you to the cellar. It is certainly easier to win when you are outspending the competition by 2 or 3 or 5 or 10 to one though.
--I don't know that baseball has to have a hard cap, but I do think that some steps to encourage a level playing field are appropriate. All game srequire two teams and half of all revenues should go into a general fund. A percentage of revenues should be pegged for player salaries. Teams spending say 20% over or under that figure would forfiet some of their share of the geneal fund - which would otherwise be shared equally. That would be a disincentive for teams to spend very much over the designated amount, although they could. It would also prevent owners from pocketing the shared revenues. If they didn't spend it on their team it would instead be redivided amoung teams who are trying to put a competitive team ont he field.

[spark240]

Suppose some teams were allowed to replace their pitcher in the lineup with another player.

Haha, yes. I suspected someone would mention that as an example of "different rules." I'm not really a fan of the DH rule, but that's an entirely different and much less important issue to me.

The difference, of course, is that in any given game, both teams will be playing under the same rules. Revenue inequity provides a permanent advantage for some teams.

It's not the job of baseball to make sure that each team has an equal chance to win in any given year. That's little more than an attempt to take the responsibility for bad decisions out of the General Managers' hands.

Oh, I agree. Badly-run teams will and should fail, no matter how much money they have. I have never said otherwise. And even decently-run teams will sometimes have a run of bad luck and also fail; nothing wrong with that.

It is the league's responsibility (and in the sporting interest) to give every organization a fair shot over the course of years.

The free agency and salary cap system seems to be working pretty well for the NFL, why wouldn't it work for MLB?

One, I think it's nonsensical when NFL teams sometimes have to cut players for no reason except to maintain salary cap compliance. Some might think that's the whole point, but I think it's unnecessary (and unfair to smart NFL GMs) because of...

Two, the NFL also has a vastly more equitable approach to ownership of broadcast rights and revenue than does MLB.

And three, the MLBPA will fight a salary cap to their last breath, because among its other effects, it will increase the total profits of team owners at the expense of top-tier players.

[leecemark]

--It might suppress salaries for the very top players a little since there would be a finite amount of money available to a team - or heavy financial penalties if they spend more. If part of the deal was that an agreed upon portion of revenues be committed to player salaries though then the overall dollars would not go down. For many player it would increase their salary options. That would be the way to sell it to the union. It might not be the way to sell it to the owners though;).

[Honus Wagner Rules]

The free agency and salary cap system seems to be working pretty well for the NFL, why wouldn't it work for MLB?

I don't know about that. How often do you see good players released from NFL teams for "salary cap reasons"?

[NYMets523]

The free agency and salary cap system seems to be working pretty well for the NFL, why wouldn't it work for MLB?

It works in the NFL because they have non-guaranteed contracts. They can cut a player and not have to pay a dime of the contract.

[westsidegrounds]

Sure, limit the amount of money a player is allowed to make.


And of course, we're going to limit the amount of profit an owner is allowed to make too, right? (Say, any revenue above $XXX goes to charity.)

Fair is fair, hmmm?

[Dodgeboy]

A salary cap is not a solution to small-market teams; just look at the NHL. A cap generally comes along with a salary floor (the players demand it), and the floor can rise to levels that some teams might not be able to afford at all. After all, could KC or Pittsburgh afford a minimum $75 million payroll?

There's always the obscene contract angle, but the BIG contracts don't go away - the mid-level players get squeezed out between the top guys and the low-cost rookies.

A much better solution would be an NFL-style sharing of broadcasting revenues. After all, it takes TWO teams to play the game.

[gwynnfan]

read this link...http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/article/120225

If you were to buy the Cubs and invest 600 mil. do you really think you should share equally with teams that cost 300mil?

If you opened up a wigget company that cost you 200k and there was other wigget factories you competed against worth 100k. You would hire the best people even if it cost you more money to make sure you kept on selling more wiggets to make sure your investment held its value and you made money.

What would you say to the owner of the other wigget companies if they came over to you and said "You can't hire all the best people and give them more money than I pay".
Don't forget it is because of his company that there are more fans for wiggets. More people buying his wiggets. And of course his company is now solid and almost in no fear of ever losing money.

[Paulypal]

I clicked on NO. I believe spend what you have......but......

I would be in favor of a cap if it was 150 million, or somewhere thereabouts. This would only effect one team anyway. More than a cap I think MLB needs a "floor".

Lets say a cap of 150 and a floor of 50 million. There are currently 4 teams under 50 million. If those 4 teams cant afford it then its time to contract. Yes I know one of those teams was just in the World Series, but if you say that, and thats your argument against a "floor" then you eliminate the need for a cap also......Cant have it both ways.

2008 Team Payrolls
No. Team Payroll Average
1. New York Yankees $209,081,579 $6,744,567
2. Detroit Tigers $138,685,197 $4,622,840
3. New York Mets $138,293,378 $4,609,779
4. Boston Red Sox $133,440,037 $4,765,716
5. Chicago White Sox $121,152,667 $4,487,136
6. Los Angeles Angels $119,216,333 $4,110,908
7. Chicago Cubs $118,595,833 $4,392,438
8. Los Angeles Dodgers $118,536,038 $4,233,430
9. Seattle Mariners $117,993,982 $4,538,230
10. Atlanta Braves $102,424,018 $3,414,134
11. St. Louis Cardinals $100,624,450 $3,049,226
12. Toronto Blue Jays $98,641,957 $3,522,927
13. Philadelphia Phillies $98,269,881 $3,388,617
14. Houston Astros $88,930,415 $3,293,719
15. Milwaukee Brewers $81,004,167 $2,793,247
16. Cleveland Indians $78,970,067 $3,037,310
17. San Francisco Giants $76,904,500 $2,651,879
18. Cincinnati Reds $74,277,695 $2,971,108
19. San Diego Padres $73,677,617 $2,376,697
20. Colorado Rockies $68,655,500 $2,640,596
21. Texas Rangers $68,239,551 $2,353,088
22. Baltimore Orioles $67,196,248 $2,099,883
23. Arizona Diamondbacks $66,202,713 $2,364,383
24. Minnesota Twins $62,182,767 $2,487,311
25. Kansas City Royals $58,245,500 $2,240,212
26. Washington Nationals $54,961,000 $1,895,207
27. Pittsburgh Pirates $49,365,283 $1,898,665
28. Oakland Athletics $47,967,126 $1,713,112
29. Tampa Bay Rays $43,820,598 $1,460,687
30. Florida Marlins $21,836,500 $661,712

[gman5431]

Yes. We need a competitive balance. It has worked wonders in the NFL and it would help give us a true champion that is earned on the field and not in the bank account.

G Rizzle

[Ubiquitous]

It works in the NFL because they have non-guaranteed contracts. They can cut a player and not have to pay a dime of the contract.

That isn't true. The signing bonuses are guaranteed which is why they are so high.

Like drug testing the salary cap in the NFL is a bit of a con game.

It is odd that people keep saying that the salary cap in the NFL works when the MLB and NFL over the last 10 years have had same amount of teams going to the championship and the same amount of teams winning it all. There have been 15 different baseball teams playing in the world series and 8 different winners. There have been 15 different NFL teams playing in the Super Bowl with 8 different winners.

It isn't the salary cap that makes NFL "competitive", if it even is, it is the revenue sharing that makes them competitive. When you share TV contracts equally that pay the NFL billions of dollars then any team is going to be able to sign any player they want. The salary cap isn't there to help competition it is there so that the owners can insure themselves a profit.

[gman5431]

That isn't true. The signing bonuses are guaranteed which is why they are so high.

Like drug testing the salary cap in the NFL is a bit of a con game.

It is odd that people keep saying that the salary cap in the NFL works when the MLB and NFL over the last 10 years have had same amount of teams going to the championship and the same amount of teams winning it all. There have been 15 different baseball teams playing in the world series and 8 different winners. There have been 15 different NFL teams playing in the Super Bowl with 8 different winners.

It isn't the salary cap that makes NFL "competitive", if it even is, it is the revenue sharing that makes them competitive. When you share TV contracts equally that pay the NFL billions of dollars then any team is going to be able to sign any player they want. The salary cap isn't there to help competition it is there so that the owners can insure themselves a profit.

The NFL is definately more competive. Teams can go from worst to first much more easily then in MLB. Never hear of a 3-5 year plan in the NFL. You can have one draft and turn it around, look at MIA, Bmore, and ATL this year. I'm not saying that MLB needs only a salary cap, there should be shared revenues and all that. Mock what the NFL has done because it works so well. This would make many fans happy like me because genuine intellect in drafting and shrewd trades would be so important instead of buying players. Buying players doesnt insure you of winner but it sure helps and it keeps these players off other teams rosters if nothing less. The fairness in baseball doesnt exist and that is why moves need to be made.

G Rizzle

[Honus Wagner Rules]

The NFL is definately more competive. Teams can go from worst to first much more easily then in MLB. Never hear of a 3-5 year plan in the NFL. You can have one draft and turn it around, look at MIA, Bmore, and ATL this year. I'm not saying that MLB needs only a salary cap, there should be shared revenues and all that. Mock what the NFL has done because it works so well. This would make many fans happy like me because genuine intellect in drafting and shrewd trades would be so important instead of buying players. Buying players doesnt insure you of winner but it sure helps and it keeps these players off other teams rosters if nothing less. The fairness in baseball doesnt exist and that is why moves need to be made.

G Rizzle

Oh let's see the D-Rays, D-backs, Twins and several other teams turned it around quickly in recent years.

[Ubiquitous]

That has nothing to do with the cap. If anything the cap hinders the turnaround since it is harder to acquire proven good talent in the NFL.

A good draft is not a plus for a salary cap. A good draft existed before the salary cap in the NFL.

Secondly it is much easier to go worst to first in the NFL when they have an unbalanced schedule and only play 16 games. A last place team gets an easier schedule and really only has to win 10 or 11 games to get to first. A team like the Devil Rays get an unbalanced schedule in that they have to play the Yankees, Red Sox, and Blue Jays a lot more times then pretty much everybody else and to win first place they have to win 96 or more games.

But if you want to talk about worst to first you have the Devil Rays this year along with the White Sox were second to last. The year before that you had the Cubs going to first from last place along with Arizona and Colorado.

The so called competitive edge of the NFL has been vastly overblown. The NFL has bad teams and bad teams that stay bad for a long time. Look at the Lions, Browns, and Bengals. They also have good teams that stay good for a long time. Look at the Cowboys, Broncos, Packers, and Patriots.

[White Knight]

Yes. We need a competitive balance. It has worked wonders in the NFL and it would help give us a true champion that is earned on the field and not in the bank account.

G Rizzle

It hasn't worked. My team the Jets need to spend 300 million and they can't. It's been 1969 since they won it all, we need free spending.

[spark240]

The NFL is definately more competive. Teams can go from worst to first much more easily then in MLB.

I'm not sure that's a recommendation. I don't think I want an MLB where worst-to-first is common, or easy.

I want baseball teams to have to plan ahead beyond the coming season, and weigh different kinds of long-term strategies, and develop their particular "way" over time. I want the teams that can't do this to fail. All this gives teams more personality, makes the league more interesting.

Frequency or ease of winning--what is often described as "competitiveness"--are not particularly important to me, and I think make for a poor argument for baseball revenue reform. The important principle and best argument is fairness. Over the long term, teams should win and lose because of the skill with which they have "played" their fairly-earned resources (and a little luck always helps). Not because they have been gifted with vastly greater resources for reasons external to their organization; nor because other teams have been arbitrarily restrained.

[gman5431]

All good posts......

I think what my bottom line point is: a salary cap would be good for baseball, so would a salary floor. The free spending of teams is already drawfing others and its only going to get worse. This is not right. There may be falacies in any system but when one team has multiple players who make more then entire other teams its just not right no matter how you slice it.

G Rizzle

[parlo]

Also, a last place team in the NFL gets a draft pick that can impact the team in the following year. In MLB, even a successful draft pick can take years to provide dividends.

[KHenry14]

It's somewhat of a moot point, as the Players Union would never, ever, agree to it. This in spite of the fact that IMO a cap would end up making the League healthier in the long run. And the average player's salary would go up because of it.

But no way Fehr go for it. Not today, tomorrow, or ever.

[Colorado Express]

No way! I like the system the way it is right now. If the Yankees want to spend millions of dollars and pay millions to the coffer, let them. For the small market teams, you need to find the right year to splurge and go for it all (just like the Brewers did). I think the problem is that the small market teams shoot for one year rather than trying to ride the wave for 2-3 years.

[parlo]

If there is going to be a cap, there would have to be a minimum payroll also.
Putting a cap at $125 million isn't going to do anything to improve franchises that have payrolls under $50-60 million.
The Royals problem isn't that the Yankees and Red Sox are spending mega bucks. The Royals problem is all the teams that are spending $80-100 million.
A cap alone will not solve that, just as the luxury tax hasn't led to increased spending by some of the teams.

[Ubiquitous]

There is no salary cap that is going to make any meaningful or positive contributions to the game.

For instance if we make the cap 125 million then only one team in the NL would have been effected last year and a salary floor would have basically onyl effected one team in the NL as well and that team finished with a winning record so why should they be forced to waste money?

Over in the AL virtually everybody was a big spender so why do they need a salary cap? So the Detroit Tigers can compete? Nope they spent 137 million. So the Blue Jays can compete? Nope they spent 97 million dollars. So the Mariners can compete? Nope they spent 117 million. So the Rays can compete? Well, they did go to the World Series so how much more help do they need? Half the AL teams basically spent 100 million or more to field a team. The other half had two teams with winning records, one at .500 and one of the teams went to the World Series. The worst team was a big spender while the have nots for the most part did well (except for Baltimore which had been a big spender for a long time).

So where is the problem? Where is the unfairness? Who can't compete becuase of the big spenders? Milwaukee? Tampa Bay? Minnesota?

[spark240]

Where is the unfairness? Who can't compete becuase of the big spenders? Milwaukee? Tampa Bay? Minnesota?

Fairness has nothing to do with whether certain teams can or can't compete. Badly-run teams will and should fail, even with piles of money. Very well-run teams sometimes can compete, even without as much.

Fairness is about fairness--about whether all teams are receiving the resources they have earned by their contribution to producing the product known as the Major League Baseball season. What they go on to do, or not, with those resources is an entirely separate matter.

Again, in my view, revenue reform in the name of fairness is called for, and would make the game better, but a salary cap is not that reform.

[d32123]

Salary cap? Heck no.
International draft? Yes please.
If they want to make it competitive, instead of limiting the rich teams, MLB should help out the poor teams. An international draft could start that.

[cardsfanatic]

There is no socialism in baseball!


/vomit

All of the garbage spewed about this late last year and now this post... I'm convinced most people need to learn what Socialism truly is. Nothing in this thread fits the bill, that's for sure.

[cardsfanatic]

The free agency and salary cap system seems to be working pretty well for the NFL, why wouldn't it work for MLB?

I went through this before when the yearly salary cap thread came up. If you look at true parity -- as in, different teams in the playoffs and champions since 2000 -- Baseball has more parity than any other sport.

[White Knight]

/vomit

All of the garbage spewed about this late last year and now this post... I'm convinced most people need to learn what Socialism truly is. Nothing in this thread fits the bill, that's for sure.

They will learn the hard way these next four years.

[Captain Cold Nose]

They will learn the hard way these next four years.

Easy now. Let's not get away from baseball.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

From Baseball Prospectus.


Let Freedom Ring
Busting the Myth of the Salary Cap

by Shawn Hoffman
January 9, 2009

Small-market teams love salary caps. Or rather, they think they do. At least on paper, caps stop teams in New York, Boston, and Chicago from oligopolizing the free-agent market, and should therefore help level the economic playing field. And, to a certain extent, they do; a small-market team in a capped league is more likely to acquire or retain top-tier talent. But there's a catch. That same small-market team will need to win, and keep winning, just to stay financially viable. And sometimes, winning might not even be enough.

Let's say, in some far-off universe, MLB owners and players actually did agree on a salary cap. With it would come the normal provisions: a salary floor at around 75-85 percent of the cap, and a guaranteed percentage of total industry revenues for the players. Since the players have been taking in about 45 percent of revenues the past few years, we'll keep it at that figure (the other three major sports leagues, which are all capped, each pay out over 50 percent).

Using 2008 as an example, the thirty teams took in about $6 billion (not including MLB Advanced Media revenue), for an average of $200 million per team. Forty-five percent of that (the players' share) is $90 million, which we'll use as the midpoint between our floor and cap. If we want to make the floor 75 percent of the cap (a low-end figure, relative to the other leagues), we can use $77 million and $103 million, respectively.

With a $103 million cap, nine teams would have been affected last year, and a total of about $286 million would have had to be skimmed off the top. Since total salaries have to remain at existing levels, the bottom twenty-one teams would have had to take on this burden, which had previously been placed on the Yankees, Red Sox, et al. On the other end, fourteen teams would have been under the payroll floor, by a total of $251 million. Even discounting the Marlins' $22 million payroll, the other thirteen teams would have had to spend an average of $15 million more just to meet the minimum. Some of those teams might be able to afford it; most wouldn't.

Imagine being Frank Coonelly in this situation. Coonelly, the Pirates' team president, has publicly supported a cap. Had our fictional cap/floor arrangement been instituted last year, the Pirates would have needed to increase their Opening Day payroll by $28 million. Not only would the team have taken a big loss, but Neal Huntington's long-term strategy would have been sabotaged, since the team would have had to sign a number of veterans just to meet the minimum payroll.

Now fast forward to 2009. Let's say the Pirates' sales staff runs into major headwinds, with the team struggling and the economy sinking. The team's top line takes a hit, falling $10 million from 2008. The Mets and Yankees, meanwhile, open their new ballparks, and each team increases its local revenue by $50 million. If the twenty-seven other teams are flat, total industry revenues rise by $90 million (not including any appreciation in national media revenue). Forty-five percent of that, of course, goes to the players. So even as the Pirates' purchasing power decreases, the payroll floor actually rises.

In other words, without a more egalitarian distribution of income, the system crumbles.

Until recently, the NFL has been uniquely fit for this type of model, since most of its revenues have come from national television contracts. But now, with local revenues rising, small-market teams are feeling the pinch. This past May, the owners unanimously voted to opt out of their CBA, which was supposed to run through 2012. Some blamed the players' share of revenues. Others, including Dan Rooney of the Steelers, cited the need for more local revenue sharing.

But sharing local revenue has a major drawback: it is a tax, which inevitably lowers incentives and decreases output. If the NFL shared all (or even most) local intake, why would an individual team ever look to maximize revenues at its own cost (i.e. by hiring a sales staff, or cleaning its own stadium)?

The NHL, which also has a hard cap, does very little revenue sharing, partly thanks to an overly convoluted system. On a league-wide level, the results have been very positive; the NHL has had record revenues every year since its lockout, and Gary Bettman has been very positive about this season as well. But the NHL is a great example of why caps and capitalism don't mix: as the league grows, it ends up leaving teams behind. Small-market clubs like the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Nashville Predators are forced to spend almost two-thirds of their revenue on player payroll. And the Phoenix Coyotes, after years of hemorrhaging money, are on the verge of going bankrupt.

So what's the best solution? Certainly not the NBA's soft-cap system, which has too many problems to even count—imagine having to take on Luis Castillo or Carl Pavano every time you wanted to unload a high-priced veteran.

So instead of these models, what if there was an uncapped league, with limited local revenue sharing to support small-market teams, and a post-season system that naturally created tremendous parity? Does this sound familiar? It should. It's what MLB has had in place for over a decade, leading to record growth in both attendance and revenue.

The expanded postseason is key. More than any other sport, MLB's playoff system acts as an equalizer. Fair or not, in broad strokes, a team that wins 83 games in a bad division has as much chance of winning the World Series as the Yankees or the Red Sox. Seemingly, no matter how much those teams spend over the winter, that competitive advantage is neutralized come October.

So while the capped leagues all struggle to find the right balance between capitalism and socialism, baseball continues to prosper operating within a much more free-market system. Teams in big markets and small markets alike are making money, and everyone has a chance to win it all.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And right now, baseball is anything but broke.

[Ubiquitous]

The problem as I see it is that people have a bad tendency to follow the leader. People think or see that NFL is the #1 TV sport therefore they think everything the NFL does is good therefore if you want your sport to be popular or #1 then you have to imitate the NFL. It doesn't matter that the NFL has lots of problems or do some things wrong all that matters is the bottom line. So we have people saying MLB should use the NFL drug policy even though it doesn't work or we have people saying MLB should use a cap like the NFL even though the would do more harm then good for MLB.

Just because is #1 doesn't mean everything they do should be imitated. Just because the Phillies had a middle age decent bat horrible glove in LF in 2008 doesn't mean everybody needs a middle decent bat horrible glove in LF to win a championship.

[keystone]

Yes. Seems to work pretty well in the NFL.

[Buczilla]

Some owners call for salary cap

Associated Press

PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz. -- Some baseball owners say it may be time to reconsider a salary cap after the New York Yankees spent nearly a half-billion dollars on free agents during a recession that may cause some teams to retrench.

"I would ask, if it's such a bad idea, what sport doesn't have a salary cap other than us?" Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio said Wednesday.

A salary cap isn't on the agenda of the major league owners meetings this week. But it could become an issue when the present collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2011 season -- especially if the economy worsens.

"I think there's a lot of owners that would like to have that right now," Oakland owner Lew Wolff said. "I think the parity is what we're looking for, and the more ways you can get to parity the better. I think it's pretty good now, but I think it could be better.

"It's a very good question, because maybe this recession, depression, whatever we're in may be a change for a lot more years," Wolff said.

The bleak economy was on the owners' minds as they gathered at an exclusive mountainside resort to begin two days of meetings. Owners compared notes on ticket sales and sponsorships and other indicators of the economy's squeeze.

Wolff said the Athletics' ticket sales are down about 10 percent from a year ago. The Brewers lost Mercedes-Benz as a sponsor but added a presenting sponsorship agreement with Potawatomi Bingo Casino -- part of an expected double-digit percentage gain in sponsorship revenue.

A salary cap wouldn't solve baseball's economic issues. But some owners say it would give smaller markets a fair shot at signing top talent.

"There's no question that, a market like Pittsburgh, a salary cap would be advantageous," Pirates owner Bob Nutting said. "And if that were a direction that the industry were moving, it would be advantageous to Pittsburgh, but it can't be the primary focus of how we're running our business this year and next year and the following year. We need to stay focused in the real world and not use that as an excuse."

Not all owners are critical of the Yankees' acquisition of pitchers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett and infielder Mark Teixeira.

"I've been asked about the Yankees' spending," Chicago Cubs chairman Crane Kenney said. "I have no problem with what they've done. They've done it within the rules, within the confines of our agreement.

"And if you look at the reality there, they've got a $1.3 billion stadium coming online," Kenney said. "They were probably relying on Wall Street to fill a lot of those seats. And they missed the playoffs for the first time in 13 years. So their reaction is probably similar to what I would do, which is, you've got to put a compelling product on the field when you open the doors of that new ballpark, and that's what they did. Listen, they played within the rules, so I have no issue with it."

Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press

[NYMets523]

What was stopping the Brewers from going after Derek Lowe with the money they offered Sabathia?

[DownUnderDodger]

The problem as I see it is that people have a bad tendency to follow the leader. People think or see that NFL is the #1 TV sport therefore they think everything the NFL does is good therefore if you want your sport to be popular or #1 then you have to imitate the NFL. It doesn't matter that the NFL has lots of problems or do some things wrong all that matters is the bottom line. So we have people saying MLB should use the NFL drug policy even though it doesn't work or we have people saying MLB should use a cap like the NFL even though the would do more harm then good for MLB.

Just because is #1 doesn't mean everything they do should be imitated. Just because the Phillies had a middle age decent bat horrible glove in LF in 2008 doesn't mean everybody needs a middle decent bat horrible glove in LF to win a championship.

I don't see myself as qualified enough or close enough to the game to make any valued statements about the merits or not of a salary cap in baseball, however I do agree with the above statement in that comparing different sports is not really the way to come up with an answer.

I have been tempted to respond in relation to Rugby League in Australia, whose salary cap has IMO been totally responsible for making the competition very even and produced a good variety of championship winners
over the last decade or so. However the salary cap in Australia is now seeing a drain of players seeking the big $$$ in similar competitions in England and France where there is no salary cap.

The relevance of the above to the MLB.....NIL. And that is my point.

I am however, interested to read the various opinions of you learned people about the pros and cons of a salary cap in MLB.

[SilentKiller]

I hate when people bring up parity and the NFL. I think parity sucks, I prefer when a team can build itself up to a dynasty.

[spark240]

I think parity sucks, I prefer when a team can build itself up to a dynasty.

I agree that dynasties can be fun or interesting (whether you're rooting for or against them), and I certainly think we want an MLB system in which dynasties are possible.

A fair system (not the same as "parity," it seems) does not guarantee equal success all around--in fact, a fair system really is a guarantee of unequal success. A fair system rewards skill and punishes ineptitude, and competence is never equally distributed.

What we have now is not a fair system, because a large portion of the "reward" is distributed on the basis of other factors, unrelated to competence.

[PeteF3]

What was stopping the Brewers from going after Derek Lowe with the money they offered Sabathia?

Not cap-related, but Lowe outright refused to sign anything with Milwaukee. Just didn't want to play there.

[stejay]

I say no. If we volunteer to watch baseball, then we can never complain how much players get paid. To be honest, I have no grudge in A Rod or Zito getting paid huge sums of money per annum, because we the baseball public pay their salaries. I think jealousy comes into it. I think everyone of us despises baseball players who live in mansions in Beverly Hills, date Hollywood actresses, and drive Ferrari sportscars. But we, at the end of the day, pay their salaries. If you don't like it, don't watch baseball. Simple as that.

[Buczilla]

Baseball can't even get revenue sharing right now as it is. For a salary cap to work sharing is the key. I don't ever see a cap being implemented in baseball. Not with the teams at the top of the food chain who have the biggest say and their cash cow television networks. Those teams would stand to lose alot more than the teams at the bottom would gain.

[NYMets523]

Not cap-related, but Lowe outright refused to sign anything with Milwaukee. Just didn't want to play there.

There are still other pitchers out there that they can go after. CC didn't have to be their one and only target. The only thing that is stopping the Brewers from improving the team by signing someone is them. Creating a cap just gives them more reason not to spend money.

[Buczilla]

Creating a cap just gives them more reason not to spend money.

Not if there was a salary floor implemented like the NFL. This past season the floor in the NFL was 85.2% of the total cap figure and that number will rise 1.2% every season until 2012.

[d32123]

100 votes and it's 50-50!

[spark240]

100 votes and it's 50-50!

Cute, yes... but there seems to be a variety of ideas both about the problem that a salary cap is intended to address, and the actual effect of an MLB salary cap.

[Jose Tartabul]

While a salary cap might make many fans feel better, as fewer players—particularly the less talented ones—would sign smaller contracts, it would not improve the game, nor add value for the fans. Spending huge amounts of money does not guarantee a winner, although it may put a few more bums in seats for a year or so.

In contrast, a salary cap restricts player mobility—something the removal of the reserve clause and free agency was designed to cure.

A salary cap also does nothing to improve weaker teams. A review of the the teams that made the NFL and NBA finals over the past 20 years or so will show that fewer different teams from those sports made it to the finals than baseball teams made it to the World Series. For example, over the past two years only the 'new' football team in the Superbowl was the Cardinals. Baseball has had the Rockies and the Rays who made in in a playoff system that encompasses only 8 teams vs 10 in the NFL. Furthermore no teams in baseball get a softer schedule than other teams in their division. This is all accomplished without a salary cap.

Even if a salary cap would work—to do what exactly to improve the game, I'm not sure—the clowns who run MLB would find a way to screw things up but doing things like offering 15-year contracts as one poster noted.

Bad idea all around.

[keystone]

Well, Jose Tartabul -- That is a really interesting point. I hadn't studied the playoff scenarios in the NFL & NBA, although I follow both (not a religiously as baseball, however). Since the Spurs have made the playoffs so many times since 1999, you'd think I would be paying attention! :crazy

Excuse me for being dense, but could you explain how a cap limits player mobility? I am asking this to learn, not to antagonize. :)

[Buczilla]

While a salary cap might make many fans feel better, as fewer players—particularly the less talented ones—would sign smaller contracts, it would not improve the game, nor add value for the fans. Spending huge amounts of money does not guarantee a winner, although it may put a few more bums in seats for a year or so.

Of the 40 times a team has spent over a $100 million on it's teams salary, only twice has spending so much won a franchise a championship. The Red Sox was the team that did it twice.

Of those same 40, 33 teams produced a winning record, with 20 of them qualifying for the post season.

This past season 10 teams spent over $100 million, 7 of them produced a winning record, 5 qualified for post season play.

In contrast, a salary cap restricts player mobility—something the removal of the reserve clause and free agency was designed to cure.

A contract is a contract, when your contract is up, you are free to shop elsewhere. That is true in any system.

A salary cap also does nothing to improve weaker teams. A review of the the teams that made the NFL and NBA finals over the past 20 years or so will show that fewer different teams from those sports made it to the finals than baseball teams made it to the World Series. For example, over the past two years only the 'new' football team in the Superbowl was the Cardinals. Baseball has had the Rockies and the Rays who made in in a playoff system that encompasses only 8 teams vs 10 in the NFL. Furthermore no teams in baseball get a softer schedule than other teams in their division. This is all accomplished without a salary cap.

Since the cap was implemented in 1994 there have been 8 teams that made it to the Super Bowl for the very first time. That is 8 newbies in the past 15 Super Bowl's. Also, every team outside of the Texans have tasted the post season in that span. The MLB in that same span had 6 teams compete for the World Series for the very first time. Every team but 4 qualified for the post season at least once.

Even if a salary cap would work—to do what exactly to improve the game, I'm not sure—the clowns who run MLB would find a way to screw things up but doing things like offering 15-year contracts as one poster noted.

Bad idea all around.

Even with the cap, there are ways for the big spenders to work around it. Signing bonuses, escalators, etc.

[Ubiquitous]

Since the cap was implemented in 1994 there have been 8 teams that made it to the Super Bowl for the very first time. That is 8 newbies in the past 15 Super Bowl's. Also, every team outside of the Texans have tasted the post season in that span. The MLB in that same span had 6 teams compete for the World Series for the very first time. Every team but 4 qualified for the post season at least once.


This is something you can't really compare. The WS has been around since 1903 while the Super Bowl since 1967.

[Seattle1]

I was one of the ones who voted "yes" in this poll.

[baseball fan]

It's also easier in foorball to build a championship team beacuse there's not really guaranteed contracts like in baseball. You can simply cut ties with a player, in baseball you're going to have to live with that player or eat the salary. You also don't hear about too may trades between teams in football either.

[Buczilla]

This is something you can't really compare. The WS has been around since 1903 while the Super Bowl since 1967.

I know, I responded with that to show that fresh faces do make the Super Bowl as well.

I guess I should have posted that there were 20 different teams that were represented in the Super Bowl since the salary cap was implemented. The strike wiped out the 94 post season, but since then there have been 17 different teams that represented in the World Series. The same amount of teams(6) in both sports took multiple trips to their sports championship game. The Patriots lead in the NFL with 5, the Yankees in the MLB with 6, Steelers 3, Braves 3 and so on.

[Buczilla]

You also don't hear about too may trades between teams in football either.

Why do you make that sound like a bad thing? I would welcome back the days of less movement in baseball with open arms.

[vasprtsfn]

Maybe 5 years ago I would have said yes, but now I say no. If this is about the Yankees, remember that they are spending all this money, yet they have not won a pennant since 2001. Furthermore, I believe that the luxury tax is working. Since 2001, a total of 8 World Series matchups have happened. In that time, only three teams have won more than one pennant-Yankees, Cardinals, Red Sox. Red Sox win 2 WS titles, Cardinals 1-1, Yankees 0-2. The last 4 WS matchups have featured 8 different franchises. So, really, how much of a disparity is there now? It truly is a competition every year!!

[Ubiquitous]

It's also easier in foorball to build a championship team beacuse there's not really guaranteed contracts like in baseball. You can simply cut ties with a player, in baseball you're going to have to live with that player or eat the salary. You also don't hear about too may trades between teams in football either.

Actually football has the signing bonus which helps get around the cap and is basically the real contract for most players and signing bonuses in football are huge.

The type of contract has nothing to do with the ease of building a team. IF football team A signs a big name to a huge contract and he flops that hurts the team he is on. If they cut him it won't count against the cap but that doesn't mean they are free from the financial obligations of the signing bonus. The non guaranteed contract helps in a cap world as a way to get around cap issues but it isn't comparable to guaranteed contracts in non cap worlds.

[Ubiquitous]

Maybe 5 years ago I would have said yes, but now I say no. If this is about the Yankees, remember that they are spending all this money, yet they have not won a pennant since 2001. Furthermore, I believe that the luxury tax is working. Since 2001, a total of 8 World Series matchups have happened. In that time, only three teams have won more than one pennant-Yankees, Cardinals, Red Sox. Red Sox win 2 WS titles, Cardinals 1-1, Yankees 0-2. The last 4 WS matchups have featured 8 different franchises. So, really, how much of a disparity is there now? It truly is a competition every year!!

Yanks won the pennant in 2003, they haven't won a world series since 2001.

[Buczilla]

Furthermore, I believe that the luxury tax is working.

When a large sports market can get kick backs from a system that is supposed to help the small markets, something is wrong. The Phillies and the Orioles of the baseball world getting anything, regardless of the size of the payment is a complete joke. On the other end of the spectrum, teams are being rewarded for keeping payrolls low year after year. There is no accountability. There is nothing keeping those franchises from pocketing the money.

A salary cap rids baseball of all that hush-hush, wink-wink, book cooking, secrecy. It also puts every team on a level playing field. To me, this has nothing to do with the Yankees. They are breaking no rules. When I look at my Buccos and see 5 players remaining from the 2004 squad, something just doesn't feel right. Wilson, Sanchez, Snell, Grabow and Burnett are the five, I rest my case. It's a never ending cycle of trading for talent. How can you feel that connection with a ballplayer when you know most likely such and such a player isn't gonna be here that long? You wanna catch a blockbuster movie at the show, but have to settle for a straight to DVD release. This is just coming from my perspective as a Pirate fan.

[Ubiquitous]

Rays, Brewers, and Marlins have gotten revenue sharing and together they have a WS title, 2 WS appearances and all have gone to the playoffs in the last 10 years. Plus they all can field good teams and look to field good teams in the future. The Pirates are just horribly run while it is true the Royals don't have a great front office their development system hasn't panned out. Whereas the Rays, Brewers, and Marlins development system did.

When I look at my Buccos and see 5 players remaining from the 2004 squad, something just doesn't feel right

The Cubs change up a lot as well so do a lot of other teams. And quite frankly why would you want more players from the 2004 Pirates?

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Yanks won the pennant in 2003, they haven't won a world series since 2001.

Actually, it's 2000 when they defeated the Mets. In '01 the Yankees lost to the D-Backs.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Rays, Brewers, and Marlins have gotten revenue sharing and together they have a WS title, 2 WS appearances and all have gone to the playoffs in the last 10 years. Plus they all can field good teams and look to field good teams in the future. The Pirates are just horribly run while it is true the Royals don't have a great front office their development system hasn't panned out. Whereas the Rays, Brewers, and Marlins development system did.



The Cubs change up a lot as well so do a lot of other teams. And quite frankly why would you want more players from the 2004 Pirates?

....:laugh

[Buczilla]

And quite frankly why would you want more players from the 2004 Pirates?

I used that to make a point. In the NFL and when I was younger in the MLB, the teams remained almost the same year after year. Players got turned over or sent away because they could not perform anymore, or didn't perform at the level that was expected of them. Now it's all about the money, we can't afford such and such. Salary dumps, trades because there is no intent on resigning such and such a player when he is due a new one, etc... Free agency had a place at one time, but I think the MLBPA gained too much power over the sport. You don't have to look to far to find instances of you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours when it comes to them dealing with the owners. A salary cap is one sure fire way to level that playing field out as well.

[Buczilla]

You are right though, my team has been poorly run. My own selfishness being the reason for supporting a salary cap. I know you have read those Forbes and such studies that always lists my Buccos as one of the teams turning a decent profit every year. Last study I believe they said we made $60 million in revenue before a single fan is sat. The front office says otherwise. It is reflected nowhere, just like that hand out every year doesn't show up on the payroll, never has.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

You are right though, my team has been poorly run. My own selfishness being the reason for supporting a salary cap. I know you have read those Forbes and such studies that always lists my Buccos as one of the teams turning a decent profit every year. Last study I believe they said we made $60 million in revenue before a single fan is sat. The front office says otherwise. It is reflected nowhere, just like that hand out every year doesn't show up on the payroll, never has.

Didn't the Pirate organiztion promise the fans that if they got a new ballpark they could compete in the future, keep their best players, and sign top free agents? Well, why were the Pirates not going after guys like Sabathia?

[milladrive]

Heh, I genuinely can't believe this poll is so close.

It's about time labor made some money. Cap? We don't need no stinking cap.

:cap:

[Buczilla]

Didn't the Pirate organiztion promise the fans that if they got a new ballpark they could compete in the future, keep their best players, and sign top free agents? Well, why were the Pirates not going after guys like Sabathia?

McClatchy said to be competitive the Buccos would have to draw like 2.4 million fans a year. Prior to that the Pirates only drew 2 million fans twice in it's entire history(90 and 91). He was proven to be a piece a crap and a liar right after the first year when they drew 2,464,870 fans(700,000 and some more fans than the year prior). Ticket prices went up, payroll went down $15 or so million for the 2002 season. Alot of fans never forgave him for that.

The bottom line, he was a business man who only cared about turning a profit. He had no idea how to run a baseball team. He never saw the novelty of the new ballpark wearing off. He thought the fans were gonna keep coming in droves. Revenue sharing should not have been rewarding him, it should have been penalizing him for spending so little year after year. Take the money and run, he was the poster child.

As for being in the hunt for CC....we have another plan, thats gonna take time to pay off. Welcome to the endless cycle. Maybe it will work this time, maybe it won't.

Heh, in 1997 Baseball America rated our farm system numero uno in all the land.

1. Kris Benson, RHP
2. Chad Hermansen, Shortstop
3. Jose Guillen, Outfield
4. Aramis Ramirez, Third Base
5. Ron Wright, First Base
6. Abraham Nunez, Shortstop
7. Lou Collier, Shortstop
8. Jimmy Anderson, Left Handed Pitcher
9. Elvin Hernandez, Right Handed Pitcher
10. Charles Peterson, Outfield

The Buccos future looked to be bright. Benson #8, Hermansen #21, Guillen #24, Ramirez #26, Wright #48, Nunez #69, Anderson #88 all cracked the top 100.

[Ubiquitous]

A salary cap wouldn't help the Pirates. A salary cap doesn't change who McClatchy is, it doesn't change the fact the Pirates are badly run. Why would CC or Manny or Thome or anybody else go to Pittsburgh simply because they could pay the same as New York or LA? Not to be insulting but it is Pittsburgh for crying out loud, who wants to go there? To pile on, but in a non picking on geography sort of way, if the Pirates are badly run, and they are badly run, then why would a free agent player want to lock themselves up long term in that miserable situation? If Manny has a choice between 10 mil in Pitts, 10 mil in Flor, 10 mil in Dallas, or 10 mil in DC why would he pick Pittsburgh. If anything Pittsburghs only hope is that practically every other team in the game (besides maybe KC and Philly ;)) max out there cap and can't sign anymore players while a bunch of free agents hit the market.

Even in football with a salary cap there are teams that struggle to bring in talent because nobody wants to play there. Then when you remove the financial advantage it gets even harder. Right now in baseball if a team wants to break its image as a bad place to play it can go out and overspend to attract players. In football you can't do that.

[Ubiquitous]

1. Kris Benson, RHP
2. Chad Hermansen, Shortstop
3. Jose Guillen, Outfield
4. Aramis Ramirez, Third Base
5. Ron Wright, First Base
6. Abraham Nunez, Shortstop
7. Lou Collier, Shortstop
8. Jimmy Anderson, Left Handed Pitcher
9. Elvin Hernandez, Right Handed Pitcher
10. Charles Peterson, Outfield

The Buccos future looked to be bright. Benson #8, Hermansen #21, Guillen #24, Ramirez #26, Wright #48, Nunez #69, Anderson #88 all cracked the top 100.

At one point I think the Cubs got ranked #1 as well and like the Pirates almost all the players in the top ten didn't pan out. It happens, most players don't pan out. Developing 1 all-star level player and one average player out of your top ten is pretty darn good. Anything above that is really getting "lucky".

[spark240]

A salary cap doesn't change who McClatchy is, it doesn't change the fact the Pirates are badly run.

That's certainly true.

Why would CC or Manny or Thome or anybody else go to Pittsburgh simply because they could pay the same as New York or LA? Not to be insulting but it is Pittsburgh for crying out loud, who wants to go there? To pile on, but in a non picking on geography sort of way, if the Pirates are badly run, and they are badly run, then why would a free agent player want to lock themselves up long term in that miserable situation?

But what if McClatchy wasn't in charge? What if the Pirates were well-run, receiving a fair share of MLB revenue, and had the nucleus of a strong young team, and a realistic shot at winning it all in a year or two? The fans would be loving it, and they'd be turning out. And why wouldn't your average FA star want to be a part of that?

Right now in baseball if a team wants to break its image as a bad place to play it can go out and overspend to attract players. In football you can't do that.

You think a badly-run small-market team throwing a big pile of money at an FA in the current system will change their image? I doubt it. The team's performance is not likely to be much better--maybe worse--with a huge share of their resources going into one player. Their image will be solidified as both dysfunctional and unserious.

The main way to improve a team's image (and attendance) is to improve their performance on the field, and to hold out a realistic prospect of further improvement in years to come.

Again, this is not an argument in favor of a salary cap; I think that's the wrong solution. But I do think there's no good reason that Pittsburgh and Kansas City and the rest can't be contenders again.

[Ubiquitous]

But what if McClatchy wasn't in charge? What if the Pirates were well-run, receiving a fair share of MLB revenue, and had the nucleus of a strong young team, and a realistic shot at winning it all in a year or two? The fans would be loving it, and they'd be turning out. And why wouldn't your average FA star want to be a part of that?

If the Pirates were well run then they could afford to sign FA players and FA players would want to go there. Look at Detriot they got free agent players to go there. A salary cap wouldn't be needed nor would it help. If a team is good then they will compete and they will make money to pay for talent. If teams are bad then they won't make money to pay for talent. If there is a cap then if they are good players will want to player there, if they are bad they won't. Nothing changes.


You think a badly-run small-market team throwing a big pile of money at an FA in the current system will change their image? I doubt it. The team's performance is not likely to be much better--maybe worse--with a huge share of their resources going into one player. Their image will be solidified as both dysfunctional and unserious.
No I don't think badly run team throwing money around will fix anything. Look at Baltimore.

[Buczilla]

And that sums it all up, winning changes everything and that goes for all sports, cap or no cap.

I do have faith that Nutting cares more about the Pirates than McClatchy ever did. When under fire you can see he doesn't like the criticism, it really seems to bother him. He seems more genuine. He went out and got two people to head the front office who know the game. On McClatchy's watch we would have never had a draft like this past one. Nor would we have hung in there to keep Alvarez like we did. A presence in Latin America again is a bonus. We didn't trade Nady, Bay and Marte to the Cubs for next to nothing, so that is a bonus too.... Anybody see Brant Brown by the way? A few of them players we got back seem to have decent potential.

I know what Oakland and the Twins have been doing for years. I know how small of a market Milwaukee is compared to Pittsburgh. I also see how much they spend in that smaller market. It wasn't long ago that we were outspending them. The difference from then to now is they drafted wisely, while we drafted for easy signability. Their minor league was stocked twice over with pure talent, ours....welll....ah....it was just stocked. I would much rather prefer to go that route then go the free agent route.

The Ray's and Indians systems I have followed for years as well. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the organizations that can keep turning over talent like those teams do. There is no reason my Buccos or any other organization can't do the same.

A salary cap wouldn't erase the past 16 seasons, that is for sure. Heh, at least we have one of the most beautiful ballparks in all the land. That has to amount to something?.....anything? Oh well, bring on the 2009 season. Another year of hope. At least we don't have someone throwing crap at us selling us false hope this off season. We will... LaRoche is our savior... Gorzo, Snell, Duke and Maholm = Avery, Maddux, Smoltz and Glavine... and so on.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

I'm not a fan of either team but I just feel the pain that Royals and Pirates fans are going through. I started watching baseball in 1976 at the height of the Royals and Pirates greatness. I have fond memories of watching those great Pirates and Royals team of the late 1970s on NBC's Saturday Game of the Week.

[west coast orange and black]

“Brewers owner Mark Attanasio: "At the rate the Yankees are going, I'm not sure anyone can compete with them."
Reminder: The Yankees' 2009 payroll might wind up being less than last year's $222 million, a figure that brought nothing but derisive laughter in Tampa. The Rays not only competed with the Yankees on $43 million, they went to the World Series.”
-bruce jenkins, san francisco chronicle staff writer, tuesday, 20 january 2009


here is the short article in full (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/20/SPT215D4HM.DTL&hw=baseball+salary+cap&sn=001&sc=1000)

[spark240]

If a team is good then they will compete and they will make money to pay for talent.

Agreeing with the rest of your most recent comments, but this one isn't quite true.

With the current revenue structure (specifically the ownership rights to "local" TV broadcasts), large-market teams have a built-in advantage that mostly outweighs the boost of gate and ancillary revenue that comes with success. In a sense, it doesn't matter how good the Twins are; they literally cannot ever hope to approach the resources of the monied teams, in the present system.

I've argued elsewhere that dynasties, or the potential for dynasties, are good for the game. But not so much if they can only occur in New York (or LA, etc.). A fair system (besides being desirable for fairness' sake) would permit the possibility of a great team being assembled anywhere, if the organization was both smart and lucky. And further, a fair system would reward the success of that team and enable them to build on their success over a period of years (again, given smart management). That's the part that a salary cap unfairly restricts.

“Brewers owner Mark Attanasio: "At the rate the Yankees are going, I'm not sure anyone can compete with them."
Reminder: The Yankees' 2009 payroll might wind up being less than last year's $222 million, a figure that brought nothing but derisive laughter in Tampa. The Rays not only competed with the Yankees on $43 million, they went to the World Series.”
-bruce jenkins, san francisco chronicle staff writer, tuesday, 20 january 2009

The Yankees, recently, have been both badly-managed and unlucky... yet their resources still allowed them to sometimes beat good teams, and end up placing in the middle of the standings.

The Rays this past year showed signs of both cunning and good fortune. They should have beat the Yankees.

The problem is that despite being conclusively outplayed by the Rays, the Yankees organization still received several times as much income from their efforts in the 2008 season as did the Rays... and this dynamic will go on and on. The Rays will make a mistake or have some bad luck, and their moment in the sun will be gone. Smart management and great new talent will arise elsewhere, and make a run, and maybe even win it all... but the massive TV revenue machine will keep funneling most of the profits from all of it back to a few teams.

[Ubiquitous]

With the current revenue structure (specifically the ownership rights to "local" TV broadcasts), large-market teams have a built-in advantage that mostly outweighs the boost of gate and ancillary revenue that comes with success. In a sense, it doesn't matter how good the Twins are; they literally cannot ever hope to approach the resources of the monied teams, in the present system.


But that isn't to say they can't pay for talent. Yes, the Twins will never have the resources of the Yankees but that doesn't mean they can't sign FA players and have good players on their team. And frankly the Minnesota Twins should never have the same resources as the Yankees, Mets, Cubs, White Sox, Angels, and Dodgers. Not unless their market share is equal to them. Small market teams winning is a nice story and all but MLB lives and dies on its big market teams. If the Mets and Yankees acted like the Pirates and Marlins (in terms of payroll) baseball would suffer. You can't have the games largest markets run irresponsibly. It just isn't healthy for a business. It would be like Coca-Cola suddenly changing their Coke recipe.




The Yankees, recently, have been both badly-managed and unlucky... yet their resources still allowed them to sometimes beat good teams, and end up placing in the middle of the standings.

I'm not sure why this matters. It isn't 1917 anymore and nobody really cares about a team unless it makes the playoffs or looks like it will be making playoffs in the near future.


The problem is that despite being conclusively outplayed by the Rays, the Yankees organization still received several times as much income from their efforts in the 2008 season as did the Rays... and this dynamic will go on and on.

This isn't really true. The Yank's revenue is huge because the Yanks have been great for a long time. How long do you think the Yanks can sell tickets for $250,000 if they are a mediocre team? How long do you think YES network will be a cash cow when nobody is tuning in to watch mediocre teams? On the flipside how giant can the Rays get if they are run well and perform well? The Atlanta Braves were a podunk little market team until Ted Turner came along and made them a big market team. The Rays if they build a good team and market themselves well can be a regional sports team just like the Braves were and they can create revenue streams just like the Braves did. Nothing in business is calcified everything has to be worked on to either maintain success or create success.

[Jose Tartabul]

...Could you explain how a cap limits player mobility? I am asking this to learn, not to antagonize. :)

In general, players become more valuable as they gain experience, meaning that they can market their services easier. With a salary cap, services can only be marketed to teams that can won't blow their cap by signing such a player. If they are deperate to have that player, their only solution is to dump salary, meaning somebody else has to go play either for a salary they feel is less than they deserve, or for team they would rather not.

...no antagonism felt at all.

[keystone]

Thank you, Jose Tartabul. Your explanation is clear and to the point. It goes a long way in explaining why the salary cap is unpopular with lots of owners and fans -- and certainly with the players.

I think the best quote I've read about the cap is from Lew Wolff: "The economy is creating its own salary cap."