Posted on behalf of Craig Gannon:
http://baseball.about.com/od/newsrumors/a/09teamsalaries.htm
For years and years the question has been asked if whether or not Major League Baseball needs a salary cap. Every off-season there are key free agents that can be acquired to help out teams. However, the same teams seem to be in the mix every year. The Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, and Cubs had the highest payrolls in 2009, with the Yankees being the off-season winners. For fans of teams who are not at the top, proposes the question if MLB needs to revise their current system. However, for better or worse in the new millenium we have noticed that teams with low salaries (Marlins, Rays, Twins, A's) have had an impact in baseball and managed to be very successful teams. The Oakland A's were the best example of this. General Manager Billy Beane ( a former player himself) managed to build the A's from the ground up and drafted a solid foundation for his farm system. The A's arguably had the best three pitchers in basbeall (Hudson, Mulder, Zito) and one a number of AL West titles. Beane new that he was in a tough situation and took a different approach then most. He managed to, "acquired baseball players who had high on-base percentages (OBP) and slugging percentages (SLG), virtually ignoring their fielding statistics and speed (Lewis, 2003, p. 32). Hakes and Sauer (2006) suggest that Beane valued individual player characteristics quite differently from other owners and general managers" (Brown and Jepsin 193).If we look at more recent history the Minnesota Twins have took Beane strategy and helped build their team into a winning franchise. Every year the Twins find someway to sneak there way into the playoffs. Who would of thought that on the last game of the season the Twins would of fought all the way back to have a tie-breaker with the Tigers (who led the division basically all year). There hasn't been one year where the Twins have acquired a major free agent, its almost as if their giving their own free-agents away. However, they managed to keep a solid farm system and acquire veteran players to help keep the team in tact. In a move that came somewhat unnoticed was the acquisation of Orlando Cabrera. The Twins were a very young team and having a sub par year. However, the veteran leadership that Cabreara brought to this team was huge.
Who is to say that the twins cannot be the AL champs if they beat the Tigers? They are the hottest team in AL. However, they have the 24th lowest salary in the majors. This goes to show that teams with the largest salary does no always mean success. The Marlins, Rays, Rockies to name a few are examples of this. Teams with young players and low salaries have found a way to win and compete amongst the best. Does this show a new wave in baseball for years to come?Furthermore, Teams with lower salaries do not have the funds to create many opportunities to make profit. Every year professional teams are trying to build new stadiums in order to further their respective franchises. Recently, in the NBA the Nets finally found a investor to help build there stadium in Brooklyn. Prior to this announcement it looked as if the Nets moving to brooklyn was dead. In baseball it seems as if there are the same problems. The Marlins, Twins, Rays, and Rockies four of the more successful low salary teams, have played in the same stadium since their existence. How do they expect to compete with other teams in acquiring players when they have no investors to further their franchise. According to Leeds and Pistolet, "Economic studies generally conclude that teams reap large profits from new, municipally funded facilities" (Leeds and Pistolet 581). New stadiums bring in more excitement, therefor, having more fans attend games. The Marlins and Rays are at the bottom of league attendance, with no interest of investors, therefore managing to stay towards the bottom in team salary.
This proposes the question where is the line drawn? How can MLB come up with a way where every team has a fair shot and competing for free-agents. Even though recent history shows that salary necessarily doesn't have an impact on winning, teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, and Cubs have a much better chance every year. What do you guys think, should MLB baseball have a salary cap and if so why? Or do you think baseball is fine where it is (putting your favorite teams position aside)?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Baseball is fine where it is. While I do feel having a salary cap may be good for the smaller market teams as far as bringing in money and fans is concerned, I have 3 reasons why baseball doesn't need a salary cap.
ReplyDeleteFirst, having a large payroll doesn't always guarantee success. We all know the Yankees have the largest payroll in baseball by a large margin and the money they spend is ridiculous. A-Rod is making more money this year then the whole Pirates payroll. They signed Mark Texeira to an 8-year, 180 million dollar deal, which per year is almost as much as the whole Florida Marlin's payroll. However, the last time the Yankees won the World Series was in 2000, almost ten years ago! Instead, we have seen both the Florida Marlins (29th worst payroll) and the Arizona Diamondbacks (18th worst payroll) win World Series in the past 10 years and in the past two years both the Devil Rays (22nd worst payroll) and the Colorado Rockies (21st worst payroll) make it to the World Series. Other teams like the Twins and the Indians have all made pretty solid runs and they are both in the 20's as far as payroll is concerned. These teams have shown that you don't need a team full of highly-payed superstars to compete.
My second reason is that not having a salary cap inspires creativity. The Twins, Marlins, Athletics, and Diamondbacks are four solid examples of teams that don't have huge payrolls. Not having these huge payrolls allows them to be more creative by paying attention to their young talent and farm systems. We see a lot of the times teams like the Red Sox and Yankees trade away their young stars for older veterans. While that may work now, in the future, these teams being more creative with their young talent will benefit from keeping their young stars. Teams like the Athletics and Twins have both created many all-stars from their farm system and these teams still have a decent amount of success. It makes it more interesting for GM's. It allows them to look at different assets for their team and become smarter GM's. For instance, Billy Beane is considered one of the best GM's in baseball. In the article, "The Impact of Team Revenues on MLB Salaries", they say, "Beane acquired baseball players who had high on-base percentages and slugging percentages." (pg. 193, Jepsen and Brown)As they also point out, teams may be looking for different positions. "Teams in the National League may value hitting more than the teams in the American League because the pitchers often bat, which reduces a team's total offense." (pg. 195, Jepsen and Brown) Without a salary cap, GM's must be more creative in exploring these needs.
My final reason is that a salary cap doesn't necessarily guarantee all teams being competitive. Look at the NBA, which has a salary cap. The Clippers, Grizzlies, and the Bobcats have all been pretty bad for a while now and it doesn't look like they will compete at least for a few more years. On the other hand, the Lakers, Spurs, and Pistons all have been real good for so long now and they have the same money to work with as these other bad teams. The salary cap doesn't ensure equal footing because teams are affected more by the quality of their management. The same should apply to baseball. If you want baseball to be more competitive, it should push more for IQ tests for the general managers who are running these teams rather than concern of the salary cap.
Just watching the Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers in the 12th inning I realized that money does no buy championships. Three of the top eight payrolls in the MLB will be sitting out this October, the Cubs, Mets, and now the Tigers. It is obvious to see though that the money does bring in the fans into the seats. Baseball is a business just like any other professional sport. Comparing to the highest payrolls in the MLB to the attendance of the teams during the 20098 season was pretty predictable. The St. Louis Cardinals were the only team not in the top eight of payroll, but to be in the top eight for attendance. And compared to that the Detroit Tigers were the only team in the top eight payrolls not to be in the top eight for attendance.
ReplyDeleteWhen the owners of these big market teams go out and make signings like Mark Teixeira or Johan Santana, people are going to go see them.
In the article, “The Impact of Team Revenues on MLB Salaries,” Brown says, “MLB teams acquire players with the goal of winning games. A player’s value to his team, therefore, is a function of his ability to help them win games.”(p.192) To me this is the exact definition of baseball, the teams with more money can offer more to better players. This most likely means that the player will take the higher offer; this is an inevitable cycle of the best teams getting the best players. Baseball players and more their agents are not stupid. They will negotiate until they get the best offer they think they deserve. If the lower payroll teams are trying to negotiate with the high rolling players and they cannot negotiate well in the terms of money, this is a deal breaker. The high rollers will just move on to the Yankees, Red Sox, and Angels.
In conclusion with the fact that baseball is a business is the fact of naming rights. This is why teams get new stadiums. They hope that this will put people in the stands. They are looking to make money more than anything. Over the last 5 years 4 of the 6 new ball parks were corporately named. The only two not were Yankee Stadium and Nationals Park. In the article, “A Stadium by Any Other Name,” Leeds says, “Most of them report a positive and statistically significant rate of return on the day of the announcement.” Citi field is a great example of this. Over the last few years the New York Mets have been struggling to say the least, the ownership was hoping to get them out of their slump with the new ballpark. Considering that they did awful this year I think that this proves this not too effective.
Professional sports are businesses and people cannot forget that.
Coming from a baseball fan with no biases towards any team, I firmly believe that financial make-up of the game is fine. Yes there is no salary cap, but as Pete stated in a previous post, salary caps do not necessarily work, as he used the NBA as an example. I believe that it has nothing to do with a salary cap but having to do with the market that the specific team is in. As the young players blossom into that superstar, they want to showcase their talent in the biggest markets. Whether it is right or wrong does not matter because that is just simply reality. Especially as a neutral baseball fan, it makes it more exciting when a team like the Tampa Bay Rays of last year or the Colorado Rockies of a few years back, make an unthinkable run in the playoffs.
ReplyDeleteWins cannot be bought, and I know that this year’s statistics do not show that, but it is the truth. A team needs to be a cohesive group of guys who enjoy being around each other day in and day out. Is it certainly helpful to have a big bat in the lineup to change the game at any point in time? Absolutely, but the question is, if a team cannot afford a marquee player, what do they do? Well, as Professor Burns discussed in her lead, she talked about the Oakland Athletics when they had arguably the best young pitching staff in the big leagues, and were effective. The team did not have a lot of money to spend, but they were able to pick up players who had high on-base percentages and slugging percentages, and were able to win a lot of games (Brown, Jepsen). The idea is to have effective players who can impact the game in any way they can. So much of baseball is mental because players are in the big leagues for a reason, and that is because they can flat out play baseball at a high level. If teams have chemistry and twenty-five guys working for all the right reasons, there is no reason why they cannot win games.
The problem that exists in baseball is that when a player is in a contract year, it always seems as though they play their best baseball then. The idea behind contracts is that they are based upon the past years, and the players will base their statistics to a player with similar numbers while looking at the size of the contract that player was able to get. Yes it is natural to do that, but at the end of the day, money will not produce wins. How many times have we seen a professional athlete fail to live up to the hype? Let’s look at A-Rod or A-Roid as I like to refer to him as. Sure his regular season numbers are unbelievable, but championships are won in the post-season and ever since he has been a Yankee, he has not delivered when it counts the most.
Many things need to fall into place for a team when trying to win a World Series and money is certainly not going to guarantee results. For instance, the Mets this year were a disaster, but they had one of the highest payrolls in the league. They did however, had so many injuries which made it almost impossible for the team to compete, and that is exactly my point. You do not know who will get hurt, you do not when who will get suspended for steroids, or any other the reason, but the idea is that it is something that cannot be planned for.
The important factor to remember is that baseball and professional sports is a business. A team will go ahead and spend a lot of money on a player because the team will immediately make money from the player through ticket sales, jerseys, and any other team paraphernalia. No questions would a team make more money with Derek Jeter at shortstop, but the big question is, will that money correlate into wins? Statistics shows that it does not necessarily transfer into wins, but a team needs to do what is best for them at any particular moment. There is no sense in fighting the system because players will always gravitate to the bigger markets, and that is just the way it is.