We are in a recession right ? Baseball and in particular one team seems to not realize that ! The Yankees recent free agent signings indicates that they have more money than they know what to do with! Mark Texeria, C.C. Sabbathia and A.J. Burnett have all been set up for life financially, not to mention thier agents as well, by the folks running the team in the pinstripes. Who is next, Manny Ramirez ? Not a stretch, would it seem, as the Yankees claim they are still below the 2008 payroll and have some wriggle room!
I saw a TV interview with the owner of the Boston Red Sox who was attempting to cry poor by claiming he could no longer compete with the Yankees revenue stream…….PLEASE!!!!, tell that to the fans of the Pirates, Royals, Rays, Marlins, etc., come on with that BS, get over yourself sir!
Baseball does not have a salary cap and most likely never will as both the Players Union and the teams with deep pockets would be very much against it. They will cite teams like the Rays who went to the world series with one of the league’s lowest payrolls as indication that a cap is not needed. What they are failing to account for is that albeit the Yankees paid a “luxury tax” penalty this year of close to $30 million it still does not dent the cost of attendance for an average fan. That $30 million merely spreads the wealth to either the owners or players and does not decrement the cost of a family of four who are recession hindered from paying the support needed for the league to stay in existence, perhaps they do not care ! Also, in comparison the Yankees ability to spend over $200 million per year on payroll is not comparable with the $30 million they give to the other 29 “partners” of MLB.
I think a salary cap is indeed warranted much like the NFL has, stars will continue to get paid their worth and affordability of access for fans can be better controlled. The NFL thrives by revenue sharing and has a robust fan base, MLB is enacting upon a TV network in the same design that the NFL has so why not follow the path with a cap as well ? The Yankees have always bought other teams best players dating all the way back to the Babe but baseball historians can cite those times as lean for the game as well in regards to collective league wealth and fans ability to attend games. Baseball is not presently hurting but the continued ramp up of insanity regarding payroll and subsequent needs to then pass the buck to the fan base may soon find MLB in a hole too deep to climb from without streamlining the league itself, in my opinion no one wins in that regard!
Here are the recently released payrolls of the 30 MLB teams for 2008.
According to the AP, the figures are for 40-man rosters and include salaries and prorated shares of signing bonuses, earned incentive bonuses, non-cash compensation, buyouts of unexercised options and cash transactions. In some cases, parts of salaries that are deferred are discounted to reflect present-day values. The gap between the Yankees and No. 2 Boston of $75 million is more than the entire payroll of nine teams.
1. N.Y. Yankees $222,519,480
2. Boston 147,075,645
3. New York Mets 144,693,962
4. Detroit 136,198,404
5. Chicago Cubs 130,508,691
6. Los Angeles Angels 128,142,467
7. Los Angeles Dodgers 125,864,496
8. Seattle 120,456,113
9. Chicago White Sox 113,641,026
10. Philadelphia 112,654,711
11. St. Louis 109,989,046
12. Houston 100,189,948
13. Toronto 98,343,520
14. Atlanta 92,494,314
15. Milwaukee 90,324,347
16. Cincinnati 82,886,440
17. San Francisco 82,074,873
18. Arizona 80,998,526
19. Baltimore 78,888,250
20. Cleveland 78,663,582
21. Texas 78,640,138
22. Colorado 74,791,621
23. San Diego 71,212,182
24. Kansas City 69,297,547
25. Minnesota 65,096,667
26. Washington 59,699,668
27. Oakland 55,223,294
28. Tampa Bay 51,020,720
29. Pittsburgh 50,764,410
30. Florida 27,003,450
Total 2,879,357,538
