Putting a Roof Over Baseball- Is Salary Capping America’s Pasttime a Bad Idea?

Owners and GM's like New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman can spend an unlimited amount of money under
the current soft salary cap in the MLB.

The Yankees made it to the ALCS once again this year, and had the major leagues 3rd best record in the regular season, while the Pittsburgh Pirates finished with a losing record for the 18th year in a row. The question has been brought up throughout baseball circles for many years, but is now really coming to fruition. Should there be a salary cap in baseball?

The idea of having a salary cap in baseball to level out the competition is a common misconception throughout the general public.  First, franchises such as the Yankees, who have had the league’s highest payroll for decades, have attained this due to their market and team success. The reason they can have such high team payrolls, like their record breaking $218.3 Million payroll in 2007 is due to their owners being willing to fork over so much money in an effort for such success. However, teams with such high payrolls do have a distinct advantage in today’s Free Agent market. Players want to go to teams that can pay them a lot of money, and these are often successful teams. Small market teams stand at a disadvantage due to this, and build their rosters off of their minor league systems.  Truth is, it doesn’t give the terrible teams any advantage, because they still don’t have the kind of money to come near that payroll.

The problem, I believe, with instituting said salary cap is that teams with extremely high payrolls, such as the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets, is that they would possibly have to cut down their own salaries, since the MLB is not going to make a salary cap anywhere near the Yankees or Red Sox. The Big Markets are on the East Coast, like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. The fact that the best teams come from big markets is because of the revenue they make. The amount of success these teams achieve every year is just a matter of where they are situated. Dayn Parry of Fox Sports said “it's not MLB that has a competitive-balance issue; it's the American League East”. The American League East is filled with the Yankees and Red Sox, respectively the two highest team payrolls in the Majors. They can spend the money because the markets allow. The Tampa Bay Rays have somehow managed though.

Another thing about instituting the salary cap is that while it may lower the amount of power that a team like the Yankees has on the free-agent market, it would increase the importance of having a good farm system in the minor leagues. The idea of the successful, home-grown, small market team, like the Texas Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays would become a much more common theme throughout the Major Leagues. Both play in cities that have a small market, and yet both have done extremely well over the past few years, including a World Series berth for the Rangers in 2010, and the Major leagues second best regular season record for the Rays. Despite having low team payrolls, the Rays (9th lowest payroll) and Rangers (4th lowest payroll) have sustained very successful rosters, and have groomed their rosters through the use of their incredibly deep farm systems. Scouting is an important part of building teams for the future, and teams like the Rangers and Rays have essentially made most of their teams from home-grown players.

If the MLB institutes a salary cap, then it would certainly help the perennial bottom dwellers of the league like the Royals and Pirates, but would substantially hurt dynasties like Yankees and Red Sox who have attained such high team payrolls through the success in their past years. It would also increase the importance of having good farm systems for each franchise. If we institute a salary cap, the major leagues just becomes a league where growing your team from within your system becomes more commonplace, and that doesn’t sound criminal to me.