Why Baseball is so screwed up

[capstone21]

I think Baseball is such a screwed up sport in need of a salary cap.

It sucks that the big market teams can throw whatever money they want to get the free agents out there while the smaller market teams can only sit back and watch.

NY is going to spend 160 million on a pitcher and looking at spending a lot more on a few more pitchers.

You can trade a 20 million dollar a year player to a team for a player to be named later...so stupid.

It is so uneven ... it is one of the main reasons I can not watch that sport anymore.

[warcore]

Yea I came to this in 8th grade (1999). MLB sucks. The same big cities will always be good and the small market cities will eternally suck for the most part, with few exceptions once in a while.

So yes, it needs a salary cap, bad.

[Guest]

Clearly they need a salary cap. I mean just look at how teams like Minnesota, Oakland, Tampa...they just can't compete!

A Salary Cap is the biggest way to screw over players and generate more revenue for owners. MLB owners understand this and thats why they don't do it. Stop being a socialist and making an even playing field, if your team "can't compete" that means they just lack human capital (not money) in the sport...(socialist comment isn't meant as an insult, I am just fascinated with a capitalistic society like America wanting to create a socialist environment where over in Europe it is almost the complete opposite).

[capstone21]

Clearly they need a salary cap. I mean just look at how teams like Minnesota, Oakland, Tampa...they just can't compete!

A Salary Cap is the biggest way to screw over players and generate more revenue for owners. MLB owners understand this and thats why they don't do it. Stop being a socialist and making an even playing field, if your team "can't compete" that means they just lack human capital (not money) in the sport...(socialist comment isn't meant as an insult, I am just fascinated with a capitalistic society like America wanting to create a socialist environment where over in Europe it is almost the complete opposite).

Give me a break....this is nothing about lining the owners pockets. Its about making it an even playing field. The big market teams always can sign whoever they want because there is nothing to say they can't have 9 20 million dollar players while most smaller market teams can't afford that. NY, Boston, Chicago will always have the stars....it is really a screwed up system

[BigDirty]

The NBA introduced the salary cap in 1984/85.

# of teams that have won a championship since 1985

NBA: 7

MLB: 16

NBA teams and # of titles since 1985:

6 Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls

4 San Antonio Spurs

3 Detroit Pistons

2 Boston Celtics, Houston Rockets

1 Miami Heat

MLB teams and # of titles since 1985:

4 New York Yankees

2 Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, Florida Marlins, Boston Red Sox

1 Kansas City Royals, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, Oakland Athletics, Cincinnati Reds, Atlanta Braves, Arizona Diamondbacks, Anaheim Angels, Chicago White Sox, St.Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies

Seems to me like any random team has a much better chance winning a MLB than winning a NBA title.

And what exactly is wrong with teams that have the most fans always having the best players? They earned it. That's how it's supposed to work, you work hard, you win, you gain fans, you gain money, you get better players. Why should a team with lazy management, lazy coaches and no fans get good players just because no other team could afford them because they had no cap room?

[AtLaS]

The NBA introduced the salary cap in 1984/85.

# of teams that have won a championship since 1985

NBA: 7

MLB: 16

NBA teams and # of titles since 1985:

6 Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls

4 San Antonio Spurs

3 Detroit Pistons

2 Boston Celtics, Houston Rockets

1 Miami Heat

MLB teams and # of titles since 1985:

4 New York Yankees

2 Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, Florida Marlins, Boston Red Sox

1 Kansas City Royals, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, Oakland Athletics, Cincinnati Reds, Atlanta Braves, Arizona Diamondbacks, Anaheim Angels, Chicago White Sox, St.Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies

Seems to me like any random team has a much better chance winning a MLB than winning a NBA title.

That is because the NBA is a star dominated league. Every one of those teams save the 2004 Pistons had bonafide superstars. It has nothing to do with a salary cap.

Besides, basketball is different in that there are only 5 guys on the court at once and more points are scored in basketball than any other sport, so the best team usually wins. In Baseball/Football/Hockey, 1 or 2 big plays can determine the outcome of the game. A few lucky shots by an inferior team can't win a basketball game unless they continue to play well the entire game. That's why upsets are so rare in the NBA, especially in a 7 game series. College is different because it's single elimination, so anything can happen in one game. If each team in the tourney played a 7 game series it would be exactly the same as the NBA.

Edited December 11, 2008 by AtLaS

[CBAreject]

Clearly they need a salary cap. I mean just look at how teams like Minnesota, Oakland, Tampa...they just can't compete!

A Salary Cap is the biggest way to screw over players and generate more revenue for owners. MLB owners understand this and thats why they don't do it. Stop being a socialist and making an even playing field, if your team "can't compete" that means they just lack human capital (not money) in the sport...(socialist comment isn't meant as an insult, I am just fascinated with a capitalistic society like America wanting to create a socialist environment where over in Europe it is almost the complete opposite).

Typical blustery hawksfanatic response. "Leveling the playing field" in competitive sports is not the same as doing so in say academic admissions, business, or the job market. It's not the same as robbing from the rich and giving to the poor through crippling tax codes. The whole point of competitive sports is to entertain, and the trouble is that when medium-sized markets can't compete, it's not entertaining. When the same team buys all the good players every year, it's not entertaining. When that happens, they stop buying tickets and merchandise, and everybody suffers.

Now, I'm not really sure a baseball salary cap is the best thing, but it's far from socialist. It's more like anti-trust laws, which encourage competition when it has become stifled under the financial girth of one giant. Encouraging competition is fully a capitalist concept. I agree that a salary cap hurts the players the most, so I think a better solution is revenue-sharing, which is what the MLB does. It's not that we're trying to penalize successful teams. Rather, the successful teams benefit from having small markets to compete against, and it would hurt them if they collapsed, so it benefits everyone to keep them afloat.

[Admin]

Typical blustery hawksfanatic response. "Leveling the playing field" in competitive sports is not the same as doing so in say academic admissions, business, or the job market. It's not the same as robbing from the rich and giving to the poor through crippling tax codes. The whole point of competitive sports is to entertain, and the trouble is that when medium-sized markets can't compete, it's not entertaining. When the same team buys all the good players every year, it's not entertaining. When that happens, they stop buying tickets and merchandise, and everybody suffers.

Now, I'm not really sure a baseball salary cap is the best thing, but it's far from socialist. It's more like anti-trust laws, which encourage competition when it has become stifled under the financial girth of one giant. Encouraging competition is fully a capitalist concept. I agree that a salary cap hurts the players the most, so I think a better solution is revenue-sharing, which is what the MLB does. It's not that we're trying to penalize successful teams. Rather, the successful teams benefit from having small markets to compete against, and it would hurt them if they collapsed, so it benefits everyone to keep them afloat.

So then you're satisfied with the current system since that's what it does?

[macdaddy]

Clearly they need a salary cap. I mean just look at how teams like Minnesota, Oakland, Tampa...they just can't compete!

A Salary Cap is the biggest way to screw over players and generate more revenue for owners. MLB owners understand this and thats why they don't do it. Stop being a socialist and making an even playing field, if your team "can't compete" that means they just lack human capital (not money) in the sport...(socialist comment isn't meant as an insult, I am just fascinated with a capitalistic society like America wanting to create a socialist environment where over in Europe it is almost the complete opposite).

A Salary Cap is the biggest way to screw over players and generate more revenue for owners. MLB owners understand this and thats why they don't do it.

So the owners don't do a salary cap because it would mean more money for them?? How charitable these owners are.

[Guest]

The whole point of competitive sports is to entertain, and the trouble is that when medium-sized markets can't compete, it's not entertaining. When the same team buys all the good players every year, it's not entertaining. When that happens, they stop buying tickets and merchandise, and everybody suffers.

Teams have a fixed roster, they cannot buy up all the talent. Also, the talent pool is very large in MLB as with most sports. If the talent pool for some reason started to shrink considerably then a salary cap is not the answer, contraction is.

Funny how you talk about this as if it is anti-trust laws when it is virtually impossible for a sports team to create a monopoly within a league.

[Guest]

So the owners don't do a salary cap because it would mean more money for them?? How charitable these owners are.

Yeah I read over that and that was a mistake. Not sure what I was intending to say because I don't remember my mindset when I posted that.

[Admin]

Yeah I read over that and that was a mistake. Not sure what I was intending to say because I don't remember my mindset when I posted that.

I think that you meant that the players association would never approve of a salary cap because it would mean more money for the owners. The teams aren't going to stop selling the same amount of merchandise, tickets, tv rights, etc. that they are now and if they get to start paying the players a lot less then that means money directly in the pockets of the owners.

[Guest]

I think that you meant that the players association would never approve of a salary cap because it would mean more money for the owners. The teams aren't going to stop selling the same amount of merchandise, tickets, tv rights, etc. that they are now and if they get to start paying the players a lot less then that means money directly in the pockets of the owners.

That sounds right, I just goofed on that first post. My mind hasn't been too focused the past couple of weeks, so I'll blame it on that even though there really isn't much of an excuse.

[Admin]

That sounds right, I just goofed on that first post. My mind hasn't been too focused the past couple of weeks, so I'll blame it on that even though there really isn't much of an excuse.

Eh, we all write posts that we go back and read later and wonder what we were thinking and I'm sure many times people are in a situation like me where we're typing a post and talking on the phone or doing something else and get confused.

[macdaddy]

Yeah I read over that and that was a mistake. Not sure what I was intending to say because I don't remember my mindset when I posted that.

I think you're probably right about the first part. It would be more money for most of the owners. I think they don't push for it because the big boys and the little boys don't want it. The yanks and sox want to be able to outspend everyone and the royals and pirates enjoy their welfare checks.

[Admin]

I think you're probably right about the first part. It would be more money for most of the owners. I think they don't push for it because the big boys and the little boys don't want it. The yanks and sox want to be able to outspend everyone and the royals and pirates enjoy their welfare checks.

If it were only up to the owners I'm sure they'd gladly put in a salary cap It's the players who won't allow this to happen since they would be the only ones affected by it.

Do you really think the Yankees and Red Sox owners want to write those enormous checks for players who aren't even remotely worth it?

[macdaddy]

If it were only up to the owners I'm sure they'd gladly put in a salary cap It's the players who won't allow this to happen since they would be the only ones affected by it.

Do you really think the Yankees and Red Sox owners want to write those enormous checks for players who aren't even remotely worth it?

I know what you're saying. It definitely impacts the players and they'd fight it. But really I do think the Yankees and Red Sox owners feel they are better off knowing they can get any player they want because no one can match their offer. Its what keeps the fans in the seats and big tv contracts, merchandising etc. If every team has the ability to make the marquee players the same offer then they may not get as many of those guys and the value of their brand declines with fewer big names on the team.