The Florida Marlins recently agreed to increase its spending on salaries to comply with MLB's revenue sharing agreement. So we've established that baseball needs a salary floor, but no clear consensus on a salary cap or ceiling. Common sense would tell us that nobody would build a house with a floor and no ceiling, so why does baseball think that it could pull it off? Seriously, a salary floor and a salary cap would provide a definitive range so teams could best manage their costs as they try to stay competitive.
But does this help the competitive landscape? Not entirely. Teams could still surf the lower end of the range of costs, pocket the revenue sharing funds and still not compete. So, as usual, the fans would lose, at least in most cities.
These guys need a little more incentive to play to win the game. (as Herman Edwards told us is the entire purpose, HELLO!!!) Too many baseball teams do not even try to win on the field, content to win more love among the green-eye shade crowd than their fans. THAT'S NOT RIGHT.
Most cities and their fans have already been taken to the cleaners with a gun to their head by caving in to owners "requests" for new stadiums across the country. It's high time the fans were paid back in some fashion.
What would be the glue that would keep both the owners and their bean counters happy as well as provide the fans with a more exciting and balanced competitive landscape? In my opinion, adoption of NFL-style scheduling, whereby you play a certain amount of games against teams that finished in the same position in the standings as your team did.
I'm OK with the notion of teams playing most of their games against divisional opponents. I am also OK with keeping inter-league play in some form, especially the true rivalries that exist. The contrived inter-league rivalries do not concern me and the fans would not miss them much. In fact, if you play a certain percentage of games with the same-prior-years finisher as your team, your team will eventually see all the teams in the other league. The rate at which players change teams does not allow a system that would guarantee fans the chance to see all the superstars of the "other" league. So why do we concede part of the scheduling to achieving this goal?
Under this type of system, you would likely see a bump in attendance for the previously considered "contraction candidates" like Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, et. al.
We hear continuously that the one thing that helps attendance the most is winning. So let's help teams win and become more competitive.
If the rich teams don't want to share as much revenue, that's fine.
If the poor teams don't want to spend as much as the rich, that's fine.
If the rich tams want to cut back on salary to increase profits and risk falling in the standings, that's fine too.
If the salary structure continues to impede competitive balance, why not look at another way to improve it?
What's the definition of insanity? Continuing to do things the same way and expecting different results.
I can't listen to these small sample examples from one sport or another about competitive balance being better in baseball and see that in the NFL almost every teams fan base feels like it has a shot to win. I understand that their 16 game, small sample of a season allows for a lot of that variation, but unless baseball wants to bust down to a much smaller than 162 game season, that bet is off.
In MLB, over 50% of the teams have virtually no shot at winning each year and the fans know it. That cannot continue much longer, especially in this current economic environment.
It's interesting that I read an article by The Peoples Commissioner, Peter Gammons on MLB.com that gave a State of the Union type analysis of the current environment.
Attendance down only 6.9% (they lucked out and it may be down more)
Revenues were flat (more revenue streams)
Revenues projected to break $8 billion in 2010 (by comparison revenues were $1.3B in 1995, the pre-steroid era)
All fine and good Peter.
But then he went into some sort of logic-gymnastics that strained credibility. He says "it is unfair to label he Yankees championship as a World Series purchased" after buying Sabathia, Texeira and Burnett. WHAT!!! C'mon Peter, you know better. And then a couple of lines later he follows with a "the Yankees had six of the 10 highest-paid players" chaser line.
And then wonder why there is a disconnect between how fans view the landscape and how ownership and leadership views it?
The most telling quote in Gammons article was from A's owner Billy Beane, "The way the system is right now, there really is no difference between a $75 million and a $40 million payroll. I think a lot of small-market clubs look at that and ask 'Why pay $75 million when $40 million will buy me as many wins?"
INDEED. THIS IS THE PROBLEM. And this is why in many cities, baseball is in a moribund state of no hope, fans merely twirling the turnstiles as a nod to nostalgia. Waiting for the talk about contracting their teams to heat up again in a time where if anything, we should be talking about expansion again. At least if you rely on USA population growth alone since last expansion. And if you consider the ever growing numbers of international countries that are providing fertile grounds for player development, we are way past due for another round of expansion. And you would need expansion, not contraction to implement my master plan. And yet, the "meeting of the minds" as Gammons calls it, discussed "the situation" in the previously considered contraction candidate cities. I would call it a "meeting of the mindless" because no business can grow by contracting markets.
I know money can't buy me love and it can't buy me wins. I live in Chicago and see what the Cubs do with a wheelbarrow full of cash and no brains every year. And I see what the Marlins do on a Salvation Army type budget and an eye for talent.
But still, there has to be a better way of doing business. In the way I suggest, the revenues grow in those cities where there has been little or no real growth in years, maybe decades.
(Price) Fixing the Draft does not do that.
A World Wide Draft does not do that.
Capping the dollars applied towards the Draft and International signings does not do that.
Only getting their heads together on a salary floor and a cap does that. You can't talk about one without the other in baseball anymore. It's a sign of "baseball mindlessness" or senility. And you can't just do that, you have to add the missing ingredient, the NFL-style schedule.
Other than that, I would support expansion, but not to the AAA cities they hope to extort a major league franchise fee from. If Chicago can support two teams, Boston can as well. If New York supported three teams in the past, they can do it again. Return a franchise to Brooklyn or start one up in the swamps of Jersey. That will return at least some semblance of competitive balance to a sport that truly has only had the facade of balance for the last quarter century.
Let's review:
Salary Cap (OK)
Salary Floor (Yes, yes)
Revenue Sharing (Yes, by all means)
Expansion, not contraction (I though you'd never ask)
NFL-style, place in the standings scheduling (Oh, yessssss.)
And if that doesn't work or we can't come to agreement on all these components of the plan:
Expand into the LARGE markets until they are on a LEVEL PLAYING FIELD with the SMALL-TO MEDIUM markets.
If Obama can bring Balkinization to America's largest banks, I don't see why we cannot Balkinize America's (or ESPN's) largest teams markets--the Yankees and the Red Sox.
Now that was easy, wasn't it? No more problem with disparity between LARGE vs. SMALL markets.
Get it? Got it? GOOD!!! My work here is done. I'm happy to have been of service.
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