(Opinions) Baseball & A Salary Cap

[Sabermetrician]

I am writing a paper for a class arguing why baseball should not have a salary cap.

 

Some reasons include:

 

-Not an overly high correlation between payroll and wins (price per win). I remember reading an article on this somewhere, couldn't find it, but with more research I'm sure I could.

-All owners have the ability to spend more than they do

 

I'm interested in any other thoughts on this subject, even those who feel there should be a salary cap.

 

Thanks.

[RynoRules]

Salary cap would prevent lesser GMs from overspending, thus forcing all involved to spend in a more wise manner. Salary floor would force franchises like KC and TB to spend and perhaps become competitive in the process.

[dan.gold]

Shouldn't you come up with answers on your own, or at least look for published sources? Can't quote an NSBB poster.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Shouldn't you come up with answers on your own, or at least look for published sources? Can't quote an NSBB poster.

 

That'd be awesome. RynoRules will be mentioned on the Citation Page with a link to this thread.

[KingCubsFan]

I am writing a paper for a class arguing why baseball should not have a salary cap.

 

Some reasons include:

 

-Not an overly high correlation between payroll and wins (price per win). I remember reading an article on this somewhere, couldn't find it, but with more research I'm sure I could.

-All owners have the ability to spend more than they do

 

I'm interested in any other thoughts on this subject, even those who feel there should be a salary cap.

 

Thanks.

Link? Who are you going to cite for this? Jay Mariotti?

[RynoRules]

I am writing a paper for a class arguing why baseball should not have a salary cap.

 

Some reasons include:

 

-Not an overly high correlation between payroll and wins (price per win). I remember reading an article on this somewhere, couldn't find it, but with more research I'm sure I could.

-All owners have the ability to spend more than they do

 

I'm interested in any other thoughts on this subject, even those who feel there should be a salary cap.

 

Thanks.

Link? Who are you going to cite for this? Jay Mariotti?

 

I was thinking the same thing. Unless you have the numbers to prove that point, that is (i.e., the balance sheets of all the ML teams).

[Jon]

Shouldn't you come up with answers on your own, or at least look for published sources? Can't quote an NSBB poster.

 

That'd be awesome. RynoRules will be mentioned on the Citation Page with a link to this thread.

Rules, R. (2007). Re: (Opinions) Baseball & A Salary Cap. Retrieved March 21, 2007, from viewtopic.php?t=39235.

 

Or did you want MLA?

 

 

There have been articles about profit and wealth of major league owners. Shouldn't be that hard to find.

[Slugger_16]

Shouldn't you come up with answers on your own, or at least look for published sources? Can't quote an NSBB poster.

 

That'd be awesome. RynoRules will be mentioned on the Citation Page with a link to this thread.

Rules, R. (2007). Re: (Opinions) Baseball & A Salary Cap. Retrieved March 21, 2007, from viewtopic.php?t=39235.

 

Or did you want MLA?

 

Wow, that was quick. You must have some practice with APA citations.

[Jehrico]

I'll give you a reason why there should be a salary cap...

 

Ticket prices. If implementing a cap could curb salaries and reduce costs, making it so you can take a family of four to a game, enjoy a couple of dogs and drinks for less than $200, then I'm all for it.

[RynoRules]

Shouldn't you come up with answers on your own, or at least look for published sources? Can't quote an NSBB poster.

 

That'd be awesome. RynoRules will be mentioned on the Citation Page with a link to this thread.

Rules, R. (2007). Re: (Opinions) Baseball & A Salary Cap. Retrieved March 21, 2007, from viewtopic.php?t=39235.

 

Or did you want MLA?

 

 

There have been articles about profit and wealth of major league owners. Shouldn't be that hard to find.

 

Baseball teams are for-profit entities. Why would you spend money if aren't making any. Should the owners take the money out of their personal pockets, in your opinion?

[Jehrico]

Shouldn't you come up with answers on your own, or at least look for published sources? Can't quote an NSBB poster.

 

Why not? What's the difference between quoting an educated, rabid fan off of a message board over any other schmuck with a publisher? A source is a source. I've seen just as much garbage in books nowadays as you can pull off of the net. Neither is more credible than the other, IMHO.

[Jon]

Baseball teams are for-profit entities. Why would you spend money if aren't making any. Should the owners take the money out of their personal pockets, in your opinion?

If the issue is whether or not they reasonably have the "ability" to spend more, MLB could theoretically implement a salary floor and force such GMs to either comply or sell their team. I'm not sure how many owners of low-budget teams would fail to be able to comply. Some may not want to, but it's within their means.

[LeftCoastCubFan]

From what perspective are you writing it from?

 

As a fan:

-It isn’t going to lower prices of tickets or beer (see nba/nfl)

-Is parity with all teams around .500 a good or bad thing

-If you are a fan of a big spending team, you will be penalized

-May not be able to retain your favorite player by expanding payroll

 

As a business:

-A cap requires sharing most revenues. If you have it, why give it away

-A cap requires a floor. This prevents cutting as business conditions change

-It’s un-American. It’s a socialist system.

-It takes away the incentive to do it better, as the rewards are the same for all owners

 

As a player:

-Why give up a good thing, knowing you can get as much as the market can bear

-Our players union is too strong and we will shut baseball down for a few years if they try

 

Just a note, there is a correlation between payroll and making the playoffs.

[UBlink]

I'll give you a reason why there should be a salary cap...

 

Ticket prices. If implementing a cap could curb salaries and reduce costs, making it so you can take a family of four to a game, enjoy a couple of dogs and drinks for less than $200, then I'm all for it.

 

Costs aren't the issue in ticket prices - it's demand. For the most part, a team is going to set ticket prices to maximize revenue. From an economic standpoint, the marginal cost of an additional fan is essentially zero - having one more fan through the gate doesn't have any related cost. To a certain extent a team might think investing $X million more in the team payroll will increase paid attendance by $Y million, but for the most part revenue and costs are independent. Now a cap might impact the division of that revenue between rich greedy players and rich greedy owners, but unless it reduced the demand for tickets I don't see it having an impact on ticket prices.

 

If you want to have low ticket prices pick a sport with low demand like soccer, rugby, women's basketball or lacrosse.

[Amazing_Grace]

I don't think a salary cap is a realistic solution to the parity issues in baseball, for several reasons. First, of course, is the union. The NFL has the luxury of a union based on a very large number of players (I think 45 guys per NFL roster and I don't know if practice squad/NFL Europe guys may be in the union also), only a fraction of which will ever make a huge salary like Peyton Manning. In baseball, a lot of guys, even no-talent hacks like Neifi, can land many millions of dollars in contract. As a result, the union, especially the guys who have been around in the league long enough to have any impact on the game or influence in the union, are making millions on the current system and have no incentive to change it. They don't care much about the long-term future of the game since they'll be leaving it before whatever damage their union does ever impacts the game. There's also a more adversarial mentality between owners and players in MLB, and that's something that comes from a long history of hard feelings and disputes. MLB, we should remember, is far older than the NFL or NBA and has over a century worth of bitterness to get over between the two sides.

 

The union isn't the only problem or even the largest though. The problem is, and always has been, baseball's minor league system and the problems it creates. If baseball were like the NFL, they would have no AAA, AA, or any of these. They'd draft players for their roster right out of college or HS and have to take their chances with that, as NFL and NBA teams do. In the NBA and the NFL, rookies are really rookies. There are no September callups, and a guy doesn't have to toil away in the minors for 3-6 seasons at modest pay for his chance to get to the major league stage. Guys that have talent are identified, drafted, and counted upon to make immediate contributions. The simple truth is that these leagues use another profitable league, the NCAA, to do their player development for them, and never have to deal with the costs and problems associated with these investments. The only player development investment that teams make in these leagues is in scouting. The players they draft are finished products, and if the worst teams get the highest choices and everyone spends about the same, it's pretty apparent that you'll have a reasonable amount of parity, and a bad team will be attributable to bad management, bad decisions, and bad coaching.

 

MLB teams, on the other hand, must develop their own players because there is no profitable amateur league that plays at a level anywhere near major league baseball. I can only think of one guy that even could have played his first season out of college (Prior). As a result, each team invests millions of dollars on their player development investment. The Cubs have 6 minor league teams, with some having more and some less. Each team costs money to upkeep in the form of coaches, supplies, management, etc. Add it all up, and by the time Felix Pie gets to the majors, the Cubs have spent a LOT of money to get him there. It's no wonder then, that teams are reluctant to allow free agency right away; they have a lot of money invested in their players. If the team ultimately gets nothing out of those players, then the whole system collapses. That's the reason that players have to get 6 seasons of MLB service time before they get free agency. The longer you can keep your young star from bolting to a team with a bigger budget, the more you make on your minor league investment. It's a bit like drug companies. They spend billions to develop new drugs, and then price them ridiculously high to recoup those costs. If you could just make generic drugs 6 months after the drug came out, the investment in development is unprofitable, and before long, nobody is investing in new drug development. Baseball is the same way. If there were unrestricted free agency, the whole system would collapse.

 

When players, who have now spent 6 years ML service time plus 3-6 in the minors, finally hit FA, they are itching for one big payday before they start to decline. FA salaries are huge because most guys that start out in the league fail somewhere from A-ball to the majors. The few guys that are successful enough to get all the way through the process are worth a huge amount of money, because a successful developed player is extraordinarily expensive requiring not just the money invested in his development, but all the failures that, statistically, accompany one success. Contrast that to basketball or football, where guys walk right out of the classroom onto the field and contribute. In these sports, a developed player is CHEAP, at least from the point of view of the team. If somebody is terrible, you just have to draft somebody else, who may or may not be any better, but there's plenty more where that came from every year so who cares. In baseball, if somebody is terrible, the random AAA guy you replace him with is probably a huge dropoff from even the terrible player. If you draft a guy as your future at SS, you still won't see that guy replacing Neifi Perez for 3 seasons at least. In baseball, a developed player, even the worst ones, are EXPENSIVE in terms of time, and money.

 

What all this adds up to is that a salary cap/floor won't work as effectively as in other sports. The salary cap won't alter the nature of player development, or the need to see the investment in minor league systems "pay off". Teams will still not want to lose their "investements" to free agency, regardless of whether it's the Yankees or a random other team picking them off. Don't get me wrong, a salary cap would probably narrow the gap considerably in the short term. If the Yankees can't spend 200M, then they can't. Realistically though, the spending differential is soooo huge from the haves to the have nots that you'd have to have almost complete revenue sharing and a very high spending floor to go along with the cap. If, say, you had a salary cap at 100M and a floor at 50, then you'd have 10-15 teams at 90-100M and 10 or so at around 50, with very little in between. I believe about the only thing a salary cap would accomplish would be to limit the spending of two teams the BoSox and Yankees. Now, if you have a very narrow range where teams can spend, say 70-90, then you get some parity, but there would have to be a lot of revenue sharing to ensure that the small market teams could spend that much. By this point, of course we're in the realm where a lot more teams than the Yankees and BoSox stand to lose in the equation and the salary cap scenario looks less and less plausible.

 

I think that in order to get parity in the league, you'd have to fundamentally change the player development system. Parity requires, first and foremost, that talent flows freely among the teams. In baseball, talent doesn't flow freely, because each team has spent too much on the players they have to let them go easily. They're worried about getting a good return on that investment. I think parity only comes when the owners of the teams come together for the good of the game and change the system into one that is both profitable for them in the long-term (meaning the whole league and the game is popular and successful), and also allows players greater freedom of movement earlier in their careers (which ultimately, is what they want). I think MLB as an organization should save cash, in whatever way, for a few years and allow it to build until they can simply take over the minor league system, buying whatever infrastructure is needed from the teams. They then set up the system and run it using shared revenues from all the teams, and set up a revamped, NFL style draft that drafts developed players out of the minor league system. A player would be eligible to be drafted at age 22, but would have to be kept on the ML roster or returned to the draft pool next season. In this way, the teams that spend huge money on FA's lose out, because talented rookies start going to other teams a lot more consistently. Another caveat would be a player would be eligible for arbritration after 2 seasons and FA after 3. I think the ultimate result of such a system would be a younger game, a more competitive game, and a more amicable system between owners and players.

 

Unfortunately, this plan would require the owners to think of the league before themselves, and to employ some original thinking rather than copying the tactics of the other leagues. As we well know, these are things MLB owners are not known for.

[b_wiggy_66]

I don't think a salary cap is a realistic solution to the parity issues in baseball, for several reasons. First, of course, is the union. The NFL has the luxury of a union based on a very large number of players (I think 45 guys per NFL roster and I don't know if practice squad/NFL Europe guys may be in the union also), only a fraction of which will ever make a huge salary like Peyton Manning. In baseball, a lot of guys, even no-talent hacks like Neifi, can land many millions of dollars in contract. As a result, the union, especially the guys who have been around in the league long enough to have any impact on the game or influence in the union, are making millions on the current system and have no incentive to change it. They don't care much about the long-term future of the game since they'll be leaving it before whatever damage their union does ever impacts the game. There's also a more adversarial mentality between owners and players in MLB, and that's something that comes from a long history of hard feelings and disputes. MLB, we should remember, is far older than the NFL or NBA and has over a century worth of bitterness to get over between the two sides.

 

The union isn't the only problem or even the largest though. The problem is, and always has been, baseball's minor league system and the problems it creates. If baseball were like the NFL, they would have no AAA, AA, or any of these. They'd draft players for their roster right out of college or HS and have to take their chances with that, as NFL and NBA teams do. In the NBA and the NFL, rookies are really rookies. There are no September callups, and a guy doesn't have to toil away in the minors for 3-6 seasons at modest pay for his chance to get to the major league stage. Guys that have talent are identified, drafted, and counted upon to make immediate contributions. The simple truth is that these leagues use another profitable league, the NCAA, to do their player development for them, and never have to deal with the costs and problems associated with these investments. The only player development investment that teams make in these leagues is in scouting. The players they draft are finished products, and if the worst teams get the highest choices and everyone spends about the same, it's pretty apparent that you'll have a reasonable amount of parity, and a bad team will be attributable to bad management, bad decisions, and bad coaching.

 

MLB teams, on the other hand, must develop their own players because there is no profitable amateur league that plays at a level anywhere near major league baseball. I can only think of one guy that even could have played his first season out of college (Prior). As a result, each team invests millions of dollars on their player development investment. The Cubs have 6 minor league teams, with some having more and some less. Each team costs money to upkeep in the form of coaches, supplies, management, etc. Add it all up, and by the time Felix Pie gets to the majors, the Cubs have spent a LOT of money to get him there. It's no wonder then, that teams are reluctant to allow free agency right away; they have a lot of money invested in their players. If the team ultimately gets nothing out of those players, then the whole system collapses. That's the reason that players have to get 6 seasons of MLB service time before they get free agency. The longer you can keep your young star from bolting to a team with a bigger budget, the more you make on your minor league investment. It's a bit like drug companies. They spend billions to develop new drugs, and then price them ridiculously high to recoup those costs. If you could just make generic drugs 6 months after the drug came out, the investment in development is unprofitable, and before long, nobody is investing in new drug development. Baseball is the same way. If there were unrestricted free agency, the whole system would collapse.

 

When players, who have now spent 6 years ML service time plus 3-6 in the minors, finally hit FA, they are itching for one big payday before they start to decline. FA salaries are huge because most guys that start out in the league fail somewhere from A-ball to the majors. The few guys that are successful enough to get all the way through the process are worth a huge amount of money, because a successful developed player is extraordinarily expensive requiring not just the money invested in his development, but all the failures that, statistically, accompany one success. Contrast that to basketball or football, where guys walk right out of the classroom onto the field and contribute. In these sports, a developed player is CHEAP, at least from the point of view of the team. If somebody is terrible, you just have to draft somebody else, who may or may not be any better, but there's plenty more where that came from every year so who cares. In baseball, if somebody is terrible, the random AAA guy you replace him with is probably a huge dropoff from even the terrible player. If you draft a guy as your future at SS, you still won't see that guy replacing Neifi Perez for 3 seasons at least. In baseball, a developed player, even the worst ones, are EXPENSIVE in terms of time, and money.

 

What all this adds up to is that a salary cap/floor won't work as effectively as in other sports. The salary cap won't alter the nature of player development, or the need to see the investment in minor league systems "pay off". Teams will still not want to lose their "investements" to free agency, regardless of whether it's the Yankees or a random other team picking them off. Don't get me wrong, a salary cap would probably narrow the gap considerably in the short term. If the Yankees can't spend 200M, then they can't. Realistically though, the spending differential is soooo huge from the haves to the have nots that you'd have to have almost complete revenue sharing and a very high spending floor to go along with the cap. If, say, you had a salary cap at 100M and a floor at 50, then you'd have 10-15 teams at 90-100M and 10 or so at around 50, with very little in between. I believe about the only thing a salary cap would accomplish would be to limit the spending of two teams the BoSox and Yankees. Now, if you have a very narrow range where teams can spend, say 70-90, then you get some parity, but there would have to be a lot of revenue sharing to ensure that the small market teams could spend that much. By this point, of course we're in the realm where a lot more teams than the Yankees and BoSox stand to lose in the equation and the salary cap scenario looks less and less plausible.

 

I think that in order to get parity in the league, you'd have to fundamentally change the player development system. Parity requires, first and foremost, that talent flows freely among the teams. In baseball, talent doesn't flow freely, because each team has spent too much on the players they have to let them go easily. They're worried about getting a good return on that investment. I think parity only comes when the owners of the teams come together for the good of the game and change the system into one that is both profitable for them in the long-term (meaning the whole league and the game is popular and successful), and also allows players greater freedom of movement earlier in their careers (which ultimately, is what they want). I think MLB as an organization should save cash, in whatever way, for a few years and allow it to build until they can simply take over the minor league system, buying whatever infrastructure is needed from the teams. They then set up the system and run it using shared revenues from all the teams, and set up a revamped, NFL style draft that drafts developed players out of the minor league system. A player would be eligible to be drafted at age 22, but would have to be kept on the ML roster or returned to the draft pool next season. In this way, the teams that spend huge money on FA's lose out, because talented rookies start going to other teams a lot more consistently. Another caveat would be a player would be eligible for arbritration after 2 seasons and FA after 3. I think the ultimate result of such a system would be a younger game, a more competitive game, and a more amicable system between owners and players.

 

Unfortunately, this plan would require the owners to think of the league before themselves, and to employ some original thinking rather than copying the tactics of the other leagues. As we well know, these are things MLB owners are not known for.

 

Wow, how long did it take you to type that post? It's so long I didn't really want to read it all. :lol:

[Rob]

As long as the Cubs are exceeding the salary midpoint by a good margin, I'm against a salary cap.

[NCCubFan]

Wow, how long did it take you to type that post? It's so long I didn't really want to read it all. :lol:

If you're going to take up the space to quote it all you should be required to read it all. :D

[Amazing_Grace]

I don't think a salary cap is a realistic solution to the parity issues in baseball, for several reasons. First, of course, is the union. The NFL has the luxury of a union based on a very large number of players (I think 45 guys per NFL roster and I don't know if practice squad/NFL Europe guys may be in the union also), only a fraction of which will ever make a huge salary like Peyton Manning. In baseball, a lot of guys, even no-talent hacks like Neifi, can land many millions of dollars in contract. As a result, the union, especially the guys who have been around in the league long enough to have any impact on the game or influence in the union, are making millions on the current system and have no incentive to change it. They don't care much about the long-term future of the game since they'll be leaving it before whatever damage their union does ever impacts the game. There's also a more adversarial mentality between owners and players in MLB, and that's something that comes from a long history of hard feelings and disputes. MLB, we should remember, is far older than the NFL or NBA and has over a century worth of bitterness to get over between the two sides.

 

The union isn't the only problem or even the largest though. The problem is, and always has been, baseball's minor league system and the problems it creates. If baseball were like the NFL, they would have no AAA, AA, or any of these. They'd draft players for their roster right out of college or HS and have to take their chances with that, as NFL and NBA teams do. In the NBA and the NFL, rookies are really rookies. There are no September callups, and a guy doesn't have to toil away in the minors for 3-6 seasons at modest pay for his chance to get to the major league stage. Guys that have talent are identified, drafted, and counted upon to make immediate contributions. The simple truth is that these leagues use another profitable league, the NCAA, to do their player development for them, and never have to deal with the costs and problems associated with these investments. The only player development investment that teams make in these leagues is in scouting. The players they draft are finished products, and if the worst teams get the highest choices and everyone spends about the same, it's pretty apparent that you'll have a reasonable amount of parity, and a bad team will be attributable to bad management, bad decisions, and bad coaching.

 

MLB teams, on the other hand, must develop their own players because there is no profitable amateur league that plays at a level anywhere near major league baseball. I can only think of one guy that even could have played his first season out of college (Prior). As a result, each team invests millions of dollars on their player development investment. The Cubs have 6 minor league teams, with some having more and some less. Each team costs money to upkeep in the form of coaches, supplies, management, etc. Add it all up, and by the time Felix Pie gets to the majors, the Cubs have spent a LOT of money to get him there. It's no wonder then, that teams are reluctant to allow free agency right away; they have a lot of money invested in their players. If the team ultimately gets nothing out of those players, then the whole system collapses. That's the reason that players have to get 6 seasons of MLB service time before they get free agency. The longer you can keep your young star from bolting to a team with a bigger budget, the more you make on your minor league investment. It's a bit like drug companies. They spend billions to develop new drugs, and then price them ridiculously high to recoup those costs. If you could just make generic drugs 6 months after the drug came out, the investment in development is unprofitable, and before long, nobody is investing in new drug development. Baseball is the same way. If there were unrestricted free agency, the whole system would collapse.

 

When players, who have now spent 6 years ML service time plus 3-6 in the minors, finally hit FA, they are itching for one big payday before they start to decline. FA salaries are huge because most guys that start out in the league fail somewhere from A-ball to the majors. The few guys that are successful enough to get all the way through the process are worth a huge amount of money, because a successful developed player is extraordinarily expensive requiring not just the money invested in his development, but all the failures that, statistically, accompany one success. Contrast that to basketball or football, where guys walk right out of the classroom onto the field and contribute. In these sports, a developed player is CHEAP, at least from the point of view of the team. If somebody is terrible, you just have to draft somebody else, who may or may not be any better, but there's plenty more where that came from every year so who cares. In baseball, if somebody is terrible, the random AAA guy you replace him with is probably a huge dropoff from even the terrible player. If you draft a guy as your future at SS, you still won't see that guy replacing Neifi Perez for 3 seasons at least. In baseball, a developed player, even the worst ones, are EXPENSIVE in terms of time, and money.

 

What all this adds up to is that a salary cap/floor won't work as effectively as in other sports. The salary cap won't alter the nature of player development, or the need to see the investment in minor league systems "pay off". Teams will still not want to lose their "investements" to free agency, regardless of whether it's the Yankees or a random other team picking them off. Don't get me wrong, a salary cap would probably narrow the gap considerably in the short term. If the Yankees can't spend 200M, then they can't. Realistically though, the spending differential is soooo huge from the haves to the have nots that you'd have to have almost complete revenue sharing and a very high spending floor to go along with the cap. If, say, you had a salary cap at 100M and a floor at 50, then you'd have 10-15 teams at 90-100M and 10 or so at around 50, with very little in between. I believe about the only thing a salary cap would accomplish would be to limit the spending of two teams the BoSox and Yankees. Now, if you have a very narrow range where teams can spend, say 70-90, then you get some parity, but there would have to be a lot of revenue sharing to ensure that the small market teams could spend that much. By this point, of course we're in the realm where a lot more teams than the Yankees and BoSox stand to lose in the equation and the salary cap scenario looks less and less plausible.

 

I think that in order to get parity in the league, you'd have to fundamentally change the player development system. Parity requires, first and foremost, that talent flows freely among the teams. In baseball, talent doesn't flow freely, because each team has spent too much on the players they have to let them go easily. They're worried about getting a good return on that investment. I think parity only comes when the owners of the teams come together for the good of the game and change the system into one that is both profitable for them in the long-term (meaning the whole league and the game is popular and successful), and also allows players greater freedom of movement earlier in their careers (which ultimately, is what they want). I think MLB as an organization should save cash, in whatever way, for a few years and allow it to build until they can simply take over the minor league system, buying whatever infrastructure is needed from the teams. They then set up the system and run it using shared revenues from all the teams, and set up a revamped, NFL style draft that drafts developed players out of the minor league system. A player would be eligible to be drafted at age 22, but would have to be kept on the ML roster or returned to the draft pool next season. In this way, the teams that spend huge money on FA's lose out, because talented rookies start going to other teams a lot more consistently. Another caveat would be a player would be eligible for arbritration after 2 seasons and FA after 3. I think the ultimate result of such a system would be a younger game, a more competitive game, and a more amicable system between owners and players.

 

Unfortunately, this plan would require the owners to think of the league before themselves, and to employ some original thinking rather than copying the tactics of the other leagues. As we well know, these are things MLB owners are not known for.

 

Wow, how long did it take you to type that post? It's so long I didn't really want to read it all. :lol:

 

Lol, about a half hour. I just get started on something and then I can't quit.

[Jehrico]

I'll give you a reason why there should be a salary cap...

 

Ticket prices. If implementing a cap could curb salaries and reduce costs, making it so you can take a family of four to a game, enjoy a couple of dogs and drinks for less than $200, then I'm all for it.

 

Costs aren't the issue in ticket prices - it's demand. For the most part, a team is going to set ticket prices to maximize revenue. From an economic standpoint, the marginal cost of an additional fan is essentially zero - having one more fan through the gate doesn't have any related cost. To a certain extent a team might think investing $X million more in the team payroll will increase paid attendance by $Y million, but for the most part revenue and costs are independent. Now a cap might impact the division of that revenue between rich greedy players and rich greedy owners, but unless it reduced the demand for tickets I don't see it having an impact on ticket prices.

 

If you want to have low ticket prices pick a sport with low demand like soccer, rugby, women's basketball or lacrosse.

 

Yes, no, and no. Yes, demand is certainly part of the equation. Professional baseball, however, is a closed market with no competition There's MLB, and there's nothing else. The anti-trust exemption that MLB has been given by MLB carries certain implied responsibilities, so no, prices aren't (supposed to be) solely a function of supply and demand in this case. The owners are able to get away with some of the outrageous prices today without anyone in congress questioning them because of the ridiculously high operating costs that they would argue is necessary to "field a competitive team." If you could implement a salary cap and curb salary growth, it would take away their chief excuse sooner or later for maintaining the current growth rate of ticket prices. The only excuse they would have left is supply and demand, which they're not supposed to use due to their anti-trust exemption.

 

And lastly, no, I have no plans on picking a lower demand sport like women's basketball or lacrosse. :)

[RynoRules]

Baseball teams are for-profit entities. Why would you spend money if aren't making any. Should the owners take the money out of their personal pockets, in your opinion?

If the issue is whether or not they reasonably have the "ability" to spend more, MLB could theoretically implement a salary floor and force such GMs to either comply or sell their team. I'm not sure how many owners of low-budget teams would fail to be able to comply. Some may not want to, but it's within their means.

 

That's very different from what I saw you post earlier, which I thought referred to the owners' overall wealth as opposed to the the team's financial situation. These are two different things. Just b/c you won a team and have sustantial wealth doesn't mean you should fund the payroll out of your own pocket when the team itself doesn't have the money. That's bad business.