It's hard for you to see MLB owners allowing 1 of of 30 franchises to spend no money and in-turn lowering the total expenditure on player salaries? Sounds like their dream owner to me. Loria finished off the Expos and was rewarded for it with the Marlins with help from an interest-free loan from MLB. ETA: I don't remember the specs on the debt/equity rules, but never have I heard it alluded to as a reason a team can't lower their payroll, and ultimately their made up rules that MLB can enforce however they want. No I don’t find it hard to believe MLB is fine with the lowering of payroll. I was just saying if the $55 million number was true they are trying to get to that, that seems so extreme that maybe they were doing it as a function of their financing package they used to buy the team and it wasn’t purely based on just trying to run at bare bones and turn as much profit as possible. Jim Crane had no money so he lowered the Astros payroll to an embarrassing level on Opening Day 2013, only to trade off the meager assets they had during the season to save any more money. If in order to afford the team they have to lower payroll, I don't see how MLB loses, barring a Frank McCourt situation which had a lot more to do with his converting the franchise assets into personal assets to the point that he couldn't meet payroll.