MLB should implement salary cap to ensure fair, equal competition

Just a few months ago, Pittsburgh saw a couple firsts: For one, a giant duck floated down the Allegheny, and for another, the Pirates played baseball into October for the first time in 21 years. Despite a heartbreaking loss against the Cardinals in the National League Division Series, the city’s pride for the Buccos finally returned after more than two decades of losing seasons. That pride has returned once again with the start of baseball season.

Despite such recent success, the prolonged losing streaks of smaller-market teams, such as the Pirates and Kansas City Royals, reflect a disadvantageous trend across the league over the past 25 to 30 years.

The trend reflects an increasing inequity between team payrolls, which have grown enormously since the late 1980s. A 2009 Bleacher Report analysis states that during the 1988 season, the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox possessed the highest and lowest payrolls, respectively. The difference between the two clubs equalled $13 million dollars — a 320 percent disparity between the league’s largest and smallest payrolls.

In 1998, however, the gap widened to $61.2 million: a 765 percent difference between the Baltimore Orioles and the Montreal Expos. By 2008, the imbalance had grown to $187 million, with the Yankees possessing a 959 percent advantage over the Florida Marlins.

In recent years, the MLB has made efforts to combat this grossly growing inequity, most notably through the competitive balance tax, or luxury tax. Essentially, it’s a tax placed on the amount of dollars exceeding a certain threshold agreed to in the most recent collective bargaining agreement. So, for instance, the threshold for the 2014-2016 seasons is currently set at $189 million. If a team’s payroll exceeds this number, it will be progressively taxed on the amount exceeded, with more penalties added for repeat offenders.

Despite its efforts, the luxury tax is not effective and appears only as a stopgap measure to the real problem: the lack of a league salary cap. If put in place, the cap would curtail the terribly disproportionate financial advantages of larger market teams over smaller ones, as again made obvious during this year’s offseason.

The Yankees unsurprisingly signed more big names, including outfielder Carlos Beltran for three years, $45 million; catcher Brian McCann for five years, $85 million; center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury for seven years, $153 million; and Japanese star pitcher Masahiro Tanaka for seven years, $155 million.

Despite being fined $28 million dollars in luxury taxes this year and $250 million since the policy’s inception in 2003, the Yankees and other large market teams continue to dominate the market.

This futile reality of current MLB payroll policy remains evident in 2014. The Los Angeles Dodgers stand at the top of the league with a $235,295,219 payroll compared to the Houston Astros, who sit at the bottom with $44,544,174. The Buccos remain relatively low on the list as well, coming in at 27th out of 30 teams with $78,111,667.

These statistics and the unceasing dominance of large market teams that follows only insinuate that alternative action must be taken. A salary cap, which would place a limit on the amount of money teams can spend on players’ salaries, should be adopted and implemented in order to achieve the parity of other professional sports leagues such as the NFL and NBA. Importantly, parity should be focused on opportunity rather than results.

No matter how fair and equal payrolls and policies are, results will vary and will not equate to all teams finishing .500 or making the playoffs, let alone the World Series. Rather, if a salary cap were in place, teams would earn the chance to be rewarded for the depth of their abilities, rather than the depth of their pockets.

Most importantly, a salary cap could be greatly beneficial to fans. It would lower labor costs because many salaries could not remain as astronomically high as they are now. 

Even still, average player salaries would remain as lucrative as they are in the NBA and NFL, at $5.15 million and $1.9 million, respectively. Therefore, athletes would greatly profit from their services, and owners would have fewer fees to pay, leaving fewer cost burdens placed on fans. If fans can hold management accountable and demand a reduction of ticket prices, then more games would be affordable to a larger amount of individuals, therefore, increasing the team’s fan base, loyalty and influence.

Additionally, more competition across the board would spread the league’s influence across the country rather than keeping it centered on big-market regions such as New York, Boston and Los Angeles.

Whether one roots for a small-market team or is a lifelong Yankees fan, one should realize that the current MLB payroll system is disproportionate and inherently inequitable. Sports should focus on real competition rather than predetermined advantage. Realistically, an MLB salary cap might not dramatically change World Series results or the number of playoff appearances by current small-market teams. Then again, perhaps it could.

Regardless, league policy should focus on opportunity, leaving results up to the managers and allowing players to play on a more level field. This change would lead to renewed optimism and following among small-market fans and increase accountability of all teams’ managers and players, since they would all be competing in a more fair league than they do now.

Write Matt at mrb111@pitt.edu.