Baseball Salary Cap Poll?

[Ynog]

With the latest deal, A-Rod to the Yankees, all but complete and their payroll which will be around 190 million.

I wonder would baseball be better off with a salary cap or atleast a much large
penalty "luxury tax", where teams cannot just brush it off. What is it now is
17.5% for every dollar over the threshold, set at 117 million, and on the second
time over its 22.5%. In 2004 the threshold rises to 120.5 million.

Now in 2003 the Yankees's taxed payroll value was at 184 million and obviously the 11+ million they
paid had no effect on them.

Just a question would baseball be better with:

Hard salary cap: Like football, you don't go over or its a million dollars a day, and the nfl has the right to cut
players starting from the lowest salary up until your under the cap.

Soft salary cap: Like basketball, where with certain exceptions allows teams to be over the cap, allowing
players to stay with teams for long periods of time. Which is much harder with a hard cap.

Luxury tax system with a bigger penalty for being over. Make the penalty much bigger, something that
even teams like the Yankees cannot just brush off.

Same system they have. Basically the system is working fine and has no problems.

Nothing. We don't even need a luxury tax.

Just curious what ATOT thinks. Also for all intensive purposes, to not make this a Yankees vs Red sox argument,
lets say that the cap level/threshold would be below whatever the current Red Sox payroll is. So they would
have to cut payroll too.

 

[Wuffsunie]

Hard cap. Salaries are insane, regardless of sport.

 

[minendo]

If the owners want to pay it let them. Salaries will continue to increase as long as people keep paying the inflated ticket prices.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Wuffsunie
Hard cap. Salaries are insane, regardless of sport.

Agreed; it needs to be capped like the NFL. There's a balanced system that doesn't let money help dicate who wins every year.

 

[ElFenix]

if you're going to cap the salaries then cap the ticket prices too

 

[m2kewl]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
if you're going to cap the salaries then cap the ticket prices too

U DA MAN!

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: m2kewl

Originally posted by: ElFenix
if you're going to cap the salaries then cap the ticket prices too

U DA MAN!

thats a really good idea

i voted Hard Cap, its needed

 

[BDawg]

There's a reason the NFL is the most successful of the sports. There are no Yankees to un-balance the league. Heck, there are barely any Bungles or 'Aints.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: BDawg
There's a reason the NFL is the most successful of the sports. There are no Yankees to un-balance the league. Heck, there are barely any Bungles or 'Aints.

the nfl was successful even when the niners and cowboys were dominating

 

[EyeMWing]

I refuse to give baseball a look until they put a cap (and/or the Orioles start de-sucking)

 

[ThePresence]

Baseball will never have a salary cap. The Players Organization is one of the strongest unions in the country. They don't want it, it won't happen.

 

[PlatinumGold]

hate the yankees all you want, this was a pretty good deal for them. $116 mill and they keep arod for 7 yrs, plus with drew hensons contract coming off (he will go to the nfl) and with soriano's contract gone (each about 5 mill / year) they are really getting ARod for about 5 mill per year.

this is not a pure money deal, this is the yankees taking advantage of hicks. look at it this way, by the time all is said and done, hicks will have paid ARod $140 mill over 10 years and he will only have played for them for 3 years and the yankees will have paid Arod $116 mill over 7 years and he will have played for them during those 7 yrs.

no, hate it all you want, it was a good money deal for NY.

 

[Ladies Man]

Everyone keeps yelling about this....

what team won the world series last year, and how much money did they spend?

Notice just because you spend the big bucks doesn't mean you will win. Happens time and time again. Yankees are still hurting on pitching, and until that is fixed i don't even think the 2 runs a game that arod brings will make them win it all, sure can't hurt though.

 

[chibchakan]

Hard cap - Like the NFL.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: Ladies Man
Everyone keeps yelling about this....

what team won the world series last year, and how much money did they spend?

Notice just because you spend the big bucks doesn't mean you will win. Happens time and time again. Yankees are still hurting on pitching, and until that is fixed i don't even think the 2 runs a game that arod brings will make them win it all, sure can't hurt though.

agreed, i don't think the yankees will win any time soon. basically king george is becoming what he was pre suspension and the yankees will go back to what they were in the '70's and '80's, overpaid but no real results.

the run in the 90's wasn't due solely to money but to a good baseball thinking team and good management.

with torre gone at the end of this season, you'll see the old george back.

 

[isasir]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold
hate the yankees all you want, this was a pretty good deal for them. $116 mill and they keep arod for 7 yrs, plus with drew hensons contract coming off (he will go to the nfl) and with soriano's contract gone (each about 5 mill / year) they are really getting ARod for about 5 mill per year.

this is not a pure money deal, this is the yankees taking advantage of hicks. look at it this way, by the time all is said and done, hicks will have paid ARod $140 mill over 10 years and he will only have played for them for 3 years and the yankees will have paid Arod $116 mill over 7 years and he will have played for them during those 7 yrs.

no, hate it all you want, it was a good money deal for NY.

It was an awesome deal for the Yankees, which is fine, since they can get away with it under the current rules of the league.

But these days, it's a foregone conclusion that the Yankees will at least make it to the playoffs, and in all likelihood, the World Series. If they good players, and can just spend the $ to replace them with more good players, when will it end? Sports like basketball and football can go far with one major superstar (Quarterback or a guy like Michael Jordan) and a decent surrounding cast. Baseball needs many good players on a team to be successful. Hell, ARod put up psycho MVP numbers all these Texas years, but his team finished dead last.

 

[jlarsson]

Hard cap, there is just no way for some teams to compete against the Yankees and other teams with high payrolls. With the Yankee's payroll now exceeding $200 million, that's more than 7 times other MLB teams. Right now, you can add up both the Mets and Braves payrolls, and you still would be $15 million under the Yankees payroll.

The NFL has it right. The hard cap allows all teams to be (relatively) competitive. Teams have to be clever and innovative when it comes to salaries and cap charges. They simply can't go out an buy every high priced player out there.

Now, a hard cap would affect my team as well (the red sox). They are trying their hand at being the Yankee's, (but they're being out Yankee'ed by the Yankee's). The hard cap would probably take a while to fully implement, but the MLB will be a much better league by doing so.

 

[Argo]

I don't think hard cap is such a great idea. Just look at NFL. 90% of the teams from previous years playoffs don't make it in next year. Teams are forced to lose their franchise players because they can't afford to keep them. I don't forget that owners that weren't spending on their team won't start just because of the cap. Even if you set a cap at 120 million dollars there'll be teams that spend 119 million and teams that spend 19. I think a soft cap is a better idea, maybe better revenue sharing scheme. And contract a couple of teams, especially the ones where owners pocket money - that should improve competetive balance.

 

[MaxDepth]

Look at it another way, from the small market teams. How can they afford to pay any salary of a decent experienced professional. And how are they going to keep a palyer after the talent has been proven? Raising ticket prices will further damage a small market's ability to bring in fans. Pretty soon many old established teams may think of moving out of a market to gain more money. Does baseball really want that?

A hard cap will bring in more creative financing and that is okay. Tying year end bonuses to productivity and post season appearances are not a guaranteed thing. The Yankees were the only team to pay the luxury tax last year.

 

[Argo]

Originally posted by: BDawg
There's a reason the NFL is the most successful of the sports. There are no Yankees to un-balance the league. Heck, there are barely any Bungles or 'Aints.

No, NFL is the most successful because:

1) They have only 16 games (people would rathe miss 1 baseball game out of 162, than 1 football game out of 16)
2) The contracts aren't guaranteed. Make a stupid signing like Rangers and Arod and you can simply release him, without having to pay for your mistake
3) Playoffs are single elimination, so that the worse team has a chance to upset a better one. Does anybody think Pats would've beaten Rams if there were playing best out of 7?
4) Draft. NFL college players are much closer to being pros than baseball. The first 5-6 picks are almost guaranteed to be a superstar, so the the team with the worst record is goign to improve vastly.
5) NFL has a much better marketting compaign and a better media contract. Just think about it - they have the whole day (Sunday) devoted to football, wherein most people don't even know what time baseball games s tart.
6) Of course, salary cap has a lot to do with it too. Teams are forced to part with their superstars because they can't keep them. Just look at Skins and Bailey for example.
7) Better management - Tagliabu is 10x smarter than Selig. Plus, MLB players union has 10x the power of NFL's, thus they can get away with a lot more crap.

So there are a lot of reasons NFL is more popular than MLB and cap is only one of them.

 

[PlatinumGold]

you guys know of course that any comparisons between the NFL and MLB are almost moot. the NFL has a NATIONAL TV CONTRACT. MLB has NOTHING even remotely close to that. NFL can do revenue sharing because the NATIONAL TV contract is based on ALL teams. MLB each team get's their own regional contracts and the larger the market the better contract that they can get.

untill MLB can get away from the regional contracts it will be hard to do revenue sharing, BUT MLB plays over 160 games per season whereas NFL teams play 16 games a season. you cannot expect what works for the NFL to automatically work for the MLB without SERIOUS structural changes.

 

[AlienCraft]

Where's the "Who gives a crap about over - indulged millionaires?" option ?? :disgust:
Athlete salaries should be capped at the average salary of middle school educators for that locale. We need an "American Idol" of sports, so kids can see how expendable the sports industry views athletes.

 

[Argo]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold
you guys know of course that any comparisons between the NFL and MLB are almost moot. the NFL has a NATIONAL TV CONTRACT. MLB has NOTHING even remotely close to that. NFL can do revenue sharing because the NATIONAL TV contract is based on ALL teams. MLB each team get's their own regional contracts and the larger the market the better contract that they can get.

untill MLB can get away from the regional contracts it will be hard to do revenue sharing, BUT MLB plays over 160 games per season whereas NFL teams play 16 games a season. you cannot expect what works for the NFL to automatically work for the MLB without SERIOUS structural changes.

THANK YOU. My thoughts exactly. Most people fail to realize that when they start crying about competitive balance and salary cap. In NFL all teams make more than salary cap, so they can and do (with the exception of a few teams) keep their payrol right under the cap. If something like that were to happen in MLB the cap would have to be around 30 million.

 

[Saulbadguy]

Also, I imagine if their was a salary cap, the players union would have none of that, and go on strike. End of baseball.

 

[BeauJangles]

Hard cap the game, reduce the length of the season (significantly)