It’s a tax — a soft cap, not a hard one like in the NBA. The MLB Players Association will never permit a soft cap. In fact, they won’t even allow a minimum payroll, as they view that as a step towards a salary cap.
IMO, the Players Association is too powerful. The owners should offer free agency after three years (which is when arbitration kicks in). The MLBPA will never allow it, as it would glut the market, but some players would want it.
A luxury tax does serve as a disincentive to “hoarding”. And if you think that’s going on, please explain the Royals, Astros, Blue Jays, Diamondbacks, and Pirates? all but the D-Backs were playoff teams, and the D-Backs have just spent a bunch of money to contend.
So I’m to take your word that the Yankees aren’t trying to get under the cap, rather than that of the Yankees? They have some big contracts expiring after 2016 and more after 2017. Those players are not likely to be replaced with more big-money players. They’ll be replaced with younger, more athletic talent, which is also talent more likely to win. This is how the Yankees did it in teh 1990s and also how the Indians were a power in that time period.
They’re combining that with the Oriole model of working a few young players into a veteran roster, a bit at a time, to keep a flow of young talent while still contending for titles.
That’s a much more cost-effective way to win. Watch them get under the cap in 2018.
BTW, the NBA “hard cap” has an exception you could drive a truck through: you can go over the cap to re-sign your own guys. so if your team has a name free agent, you sign all the other guys you want first, then go over for your own player.
The NBA doesn’t have a hard cap either. They have the same ridiculous soft cap the MLB has, the Cavs right now are nearly 50% over the cap.
The tax doesn’t serve as a disincentive to hoarding. If it did the Yankees wouldn’t have turned themselves into a collection of antiques. Hoarding is still clearly going on, The Nats have such a hoard people keep insisting they’ll be the best team ever. The Dodgers are a hoard, the Red Sox. And right now the Cubs are trying to become a hoard. Of course the punchline is that’s not actually a good way to build a team, especially not in a sport with guaranteed contracts, your hoard becomes you prison as you suddenly find yourself with half your roster being 3 years past their prime with 4 more years on their contracts.
Never believe what a team says about themselves. If teams spoke the truth about themselves the Cowboys would have won half a dozen Superbowls in the last 20 years instead of 2 playoff games because they’d have actually been the team Jerry says they are. The math for the Yankees has been obvious for a while, too may players that are too old with too many years left in their contracts. It became even worse for them when the league finally started testing for ‘roids and a bunch of the older players in the league suddenly started acting their age. The Yankees got obsessed with holding onto the stars that gave them a bunch of pennants and started thinking they were just one or two more good players from getting back, that’s when teams start making free agency splashes, that’s when teams start over paying, that’s when teams start signing has beens, to long term guaranteed contracts, and they wind up in the situation the Yankees are in. The problem for the Yankees isn’t that they’re way over the cap, the problem is they’re way over the cap AND stink. If they were winning their division and going deep in the playoffs like they were in from the 90s through 00s they wouldn’t be dumping cap now, they’d be ADDING so they could keep it going.
The NBA doesn’t have a hard cap. The only hard caps in America are the NFL and NHL. If you violate the caps in those leagues you lose draft picks, no BS with a luxury tax, you get actually punished.