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You don’t seem to understand. They let most of those guys go. They’re the kind of players who move in and out of every organization. They don’t require buyouts. Most of them have moved on to the very same small market teams you say are being damaged.

The fact is that the more the Yankees and the Dodgers and the others spend, the more of their money the small-market teams get. It’s called revenue sharing.

When was the last time the Yankees won the World Series? 2009. Since then, teams such as the Royals, Cardinals, and others have won it, and teams like the Indians have been there but lost. Other then the Giants, nobody has won more than once since then. The competitive balance has been excellent.

And there is no violation here — just a tax. It’s sort of like buying beer. Nothing wrong, but you’re getting hit with a tax for it. There is no salary cap, just a “wealth tax” for going over a certain amount — and the loss of draft picks — as well as limits on international bonus spending. If you exceed those, you’re limited to $300,000 in international bonus spending for two years.

The big market teams aren’t breaking any rules, and it doesn’t look like they’re doing any real harm to competitive balance.

“The big market teams aren’t breaking any rules, and it doesn’t look like they’re doing any real harm to competitive balance.”

And that is where you and I differ. Sometimes a “rule” has other alternatives. The luxury tax appears to have been put in there to accomplish a balance in record. And on the surface it accomplished its goal. But you compared it to the tax on beer. Was the tax on beer put in there to sell other beers? No, it was put in there to accomplish two goals. One to try to get the heavy drinkers to cut back by making it more expensive as the laws for drunk driving haven’t stopped it for appearance purposes. And two, to generate income for the government, this being with the owners of MLB, same thing. And I don’t know if you heard, the payroll markers for the L tax is being raised this year as the expected increase in salaries is already indicated to be going up again. So they raised the level of intoxication numbers to protect the drunks. And the drunks gain in money outside the game by using the game. TV being the big one. And in my mind, completely out of hand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_on_regional_sports_networks

Neither has worked as the importance of the league has moved away from play and turned into money. The fans have been force fed that everyone is a star, and you will think so. I don’t. I think the quality of the game has sunk over the last 20 years, at best, and we are watching a game here in the US that is made up of substandard players. And the gods of the game, the owners, have made changes to try to increase the success of the game. The lowered mound, the defacing of the ball, the hot ball, the outlawing of contact to protect the players’careers....They have even flip/flopped with the hand to the face area so many times by the pitchers that it seems to change every year. The parks are smaller, but the seat numbers are up. The costs to the fans are a fallacy as ticket prices to pay their HR commitments to “certain players” and their owners are in the stratosphere. So they are even creating a payroll caste in their own teams.

And the league is using their baseball academies scattered around the world to the fullest to keep their costs down with the signing of 16 year old kids at low wages, much higher than they can get in their country, but peanuts here. And about a quarter of the MLB rosters are filled with them. The most notable is the Dominican of which all 30 teams in the leagues have academies.

So the game goes to hell in a hand basket, the clubs continue to get the cathedrals to sell their wares owned by the cities, and the money is pocketed into the league.

I was watching a game in spring training in Tampa years ago, and we were in boxes down the third base line. A couple of name players were signing autographs, and one disgruntled fan was giving one of the players a bad time about his very public failed marriage he cheated on to create it. The ballplayer’s retort, “How much money are you making?” Course that was a mistake as the fan came right back, “Enough to keep a wife happy.” that ended the the autograph session.

Nobody hits .300 anymore, but they all hit home runs. In June this year, over 1100 were hit in one month. It’s all for show, and dough. But not to win and be competitive.

rwood