Any Hope for Small Market Baseball Teams?

[VirtualSmitty]

Salary cap would be bad for baseball, I cringe every time I hear it. A few injuries throughout the course of the season and just like football it's maybe next year fans. Except baseball is 162 games as opposed to 16 for football. Small market teams are already getting millions of dollars in revenue sharing, the system isn't perfect but it works. And if you look at the WS winners for the last 16 seasons you've got ten different winners. The only sport with a higher count is the NFL with twelve.

Not like this is ever going to happen though. The MLB players union won't have it, small market owners don't want (why lose all that money they are getting from revenue sharing, they aren't going to make that up in fan attendance), and large market teams don't mind paying the luxury tax. So keep dreaming.

If there is anything I want to see reformed it's the way players from foreign countries are signed.

Originally Posted by VirtualSmitty

Salary cap would be bad for baseball, I cringe every time I hear it. A few injuries throughout the course of the season and just like football it's maybe next year fans. Except baseball is 162 games as opposed to 16 for football. Small market teams are already getting millions of dollars in revenue sharing, the system isn't perfect but it works. And if you look at the WS winners for the last 16 seasons you've got ten different winners. The only sport with a higher count is the NFL with twelve.

Not like this is ever going to happen though. The MLB players union won't have it, small market owners don't want (why lose all that money they are getting from revenue sharing, they aren't going to make that up in fan attendance), and large market teams don't mind paying the luxury tax. So keep dreaming.

If there is anything I want to see reformed it's the way players from foreign countries are signed.

Why is this the argument that comes up everytime someone mentions a salary cap for MLB? The NFL has a salary cap and still has a revenue sharing program. So it's not like you can't have one without the other. Hell it would make more sense to go with an NFL like program because then small market teams have a chance at winning the WS and filling seats and they still get their checks from profit sharing.

Other than the union there is absolutely no legitimate reason why MLB wouldn't be better off with a salary cap. And we all know how good unions are for the US. Hell look at how good Ford and the rest of American car makers are doing.

There is a reason why baseball is no longer the biggest sport in America. It's slow, and it's not competitive on a large country wide standpoint. The only chance baseball has at securing a future is to inact some kind of salary cap and start letting small market teams be more competitive.

[PeteSB75]

Honestly, all the salary cap really does is expose those teams with bad upper management.

Take the Yankees since Steinbrenner bought the team. Always been big spenders, but not always winners. He had some initial success, building on the core of players there when he bought the team, but then years of futility, until he got himself a real management team and the Yankees had a very good run in the 90s. Some hiccups in the 00, but they've been in the playoffs all but one year. I would consider that a successful franchise.

Similar story with the Red Sox. After John Henry bought the team in 2002, the farm system was substantially revived, and the team started making much better decisions, substantially improving the outlook of the team. Again, since 2002, they missed the playoffs only one year. It's also arguable whether the Red Sox are a large-market team, with Boston proper having just over 600k people.

So, I guess my point is that money helps, but there is no substitute for good organization management.

[VirtualSmitty]

Originally Posted by PeteSB75

So, I guess my point is that money helps, but there is no substitute for good organization management.

Yep!

[VirtualSmitty]

Hell it would make more sense to go with an NFL like program because then small market teams have a chance at winning the WS and filling seats and they still get their checks from profit sharing.

Thats where baseball and football are different. The Marlins have two WS series championships and teams that always compete and never fill seats. A salary cap ain't gonna change that. Same goes for the Rays, they won the ALCS last year and went all the way to the WS and attendance didn't change one bit. Having a winning team doesn't guarantee filling seats, small markets just don't have the same fan base. Football and Baseball are different

I'm sure if we started seeing more Brewers vs Royals WS baseball would readily catapult itself back into the biggest sport in America

[Starscream]

Originally Posted by VirtualSmitty

The Marlins have two WS series championships and teams that always compete and never fill seats.

That's when someone with some brains needs to relocate to a town that is more baseball friendly. Charlotte and Nashville would probably be more baseball friendly towns that would fill up seats. Both towns have expressed interest in MLB teams over the years. I remember Charlotte wanted to bring the Twins organization down South not too long ago.