The salary cap debate is starting to resurface during the early days of spring training. It poses the obvious and good question; Should baseball have a salary cap? The purpose of this article is not to take sides, but to explore some of the arguments on both sides. If there were a salary cap, what are some of the implications?

Well, the main argument behind the salary cap is that it would almost completely eliminate the distance between the big teams in the market (i.e. the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers) and the small market teams (i.e. the Brewers, Marlins, Royals, Nationals). . I think the salary cap would help a lot in this regard. It doesn’t seem fair that the Yankees can spend more in a free-agency period on three players than most teams have on their entire payroll. The reason the Yankees can spend all that money is because they can essentially charge whatever price they want for their tickets because their fans are so numerous and loyal.

Meanwhile, the Florida Marlins have a payroll of about $ 23 million as of the 2008 season (ESPN.com) and are still struggling to make money. The television contracts the Yankees have are much more available and more valuable than in a market like Kansas City or Minnesota. The MLBPA and the team owners have recently agreed to share the proceeds. This means that teams like the Yankees and Mets put more money into this program than either the Marlins or the Royals. This has helped even the playing field a bit (no pun intended), but there are still big differences between the more successful and less successful teams. Another possible positive effect of a salary cap is the decrease in ticket prices. If MLB imposes a salary cap of around $ 90 million, which is close to the median amount of payroll in the majors, prices will likely drop for everything related to a team that previously paid more than $ 90 million a year. Ticket prices could go down, as could merchandise and parking.

The decrease in prices could result in an increase in the teams’ fan base, as well as an increase in attendance throughout the league. Those are just a few of the reasons behind the pressure for a salary cap. One of the reasons, at least from my perspective, for not introducing a salary cap is the amount of parity in the league. You can compare the winning percentages of the best and worst baseball teams and you will see that those percentages are around the top and bottom of teams in other sports that have salary caps. In fact, if you compare last-place teams in MLB last season to last-place teams in NBA last season, the worst teams in the MLB have higher winning percentages than the worst teams in the NBA. It is true that it is difficult to compare a sport that has 82 games to a sport that has 162 games, but the percentages would probably not change as much from season to season. Teams can win with small payrolls. Just look at the Rays from last year. They won 97 games and had the second-lowest roster in the majors. They lost to the Phillies in the 2008 World Series and the Phillies had the 13th highest payroll.

Just because one team spends more money than the next definitely doesn’t mean it will win more games. If it is not broke, do not fix it. The salary cap has worked since baseball was created. Sure the Yankees have a lot more championships than any other team, but they haven’t won this decade because of the amount of parity in the game now. You can look at the most recent seasons and you can see that there is not necessarily too significant a correlation between payroll and a team’s success. I’m not saying the Yankees would be as good as they are now if they spent $ 100 million less in one year. What I’m saying is that teams like the Marlins and Twins can be successful with the right mix of scouts and training. If these teams can get young talent out of the minor league programs of MLB teams and then train them to their capacity, they should have a great chance of success.

This is the model the Marlins have followed for as long as I can remember. They get involved in a discount sale of their biggest stars after achieving a great deal of success. They get a ton of talented young prospects and players on the trades and basically train them and give them some experience for a couple of years. They then take them to the majors and end up earning their way to a playoff spot. We could see that this formula was developed this year and definitely next season as well. Today there is enough parity in the major leagues to make up for some of the inequalities in some of the team’s markets. Honestly, I don’t think the salary cap debate is that big of a topic. The game will continue to be very successful as it is now, regardless of whether or not there is a salary cap. I don’t think the game is affected by the fact that there is a limit on the amount that can be paid to players.

Also, it would be nearly impossible to simply switch to a salary cap with the length and number of contracts that exist. How is a salary cap provision imposed on a $ 250 million 10-year contract? That’s one of the many hurdles MLB would have to overcome to institute this salary cap. Not to mention how difficult it will be to get the MLBPA to pass a salary cap given the amount of money players can make in today’s market. It’s a long-standing debate and I’m sure we haven’t heard the latest report on the talks about putting a salary cap in baseball.