This was a thoughtful, meaningful post. The lack of competitive balance in the sport is destroying the game. It’s also a reason postseason ratings are almost always piss poor.

with the way it is, there is basically no other way for small market teams to compete. while i have not been a fan of some of the short term moves, I have no doubt the three-headed monster of DM, Picollo, and Arbuckle can build a monster farm system.

the mere creation of two central divisions did more to level the field than a salary cap would

the players would have to make a massive concession to accept a salary cap, barring some post-apocalpytpic scenario in which there’s a multi-year strike/lockout, etc

so, what would the owners give up in turn to make it happen?

all I can think of is that we’d go to a free agency from day 1 setup, which at least initially would also give the rich/large market/owners who care teams an advatage, at least for 5 years or so

the other thing that i think would have to be factored in is how you would measure minor league spending… i think it would also be totally possible to have the big market clubs create massive depth advantages just turning their farm teams into a second major league team, which would also give them an annual advantage on the trade market, etc

I think RR members should invade Pinstripe Alley and begin a similar discussion. I’m being completely serious as well. If we could rile up enough support, it could become a worthwhile (maybe even recurring?) topic over there.

I’m convinced that blog posting holds some, albeit very minimal, relevance in actual MLB. Albeit it tends to move slowly.

Who is with me?

With a well-run organization, what reason is there to believe a $60-$70 mil payroll cannot be competitive in the AL Central or any other division for that matter? It’s hard to cry about “competitive balance” as measured by payroll expenditure while the Royals toss what money they already have in the toilet, namely $16 mil. on Guillen and Farnsworth in 2009 alone (throw in Crisp and you just passed the 84-win 2008 Marlins payroll).

because everything the NFL does is always the best

but what about the NBA? or college football or basketball?

but I figured I’d throw in the two basic rules that I have developed about this sort of discussion:

1. A salary cap is useless without a salary minimum. The Jeffrey Loria’s of the world have firmly established why both would be necessary.

2. Do not point to X number of different teams being in the playoffs or World Series over Y number of years, and then declare that proof of the fact that competitive balance isn’t an issue. You’re using final results to prove the existence of a fair start. I will use my 100 meter race example. There are 30 competitors. My friend Theo and I will start the race on Segways with a 20-meter head start. The next eight guys will get the best track shoes, Olympic-quality rubberized lanes, starting blocks, and a 10-meter head start. Runners 11-20 will run barefoot in dirt lanes that will be hosed down with water right before the start. Runners 21-30 will have one arm tied behind their backs and will run the race wearing flippers. We will race 162 times and see who wins the most races. Regardless of the eventual results, do you think the start is fair?

Well, not a solution, but something that needs to be changed:

Set a slotting structure for draft picks, and allow draft picks to be traded (both the slots themselves, and the players immediately after being picked).

what is the salary of a minor leaguer? I guess it varies by level, anyone know?

OK, a 30 second series of searches hasn’t revealed to me his full proposal, and heck, you know me, if I can’t do it in 30 seconds in Google, Excel, or MySql, it isn’t worth doing.

Anyway, the late Doug Pappas had an idea that DeMause mentions at the end of his article, but unlike other ideas, he doesn’t say why it wouldn’t work. So I’ll just quote how DeMause describes it. Fro p233 of his article, “Does Baseball Need a Salary Cap?” in Baseball Between the Numbers:

In 2002, Baseball Prospectus’s Doug Pappas suggested s simple progressive revenue-sharing rate, where teams would keep all their revenue up to 80 percent of league average, then pay a graduated rate scaling up to 75 percent for revenue over double the league average."

Thoughts? I thought this might be more productive than me getting into silly silly slapfests with others users (all of whom I really like) and stuff. There are other ideas, like Woolner’s “market size” tax combined with win improvement, but they have problems (tanking in order to improve the next years improvement numbers).

DeMause doesn’t get into the problems with Pappas’s idea, and I’m too dumb to know what they might me, but it sounds good, at least initially, to me…