Does Major League Baseball Need A Salary Cap?

The Hot Stove has begun to sizzle with the recent signings and trades.  Adrian Gonzalez was dealt to the Red Sox, who then proceeded to sign Carl Crawford to a 7 year deal worth around $147 million dollars over that span.  They are also trying to negotiate a new deal for Gonzales that would pay him similar money to what they just gave Crawford.  The Yankees and Rangers are in a battle to see who will have the services of Cliff Lee for what seems to be the rest of his prime.  He is being offered deals that appear to for 6-7 years and in the range of $140-150 million in total over those years.  Let us not forget that the Nationals, a team who hasn’t reached the playoff since their move to the nation’s capital, just locked up Jayson Werth for seven years with a $126 million dollar contract.  All of these deals raise the question: Is it time that the MLB controls spending by creating a salary cap?

Since the beginning of the 21^st century, the Yankees and Red Sox have established themselves as the super powers of the free agent market.  The two A.L East powerhouses go after the elite free agents, and usually get one of them.  With the two highest payrolls in Major League Baseball, some may argue that it isn’t fair that these two teams have all this money to spend on free agents, while other teams can’t even dream of competing with them because they don’t have to money to outbid the Sox and Yankees.  It is not only fair that they get to do this; it is the nature of the current free agent system in Major league baseball.  The teams with ownership groups that are willing to contribute large sums of money to free agents should absolutely buy every player they can get.  The ownership group of the Red Sox headed by John Henry is composed of multimillionaires didn’t buy a baseball team that will lose; they bought a team so they could own a winning franchise.  To own a winning franchise, you need a team composed of talented players, and talent isn’t cheap.  Still, they want the Red Sox to be a yearly contender, so they make an effort to bring in the best talent available, and are willing to take the hits in their wallets. The Yankees owner Hank Steinbrenner is the same as the Red Sox’s group, always ready to pay whatever is necessary to win the services of the best players, and it was his father, the late George Steinbrenner who began the trend of contract inflation.  This willingness to spend big-time money on big-time players is why the Red Sox and Yankees (The MLB’s two highest payrolls) are always in the playoff picture, and teams like the Pirates (the MLB’s lowest payroll from 2009) are the laughing stock of the Majors.

So does the MLB need to create a salary cap, similar to what the NFL, NBA, and NHL have, to control the spending?  Why bother.  As we are witnessing with the Miami Heat, there is a loop hole in every rule, so let the teams spend money if they have money.  It isn’t the money that makes the team, and the biggest names don’t always win.  The Giants and Rangers showed us that with so homegrown talent, a lot of guts, and sheer determination, anything is possible.  Cause last time I checked, there is no $ in team, and teams win games, not players.