For the first time in franchise history, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series back to back years in their 142 year old dynasty. They’ve cemented themselves in Baseball History, but it came at a cost.
Paying almost $350 million dollars for their players alone. Meaning the likes of Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Clayton Kershaw, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and others had gotten bought out via free agent battles and trade conflicts from other low market teams because those said teams couldn’t afford it.
But the Dodgers aren’t the only team, both the New York Yankees and Mets find the next two spots below LAD in the leaderboards for most money paid. Is this ruining baseball? Or are people not playing the “Money” side of the game correctly? Who is to blame then, the loaded owners or the ones that aren’t so much.
“I think we should have that (salary cap)” said Xander Carroll (‘27) a baseball player at Arlington High school, “I think it would keep it more fair and I think it was just keep the teams closer to the same level and you won’t have power houses like the Dodgers are this year” said Carroll.
As it was stated before, the Dodgers total payroll is almost double the league average, which is $84 million. So questions arise in what we can do to help with this, and two options were stated. A salary cap and a salary floor.
A salary cap would essentially make the league have a maximum amount of money a team can spend on player salaries, and a salary floor would be a minimum in which a team can spend on player salaries.
This has been proven to work in creating somewhat fair and equal seasons, keeping familiar high market teams more scattered around and rare, making dynasties and dominance more raw and enjoyable.
For example, in 1994, the National Football League (NFL) implemented the salary cap rule. That way all teams had a fair shot at free agent signing and player signing battles with other teams.
This way, if a certain team wanted a high market player, they would either reduce salaries of other players or save up their spending money to eventually use on new player salaries. If this rule were to be put in the MLB, we would probably see a lot of changes in rosters.
“There’s only a certain amount of players who will take the salary cap (into consideration)” said avid sports fan, Hunter Gese (‘27) “It will depend on how much. Where its at and (ultimately) how many players (will be) on the team” said Gese.
Players who seem to ask for more money than the average person, would probably be dropped from a team or reduced pay. That way, maybe some of the high market players could find themselves on teams who’ve struggled recently, to potentially give that team a shot at winning.
So teams like the Yankees wouldn’t be able to afford to pay Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, Jazz Chisholm Jr, and Cody Bellinger all at the same time.
As much as that doesn’t sound fair to the high market teams who have used their money to their advantage, it creates an atmosphere where at the start of the year, every team has a chance at a playoff spot. With that being said, it is also only fair to punish the owners who seem to hoard their money and not use it vitally to gather top talent.
“I think it would affect more of the lower teams, not the higher ones” Carroll said, “Because the players have to go somewhere”.
Take the Pittsburgh Pirates as an example of this. Since their last World Series win in 1979, they have made the playoffs six total times, two of which have been first round exits. That’s six times in 46 years, which as we know is not very good.
Over those years, they have been roughly a .500 win percentage team, meaning they seem to split the deck with wins and losses. Now, you can’t blame that all on the players, because talent has been so slim for the Pirates!
Guys like Andrew McCutchen, Barry Bonds, and Ke’bryan Hayes are the only consistent names on the list of top players. That’s it. There are long lists of seasons in a row with random one season miracle players that no one has ever heard of. They don’t seem to want to utilize their money to their advantage in bringing in talent. Why?
Because they are afraid of the large debt they will succumb to. Meaning putting in this salary floor rule will not only boot out the owners who can’t afford stuff, but bring in owners who can and will be able to pay for players. That way franchises aren’t pushed out into the dust because of the low income.
Money has always been a problem in the MLB, even back to the Babe Ruth era and his blockbuster trade to the Yankees from the Red Sox. Basically, from that point on the payroll for New York skyrocketed, and they became such a huge market team.
“I think a salary cap would be good” said Jaiden Leatherman (‘27) also a baseball player at Arlington High school “I think it would be more balanced, and more (fair) competition” Leatherman said.
They have won the World series 27 times, with rosters that were stacked to the brim with talent. Because they could afford all of them. They have had 28 Hall of Famers who were claimed as Yankees players, as well as 50 plus who even played for the Yankees at one point.
There have been multiple occasions where they pay key athletes a 1 year contract to play with them, win a championship, then drop them the next year. That ruins the game, and ruins the loyalty and evidently makes the game about money, not baseball.
In the end, it is a game. It should be played to the fairest content possible, not a money battle between two world renowned billion dollar corporations every other year. No team is innocent on this matter, and it shows through recent years.
So, with that being said, a salary cap would not only save baseball, but make it more enjoyable to watch. Because, I would assume that the majority of baseball fans would much rather watch a world series go down between two teams who earned their right to be in the Fall Classic. Not by two teams who bent the rules into their favor, and blew through the competition until the end. If that’s the case from now on, why don’t we just have the All-Star game become the World Series.
