There has been a huge controversy regarding the MLB and its salary cap rule. After the recent Mets signing of Juan Soto, a young player destined for a bright future, Yahoo Sports gave great insight on the signed contract worth $765 Million over 15 years. Alone, that is $51 Million a year.
Previously, the Dodgers also signed Shohei Ohtani with a contract worth $700 Million over 10 years, that’s $70 million yearly. To put that into perspective, the NHL’s salary cap alone is $88 Million dollars.
(Joey Kovaleski)
Mr. Tim Cauoette, a teacher and 2-time state champion coach in baseball, has admired the idea of a salary cap rule in the MLB.
“Yes… It forces the smaller market teams to some degree, to compete with these larger market teams so that it isn’t the same teams winning every year.”
Cauoette is right, a salary cap would promote a competitive balance between teams and also add to the financial playing field. This would add a new aspect to the MLB, where GMs and owners must work smarter with the money they can use.
Another crazy statistic is, this recent post-season where the Dodgers got to hold the trophy high, the 3 highest payroll teams finished in the final 4 spots to win the World Series.
The Mets lost to the Dodgers in the NLCS. The Yankees advanced to the World Series and lost to the Dodgers. According to ESPN, the Dodgers estimated payroll is $353 Million, the Mets being $347 Million, and the Yankees, $316 Million. If this isn’t proof that more spending = more winning, I don’t know what else could prove that.
Although we all believe there should be a salary cap rule implemented, how would the MLB do it? Well, the answer can be a bit complicated. While the salary cap may work well for different leagues, CBS Sports believes it wouldn’t work in the MLB.
There are too many players in the MLB with contracts worth a lot of money. With how major some of these player’s contracts are, it simply would be impossible to implement the rule currently anyway.
MLB Players Association leader Tony Clark had a say on this topic, “We’re never going to agree to a cap.”
After going over all this information, I still believe a salary cap would make the sport better for its competitive reasons and entertainment. What do you think?
