In professional sports, money is a team’s biggest asset. The more money a team has, the more they can spend on better players. However, every sport, except for one, has a limit to how much a team can spend to avoid higher market teams always being the best. In Major League Baseball (MLB), a team can spend however much they want for players, allowing a huge disadvantage for teams that don’t generate enough money.
While some may say it is no big deal if a team wants to spend more of their own money, it can cause some unfair advantages or disadvantages for certain teams. A team like the New York Yankees, with a lot of money circulating within its team, would have a huge advantage over a team with much less money, such as the Oakland A’s. The Yankees can offer players more money, which means they would attract the better players to play for them.
One team with all the best players could cause fans of unsuccessful teams to lose interest, but it could also give the league a different kind of excitement.
“Having all the good players on one team makes it that much more interesting,” said ADM High School senior, Luke Krantz. “Then you can see all your favorite players play on one night for one team instead of them being all spread out.”
If the MLB’s goal is to have the fans as happy as possible, then having no salary cap may be the way to do that. But stacking one team with the best players also leads to other teams having worse players. It forces other teams to pull players off of their “farm teams”, a minor league team affiliated by name to an MLB franchise.
“Look at a team like the Rays,” said Ben Greth, arguing that a salary cap should be added. “They have to build their team from their farm system, and if their farm system isn’t good then their team isn’t going to be any good.”
While it might be fun for some, having an unbalance of skill between teams is not going to result in the best experience for MLB players or its fans. The way the MLB is set up is not working, and something must be done to ensure baseball does not turn into a competition of who has the most money.
“There needs to be some sort of change,” said Greth. “No salary cap gives too much power to teams in larger markets.”
